Winter Olympics Friday Five

1) Which of the Winter Olympic sports is your favorite to watch?
Hmmmm. Probably the figure skating events--like dance but not quite. Also, I did learn to ice skate as a kid (one of my few athletic accomplishments), so I have some idea of the difficulty of what they are doing. And, before you ask, no, I did not wear one of those short floaty skirt things.

2) Do you speak Snowboardese?
Nope. I love the sound of it, though (there's something seductive about jargon, even if you don't have the slightest idea what it means).

3) Define Nordic Combined. Don't look it up. Take a guess if you must.
Um. I think it's a skiing event. I took one skiing class, and after they had to shut down the ski lift (the ponta lift) because I got stuck and couldn't get off, I never tried downhill again.

4) Curling. Please discuss.
OK, I must be becoming Canadian by osmosis, because I actually think it's kinda cool. There's as much thinking and strategy as there is athletic skill--a thinking person's hockey, maybe.

5) If you could be a Winter Olympics Champion just by wishing for it, which sport would you choose for winning your Gold Medal?
Ski jump. I'm terrified of heights, and this way I wouldn't have to actually go up that high and jump into thin air, with no parachute or net or even ski poles to catch me...ohhh, my palms are sweating just thinking about it. It's like a bad dream where you're falling off a building or something...
Ski jump. No need to actually jump. Gold medal. I'm sooo there.

Servants

I visited one of the members of the congregation today—a true pillar of the church. That term is often used for someone who gives enough to pay half the pastor’s salary, or single-handedly runs the annual Church Fair, or always provides the goodies for Sunday coffee. This wonderful lady does none of those things, but she is, nonetheless, a pillar of the church. Everyone knows her, she talks to people I don’t get to (and people who are too timid to talk to the pastor), and she really listens to what I say in sermons (I get some of my best feedback from her). She takes on small tasks that other people don’t even realize need to be done.

Her health has been declining lately, and she’s understandably depressed, afraid of losing touch with her friends now that she’s virtually housebound, fearing becoming a burden to her partner, and generally feeling that life is over at far too young an age.

What can you say to someone in her situation? She’s far too sophisticated and smart to be calmed by platitudes, and her fears are realistic. I can’t sit there and say, “Things will work out,” or “well, at least you’re still here.” That’s not helpful to her (or to me).

So we talked about what she can still do for the church, even at home, and how we can get her to church with her medical equipment-who has a van or station wagon we can use? Who comes from this end of town? What does the church need done that she can do from home—phone calls? Care notes written?

She wants to be a part of the church she has loved and needed for so long—and which still needs her. She wants to serve.

The congregation has also been involved recently in fundraising for a young man who was shot in an apparent hate crime (the police think so, but it’s not being prosecuted that way). For various reasons, his health insurance is not covering all of the expenses. So the community-—his friends, his co-workers, his family’s friends and co-workers—-have stepped up to fill in the gap. Word of the incident has spread far and wide (thanks to the Internet) and donations have come in from all over the region. There have been fundraising events, coverage on TV and the radio, and newspaper stories.

So how do we serve each other? Do we make phone calls? Do we send donations to a young man we've never met? What does it mean to serve one another in love?

Every one of the people at the fundraiser last night was serving that young man. Every call made by my parishioner is service to a fellow church member.

Go now, to love and serve God and your neighbour.

Surprise!

Your Inner Child Is Surprised

You see many things through the eyes of a child. Meaning, you're rarely cynical or jaded. You cherish all of the details in life. Easily fascinated, you enjoy experiencing new things.

How Is Your Inner Child?

Found this at Following Frodo...

Like Gord, I'm not sure about the whole "inner child" thing, and I don't really think I'm all that surprised. On the other hand, it is true that I'm not cynical. Some might even call me naive, but I really do prefer to assume that people are doing the best they can and don't act maliciously on purpose--even though I know it's not true.

I had an appointment this afternoon, I have a Board meeting tonight, two appointments on Wednesday, and one appointment on Friday... Busy week. I'm keeping it cool tomorrow, though--Valentine's Day, I make no appointments so I can get home to DP on time! We're having pot roast for a special dinner--her favourite!

I've always liked Valentine's Day, from the time I knew what it was. Mom used to get my sister and me a box of crafty things so we could make Valentines for the family--doilies and construction paper and feathers and glitter and so on. We had a great time. Even when I was older, and there was the whole girl/guy/guy/girl thing (pick your combination), it was a lot of fun. Plus I love chocolate and red-hots. Through university, career, motherhood, second career, it was always fun for me.

I only had one bad Valentine's Day. It was shortly after I came out and started divorce proceedings...I was depressed anyway, and living alone--I didn't get to see TO often enough, stresses were building in the churches I was serving, and the whole world felt grey, Valentine's Day or no Valentine's Day. To my horror, I actually broke down and cried a few days beforehand in front of one of my closest friends. He proved his worth as a friend, however, by not running away or brushing off my pain or pretending it would all be fine. He hugged me, gave me a Kleenex, calmed me down... and called me later that night to be sure I was OK. He even sent me a Valentine's card! Funny how a simple piece of cardboard can cheer you up so well! My mother and sister sent me cards, too--appreciated beyond words!

And then on Valentine's Day itself that year, I met DP--and the rest, as they say, is history!

Happy Valentine's Day and lots of chocolate to all!

Farewell Friday Five!

1. How do you say goodbye to someone you will see again soon?
“See ya!”

2. What is your favorite foreign word for "goodbye?"
German—“Bis Spaeter!” Literally, “until later,” so, “See you soon!”

3. Have you ever planned a special farewell for someone, or had one planned for you?
A couple of times. When I left the church I had belonged to for a long time for my internship and then ordained ministry, they invited me to preach, gave me a lovely stole (which is my “special occasions” stole), and had a reception after church. When I finished my transfer process from the UMC to MCC, and came to River City, the congregation I belonged to during the process had a special blessing-time for me during the last service. Both were very special times of recognizing what we had been to each other.

4. What is the hardest goodbye you have had to say?
To my father when he died. He did not believe in an afterlife, and so for him his death was the end. It was incredibly painful for me to see him dying, and thinking there was no more—and knowing I could not change his mind. I had tried and failed several times.

5. What is the most romantic goodbye you have seen in a movie?
Rick’s farewell to Ilsa in “Casablanca;” Lara and Yuri’s farewell in “Dr. Zhivago;“ and Vivian and Cay in “Desert Hearts.”

And a Bonus question for Musical Theatre geeks: Which Von Trapp child would you like to be in "So Long, Farewell?"
I can’t even remember all their names, let alone who had which line!

I'm It!

OK, LutheranChik meme-tagged me. Here goes...

Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1) Anastasia
2) Haligweorc
3) Topmost Apple
4)LutheranChik's "L" Word Diary
5)Rainbow Pastor

Next, select five people to tag:
1) Walk Humbly
2) Dylan (and her Grace Notes)
3) Friday Mom
4) Rebel
5) Rev Mom

What were you doing 10 years ago?
I had just been fired (one and only time in my life), and I took the time to think about what I really, really wanted to do with my life, not what someone else wanted me to do. Best thing that happened to me, to be honest, though it hurt like hell at the time...

What were you doing 1 year ago?
Learning to speak Canadian, eh?

Five snacks you enjoy:
A. Chex mix
B. Chocolate mint cookies
C. Apples with peanut butter
D. Cashews
E. Maple pecan frozen yogurt

(hmmm, I'm seeing a nut theme here)

Five songs you know all the words to:
A. Both Sides Now
B. Blowin' in the Wind
C. Giant (Melissa Etheridge)
D. Alleluia (kd lang's cover)
E. O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing (joke, actually; it has a million verses; but I know the first four in the United Methodist hymnal)
F. Raining Men (The Weather Girls)

Actually, hymns probably shouldn't count for pastors...and notice I didn't (really) include any)

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
A. Pay off all my debts
B. Invest a chunk for retirement and for TO's university
C. Buy a house DP and I can live in the rest of our lives
D. Pay lawyer's and Canada Customs and Immigration's fees to get "landed immigrant" status
E. Write a healthy check for the church's building fund

Five bad habits:
A. Procrastination
B. "Eeyore" thinking (i.e., jumping to the worst possible scenario; AKA Drama Queen)
C. Swaying while I preach
D. Slouching
E. Nervous giggle

Five things you enjoy doing:
A. Reading
B. Researching a topic to death
C. Writing
D. Browsing in a bookstore or library (see A)
E. Canoeing

Five things you would never wear again:
A. Hip-hugger jeans
B. Platform shoes
C. Choker necklace
D. Plaid
E. Hot pants/short shorts

(only five? What about peasant blouses, bell-bottoms, big earrings, macrame belts and bandannas?)

Five favorite toys:
(Snicker)
A. my Personal Digital Assistant (especially since I found the Lectionary to upload to it...)
B. my laptop
C. my car (VW Jetta wagon...sigh)
D. my glass-fronted bookcases (no, really--there's something very satisfying about seeing my books through glass, all safe and dustless; also protects my rainbow-coloured feather boa from the cats)
E. my coffeemaker (don't laugh; it turns off automatically, I can adjust the heat on the warming plate, and I can set it to start brewing in the morning while I'm still sleeping...)

Thanks, LC--that was kinda fun!

Your turn!

Juggling with Sermons, Worship Planning, A Seminar and a Membership Class

I know it's not quite the "done" thing to admit it, but--I'm reading a fun book! It's a wonderful historical fiction novel, part of a series by Dorothy Dunnett. The title of this one, the second in the series is Queen's Play (as in chess moves, not as in a drama for the stage). Anyway, the main character just did some serious juggling--with knives, eggs, a key, a vase of water, and some other varied objects.

