For Lent

A white post will only continue to be a white post
if it is painted every year;
otherwise it would become a black post.
Our lives are like that.
We need to share in an annual retraining period.
Otherwise our souls become tarnished,
our prayers mere words, our service selfish,
and our giving trivial.
Lent is a time fo renewal, of retraining,
of relearning

~G. K. Chesterton

Friday Five~Fork in the road

If you read the snippet from the Robert Frost poem in my header, you'll know that this is a theme I've thought about before. Here are 5 "fork in the road events" from my life. Some of my forks are more literal than others...

1. I dated the same guy all through junior and senior years in high school. We were in love, and me being an introvert, I focused all my energy on him. Plus things at home were a mes, so being with him was a relief from that. When we graduated he went off to the Navy and I stayed behind, living at home and attending the local college because I couldn't afford to go away. For the first six months I was MISERABLE. All my high school friends were off at college except one, and she got married. Since I wasn't living on campus it was hard to feel involved at school. Then things shifted. I got a job at the public library. I made some friends. I realized how much I loved school. I could cope. But suddenly HE was unhappy. After boot camp he wasn't so busy and he was lonely. So he decided that we should get married right away (we were all of 18). So here's the fork in the road--get married or stay in school and wait? You all know which decision I made, and I have to say that I didn't hesitate very long. But I've often wondered how my life would've been different if I had not married so young. If I'd done my painful finally-growing-up before I had kids instead of after, if I'd found a career then instead of 12 years later....well, it's immaterial now, but I've wondered. (Note to offspring who read this blog: I DO NOT regret getting you as a result of this decision!)

2. When we moved to SC we had two small children and I wanted to bring them up in church. So I determined to make a list of all the Episcopal churches in the ares and visit each one of them to find the best fit (and there were lots to choose from). Before I got very far in my list making, I went one day to the air force base to buy groceries, and coming home, I got lost. I knew I had missed a turn but I was going down this long, straight road with nowhere to turn around, so I just kept going. After what felt like miles and miles (it really wasn't) I came to a neighborhood and I turned in to turn around. When I was ready to pull back onto the main road I saw a sign in front of me that said, "Future Home of St. Somebody's Episcopal Church" with contact information which I quickly jotted down. I called the number when I got home and met a very friendly person who invited us to come to the high school where, as a new church plant, they were meeting. We did and we loved it, and we never looked back. So taking this very literal fork in the road turned out to have a huge impact on my life. It was in this church that I found my adult faith, and the first inklings of what led me to where I am now. It was here that I met my best friend for years, and it was here that I found a community that loved and supported me when I went through some major life changes.

3. When I went back to college 12 years after graduating from high school, I thought I would become a kindergarten teacher. I loved kids, I had worked in a preschool, and I knew that I would be able to get a job. So I enrolled in early ed class along with my core requirements, and off I went. The only problem was that I loved my theoretical classes so much more than my applied classes. Methods and materials? Yeah I could do it, but I began to wonder how it would go for the long haul. And I did really well in all my classes, and some of my profs began to ask me if I'd ever thought about going to grad school. Yikes. At this point I was a single mom with three kids under 10. And I needed a job. How could I even consider such a thing? But over the next year or so, things began to fall into place, and I began to see how it might happen--and it did! Maybe I would've been a good kindergarten teacher if it hadn't worked out the way it did, but my life would've been much different.

4. In a way, this is a repeat of #2. When we moved to Vermont we hadn't been going to church for a while (a whole 'nother long story) and I realized I wanted the Kid to have that experience. And NSLS was a bit interested, too. I dragged my feet for a long while, again thinking to check out several local churches. Finally one year on Christmas Eve I decided I really, really wanted to go to church, so we went off to the closest church. It was a lovely service, and the priest had a very intriguing southern accent. It took me another six months to go back, and when I did that priest wasn't there (turns out he was on vacation) but there was a lovely young woman priest--the first time I'd ever met a woman priest, even though women had been ordained for a while. She preached a powerful sermon that was just what I needed to hear. The next week the priest with the southern accent was back and he preached a powerful sermon that was just what I needed to hear. Any thoughts of checking out another church left, and I became a regular church geek again....and see where that led me?

