Up and down...

Much has happened, some of it unbloggable, some important at the time and minor now, some of it providing fodder for thought, some to celebrate…a mixed bag.

I’ve been gifted with a trip to Capital City of Capital Cities, to visit friends and TO. Rejoice, again I say, rejoice! I will have a week to do little but visit loved ones, catch up on their lives and catch them up on mine, spend time with a couple of emerging friendships, and relax. Praises for friends and a capable Board (which allows me to be out of town for a week and over a Sunday without heartburn)!

I have also been gifted (or will be) with the means to take care of some debts. These have been eating at me, and from time to time keeping me from full focus on ministry. This gift, totally unexpected and completely selfless on the part of the giver, will free me from some mundane worries. Praises again!

And one more gift—a friend is sharing her cottage with me for day tomorrow. I hadn’t realized how much I needed a day completely off until she made the offer and it sounded like heaven—eight hours away from phones, cell phones, and yes, even my computer. Because the truth is, if I’m around any of those, I feel like there’s something I should be doing.

We all know how ministry is—there’s always something we can/should be doing. “Is the sermon written and the service ready for this Sunday (HAH!)? Then what about a start on next Sunday, just in case there’s a crisis? And besides, it will let me be more creative, work harder on the sermon. Or what about updating those PowerPoint backgrounds? I’ve been meaning to do that. Of course, I haven’t finished the pastor’s report for the month…the liturgy for Pride Sunday…the readings for the next couple of months…” You know that conversation with yourself, if you’re a pastor, you’ve probably had it or one like it.

Strong Heart, in searching for a new apartment, made sure to get one with two bedrooms—she wants a study with a door she can close. Wise woman, as I have said many times… It would probably help my sanity to move my laptop back up to the study instead of leaving it in the dining room, too…

Anyway, there is much that is good in my life right now. Celebrate!

There are two sadnesses. One is minor, and one is larger, but together they pushed me to think about what is really important in my life.

My mother’s brother, the one just younger than her, is terminally ill with cancer. He will be the first loss among the eight siblings, and she is having difficulty with this. It doesn’t help that her late husband (my step-father) died as a result of the same kind of cancer, and at about this time of year. I am concerned for my mother—I don’t know my uncle well, we were closer to others of my uncles growing up, so of course I am concerned for my cousins, but more so for my mother. This is the larger sorrow.

The minor one… Last summer, Strong Heart and I set up a “bistro’ on the front porch—little table, a couple of chairs, a nice BBQ grill. We used it often. She’d have dinner finishing up on the grill for me when I got back from Sister City; we’d have coffee out there in the mornings; or beer and conversations with the denizens of the Little Yellow House. This summer, the Professor, who now works (and soon will live!) down the street, has stopped by for a beer and conversation a few times. We sat at the table and talked about the joys and worries and frustrations and hopes we had. I would grill for myself and eat in the sunshine, reading a good book.

All that is over… Someone came along with bolt cutters and took the table and chairs.

They weren’t that fancy—nice, to be sure, and comfortable and good-looking. As Strong Heart says, clearly we have taste! But there’s no real value to them—they can’t be resold as a bicycle or car or computer could. I’m more upset by the symbolic loss than the actual loss. If I really want a table, I can go get another one. But that one…that had memories attached to it—of Strong Heart and I, of friends gathered in laughter, of good books, of rest at the end of a long day. It’s not the monetary value, it’s the heart value.

My prayer (arrived at after some heartburn and sorrow, lest you think me a plaster saint) is that those who took the table and chairs enjoy them as much as my friends and I did.

Well, onward and upward, my friends. I’m off to the cottage tomorrow!

Is It Fall Yet?

RevGalBlogPals Friday Five, courtesy of Reverendmother, in honour of the US/Canadian Labour Day weekend, traditional end of the summer.

A highlight of the summer....

Can I say the whole month of July? It started with ten days of my denomination’s General Conference. The term comes from the Methodist church, which also calls meetings conferences. In the early days of the circuit riding pastors, largely isolated from each other except for conferences, there were some clergy who felt Conference should be considered a sacrament. When I was a United Methodist, I didn’t quite understand, as UM conferences have become more business-like and less sacramental. But now that I too am the one and only representative of my denomination in my fair city, I understand much better the value of these meetings—the sacrament of presence with each other. And I personally am spoiled—with 7 MCC churches within three hours’ drive in various directions, I am in a rare position among MCC clergy. So this gathering, once every three years, of clergy (retired, active, in non-church positions), laity, gifted speakers and preachers and musicians and artists of all kinds…inspired and inspiring worship—it just doesn’t get much better. To see friends I haven’t seen in a couple of years and pick up where we left off…to see friends I email with every week, or have lunch with once a month…to meet new friends…well. Conference is indeed a sacrament, if we take the traditional meaning of sacrament as a “means of grace.”

The second part of July saw me up to my eyebrows in Pride. Here in River City, we celebrate Pride for a whole week, more or less. This year we began with a gay-themed play about marriage, written by a young man I am proud to know; opening night we had two same-sex weddings, as that day also happened to be the third anniversary of the passage of Bill C-38, legalizing equal marriage here in Canada. Then we had the raising of the Pride flag in front of City Hall (in place of the city flag), where it flies all during Pride. Then there was a Night of Remembrance of our losses; a bowling night, a (cancelled) art show, a film festival featuring a movie that was recently on the cover of the Advocate (often called the GLBT Time). Then Saturday came, with Brit Boy’s dance set to be sorted and then enjoyed beyond belief; setting up the church’s booth; and the church’s food booth (Texas-style pulled beef and pulled pork sandwiches—thought I’d died and gone to heaven!). And then the rest of the entertainment that I, as surviving co-vice-chair of the organizing committee, just had to stay for (of course I did). Sunday was our worship service, with a visiting singer—and I was treated to a private concert on the way down to the venue as she warmed up. Then a mad dash to the parade marshalling site (with a clothes change en route) for the ride in a convertible. I felt like a homecoming queen! Then back to the venue for booth staffing and visits with friends. Monday was a concert with the singer. Tuesday I collapsed.

Two sets of ten intense days…That was July 2007.

RP as Homecoming Queen...in purple!

Are you glad to see this summer end? Why or why not?
Yes, in a way. The weather’s been mild, it’s been exciting and overall good, but all the same, I could do with a bit more routine and less excitement!

Name one or two things you're looking forward to this fall.
Well, as part of my chill-out campaign (see the entry for Thursday the 30^th), I’m planning to be more involved with a community theatre group. I’m starting with ushering in a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to being part of a theatre scene again (in however minor a way) as well as meeting new people.

Also, one of our MPs is coming to speak on the Transgender Day of Remembrance in November. He is one of the co-sponsors of a bill to include trans rights in the Bill of Human Rights. He’s been a huge supporter of GLBT rights, at some personal cost. He’s a warm and delightful man.

Do you have any special preparations or activities to mark the transition from one season to another? (Cleaning of house, putting away summer clothes, one last trip to the beach)

Hmm. Well I like to put a pot of mums out on the porch. The porch furniture (well the two chairs) come in only with the first frost. I always have ambitions of deep-cleaning the house in the fall but it’s tricky. Sometimes it happens.

'll know that fall is really here when I can take the air conditioning units out of the windows!