I sympathize.

I spent the weekend with my extended family, celebrating a high-numbered birthday with my mother and all of her eight (8) siblings, and all but one of my siblings (and didn't we talk about the absent one?), and other assorted family and hangers-on. It was a great time, actually. I get along well with most of my aunts and uncles, and of course my sisters are my sisters. Much talking, laughing, arguing--er, disputation...the usual family sort of thing. DP was a bit overwhelmed at times (having been an only child), but she handled it well.

It was also a mini-vacation of sorts--no email, no phone calls, no preaching on Sunday (two weeks in a row, my vocal cords praise me)--and we stayed in a hotel, so we didn't have to make beds or cook dinner either!

And then I got up this morning, started up email, and listened to the voice mails. Boom! Back into the cyclone!

And that's what it feels like, or (to mix a metaphor) trying to pick up the reins again and get back into the rhythm of the congregation. It's not just the get-up-make-coffee-let-the-dog-out-let-the-dog-in-feed-the-dog-take-a-shower-go-to-the-office routine either. It's remembering what was going on with all the projects--the new search for new space for the church, the seminar I'm planning for March, the membership class later this month, the history panel last week that was taped and now needs to be edited, worship planning for Lent, working on the sermons for February--all of which I had going before I left. Now I have to get back on board with all of that. You wouldn't think I could forget it all in the course of four days, but apparently it's possible.

The problem is not doing all these things, or keeping track of them--I did that before I left for the weekend (and with a bad code, too -sniff, sniff). It's getting back into the rhythm without impaling myself on a knife or dropping a vase on my head.

And a-one, a-two, a-three...

Blah Blah Blah...

The US President gave his State of Union speech lest night. Sigh.

At least he recognized that the war is costing real people their lives. He had the widow and parents of a soldier who had been killed in Iraq in the gallery, right behind the First Lady. A couple of years ago, I remember being scandalized that he didn't even mention the war...let alone recognize the soldiers who were over there. I'm no hawk, but as an ex-military spouse (in a previous life), it rankled.

And his tired rhetoric about judges who "legislate from the bench." They interpret the law--that is their job.

And more of the same on the domestic wiretapping. I watched the speech on a Canadian network, CTV, and their camera zoomed in on Hilary Clinton, who was shaking her head ruefully. I am not always a big fan of hers, but she had it right this time.

And where did he get his figures on new jobs? The count must include seasonal (holiday) work, part-time, temporary, everything they could scrape together. We sure aren't seeing it in the part of the US closest to me! Right across the river, people are desperate for jobs, any jobs--and another large employer in the area just announced a plant closing...thousands more people looking for work. Lots of jobs? Show me, Mr. President.

What makes me angry is that the President can't seem to understand that the people who disagree with him do so with as much (if not more--but I won't go there) integrity as he defends his position. They are not all timeservers and politicians looking for a boost in the polls. I'm sure some of them are, but so are many people in the administration. But listening to him, his opponents are all manipulators of Machiavellian proportions. He demonizes them, which serves no-one, not even his own aims.

Feh. I'm going to go read something uplifting, like "Antagonists in the Church" or today's paper.

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" --Mary Oliver

I am a procrastinator. I excel at it, and am proud of it--well, not really. It means tasks take twice as long as they should, because it takes up so much time putting them off. So, in an attempt to improve myself, I read a book on procrastination, and one of the suggested exercises was to wrote down 101 things you wanted to get done, from "the laundry" to "repainting the family room" to "getting that advanced degree" to "finding a new job." The idea was that you could start with the smaller, shorter term things, succeed at those, break the larger projects into parts (look at decorating magazines to get ideas, visit the paint store to get some colour chips, choose a weekend, etc.). Then one day I saw the above quote on a friend's email. Taking it as my guide, I sat down and wrote up those 101 things that I wanted to do, but that I didn't want to lose in the busy-ness of living. Actually, I didn't quite get to 101, but I'm almost there.

Here, then, is an edited list:
Plan worship for the rest of the year
Plan ministry for next year
Organize attic, especially books
Organize books on shelves
Read books on To Be Read shelf
Get 1 women’s clergy shirt (I need one more to have a decent wardrobe of them)
Hang pictures (yes, we've been here more than a year and do not have all our pictures up yet)
Get floor lamp for living room
Musings on sermons for rest of year
Repaint stairs and hallways
Start walking program
Use library for books (instead of bookstore...)
Clean office bulletin board
Detailed outline of body theology book
Replace living room blinds
Clean out closet
Read books on list
Put out church newsletter every other month (it's chronically late)
Visit Toronto
Write history of River City's GLBT community
Create Coming-out Guide for River City youth
Write a devotional for each day and publish on church website
Post sermons on website
Visit Mom regularly
Earn PhD

As you see, they range from the sublime (write theological book, earn PhD) to the ridiculous (lamp for the living room? So head down to Post One and buy one, RP!).

So, what's on your list?

If you play, let me know!

Five on Friday!

I'm beginning to feel human again, but now my head is so stopped up, my ears want to pop, and all sound comes to me through a layer of cotton (at least, that's how it sounds!).

I don't have the energy to come up with my own topic this morning, so I'm leaning on RevGalBlogPals once again.

Today the meme is about books:

1. If you received books as holiday presents, how many and what were they?
Not this year, although I usually do. I asked for a couple--does that count? I'll repeat those requests for my birthday in a couple of months, too. We'll see what happens then.

2. Did you buy any for yourself, and if so what are the titles?
Yes, I did. Chapters (Canadian for Barn and Hobble or Hoarders) had a Boxing Day Sale and I picked up "Collapse: How Civilizations Choose to Succeed or Fail" by Jared Diamond (who wrote "Guns, Germs and Steel," about the impact of colonization). I also bought myself a datebook titled (I think) "Strong Women," which I love. Every week has a photo of a not-necessarily famous woman who did something amazing. Each day has an event in women's history (some landmark, some not-so). I use it in my office so everyone else can keep track of my appointments and meetings.

3. Have you read any of them yet? What's next on your list?
Well, you don't really read a datebook (although I have certainly browsed through it extensively!). I am almost finished with Collapse, and it's great. I'm trying to see if Diamond's principles for civilizations can be applied to individuals as well. Next on my list is finishing some books I'm in the middle of: Women Who Run With the Wolves (Clarissa Pinkola Estes, on freeing women); Summer Queen (science fiction by Joan Vinge); and Generation to Generation (? Friedman, on how churches and synagogues act like families).

4. Do you have a favorite place to read a new book? And does the weather have an impact on that choice?
When I was in college, in Ann Arbor, I used to reward myself after tests by going to Hoarders (the original, thank you very much)and purchasing a new Jane Austen/Charles Dickens/Wilkie Collins novel, then going around the corner to Drake's (of lamented memory) for hot chocolate, a grilled-cheese-and-tomato sandwich and a sampler box of their handmade chocolates... That is my definition of the best way to read a new book. However, that no longer being possible, my favourite place now is in the barrel chair in the living room with my down blanket over my lap and the dog on the edge of the blanket, with snow falling outside. Alternatively, I like sitting on the porch with my feet propped up and a glass of iced tea sweating at my side.

Does reading in bed make you sleepy?
Yes.

Your turn!

(Edited to add--I don't know how all the typos got in there! All gone now (I hope)!

(Edited again to correct the name of the datebook to "Women Who Dare" which is a much better title!)

Better? Maybe?

Well, I trudged on over to the doctor yesterday, and she says I have a sinus infection. She thinks. Anyway, got some antibiotics, cough syrup so I can sleep better at night, and some stronger pain meds for my back. And she sent me for a chest X-Ray. Results to be determined today. And that is where we stand--or sit, as the case may be.
I still sound like Mae West in a snit, but I'm not coughing so much, and I don't think I was hit by a Mack truck anymore.
Many thanks for all blogged good wishes...I wish I could take all the good advice about taking a day off. It's looking like maybe Saturday will be the day--or Friday if I'm lucky.
Now to all those meetings that keep me eating cough drops!

Now I Understand...

...why I felt so rotten the other day and had my very own UGH day... A terrible cold, which has left me sounding like Mae West on a bad day. My throat hurts, my sinuses hurt, even my back hurts (OK, that's from taking Christmas ornaments down and moving the boxes around, but still).

I think I'll ask the deacon to lead prayers and consecrate Communion today. I have another busy day tomorrow, with meetings and appointments all day that I really can't miss. I need my voice back!!

Five Pleasures...

Once again, taking my cue from RevGalBlogPals, here are my five pleasures (some small, some guilty, and some both):

1. Watching TV in bed. (small, guilty)

2. Pedicure/acrylic nails. (guilty)

3. Reading Jane Eyre and eating Stauffer's Mac n Cheese.(guilty)

4. Lighting all the scented candles in the house and enjoying the scents.(small)

5. Clean sheets (I had one friend who swore that if she ever won the lottery, she would use her winnings to pay for someone to come in every morning, wash the sheets, and put clean ones on, so that she would have clean fresh sheets every night) (small)

Those are only five of my small pleasures.I have many others: finding all the Reese's Peanut Cups in the Halloween candy; lemonade on a hot day; laughing with friends; finding a ten dollar bill in my pocket; waking up to the smell of coffee brewing and bacon frying; having my head massaged/shampooed when I go for a haircut; watching my cat "dance" as she plays with her catnip mouse; the sound of Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas music as snow falls gently outside; daffodils and tulips popping up out of the ground...

And then there are the larger pleasures--watching my son, at the age of five or six, playing on the keyboard, making the most amazing melodies; creating a garden out of a boring yard; reading a book and finding the author, unexpectedly, agrees with me and puts my opinion far more succinctly than I ever could; someone saying that the church has made a difference in her/his life.