5. This one is probably obvious if you've been following the story :) After a while I got this nagging sense that I was supposed to do something different with my life, that coming back to church was pointing me to something else. Was I called to be a priest? Really? And would that call be affirmed by my community? And did I really want to give up my newly earned tenure at a place I really like? Well, yes, and yes, and yes, so it seems.

I am, as some of you know, at a fork in the road right now, and I know not where it will lead. Lately I've been praying this prayer from Thomas Merton:

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

- Thomas Merton, "Thoughts in Solitude"

It's the second day of Lent

and I'm already failing at one part of my Lenten discipline--which was to get to bed earlier. It sounds so easy, but it is really hard for me to change my habits. I've been working really long days this week, what with Shrove Tuesday dinners and Ash Wednesday services and Lenten programs to lead on top of all the usual stuff. Tonight I came home about 6:30 (having been at work since 7:30 am) and of course there was no dinner so we went to Paner@.

When we came home I got into my jammies, read an article on stewardship and then finally opened my laptop and immediately dozed off--not an unusual pattern. And really 8:30 is too early to go to bed, even if I am tired enough to doze off. Of course, when I woke up, I still wanted to do a bit of sermon prep and to read blogs and check FB and so forth because I haven't had any computer time all day. So now it's almost 11:30 and I'm still up. And last night was exactly the same story.

I know I could skip the blogging and the FB, but it's the only "me time" I get all day and I feel like I need that, too. I'm going to have to revisit my whole daily schedule...but short of being magically given a few extra hours each day, I don't know how much change there will be.

Remember that you are dust

Seven years ago this time, my dad was dying of lung cancer. Ash Wednesday that year hit me hard, hearing those words, "Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return." A week or so later I went to New York City for "prospective student" days at the seminary, and went with a group to Ground Zero. This was just five months after 9/11, and they were still working on excavating the site. When we went to St. Paul's, where the workers went for respite, we were given a card they'd given out on Ash Wednesday with a picture of the old cemetery literally buried in ashes. And it hit me hard again. "Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return."

Today I officiated at two Ash Wednesday services. At the first, the congregation was mostly older people--70s, 80s, and 90s. Their skin is soft, papery, fragile. There are age spots and wrinkles. It feels holy to make the sooty mark on the foreheads and murmur the words, "Remember that you are dust...." knowing that the words carry a certain weight of immediacy. And yet there is still so much life.

This afternoon I led a children's liturgy. Many of the children were at last night's dinner when we burned the palms to make the ashes, and they arrived today curious and open. We talked about the ashes and how they helped us remember that we are part of God's creation. We talked about how the ashes are signs of how sorry we are for doing things that are wrong, and about how important it is to say that we're sorry--to God and to other people.

And then I made that sooty mark on the foreheads of these children. Children whose skin is fresh and soft and new, unmarked by time, unmarked by worry. "Remember that you are dust nd to dust you will return." Yes, even the little children.

It is a holy thing we do this day. Remember that you are dust...

Happy Mardi Gras!

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone. We had a "delectable dishes and decadent desserts" potluck, put away the alleluias, and burned palms to make ashes for tomorrow, Ash Wednesday. So it's on to Lent.

Part of my Lenten discipline is to go to bed earlier....which will be a challenge. Didn't make it tonight...again.

MDGs and women's health

In the Episcopal Church, helping to achieve the Millennium Development Goals has been a mission strategy for the last few years. One of these goals is to improve maternal health. This article from the NYTimes points out how very much work needs to be done in this area.

Reading about these women, many of them just barely out of childhood tugged at my heartstrings. How much I take for granted!

Happy George Washington's Birthday!

~I'm old enough to remember the time before we had "President's Day" and celebrated Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays on their actual days. And inevitably, on February 22 we'd have cherry pie in the school cafeteria--not a bad deal, actually.

