Celebrity Blogger Week continues with the irrepressible Heidi Shott. Most closely identified with Queen Emma, last year's Cinderella saint, Heidi has turned down numerous offers of free trips to the Aloha State. Something about being impartial. Plus she's nervous about the chances of Damien of Molokai this Lent.
Heidi Shott, entering her second year as a Celebrity Blogger, is Canon for Communications and Social Justice in the Episcopal Diocese of Maine. She is a member (and past Vice Chair) of the Standing Commission on Communications and Information Technology and served as Chair of the Episcopal Life Board of Governors. She worked on the Office of Communication’s video news team at two General Conventions, hosting “The Daily Wrap” in Anaheim in 2009. In Indianapolis she hosted an interview blog at www.indy300.net. Praised widely for her writing about faith in daily life, Heidi writes for a variety of publications and blogs. She keeps the blog Heidoville. With the departure of their twin sons for college, she and her husband Scott are milling aimlessly around their home in mid-coast Maine where they root for the Red Sox even when they lose. Follow her on Twitter @heidomaine.
How long have you been a CB? What do you like about doing this or what have you learned along the way?
As the token non-seminary-trained member of the Lent Madness team, I am honored to represent the underrepresented lay order for a second year. No. I really am. It’s not like we should pretend that Lent Madness is a proportional democracy or something. While coping with last year’s copy deadlines and the demands of scrounging up kitsch and amusing saintly anecdotes about people who weren’t always amusing -- think St. Augustine -- was stressful, it was a pleasure to be involved. I learned an enormous amount about these faithful followers of Jesus, with the bonus of discovering a kindred spirit in Enmegabowh’s wife, Iron Sky Woman. Also, I learned how to spell his name without looking it up. That Queen Emma of Hawaii made it all the way to the Golden Halo round was the icing on the cake.
What should the LM faithful know about you? (quirks, interests, hobbies, etc.)
Well, I have a pretty awesome corner office at the Episcopal Diocese of Maine, one floor above the Bishop’s. Since I’m pretty fidgety and my desk is directly over his, I suspect he finds my toe tapping pretty annoying but is too kind to say anything. It’s something we don’t discuss. I’m very fond of my aged mini-rex house rabbit, Hester. I fear he -- Hester’s a he, long story -- will die soon and have contemplated having him stuffed. Members of my immediate family find this prospect disturbing and have taken to buying fake rabbits to offer me comfort in advance of his demise. Recently I’ve been looking at photos of taxidermied rabbits online and confess that, on the whole, they don’t look so good or very comforting at all. In other animal news, I’m an avid scuba diver and take great pleasure in identifying many species of tropical fish and critters whenever I get the chance. Here in Maine I live on a millpond where, hypocritically, I don’t appreciate close encounters with fish or critters while swimming in the pond.