There is much to be thankful for.

Ugh Day

I'm declaring today my own personal Ugh Day. I got nothing of importance accomplished, felt slow and draggy and incompetent all day, and ended up taking a nap in the middle of the afternoon, after which I managed to get one thing of importance done.

Blah.

I hate days like this--when I seem to have no energy, no motivation, no get-up-and-go--and yet I have to get up and go because there's much to do. I can't just take a day like this off, much as my instincts tell me to do so. I would be so far behind the next day!

Blah.

At least I got one thing done. And I'm hoping to get the tree down and ornaments put away tonight. That would be two things. That's better than nothing, I suppose. Perhaps I'll do something mindless, like update my address book. That would be useful--and it would make three things.

Blah.

Where Will You Go? Parts I-V

A few days ago, RevGalBlogPals asked the question, "What were five trips that made a difference in your life?" Being, as usual, slightly behind the power curve, I'm answering now.

Well, here goes!

In no particular order:

1. A seminary study trip to Poland, on which we examined Biblical exegesis and how it affects our theology in a very concrete way. We visited the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps and the Treblinka extermination camp. As a contrast, and to learn about Polish culture, we also visited several palaces in Warsaw and toured the castle in Cracow. Every evening we had a debriefing, in which we discussed what we had seen, the contrasts between the history and the present and the terrible, terrible events of the Holocaust. It was a deep conflict for me--see below--between what I knew Germans had done, and the positive experiences I had had with modern Germans. We talked about the shades of grey, and how no one is all good or all bad--whether a nation or a person. We began to understand our role as pastors in fighting anti-Semitism and the link between that and all the other -isms and antis-s and phobias (sexism, homophobia, racism, etc.). It was a powerful ten days, and almost every hour of every day made an indelible impression that I will never forget.

2. Five years spent in Germany, in a wonderful Bavarian city. I came to know another culture from my own intimately and well. I still wax nostalgic over the food, architecture, parks, people, museums, music, festivals and general atmosphere of my adopted German home.

3. A week spent near Los Angeles with dear friends who totally spoiled DP and me--lovely home, refrigerator stocked just for us (all our favourite indulgences), loan of a luxury SUV with GPS system (which came in very handy!), company on a couple of day trips, eager ears on the other nights to hear our adventures, and hot coffee every morning waiting for us when we came downstairs (they're tea drinkers...). It felt like a week in Paradise, and it was a care-free week we needed badly at that point in our lives.

4. A week in Florida caring for my parents (who managed to both be injured at the same time). I had a lot of time away from my usual responsibilities at work, home, and church, and was able to sit and listen to God. God was saying the same thing God had been saying for a long time, but now I had time to hear it--and I responded to that call to ordained ministry. See what Florida will do to you!

5. The move to Canada! The drive itself was a nightmare--flat tire on the car trailer, a 30-foot moving truck jammed full, my car likewise, DP's car on the aforementioned trailer ditto, two cats and a dog, pouring rain on the turnpike, Canadian customs and immigration, unpacking one night and preaching my first sermon the next morning! But it's been an amazing year, and I'm loving what I'm doing!

There. Top five trips of my life--so far! We love to travel and will be doing more. There are so many places we haven't been to yet!

Hair! Lots of Beautiful Hair!

I got my hair cut last week.

That might not sound like much, but a friend of mine who is a stylist has been itching to get his hands on my scalp for almost a year now, and I’ve resisted. Why? Mostly because of cost—he’s one of the best stylists in the city and his prices reflect that. Also because he’s—well—high-style. Very Vogue and Glamour and so on, and I’m Just Not Like That! To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure I could live up to whatever style he gave me.

But another friend (Car Man) pointed out that The Stylist has been good to me in many ways, and very supportive of the church, as well as me personally, and perhaps I owed it to him to visit the shop and at least give him a chance.

So I did.

I told The Stylist I had three things for him to remember:
1. I don’t like to fuss with my hair. I’ll blow it dry sometimes (like on Sundays and for weddings and funerals), but I refuse to use a curling iron or any of that nonsense—I don’t have time. I don’t want to fuss with my hair every morning.
2. I like it clipped short on my neck, slightly longer on the back of my head. This is non-negotiable.
3. I wear glasses. I always wear my glasses (I’m practically blind without them). Whatever the style, it has to look decent with glasses, not stupid. I'm tired of having styles that look fine until I put my glasses on and then look like a geek's idea of hair style. Of course, having said that, I’m now considering going back to my contacts…

He looked at me sideways at first, when I told him I had three things he had to work with, but then he accepted them. He clipped and cut and turned me around while we discussed various activities in the community (we work together on a couple of projects and groups). And then he turned me back to the mirror, said, “Put on your eyes, sweetie,” and voila!

I like it! I really like it! It has shape to it and—dare I say—style! It’s very very short, much shorter in front than I have worn it for a very long time (perhaps ever). But it's a bit sassy (never did I think I would be saying that about myself in public), and yes, even cute.

DP thinks it’s too short. She’s not sure she likes it. I’m praying she comes around.

I’m sticking with it for the present (not that I have much choice, until it grows out). I’ve gotten many compliments on it (PF, church members, friends, etc.). I don’t even brush it anymore (orders from The Stylist), just run my fingers through it. Now that’s easy! If I want to, I blow it dry and it looks fuller. If I want to get really fancy I put some styling cream on it and dry it--it holds the hair in place and gives it a finish. For the first time in a long time, I really like my hair. It looks like it belongs to someone who isn’t clueless about style and how her hair looks to the general public.

The Stylist gets full marks for knowing what would look good on me. He listened, but then he was able to use my criteria and turn them into something that didn’t look like a hamster had died on my head (one cut I had made me look like a mutant poodle…). He gave my hair shape and attitude (and a bit of altitude). I have to say, I’m sold. He’s got my head for the foreseeable future.

Did I mention he has plans for colouring my hair?

Brokeback Mountain—review

DP and I went to see Brokeback Mountain this weekend with a group of friends. I had read the short story when it was published in The New Yorker and had thought it amazing—an incredible moving story, and amazing that a mainstream magazine had published it. So I really wanted to see how well it had transplanted to the screen. I had some confidence in Larry McMurtry, one of the screenwriters, but I was still uncertain. And the reviews were so mixed—some praising it, others seemingly so caught up in homophobia that the movie became unwatchable (for them). So I knew I wanted to see this for myself.

It was, in a word, stunning.

First, a brief plot summary in case you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard. Two down-on-their-luck ranchers are hired to watch a herd of sheep summering on US Forest Service land in the Montana mountains in the early 1960s. They fall in love, much against their conditioning, and begin a relationship. After the summer is over, they go their separate ways—Ennis to marry Alma, and Jack to go back to bull-riding in the rodeo, where he meets and marries the daughter of a wealthy farm machinery dealer. Six years later Jack contacts Ennis. They go off “fishing” together, and find that their connection is as strong as it was that summer six years ago. For the next twenty years, they “go fishing” or “elk hunting” several times. And always, they come to the same conclusion—this is all they can have, these furtive meetings at long intervals. They are married, they fear the opprobrium of society if they buy a ranch together (Jack’s dream). In the end, all Ennis has is his memories and the view of Brokeback Mountain.

The simplest first—the scenery (which I think was Alberta—Canada once again standing in for the US West) was incredible—starkly beautiful, huge and open. The cinematography let you take it in, let it become part of the story, as in fact Brokeback Mountain is, without letting the mountains and sky take over.
Then there’s the acting. One of the things I appreciated about Annie Proulx’s story was that she showed everybody’s pain—not just Jack and Ennis’s pain, but that of the wives and the children. It wasn’t simply a matter of “poor Ennis and Jack, in love and unable to show it,” which is tragedy enough. Proulx also showed the pain of Alma—who loved Ennis but knew he could never love her, and that he had a side to him that she found repugnant and she could not accept. We see that pain—Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllanhaal did a wonderful job of that. And their love scenes are equally well-done. I have read in a couple of interviews with Mr. Ledger that they did not rehearse those scenes, plan them out—“OK, Jack does this, and then Ennis does that.” They simply let them flow. It says a great deal for these two (straight) actors that they were able to infuse these scenes with the tenderness and love they called for without squeamishness or calling for body doubles or planning them to the point of vapidity. And one of the scenes is pretty graphic, by the way—you are left in no doubt that this relationship has a physical component to it!

Heath Ledger is especially amazing. Ennis is a man of few words, so Ledger can’t use his speeches to convey Ennis’s character. When Ennis does speak, you learn about him—but you learn as much or more when he is silent—from the way he touches a shirt, or eats his pie, or carefully stubs out a cigarette for future reuse. This is brilliant.
The audience surprised me, too. I hadn’t thought there would be much of a crowd, even in Canada, even for a movie with a lot of hype, even for a Heath Ledger movie, when it was about a pair of gay cowboys. I was wrong. Not only was the theatre full, the audience was totally sympathetic. There were no disgusted moans at Jack and Ennis’s first kiss, and there was total silence during their first sexual encounter. The only loud reactions came at junctures when you would expect them—when Alma witnesses Jack and Ennis’s reunion kiss, unseen by the men; at the gruesome shot of a disembowelled sheep (done by a coyote); and so on. There was a real sympathy for Ennis and Jack.

Most of all, I think, I was stunned by the way in which the story was told. It wasn’t played sentimentally, or luridly, or histrionically, or leeringly. Ang Lee simply gave us a narration and let us draw our own conclusions.

My conclusions?