~When the Kid went to the inauguration last month, Mount Vernon was one of the places his group visited, and he brought home some literature about it. I've never been there, but in the fifth grade I had the dubious pleasure of building a model of the house (mine was okay, made out of poster board, but couldn't compare with my classmates', especially the ones whose fathers had woodshops.) I was interested to see the layout of the whole place, which is more similar to Monticello, Jefferson's home which I have visited, than I had known.

~I lived in Virginia for a few years when I was growing up, and studied Virginia history in the 7th grade (and won the DAR Virginia History Prize that year, too). So I was steeped in the lore of Virginia's sons--Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Patrick Henry, and the like. But the history I learned was so shaped by "great person" historiography and so blind to anything that deviated from the superiority of white European males that by today's standards it was woefully lacking. The Kid's history classes seem to have both more depth and more breadth in terms of perspective. If I had the time and energy, taking a few history classes might be fun. I'm not saying that all those great men weren't great, just that they weren't the whole story.

~When I was a new reader I devoured a series of children's biographies of famous Americans--they told the stories of their childhoods, and I'm sure that they were largely fiction. But one thing I loved about them (without realizing it at the time I think) is that they told the girls' stories as well as the boys--Abigail Adams, Martha Washington, Molly Pitcher, Dolly Madison. We never heard much about these women once we got into history textbooks. So it's nice to hear more about Martha Washington these days. Sounds like she was an interesting woman.

~If I had thought about it in advance, I might have had cherry pie today. Funny, you don't even see it in the stores to mark the day anymore.

BBC book meme

Seen all over the blogosphere...

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read.
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
(my addition - by the ones I detested)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X+
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X+
6 The Bible X+
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X -
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - X -
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell X+
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia X
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis X
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini X
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne X
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving*
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - X
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley X
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez X
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens X
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker X
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery X (in French!)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams X
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare -
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (but I saw it on Broadway...guess that doesn't count)

I've read 32--not great but better than the BBC expected...I always wonder what criteria they use in making lists like these. It is true that I haven't read a lot of books that I'm "supposed" to have read. Some of the admissions are a bit embarrassing....like I've never read any Jane Austen. But I've also read lots of stuff that's not on here.

Friday Five~Taking a break edition

Here as in much of New England, it's February School Break (aka winter break as opposed to spring break which comes in April). I've never taken February break off--when I was teaching the Kid's break never coincided with mine, and now it's just not a good time to be off. But in the spirit of breaks, here's how I would spend:

1. a 15 minute break

~Maybe walk down to the coffee shop and grab a latte, or check FB, or just stretch and relax for a few minutes, depending on what I'd been doing

2. an afternoon off

~Take a nap, read a good book, or go out and take some pictures (an activity I've neglected of late.)

3. an unexpected free day

~More of the above. Or if I were feeling more adventurous, take a drive to one of the many beaches in my area and then take myself out to lunch. Or just curl up all day with a good novel.

4. a week's vacation

~One of my three favorite places--Vermont with family or some time in NYC, or in Maine. Or extravagantly , rent a beach house somewhere and invite all my family and friends.

5. a sabbatical

~Perhaps England and Scotland. Perhaps Iceland. And perhaps (revealing my true geeky self) I'd really enjoy a sabbatical holed up at a seminary somewhere taking a couple of classes.

Random bits of I'm-so-glad-tomorrow-is-Friday

~It's been a long week, but yesterday and today were especially long days--12+ hours in the office yesterday, and 11+ today. But fortunately they were not high stress days, and today was remarkably productive.

~The crisis from last week is not yet resolved, but it's funny how you kind of settle into an uneasy new normality. At least for me (and this is a good thing, I think) I can only stay in freak-out mode for so long and then I have to figure out how to move on. So I'm in this weird kind of "let me just do my job and not worry about next week/next month/six months from now" place right now.

~But I'm exhausted. Really tired. And fighting off a migraine. So I'm looking forward to a day off tomorrow that doesn't involve doing much. I have to work on Saturday, so I plan to take full advantage of tomorrow.

~Meanwhile we continue in the weird weather pattern we've been having all winter in which it snows, then rains, then freezes, then thaws then starts all over--and this week, all in the same day!

~But I saw a red winged black bird yesterday--one of the earliest signs that spring may really come. And a couple of grackles were back at the feeder. I could really do without the grackles, however.

~Lent begins next week. I'm seriously considering giving myself an early bedtime as part of my Lenten discipline. Just to break this bad habit I have of staying up too late no matter how tired I am.

~And on that note, if I hit publish right now (11:02 pm) and then actually close the computer, I can be in bed well before midnight. Think I can do it?

Dear bloggy friends

I know that I don't have to say this for most of you, but I am going to say it anyway. If you know me on FB PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't refer to my unhappiness and issues I've been referring to here. This is my LAST safe place, and I don't want to lose it, nor raise issues with RL people on FB.

Thanks!!!!!

Yeah, me too

well, except I haven't started twittering yet...but maybe I should.

What I did on my day off

~Slept in

~Did my taxes--in just under an hour--how I do love turb0taxdotcom!

~Started the Kid's FAFSA

~Went to the movies--Slumdog Millionaire--great movie

~Bought a few groceries

~Worked on leaflet for Lent--it should be finished, but some of the work chaos has affected this

~Wrote and mailed few 'thank-you' notes

~Put netflix back in the mail (these last two might seem piddling, but I am AWFUL at actually getting things in snail mail)

The last week

~This last week has been utterly exhausting. Suffice it it say that at the end of a long week I continue to feel manipulated and jerked around and betrayed. And events continue to unfold--less directly related to me but still having bearing on my life.

~But I have also been incredibly supported and cared for this week--by all of your kind comments, by calls from family and friends, and by a mentor who has done everything possible both to help me remain sane and to navigate these rough waters successfully, not just surviving but coming out in a good place.

~The other day Cheesehead wrote about learning to look out for the bears hiding in the woods instead of being surprised by them. That is a very apt metaphor for me, too, because was I ever surprised by the bears that got me this week. And then the fact that I was surprised was held against me, too.

~And now I am going to bed. Before midnight, for a change.

Happy V Day--global warming edition

More diversion--High school meme

1. Did you date someone from your school?
~Yes

2. Did you marry someone from your high school?
~ 'fraid so

3. Did you car pool to school?
~Boyfriend drove me most of the time, or I had to take the bus

4. What kind of car did you have?
~Didn't have my own car. When I got to drive it was usually our old Corvair. Every once in a while I got drive my dad's Olds Cutlass.

5. What kind of car do you have now?
~99 red New Beetle

6. It's Friday night....What would you do now?
~Read blogs, work on my sermon, watch a movie

7. It is Friday night...where were you then?
~Football game, or the movies

8. What kind of job did you have in high school?
~Waitress, babysitter

9. What kind of job do you do now?
~Priest, assistant rector of medium size Episcopal Church

10. Were you a party animal?
~Nope

11. Were you considered a flirt?
~Not so much.

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
~No, but I was on the newspaper staff.

13. Were you a nerd?
~Maybe a little

14. Did you get suspended or expelled?
~Moi? Never!

15. Can you sing the fight song? "
~um, no

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher?
~Mr. Cassidy, World History, Mrs. Jackson, the English teacher I had first quarter of senior year (until she got promoted to administration), Mr. Dragwa, advanced biology

17. Where did you sit during lunch?
~With a group of girls from my lunch period class (ask me what I ate--hot dog and apple pie--every day--ugh.)

18. What was your school's full name?
~Wicomico Senior High

19. When did you graduate?
~1971

20. If you could go back and do it again, would you?
~Only if I could change some things.

21. Did you have fun at Prom?
~Yes.

22. Do you still talk to the person you went to Prom?
~That would be TFoMC, and no, not so much.

23. Are you planning on going to your next reunion?
~I've never been to a class reunion, so yes, I would like to go.

24. Do you still talk to people from school?
~Not a single one. And I can't find any of my hs friends on FB.

25. What are/were your school's colors?
~Blue and gold

Productive day

~Thanks, everyone, for your prayers and good thoughts.