In a more perfect world, there would be no homophobia, internalized or otherwise. If Jack and Ennis had felt from the beginning that they could share their lives, live together, be a couple, the pain of many of those around them would have been much less. As a result, Ennis and Alma would not have married, they would not have suffered the pain that they did. Jack and his wife also would not have gone through what they did. There would not have been the secretiveness, the hiding, the deception that, in the end, couldn’t last.

My hope is that straight people who see this movie will glean an understanding of the damage homophobia wreaks on real lives, in the small everyday things as well as the larger, life-altering ways. I hope, too, that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people who see it will understand how far we have come in many ways, and how far we still have to go. There are places in the world, in the US, where things have not changed much from the way they're shown in 1960s Montana. There are places where society is very different. Let us be glad for the changes, and work for continued change.

Uh-Oh...

You scored as Pelagianism. You are a Pelagian. You reject ideas about man's fallen human nature and believe that as a result we are able to fully obey God. You are the first Briton to contribute significantly to Christian thought, but you're still excommunicated in 417. Are you a heretic? created with QuizFarm.com

I'm in trouble now... But then, what else is new?

On the other hand, my runner-up was Chalcedon-compliant! And I am definitely not a Docetist or Albigensian! Or Donatist, for that matter.

Ups and Downs

Yeah, OK, so it’s been a while…TO’s visit, trying to get caught up with beginning of the year things—but now I’m (mostly) caught up and ready to roll!

It’s been a Tale of Two Cities week—the best of times and the worst of times, all in the same few days.

On the plus side, I cleaned out (mostly) my filing cabinet (no small chore, I assure you), had friends come over for dinner (we laughed for about three hours straight—well, as straight as we can), and had lunch with a friend from high school whom I haven’t seen for years. That was marvellous—it was as if we had seen each other a few months before, not almost 25 years. HSF (High School Friend) is as much fun now as he was then, and his partner and their son are delightful. High school friends in a way are like siblings, because they both knew you in your less-than-pretty stages! You don’t have to explain things to them as much, because you were both formed by the same things, or at least you saw each other formed, and so you know why they act the way they do. Anyway, it was a wonderful day!

On the down side, of course, was the sad saga of the West Virginia miners. I’m not related to any miners, I’ve never lived in mining country. The closest I’ve come is that some of my fellow-students in seminary were student pastors to mining communities, and I heard some of their stories. And yet this story grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. All week, through the minor crises and joys of my own life, I watched and listened to the news, saddened when the first lone body was discovered (and is anything sadder than the sister-in-law of the deceased saying stoically, she-roically, “We thought it was him before we were told that it was; it’s where he would be, to do his job, and he always did his job”?), then elated at the first news of survival Tuesday night, then waking Wednesday morning, shocked, to the stunning truth. I’m still trying to figure it out. You would think that after my visit to concentration camps in 2001, 9/11, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the tsunami last year, and Katrina and the earthquakes in Pakistan this year (not to mention the wildfires that threatened a friend’s home in California, the current wildfires, the mudslides, the terrorist bombings in Indonesia and elsewhere) and all the assorted other disasters, that it would all be ho-hum, or at best a detached interest. But I found myself teary-eyed when that first miner’s body was discovered, and crying when the rumour came through that the other 12 were alive. I cried again the next morning when I found it wasn’t true, and I’ve been teary again watching the family of Mr. McCloy on TV.

So what does it all boil down to? I’ve found myself repeating my Christmas Eve sermon again and again.

“We are not alone; we live in God’s world.” As long as I can hold onto that, as long as I remember that there will be a tomorrow—and not a Little Orphan Annie tomorrow either—but a tomorrow in which God is still present, still loving this world, then I can face the griefs and fears of today and tomorrow as well. And I can face the joys and good surprises and hopes, too—because “we are not alone. We live in God’s world.”

Serving Stephen

Acts 7:54-60
When the people heard these things, they became enraged and ground their teeth at Stephen. But filled with the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see the heavens opened and the Human One standing at the right hand of God!" But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he died.

Wow. What a powerful moment for the new Church. One of their own, one of their dearest, the deacon Stephen, pays for his faith with his life. And Saul—soon to be known as Paul—is there as well. It’s like a scene from a serial movie or a murder mystery—this person Saul will become very important to the church indeed—but in a different way than what you expect…

Stephen the deacon. When I began the long journey towards ordination, there were two questions I had to answer to the satisfaction of the committees that interviewed me. The first was, “Is your call to professional ministry? Or can you fulfill your call as a lay person?” This was a very important question, especially since I was a second career pastor. And it is true that there are many people who begin the process towards ordination because others—friends, a trusted pastor, family—encourage them, whether or not the person really feels the call. So that was the first question. The second was just as important, although it might nor seem so at first glance. “Are you called to ordained ministry or to the diaconate?” In the United Methodist Church, the difference is subtle—deacons may lead worship, preach, and teach, but they cannot consecrate the Communion elements, baptize, or marry people. Of course, there are exceptions when a deacon is appointed to act as pastor, but most deacons are never in that position. Deacons are called to a specific kind of service—Christian education, music ministry, administration, youth ministry, and so on. Also, most deacons must find their own positions—they are not appointed to a church as ordained pastors (elders) are. So for me, going through the process in the United Methodist Church, this was a serious question.

I quickly learned the correct answers to the questions about ordained vs. diaconal calling—that diaconal service is a different calling, not better or worse, higher or lower, but simply different. That we all have different gifts, and some of us are gifted with the graces for diaconal service, and some for ordained ministry.

Stephen the martyr. In England, St. Stephen’s Day was traditionally the day boys went out and shot wrens—an echo of Stephen’s martyrdom. Today in Britain and Canada and other Commonwealth countries, it is Boxing Day—the day when you give boxes—gifts—to the post person, to the newspaper deliverer, and so on (it used to be the servant, but nowadays most of us don’t have any).

And that somehow is appropriate. On the day when we remember the death of the disciple who served others, we thank the ones who help us during the year. Who helps you? The people who have helped me over the years--have served me, if you will--include my son’s day care provider, the dry cleaner who is always cheerful, bank teller who remembers to ask me about the church, the server at Tim Horton’s who knows my order by heart (large double double and chocolate chocolate frosted doughnut, if you’re curious). It’s not that I’m better than they are, and so they serve me. It is simply their job. And when the teller comes to church, I serve her. When the dry cleaner needs an ear, and I listen, I’m serving him.

Because the truth is, we all serve each other—or should. Jesus said, “Serve each other.” He gave us the example by washing his disciples’ feet before that last meal together.

Do we allow others to serve us? Or are we so sure that we can do it all ourselves, and that it’s others who need help, never us, that don't let someone else do for us? Are we so arrogant that we cannot accept a gift from someone? I have learned that sometimes the greatest gift is simply accepting the gift.

So serve. And just as importantly, allow yourself to be served.

Christmas Eve Sermon, 2005

Our readings tonight have one theme, one message: Hope. The prophets of Israel, despairing in their exile, hoped for God to bring them out of the foreign land and return them home. We hope to be rid of the demons that haunt us, that make our days unhappy and our nights unsleeping, to remember that our children, whether of our body or of our heart, are still worth loving. We hope that our lives, too, obscure though they may seem, are not useless or in vain.

And behold, our hope is not idle. Our hope has been answered—through the birth of a child, God made flesh, God come to earth to be with us. Emmanuel—God is with us. Can anything be more wonderful than this? God came to be with us in a shape we could recognize. We are never without God—God is very present with us, always. But sometimes, our human eyes cannot see God as clearly as we would like to, as well as God would like us to see God. And so God came to be with us for a little while, as a human being.

And that’s what we celebrate tonight—not the shepherds and the angels and the candles and the tree, certainly not the presents and cookies and eggnog and fancy clothes. We celebrate the fact that our creator loves us, God wants us to know God—and so God came to us. “For God so loved the world…” For God so loved us.

Soon after DP and I moved here, we found a tract on our car windshield. One of those small pamphlets, I think you can get them fifty for five dollars or something. It was stuck under the windshield wiper, and the title read, “Certainly you may do as you wish.” The writer was trying to convince the reader to go to church instead of sailing or playing golf or playing roulette or horseback riding—at least, I’m assuming those were the alternatives to church, from the pictures on the cover. Anyway, there was some language in the booklet that made me nervous—“your soul could be required of you at any time,” “you have made choices about how to spend your life,” “sometimes we are selfish and rebel against God,” that sort of thing. I had no idea if there was a person in the neighbourhood who made a habit of putting those on cars, or if it was directed specifically at us, if we had a homophobic neighbour. I asked our neighbours who are also a lesbian couple, and they said they had gotten one or two, but they didn’t know if they had been targeted either, or if the tracts had simply been placed on all the cars that happened to be parked on the street at the time when the person was placing them. When the tract appeared a second time, I talked to PF (Pastor Friend), who had been very welcoming and supportive. Dear PF! He didn’t think it meant anything, and was very reassuring and comforting—remember, DP and I were still getting to know this place and our neighbours. For all we knew, we had a homophobe down the street. So we decided to keep an eye out and see who else—if anyone—got a tract next time one appeared on our car.

A few days later, after my office hours were over, I went out to my car. There was something on my windshield, tucked under the wiper, wrapped in plastic. It was a small booklet.

“We are not alone. We live in God’s world,” it began. And it went on.

“We are not alone, we live in God's world. We believe in God: who has created and is creating, who has come in Jesus, the Word made flesh, to reconcile and make new, who works in us and others by the Spirit. We trust in God. We are called to be the Church: to celebrate God's presence, to live with respect in Creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen, our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God.”