~Sermon is written, piles of laundry (mostly) done, some errands run, and most important, not concentrating on the bad stuff.

~Still a lot to get through this weekend. More about that later.

So I need your help

~Today was a rough day. I had a long meeting with my mentor who met yesterday with those who are the source of this difficult time. I didn't get a lot of work done.

~I really need to be on top of my game for the next few days. I really really need to. And I feel like I've had all the life sucked right out of me. I gave up trying to work tonight, and I'm going to try to get a good night's sleep and hit the ground running tomorrow.

~So if you are a praying person, I would really appreciate your prayers for me to get my act together. And if you re not, good thoughts would be appreciated, too. TIA.

I'm trying

~to concentrate on the sermon I need to write.

~to look forward to WW's unexpected visit home from Nepal--she arrives in VT tomorrow!

~to be grateful for the people who care for me and support me when things are rough.

~to remember that there are lots of good things in my life.

Time for some diversion here

Where were you when: (as seen at profgrrrrl's)

1. Challenger space shuttle exploded (1986):

~In the snack bar at undergrad school having lunch. I'd just called home to check on Elder Son who was home sick and returned to see it blow up. Awful.

2. Berlin Wall falls down (1989):

~I was in grad school, and I have only vague memories of this.

3. Oklahoma City federal building bombing (1995):

~This was in the spring, right? I was in my first year in my tt job...and that's about all I remember.

4. OJ Verdict (1995):

~Teaching. I remember going to class and that's all the students could talk about.

5. Princess Diana dies (1997):

~I walked out to get the newspaper Sunday morning--it was a bright and beautiful morning--and saw the headline. I was sad, but didn't get caught up in the mania like a few people I knew at the time.

6. Columbine massacre (1999):

~Teaching again, but I don't remember how I heard about it. I do remember going to the high school to pick up NSLS and listening to NPR with growing horror as the details came out.

7. JFK Jr. Plane crash (1999):

~Home in Vermont...that's about all I can remember. Once again, I was sad but not caught up in it.

8. Bush/Gore crazy election (2000):

~Still teaching in Vermont. I remember the days going by and wondering HOW LONG it could drag out, and being really depressed by all of it.

9. September 11, (2001):

~In a department meeting--someone came in and said he'd just heard that a plane hit the Twin Towers. We just assumed it was a small plane and a tragic accident. When the meeting was over, I went and checked email and found out about the second plane. We quickly gathered in an empty classroom across from our dept. offices and turned on the TV to see the first tower fall. I had a 10:00 class but it became readily apparent that the kids were too stunned and worried about family and friends to concentrate, so we watched more news coverage. And later classes were canceled for the day.

The Kid was fifth grade at the time, and when I went to pick him up at his afterschool program I was a bit surprised that he hadn't heard what had happened. I still am not sure if the school should've told the kids. I just know when I was a kid, news like that would've been announced over the intercom.

10. Space ship Columbia disintegrates (2003):

~It was a Saturday morning during my first year in seminary, and I was listening to NPR.

11. Hurricane Katrina hits (2005):

~I had just moved here about six weeks earlier. Because I have friends and family in the south, I generally follow hurricane reports, and I remember the long approach of the storm, and the horrendous aftermath.

12. A couple of bonuses for us old folks:

John Kennedy's assassination November 22, 1963

~I was in the fifth grade; all the fifth graders were together to practice Christmas carols (we went to sing at a nursing home) when one of the sixth grade teacher came to the door and called my teacher out. She came in looking very grave and told us that the president had been shot. We went back to our classroom and turned on the radio and heard that he had died. It was also the day of my best friend's birthday party, and the day that I had pizza for the first time ever.

MLK's assassination April 1968

~I was in the ninth grade. I don't remember where I was when I heard, but there was a lot of turmoil where I lived and the National Guard was called up. I wasn't frightened, it just seemed surreal. And very, very sad.

RFK's assassination June 1968

~End of ninth grade; I think it might have been the last day of school. After MLK's assassination I had started paying more attention to politics and was really rooting for RFK to get the Democratic nomination. I was just stunned when he was killed. The combination of those two deaths that year I think was a really traumatic thing for kids my age. That was the end of hope, really, and it wasn't until Obama came along that hope seemed to return in any great sense.

Nightmare

~At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, it feels like I am living in a nightmare--one involving betrayal, breaking of promises and lots of uncertainty in my future. One that is not of my making or of my choosing. I wish I could tell you the whole story, and maybe the day will come when I can, maybe not.

~I wish I could think of something else to write about, but right now, I just can't.

One more time

I think I posted a few months ago about being surprised at work when I thought I couldn't be surprised anymore...and it wasn't a happy surprise. Well, it happened again today. And it was worse.

It has been a hellacious day, and this bit of unpleasantness isn't over yet. And I don't think there will be a happy ending.

Sigh.

A novel day

I'm not preaching this weekend, nor leading any classes, nor running any programs--there is nothing I had to prepare for tomorrow, which meant that I had a completely free Saturday--something that happens infrequently these days. I hadn't made any plans for today--there are lots of work-related things I had considered--but what I ended up doing was sleeping late, getting up and making a big pot of oatmeal, and spending most of the day reading a novel (John Grisham's latest, and yeah, I know it's like eating junk food, but whatever). And it was a lovely day.

Which makes me wish I did this more often. And did it without feeling guilty about what I 'ought' to be doing. Perhaps that is something I should work on.

Friday Five~Raindrops on roses...

~and and whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things:
















~my furry slippers--I put them on every day as soon as I get home

























~wine and candlelight
























~diet lime coke
















~the birds in my yard, especially the orioles and woodpeckers


















~Baby J

25 random things about me...

I must be the last person left to do this (on FB or in the blogosphere), and I've been tagged a couple of times, but anyway...you know the rules already, and if you haven't done it, consider yourself tagged!

1. I've lived in 20 houses in 10 states and 2 countries, and I've never lived anywhere longer than 8 years.

2. I've spent 28 years going to school.

3. I'd go to school more if I could afford it.

4. I'm a vegetarian, but I occasionally cheat to eat bacon.

5. I'm afraid of flying... really, really afraid. I haven't been on a place in about 10 years.

6. Politically, I'm left of liberal. Far left.

7. I have a piece of pencil lead stuck in my arm from the time when my younger brother stabbed me with a pencil when I was in 2nd grade.

8. I was often told I couldn't draw or sing when I was growing up. Now I doodle all the time, but I still can't sing.

9. But I'm thinking about taking voice lessons.

10. I used to play the guitar (badly) and I still have my classical guitar from high school.

11. I love taking pictures, and I indulged myself with a good camera about a year and a half ago.

12. I have the world's cutest granddaughter, but I don't get to see her often enough.

13. I am the black sheep in my family to a certain extent.

14. I love to read.

15. And I love chocolate

16. I've studied Latin, Greek, French and Spanish. I'm not great at any of them, but I like Greek the best.

17. I often stay up too late for no good reason.

18. New York City and Burlington VT are my two favorite cities, and I wish I lived in one of them.

19. I love coffee but I only drink decaf. And I am really glad to finally have a coffee shop where I live.

20. I am addicted to diet lime coke.

21. I like grits and okra and other great southern food.

22. I often confound people when I used "wicked" and "y'all" in the same sentence.

23. I love FB and the internets--they let an introvert like me keep up with lots of friends.

24. I'm thinking about getting a dog. Or a cat. Or both.

25. I once ran 7 1/2 miles...now I don't think I could run 7 1/2 yards. I should work on that.

Angel in my window

Random bits of Tuesday

~It has snowed all day. It was really quite lovely, and peaceful. Given our weather patterns this winter, who knows what tomorrow will bring!

~I thought that it would be quiet in the office this morning becasue of the snow, but in reality, it was kind of nuts the first couple of hours I was there.

~One thing I learned in Sunday's excitement is that you have to pay attention to the CO alarm even when it chirps intermittently. Seriously, I thought that if CO were approaching dangerous levels that alarm would have been screaming (so to speak) but apparently that only happens when the CO levels are high enough that even brief exposure will be life threatening (and thankfully, we weren't close to being there!) Unlike a smoke detector which is either sounding or not, a CO dectector (at least the kind we have) responds with increasing levels of intensity as CO levels rise.