It was a child’s book of the United Church of Canada’s creed. Tucked into the front was PF’s card, with a note of encouragement. He had left me a gift, a sweet taste to take away the alarming bitter flavour of the tract, and he left it on my windshield to remind me that people who wish me well are watching me also. And do you know, I have never found another one of the tracts on my car?

We are not alone. God is with us. In the coldest and most fearful of times, when everything seems too much—when you are in exile, or when those demons of fear seem about to overwhelm you, when you don’t know if what you are doing is worthwhile, when you don’t know why you bother, when you don’t know who is friend and who is not—remember. God loves us so much, God is with us. We are not alone.

This is what we celebrate at Christmas—God’s presence with us, now, tonight, and forever.

In the many names of the one loving Creator, amen.

Another Woman!

Exciting news! My niece, who is expecting in early June, had her ultrasound this week, and she's expecting a girl! Another girl to add to my overwhelmingly female family! I'm one of five sisters, and three of my sisters have only girls (seven between them). With my mother, that's fourteen wonderful women! (Checking my math here--five sisters plus seven daughters is twelve plus a grand niece is thirteen plus my mother is fourteen. Yep, it's right!) And if you want to go back a generation, my grandmother (my mother's mother) had two sisters and no brothers, so that's three more women...

Life is good.

Tuesday Evening...

and Commander in Chief's not on! Darn...I was hoping for some relaxation and entertainment tonight. Instead I'll have to do some work. But I can procrastinate a little longer by blogging, right?

DP and I got our Visitor's Record renewed today. Quite easy, once they've (Canada Immigration, that is) decided it's close enough to the expiration of your previous document (see Exciting Canadian Politics entry, below). Drove to the US, drove back, told the nice Customs and Immigration man we needed to renew our VR's, he sent us into the Immigration Office, we showed the nice clerk our papers, she agreed we were eligible to stay another year, she did the paperwork, we got our new VRs, we drove home. All done!

I survived our annual congregational meeting. I'm not exactly up on Robert's Rules of Order, which is how the meeting is run. Other people are up on RRO, and let me know (nicely) when I wander. All the business of the church was taken care of for a year, including the election of a new Board of Administration (thank you, God, for the Holy Spirit moving among the members!).

I'm feeling very tired. I'm not sure why. There's the usual busy-ness of the season, of course, and the added stresses of being a pastor at this time of year (and don't I resent people who do their Christmas shopping all year and are done already? Yes, I do--unreasonably, perhaps, but I do). I have a lot to do, what with getting the Christmas and New Year's worship services ready, preparing for next year (worship, administration, etc.), my own personal Christmas with DP and TO, various meetings and appointments (and the usual clergy meetings and luncheons are doubly important in December)...But the thing is, I'm not feeling motivated. I just want to curl up with a good book (Jane Austen springs to mind), a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich, and let the world go away.

Unfortunately, it won't go away.

So maybe if I'm more disciplined--get the work done instead of procrastinating, then I won't feel so overwhelmed. Shoot, I'm making sense. Must be time to get some work done.

Somebody Pushed My Button!

I was reading another blog, and a response to the blog got me going... So look out below, I'm on my hobbyhorse and rocking away!

The comment was on demographically focused devotionals, worship, etc. Such things as A Women's Devotional, or the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), a church founded in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community, or even Promisekeepers. One commenter took exception to such things, saying that all Christians should be one, and such things are divisive. My blogger acquaintance responded that such things are needed because marginalized groups do not always feel at home in the larger church.

Let's look at the Methodist Church. Back in the early 1800s, in a church in Philadelphia, the black members were not allowed Communion until all the white members had received, thus insuring that the white folks got Communion, while sometimes there was not enough for the black folks, to say nothing of the attitude thus indicated. The black members finally had enough and went off to form their own church--the African Methodist Episcopal Church, or AME.

Now, some might say that they had no right to do that--they were in the church, and receiving Communion, and members... But they weren't really accepted, were they? They were regarded in fact, of not in the letter, as second-class members. But God has no second-class children.

The simple fact is that different groups in society have different reasons for wanting their own denominations or congregations within those denominations. Sometimes it's cultural/ethnic/language, as with the Latino Methodist churches, or Korean Methodist, or Vietnamese Catholic churches (I once lived five minutes from Our Lady of Vietnam Roman Catholic Church, three blocks from St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Community; there was room for both). Or the MCC. Or the AME.

The fault is not that of the marginalized groups--they are seeking God, and want to worship God and follow Christ. But the institutional church, the human church, is preventing them. And so they find their own ways to worship.

Personal history: God called me to ministry when I was a member of a United Methodist Church. I (eventually) responded, went to seminary, graduated after five years, was appointed (as probationary elder) to a charge, and led a very hurting congregation towards wholeness over the course of a year. But also during that year, I realized that aspects of myself I had thought I could hide forever would not be hidden. I was less of a pastor for hiding parts of me and lying about it. And so I came out as a bisexual woman, went through a divorce, and left the United Methodist Church. I didn't leave because I was angry at the United Methodist Church, but because they would not allow me to answer my call within the UMC. In effect, I was forced to choose--God or the UMC. I chose God.

I am disappointed in the UMC (and other denominations, but the UMC is the one that touched my life). I was a lifelong UM--parents married there, myself baptized and confirmed there, heard my call there, went to a Methodist seminary, etc. And yet, when it came down to the difficult questions, they (the institution) could not see me as an equal child of God with my straight classmates at seminary or my straight colleagues in ministry.

We, the marginalized, are not asking for special treatment. We're asking for equal treatment. Our lives are often ignored in the sermons we hear, in the music we sing, and in the prayers we pray. If worship does not speak to our hopes and fears, it cannot reach our hearts and inspire us to reach for God.

The Bone People, by Keri Hulme

I've been meaning to comment on this, since I mentioned rereading it and wondering if it would be as good the second time around. Well, it was.

This is one of those books that you start out reading, you're a bit confused, you take your time with the first fifty pages or so, trying to sort out who's who and what's going on. This was especially true for me, since a great deal of the book's power is in the emphasis on Maori culture, which I am woefully ignorant of. Then you really get into it and you start reading obsessively, desperate to find out What's Going to Happen. And then It happens, and you get depressed, and don't want to read anymore, except that you've started to fall in love with this characters, and you need to know how they get themselves out of this situation. And so you finish it.

Most of it is very good, well-written, excellent characterization and descriptive writing that makes you feel as if you are in New Zealand. The plot is fairly good--a couple of odd twists, but hey, what do I know of the cultural norms in an isolated town in New Zealand (see above, re: Maori culture)? However, the ending is a bit too pat, and while it's emotionally satisfying, it's artistically disappointing.

That said, however, find it and read it anyway. Powerful reading for a snowy weekend. Bet you'll find yourself Googling for Maori info before the weekend's over!

Past Lives

I'm hopelessly addicted to those silly online quizzes--what's your personality? If you were on the series "Friends," which character would you be? etc. But I liked the result on this one! I was a belly dancer! Good thing, cause it's never happening in this life!

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Gorgeous Belly Dancer. Where You Lived: Argentina. How You Died: Suicide.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

Snowy Friday!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around the RP household! Not only did I get ambitious yesterday and haul down three boxes of Christmas decorations (which now adorn the house), but I've been playing Christmas music on the stereo and--it snowed five inches last night! Our neighbor's teeny tiny evergreen looks like a Christmas card with the snow on its branches perfectly rounded and smooth. It just needs a tiny cardinal or bunny to make it complete. It almost makes me want to go Christmas shopping!
DP has discovered a shop in town that sells goods from the Third World, with proceeds going directly back to the artisans. Finances aren't going to permit a lot of gifts this year, but I plan on visiting it for most of the gifts I do give. I wonder if they have anything for a 17-year old boy? TO's list is mostly electronic this year. Sigh.

Top Christmas CDs in my special Christmas CD box:

• Mannheim Steamroller (several of theirs; they have a great catalog too, and I lust after their parka!)
• Handel: A Soulful Celebration (a reinterpretation of the Messiah--great stuff!)
• Chicago: Christmas (an unforgettable rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town")
• Natalie Cole Christmas
• Sax Winterlude
• John Rutter's Christmas Music (one of my favorite modern sacred music composers)

Other random thoughts:
I'm not preaching this Sunday; our host pastor and his wife (also a pastor) are going to preach a dialogue sermon. It's wonderful how things worked out--I had asked him to preach for me because we have a bingo event on Sunday afternoon after church, and I'll need to be fairly alert, thus need to conserve energy (and preaching takes it out of me!). He and his wife rarely get to preach together, and so this is an opportunity for them as well. See? Benefits all around!
Because I have this Sunday off, I was hoping to use the extra time this week to get ahead of things--plan worship for January, select Scriptures for the year, start the sermon for week after next, that sort of thing. Did not work (see above, with home decorating and snow to be shoveled). I've gotten some other planning done, however. And I keep reminding myself, it's not always possible to finish every job all at once. Sometimes you work on something for a little while, then come back to it later, especially if you're waiting for input from someone else. It's the waiting, I guess.
So I guess I'll work on the Scriptures for a while, then the sermon,. Maybe neither one will be finished, but they'll be closer to it than they are now--and closer than they would be if I didn't do anything at all!

World AIDS Day

It's December 1, World AIDS Day. I remember when AIDS first showed up (then called GRID) in the public consciouness, as I was working in medical libraries at the time, so the doctors would want information on it, and we'd do a computer search on AIDS and get "finding aids," and grant information--but very little on AIDS itself.

MCC really came to the consciousness of many in the GLBT community in those early years--often an AIDS patient's own clergyperson wouldn't come, for fear of infection, or of seeming to condone their "lifestyle" (ahhh, don't get me started), so the hospital staff would call the local MCC, if there was one. A friend of mine who was in active ministry in the 80's went through a period of months where she officiated at 2-3 funerals a week. When the pace was slower, it was 2-3 a month. For comparison, when I served a small rural church with an aging congregation, I performed 3 funerals in one year.

Even now, when we can see that the majority of infections worldwide are through heterosexual contact, so many in the US want to stigmatize it as a "gay disease" or as something that those who are infected somehow brought on themselves through infidelity. And yet so many of the people infected are women whose (male) partners have had unsafe sex (whether with women or other men). And what about the children? And those (fewer now) who received blood or blood products in the years before we had tests? 17 years ago, when my son was born by cesarean, I had a special bracelet on my wrist, in addition to the hospital ID bracelet and the one matching my son's bracelet. That special bracelet warned staff that I had received blood transfusions (almost twenty years earlier), and they should use precautions when handling my bodily fluids.

And I think of those people who say that AIDS is God's pronouncement of doom on the gay community, and I want to laugh. Because, after all, the lowest rate of infections (and there are some) is among lesbians!

Not all is gloom. We have lost some talented and beautiful people, whole regions have been basically deserted, and the human race is the poorer. But there is hope. New medications have be developed, people are living longer and longer with AIDS, and sero-converting later and later. People living with AIDS (PWA) are dying of other things--heart disease, lung cancer. It sounds odd to see that as a victory, but it used to be that anyone who received a diagnosis of HIV stopped at the lawyer's on the way home and made sure the will was in order. I would love it if all my friends who are HIV+ or living with AIDS outlived me. They are all wonderful men (as it happens, all men), who have supported me in some rough times and celebrated with me in some great times. I cannot imagine the world without them.

Keep the promise--stop AIDS.

Exciting Canadian Politics!

DP and I went to get our residency permits renewed today--the current ones expire at the end of December, so we thought we'd be ahead of the game and have plenty of time, just in case we didn't have the right paperwork or something, right? Nope. We were told to come back when it was closer to the expiration date, that they couldn't issue them yet. For once I thought I was ahead of the game, and I really wasn't, after all. The worst of it is that I was nervous about it all day, couldn't focus very well on anything (I had office hours today), and then--pfffft! It all goes flat, like my souffles. Ah, well, at least we know we have all the right paperwork--the clerk did check it over for us, while we were there!

The government was dissolved yesterday. I'm trying to get used to the idea of a government that doesn't exist, but continues to function... Although you'd think I would be, actually, having lived in Washington Dee Cee for many years--after all, the government functions between elections. On the other hand, there's always some carryover from one sitting of Congress to the next, and of course the Pres is the Pres until the new one is inaugurated. Anyway, here in Canada (where our South is North of the USA's North--aka Quit whining, North Dakota, eh?), we have no Parliament now. We do have a governor general, our provincial governments, and many many many civil servants ("and the civil servants you shall have always with you"), some of whom are close personal friends. No word yet on when the elections will be, but no one is keen on a campaign in the holidays. I saw my first campaign sign today though! And for the candidate I would support if I could vote!

Anyway, the significance of the new government to me and mine is that if the Conservatives take over, they will probably try to revoke the bill legalizing same-sex marriage. Or at least suspend same-sex marriages while they thrash it out in the courts. They'll have a hard time repealing it, because the bill was based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and they would have to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause--which says that even though civil rights would be violated, a greater cause calls for those civil rights to be violated... It's never been invoked, for obvious reasons, and I don't honestly think they would get much support for it. Minorities of all kinds supported Bill C-38 (the same-sex marriage), because they recognized that depriving ANY minority of their civil rights threatens ALL minority groups (whether based on race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc.). But nonetheless, it's exciting times here in Canada, if you're a political junkie like I am!

The Link is Working Now!

Here it is: http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/051128roco02.

When Biblical Literalists Don't Read the Bible Literally...

Read a great article in the December Vanity Fair magazine on the religious not-so-right's attitude towards the end-times and Israel and the role they (the RnsR) think Jews and Israel and Palestine will play in Armageddon. (I tried to find it online, but the link on VF's page is broken. VF's website is http://vanityfair.com, and the article's title is American Rapture; perhaps the link will be fixed in the next day or so)

I was thinking about that article as I read the lectionary scripture for today from Matthew. It clearly says, "no one knows the hour (of Christ's return), not the angels in heaven, not the Human One, but only God knows." So how do these supposed Bible literalists justify their predictions and parallels? I'm thinking especially of the Left Behind series. I'm not a literalist, but they claim to be--LaHaye and Falwell and Robertson et al.--so how do they explain their predictions in light of this verse from Matthew?

That was my sermon today--that no one knows the day or hour or how, when, why or where, and that God is very likely to sneak in through the back door, as subtly as the birth of a child to an unknown mother in a stable...

Friendships and connections

We've been hearing from good friends in the last couple of days, and it is so good! One is a mentor/friend of ours, the kind of friend you feel so comfortable with, her house feels like your house. Very special, that sort of friend--they do not come along often!
And then one is a dear friend from seminary--we were in a Systematic Theology study group together, and if you haven't experienced it, let me tell you it is an intense personal experience! Choose your study group partners carefully, because you will get to know them on an intimate level. My friend and I stayed close even after I graduated, and then he graduated a year later and moved to the West Coast. We don't talk as often as we used to, but when we do, the connection is still there.
Then there's a friend from high school that I reconnected with late last year. He's doing well, and happy. We have to plan our phone calls because we will talk for hours if we aren't careful. We are re-making the connection we had once.
And finally, last night I was at a community meeting, and I realized that although I've been here only a year, I have friends here, real friends. What a marvelous feeling!
So I am wallowing in friendship feelings today--come on in, the water's great!

Monday morning musings

I've started reading The Bone People, and it is as good as I remember! I had forgotten the style--sort of stream of consciousness, but not exactly. And there's only one main male character, not two. But yes, very good. I am finding myself wishing I had a tower like Keriwen's with a spiral staircase in the middle and stained glass in the living room.

I'm feeling frustrated again at not being able to get ahead, to work on the sermon more. I feel that if I could get started on the sermon ten days ahead, then I could polish it more and clean it up. Yesterday I found myself (again) preaching the sermon and thinking halfway through, "Wait. that doesn't exactly follow," and "But if that's right, then this other must follow from it, and I don't think that's right." I can sometimes manage to get ahead for a week or even two, but then everything falls apart and I'm back to writing the sermon the week before the Sunday it's for.

TO is getting involved in student government at his high school. I'm very glad. He's been working with the cross country team as a manager, but of course that season is over now! I'm very glas to see him engaged with something that will serve him well for a long time--as XC will also!

The infamous Fred Phelps showed up at University of Michigan to protest the production of The Laramie Project. However, 400 supporters of the production also showed up. Apparently the police did their job well and kept the groups apart; there weren't any confrontations between the two groups. From what I've read, Phelps' group is mostly made up of his family, anyway. The struggle continues.

Books, books, and more books!

Just returned from a great book-reading at the University. The book is "Pink Blood: Homophobic Violence in Canada," by Douglas Victor Janoff. He looks at violent acts committed against GLBT people in Canada from (I think) 1990 to 2003. Very interesting conclusions.

There were more violent acts reported to the community centre in Toronto, for example, than were reported to police--some of that is because the incident may not have reached a point the police could legally call a crime, but a lot of the difference is because people did not report it, feeling that the police would not take them seriously and/or they would be harassed by the police as well. Some victims did not see the attack on them as homophobic. Many of the defendants (when the perpetrator[s] were found/arrested) pleaded "homosexual panic."Gay men were more likely to be attacked than women and almost all the attackers were men.

Often the attitudes towards the victim mirrored the attitudes towards female rape victims--"he asked for it, inviting someone he barely knew back to his house," or "if he weren't so swishy, no one would bother him." (which parallels "she shouldn't dress so sexily") and so on.

Also, in the cases of homicide, there was a high degree of "overkill;" the use of more than one method (knife and strangulation, for example) or many stab wounds, many more than would simply kill someone. And most of these cases the police tried to pass off as "robbery gone wrong!"

It reinforces a theory I came across early in my studies of gay theory, and that is that the root of homophobia is really misogyny. After all, what is it that many straight men think of gay men? That they are acting like women (either behaviorally or sexually), as if that were the worst thing to be in the world. Homophobia comes into play against lesbians because they don't need men in their lives, not even for sex (which is not to say that lesbians don't like men--I have a son I love very much, as does DP and many of our friends; and we have male friends who are GBT and straight; but we can get along without them). Therefore, they have to be "punished" because every "real" woman wants a man, and every "real" man has a woman at his beck and call.

Blaugh!!

Anyway, I'm now figuring ways I can save my ducats and buy the book. Like most university press books (it's published by the University of Toronto Press), it's pricey, at $32.50. However, I can probably scrape it together one way or another--I do have a wedding next week!

And on a slightly different note, with the reading I've been doing in women's issues and women's spirituality, I was reminded of another book (now there's a surprise!), "The Bone People," by Keri Hulme. It's very difficult to describe, but it's set in New Zealand, on one of the smaller islands, and concerns a woman, a couple of men, and a young boy whom the woman is trying to help. As I recall it, all the adults are alcoholic, and there are some very deep issues going on. I remember it as emotionally difficult to read but ultimately rewarding. So I picked it up from the library this morning--we'll see how it matches my memory!