~Upshot of Sunday--new furnace to the tune of big bucks. We knew it was coming but hoped to wait until warm weather. No such luck.

~On a more global level, what is it about people not paying their taxes? Sheesh. Here is a good analysis of whether such an offense should bar one from serving in public office, something I have mixed feelings about. Downside of Dacschle withdrawing--he would've been a good advocate for health care reform.

~And on the subject of paying taxes and holding office, this report about the way New York's governor spread rumors (lies?) about Caroline Kennedy's (suppposed) tax woes when she withdrew as a candidate for Hilary Clinton's Senate seat is distressing--part of what makes politics distasteful to me.

~But isn't it refreshing to have a president who is willing to say he screwed up?

More things I don't understand

~why my day off always goes by sooooo fast

~how the squirrels managed to get over the doubled up raccoon and squirrel baffle on the feeder today--the one that has stumped them for the last six months

~why gas prices change so precipitously (I know I said that the other day, but this weekend--went from $1.81 to $1.79 to $1.86 to $1.89 in a 36 hour period)

~why it should be 51 today and snow tomorrow (okay, I'm sure there is a logical meteorological explanation, but still...)

~why a single mother who already has six kids would try to have more, and even worse, submit to/seek a procedure that resulted in such a high order multiple birth (and why a doctor would go along with it--lots of things I don't understand about this one)

~and how said mother could possibly take care of those now 14 children--that's the saddest part

A little excitement to start the day

This was my preaching weekend--on those weekends I get to church early and do the 8:00 service solo, and then the rector and I do the 10:00 service together--he celebrates and I preach. As I usually do, I arrived at church at 7:15 to unlock and make sure everything was ready, but when I walked into the Parish Hall I heard a distinct chirping, not constant but a couple of chirps then a delay and then more.

I've heard this sound before--on Thursday when I arrived for the Eucharist-and-breakfast group that same chirping was going. A little investigation revealed that it was the carbon monoxide detector in the undercroft, near the furnace. Because the chirps were intermittent we figured it was likely just weak batteries, and sure enough, when the maintenance guy changed them, the chirping stopped.

So this morning when I heard the chirps I knew where to look, but was less sure what to do. I thought that if there really was a problem the alarm would be louder and more constant. But I knew it couldn't be the batteries again. So I pushed the reset button just to see what would happen...and the chirps got closer together. Crap. So after checking things out upstairs I called the maintenance guy, and he said, "Call the fire department," which I did.

In the meantime, the boss arrived to set up for an event scheduled for after the service and I let him know what was going on just as the firefighters arrived in all their paraphenalia. It took them about two minutes to declare that we couldn't be in the building. Upstairs I went and quickly ushered everyone out, and over to a meeting room in the office building, grabbing what I needed for the service as I went. Fortunately there were only about half a dozen people in church at that point and we were able to intercept the others who were on their way in.
About a dozen of us gathered in the meeting room for the 8:00 Eucharist. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the firefighters and the rector walking around checking out various parts of the buildings.

When the service was over I went to see what was going on. No way were we going to able to use the building and the meeting room only holds about 20 people. But we are right across the street from the public library, and a few quick phone calls determined that we could have the 10:00 service there. I went back upstairs long enough to pack up a few more supplies for the service and we starting shifting gears to go across the street.

And the service when really well. The library is in a really old house and is a nice space. It was a bit crowded but it worked. I am very much a text based preacher and I like to be in the pulpit, but I knew that I had to do something different, so I took my text and stood in the aisle and I pulled it off with just referring to my text a few times. (Of course it helped that it was the third time I'd preached that sermon). I don't know if it was because we were all closer together than usual or because something like this tends to bring out a community spirit or what but it felt like there was a lot of positive energy in the congregation today, which was really nice.

So all is well, and in a few days we'll have a new furnace. And hopefully we won't have to call the fire department again any time soon!