I also picked up one of the books from my list: Alice Miller's "For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Childrearing and the Roots of Violence." It's something I'm interested in, since spanking was a bone of contention between me and my ex-husband. I grew up with very little spanking, and raised our son with the idea that you spanked very rarely--only in cases of danger to himself or others. My ex-husband felt otherwise, even though he had hated the physical punishment he had received as a kid. He thought it was a way to get the kid's attention. My feeling was that it just taught him that you can enforce your will with violence and greater strength--an especially dangerous concept for women who are around men who believe that. So I want to see what Miller is saying about the whole thing.

Well, I guess I'll be staying out of trouble for a few days--lots of reading to do!

Reading and Books

Bad blogger! Bad! Way too long since I've posted.

I finished reading Sue Monk Kidd's "Dance of the Dissident Daughter" Saturday. I loved it! Kidd does a wonderful job of showing you her journey, in lyrical prose, without sounding either whiny or overly mystical. She leads you with her on her journey, showing you very clearly how she came to believe what she believes, simply and undogmatically--and without insisting that you have to believe, too. Kidd was a "good" Baptist wife and mother, who came to realize that there was a wound in all women. She began to explore what that meant, especially spiritually, because she was a writer of "inspirational" literature. She started to really see how established Christianity has ignored and marginalized the feminine, making Mary, for example, a meek and mild passive figure, the good mother and no more. And she explores what it means to women to be told--not in so many words, but by church policies, dogma, and theology--that women do not measure up, can never measure up, and had better not try. She sees it in so many things--the churches that don't ordain women, of course, but in our God-language, in our images of God, in how we relate to God, what women do in church (very similar to what is expected of them at home, as it turns out). And as she journeys along, she uses Jungian psychology and the power of myth to help her elucidate what it is she is feeling. Kidd doesn't ignore the impact of her journey on her family, either--on her husband, for example, who was also freed, as she was freed--he left the chaplaincy and began a career in counseling.

Reading "Dissident Daughter" has inspired me to begin reading "Women Who Run with the Wolves," by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. I had tried it at one point, and never got beyond the second or third chapter. Apparently I wasn't ready for it, because now I'm just gulping it down! One thing I appreciate about Estes--she doesn't assume heterosexuality! It's a small point, but just as women have felt marginalized when all the pronouns are "he," "his," and "him," so too have I (and my GLBT brothers and sisters) felt marginalized when the assumption is that you are in an opposite-sex relationship. "When, as a woman, you begin a journey like this, you hope your husband will follow you." Assuming you are interested in men, that you are married to one and that you are a woman married to a man...

I've gone through Estes' bibliography and pulled out a few books I want to read. Some of them I don't expect to agree with, others I've meant to read and I hope this will give me the push I need to actually read them! I'm hoping to do this systematically (hah!)...

Allen, Paula Gunn. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions.

Anzaldua, Gloria, and Cherrie Moraga, eds. This Bridge Called My Back.

De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex.

Bolen, Jean Shinoda. Goddesses in Everywoman.

Chicago, Judy. The Dinner Party.

Christ, Carol. Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers in Spiritual Quest.

Craighead, Meinrad. The Mother’s Songs: Images of God the Mother.

Curb, Rosemary, and Nancy Manahan, eds. Lesbian Nuns.

Daly, Mary. Gyn/ecology.

Doniger, Wendy. Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts.

Eisler, Riane. The Chalice and the Blade.

Erdrich, Louise. Love Medicine.

Foucalt, Michel. Madness and Civilization.

____________, History of Sexuality.

Fox, Matthew. Original Blessing.

Goldberg, Natalie. Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within.

Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Writing a Woman’s Life.

Iglehart, Hallie. Womanspirit: A Guide to Women’s Wisdom.

Kolbenschlag, Madonna. Kiss Sleeping Beauty Goodbye: Breaking the Spell of Feminine Myths and Models.

Lorde, Audre. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.

Mead, Margaret. Blackberry Winter.

Miller, Alice. For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Childrearing and the Roots of Violence.

_________, The Drama of the Gifted Child.

Orbach, Susie. Fat is a Feminist Issue.

Rich, Adrienne. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution.

Shange, Ntozake. For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf: a choreopoem.

Sheey, Gail. Passages.

Stone, Merlin. When God Was a Woman.

Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Encyclopaedia of Myths and Secrets.

_____________, The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects.

Now I'm off to the local library's website to check the catalog for any of these.

When I ran the spellcheck on this post, the suggestion for replacing the unfamiliar (to the dictionary) "Everywoman" was "Everyman." However, for "womanspirit" the suggestion was "emancipate!

Joshua and what's important

Another Saturday--and I'm enjoying having the free time! My Saturdays, not surprisingly, are freer than my Sundays. Tomorrow is my last free Sunday for a while--meetings and bingo will take them up from now to Christmas, literally! And I am very tired after a service--a friend says it's from the work of channeling the Holy Spirit. And one of my mentors told me not to plan much for Sundays after service--"maybe a meeting, or a meet and greet, but don't try to have people over or go out to a big party, or go do all you hospital visits." And she was right!

Sometimes I think life is all about priorities--deciding what is important and focusing on that. What's most important to you? Then take care of that. What is next most important? Take care of that after you've taken care of the first one. If you run out of time or energy, then the things lower down the list don't happen. If they're things that need to happen, then you need to look at what's higher on the list and see what can be put to a lower place. There's a balance between taking care of yourself and doing what needs to be done in terms of daily living. It can be very easy to go too far one way or another. I've been there! The result is depression and exhaustion, even from taking too much care of yourself!

That's my sermon this week--what's important in your life? Really important? Not necessarily your work, although a lot of people really find fulfillment there; not only your family or your partner or your hobbies or your favorite TV show or your friends. What is it that matters most to you? I'm not talking about The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People or putting the big rocks in the jar first and fitting the smaller rocks around them--well, maybe the latter, a little bit. But what I'm trying to say in my sermon is that if we know what is important, really important, to us, then we can put the other stuff to one side, and focus on what is central to our lives. We can get rid of the clutter that takes up so much time and energy and psychological space. Joshua asked the Hebrews who they would worship. He was asking them, "what is important to you? What has just happened to you? You were brought out of Egypt, out of slavery. That would be pretty important. And who did that for you? God. Well, is God the most important thing in your life?"

Enough for today--I have a headache and sermon to finish!

Random Fall Thoughts

It's a beautiful fall day here in Ontario--sunshine, cool but not cold, and colorful trees. It's days like this that make me say "I love fall!" Tonight the church is having a Halloween Dance (we always have two dances a year, one at Halloween and one for Valentine's Day). We'll decorate the social hall to a fare-thee-well (lots of pumpkins, corn stalks, black cats, rainbows, etc.). We have a great DJ coming in, and we'll have a silent auction (always popular), and door prizes as well. Also, people's choice awards for best costumes. Yes, I've got a costume--I'm dressing up in a slinky halter evening gown, with heels and evening bag and my diamonds (such as they are), and my rainbow feather boa... Should be quite a sight! No, photos will NOT be posted!

Well, the church has a lead on space to rent. So we have to decide if we want to decide to go with this space or wait. The option may not be open indefinitely, so we have to "make haste slowly." We don't have to move now, we just need to make the decision soon, I think. We have so much else that we're dealing with that anything that can be settled should be settled!

One of those issues is bingo--and I don't mean whether we should be doing them in the first place, that's a whole other discussion! We are. An there are changes coming in the way they are done, procedurally and in how much the charities will get. Hard to say at this point how it will affect us, but I'm sure it will. And then there's the provincial no-smoking regulation, which goes into effect in January, I think. Which addiction will prove stringer, cigarettes or bingo? Will people give up smoking for two hours at a shot and play bingo, or will they go elsewhere where they can smoke (across the border to the bingo halls in the US)?

I have my first free Saturday in a while--no bingo, no weddings, just finishing the sermon and enjoying this evening! How nice!

I do plan on emoting about Scooter Libby and that mess--but later. Sermon first!

Hello Out There in TV Land!

I'm not a TV addict by any means. While I was in seminary I rarely watched TV. I had no time! During the day I was either in class or at work, and in the evenings I was either in class or studying or spending time with my son. TV was one of those things I gave up during seminary, like contact lenses, obedience training my dog and building my garden railroad.

I never was a big TV watcher. In high school I'd watch Emergency!, and my mom, my sister and I had our Sunday evening habit of 60 Minutes and Masterpiece Theater (yeah, the whole family's geeks--and proud of it!). And on one memorable occasion, before the days of stereo TV's, the local PBS station simulcast Bernstein Mass--I stayed up late to watch it. But mostly, it was the movie of the week if it was good, maybe Jeopardy! or the morning news shows when we had a blizzard. Otherwise--meh. I was a reader.

This was true for a very long time. My roommates and I didn't have a TV in our room in the dorm, and my ex-husband and I were married for four months before we got a TV. Then we went overseas where all we had was AFN (since I wasn't fluent in German). It wasn't until my son was about a year old, during Desert Storm/Desert Shield, that I started watching TV regularly. By that time, AFN was showing the morning news shows (at noon in Germany, but still) and Nightline and kids shows in the morning. We had our lineup of Nightline, AFN news, Sesame Street, then at noon the Today Show. Even then, I didn't have to see it every morning.

Shocking secret and possibly TMI--I never had a TV in my bedroom until I got together with DP. She always had, and so we did (we also each brought a TV, so we had one for the bedroom).

Now? It's the Today Show in the morning (rarely all of it; usually part of it in the middle), and then sometimes Dr. Phil or Ellen in the afternoon if I need a break. The news in the evening, with Jeopardy!. After that, I've found myself watching more TV than I want to admit, especially the reality shows... I know they are edited for maximum drama and slanted to make you like or dislike people at the drop of a hat, but still... Amazing Race and Biggest Loser and The Apprentice and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and Three Wishes...but NOT Martha Stewart's Apprentice (that's a whole 'nother rant!). And Thursdays, the congregation knows not to call unless it's an emergency--Will and Grace, The Apprentice, ER... Of course, on Wednesdays there's West Wing and Law and Order.

So what is all this in aid of? I'm wondering if it's a good idea. Perhaps the very fact that I'm wondering means it's not good. I can rationalize it and say I need to keep up with popular culture and what my congregation is interested in, but that's what it is--a rationalization.

I am a reader--I get up early to get reading done. I read during lunch. So why am I so wrapped up in TV?

Is it escapism? It's easier to passively sit and watch TV than read or work (there's always something I could be doing). On the other hand, usually I've escaped by reading.

Is it because DP likes TV? That may be part of it--on the other hand, she's as likely to spend her evening updating her website or baking as she is in front of the TV (except Thursdays, of course!).

Well, I don't have an answer right now. But for sure I'm going to get off the computer and read (until time for West Wing, anyway...).

Just mulling things over...

So what have I been cogitating over the last few days?

The absolute insanity of the Roberts confirmation, the only slightly less insane question of Meiers, my fear for my friends and relations in Florida as Wilma gets bigger and angrier, how much I’m enjoying “Commander in Chief,” the high cost of being social, and the fact that I’ve somehow lost the thread of the whole Plame/Rove thing.

So many scandals, so little time…

One other hand, I read a great article on the whole mess, in which the author points out that scandal in the White House is not new—look at Jack Kennedy, Grant, Harding, Nixon, Lincoln, Cleveland… The question, I think, is what else has been done by the politician in question. Ted Kennedy managed to bounce back after Chappaquiddick, after all. What’s that? What’s Chappaquiddick? Oh, go Google it, child.

It’s hard for us to take a long view—we only live for 80-90 years (less if you’re into Krispy Kreme doughnuts), and so asking us to look forwards or backwards even a century is a lot to ask. This seems even truer of Americans than of, say, the French or Germans, or, heaven forbid, the Italians, who have ruins that are older than God. Americans want everything now, johnbrownit, not in fifty years.

I see this in the GLBT liberation/equality movement as well (yes, I am aware that those are two very different issues; but the reaction is the same, so I’m lumping them together for the moment). Even if you mark the beginning of the movement in the late 1940s, with the returning military and the dispersal from the farms and so on that led to the formation of the “gay ghetto” in many coastal cities (SF, LA, NYC, NO, Chicago, etc.), that’s only 60 years ago. It took 150 years for women to get the vote in the USA, a much more immediately logical idea for the average person. And we’ve come a great way in that time—coming out is painful, and may mean you have to leave your current job, or change employers (especially if that’s Uncle Sam…), but it’s not so usual anymore that you lose children, or access to them. You aren’t automatically slammed into a mental hospital. Granted, depending on your family and where you live, you may be expelled from family and/or church, and I’m not trying to pretend that’s a trivial thing. It’s not. But insane neo-Nazis aside, it’s not a given thing that you will be attacked on the street. Four nations now grant same-sex marriages. Even ten years ago that would have been thought out of the question.

I once had an HIV+ acquaintance tell me he thought that HIV/AIDS had a positive impact on the GLBT community. He wasn’t discounting the terrible toll the disease took—how could he? But he pointed out that the threat of death had done several things:

• It allowed gay men an “excuse” to settle down—many had felt they were ridiculed for wanting commitment and one partner.
• It drew the gay male and lesbian communities closer together, as the women often tended to the men—not because it was their “natural role,” but because they knew and loved these men from working with them on political issues, and many of the men had no families or partners to care for them. (an aside-- at a retreat shortly after I came out, I was thanked, “as a representative of all lesbians” for the care and love women had shown to PLWA (Persons Living With AIDS); I was so stunned I could only stutter a “we only did what was the loving, human thing to do”).
• It made all members of the GLBT community realize how fragile their bonds were with their partners, legally speaking. There are far too many stories of biological family members coming into the home of a dead son or brother and taking literally everything, even those things he had bought with his now grieving partner, let alone things the partner had brought into the relationship, to include the house itself. The exclusion of partners from the grieving, from the funeral, from inheriting what he and his partner had worked so hard to create together—this was so horrifying that it was probably a main impetus behind the same-sex marriage movement. I won’t even go into the denial of benefits to surviving partners from companies, governments, and the military.
• It also sparked an interest in a spiritual life for many GLBT people. In connection with this, I’ll make a partisan statement here that in the early (and not-so-early) days of the AIDS crisis, many pastors of mainstream denominations refused to visit church members with AIDS, even after the routes of transmission had been established. So who did the friends of PLWA call for spiritual support and comfort? MCC pastors, very often. OK, commercial over.
  
  What I’m trying to say is that progress appears slow to us, living at the pace of one human life. But in the longer view, progress has been rapid. We’re not going back into the closet. We’re not going to settle for second-class citizenship. We’re not going to hide anymore. True, many folks still don’t come out. But more and more, the young folk are seeing it as not such a big deal. A friend of mine came out to her son and the response was, “Cool. What’s for dinner?” That cannot be taken away. It may be difficult to see how far we’ve come, when we still have so far to go, but we have travelled far enough down this road, we are never going back.

Delegating and renting

Wow, more than a week since I've posted! I worked for seven days in a row--is that a good enough reason?

Remember all that stuff I had to do? Well, it all got done, some of it better than others... Had a great time with the one wedding that happened this weekend (the other was postponed--the paperwork didn't come back in time). The sermon went very well Sunday, which is always a good sign. And I tried to take Monday off, but ended up planning worship for the next few weeks!

I do my worship planning differently now--here's why. I was exhausted most of August, and couldn't figure out why, until I thought about how much I was doing. So one Sunday afternoon after church I sat down and wrote down everything I did for the church. Then I sorted them out into things I had to do per my contract, the ones I felt I should do as pastor, the ones that could be delegated and the ones I had to delegate. And then I delegated! I also looked at where I could get more help, such as organizing weddings and creating worship. I got together a worship committee, and I'm already seeing a difference!

The next challenge for our congregation is going to be finding a place to worship. The church where we meet has decided to move to a smaller building, so we have to move as well! They would be delighted for us to move with them, so we have that option. But we're planning to look around and see what else is available. Which means more meetings and visits.

I really would like to see us in our own space. I like the pastor of the congregation we rent from--he's supportive and funny and generous and an all-around great colleague. But there's something about having your own space--where you don't have to take down the altar decorations every week, or bring them out, for that matter. Where you're the ones in charge, and can change things as much as you like without having to change them back. Where the worship space reflects your congregation's personality. Leasing space in another congregation's building is like renting a room for your weekly family dinner--every week.

The truth is, however, finances won't let us do anything else at this point. So we'll find something and make do. This congregation has survived for almost twenty years, sometimes renting, sometimes in our own space. We'll hang in there!

We're Back!

What a wonderful week! The weather wasn't all we could have wished for, but that's the risk you take this time of year. We slept late (easy to do when there's no morning traffic, no street lights, and you're deep in the woods with lots of tree canopy overhead). We browsed in the art galleries and shops (pottery, painting, glass); had a couple of good dinners out; wandered along the marina, ogling all the fancy boats; and we lounged all of Sunday afternoon on the deck, drinking blueberry wine and reading the big newspapers (New York Times and Chicago Trib)--I even did the NYT crossword (not completely...)! I haven't had a chance to do that in years!

One of the highlights was a canoe trip down the river. It was a perfect day, warm enough that you wanted to be outside doing something, but not so warm that you were uncomfortable. The sky was completely blue, a beautiful shade of deep royal blue, and some of the trees on the shore were beginning to change color. We saw lots of great blue herons, an osprey, and some bald eagles. The couple who were kayaking (while we canoed) were just ahead of us, and they saw deer, which of course took off by the time we got around the bend! But there were lots of turtles, and blue jays, and woodpeckers, too. What a wonderful time we had! I'll try to post some of DP's photos, once they're developed.

We came back and were plunged right back into it! However, there are some changes going on at the church, so there's a lot going on with that. It's certainly keeping me busy this week--a fundraiser, two weddings this coming weekend, as well as a Blessing of the Animals, a lunch appointment and a breakfast meeting, the discussion group (not to mention preparation for all this...) and of course, the service next Sunday! The thing is, it's all good stuff, so that at least if I'm busy, I'm enjoying what I'm doing. It's reinforced for me that I am not ready to leave here and I do not plan to do so anytime soon.

On another topic...The dog is getting old. Being away from him for a week really brought it home to me, the fact of his aging. He's ten now, and starting to fade a bit. We're having to put him in his crate at night, or else he wanders around the house and makes messes. He sleeps with his back against the chair or couch, and upstairs in the study, with his head in the corner. We think it's so he knows where he is by feel--his eyesight is going. We take him out at night by the front door, instead of letting him into the back yard, because the back steps are steep and uneven.

He and I have come a long way together. I got him with a unexpectedly large birthday check from my father. I researched different breeds and settled on the Pembroke Welsh Corgi--fun, not too big, easy to train, healthy. He's been a joy! He has a sense of humour, I swear it. I was the one who fed him, who took him out in the middle of the night when he was a puppy, I walked him in sleet and rain and heat. I took him to the herding instinct test, and to obedience classes. I thought about training him in obedience or agility--and then seminary happened... He was there through the divorce, and came with me when I moved in with DP, whom he thinks of as Momma. He traveled with us to Canada (the only hotel we could find at 11 pm in a rainstorm had a no-pet policy, so we took a room way on the end and snuck him in and out, along with the cats). He's made new friends here, and is happy. Except for his eyesight, he's healthy--good weight, breathing OK, and so on. Long may he last!