We were away, just overnight Sunday night, and I must have slept pretty well and deeply, because when I woke up, I had that feeling you get sometimes, "Where am I? How did I get here?" It took a few minutes to orient myself to reality, and to remember the events of the last twenty-four hours, including the worship services, the animal blessing service, the trip up to the City by the Great Lake, the dinner with Earnest Younger Stepson.
Our new organist played beautifully, with passion and proficiency. You really can't explain music, can you? I particularly liked the way he "played latin" on Cantad al Senor.
We all loved the Animal Blessing Service at my husband's church. If you have never heard Bill Staines' song, "All God's Critters Got a Place in the Choir", you have missed something fantastic. Scout liked getting blessed, but she loved meeting and sniffing the dogs more, I think. She's been a little skittish around people the last day or so. We don't know why.
We went home long enough to throw a few things in a bag, and then we headed up to to the Great Lake City, where we delivered a few things to Stepson #2. I didn't look much at leaves because I spent more of the trip up reading our book club book, Giants in the Earth. I'm glad I'm re-reading it; it was far beyond me in high school. But I will say that it is a challenging book for a busy September. It has made me think about courage and community and hardship.
So yesterday morning I felt that "waking up in a strange place" disoriented feeling.
I can't seem to shake it, totally.
No, I really know where I am: that's not it. But I can't get over a strange, disoriented feeling. It's partly the economic news. On the radio on the way home, a talk show host was saying, "If things are so bad, why did I see everybody out to the restaurants, and Home Depot, and grilling in their back yard this weekend, just like nothing was happening? What's that about?"
He had a point. I just have a feeling that there is another shoe left to drop, and I can't quite articulate what it is.
But it's not just the economy. It's a sense of the church, and the spiritual life and health there, where I am a leader, where I am responsible for inspiring people, and helping them to see God in their lives, and equiping them to live grace-ful lives: not just for an hour on Sunday, but every day.
I always thought that this blog would help me with that. I love to write. I need to write.
But, I think I need to take a break.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday Afternoon
We went to an Animal Blessing service at my husband's church yesterday. Scout got blessed (she needed it!).
We are out of town now. In the meantime, I wanted to share a picture from the blessing service.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
I thank you god....
Tomorrow at church we are installing our new music director and organist. There will be no sermon, but plenty of music tomorrow, at all services. Even our contemporary worship service will have a mini hymn sing, featuring the organ.
Between the hymns or songs, the other pastor and I will have short reflections. I decided to read e.e. cummings poem, i thank you god for this amazing day. When searching the internet for it, I found this marvelous choral version I'd like to share with you.
Personally, I need a break from "other news" these days."
Between the hymns or songs, the other pastor and I will have short reflections. I decided to read e.e. cummings poem, i thank you god for this amazing day. When searching the internet for it, I found this marvelous choral version I'd like to share with you.
Personally, I need a break from "other news" these days."
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Quote for the Day
I found this quote on Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. I've been obsessed with his pithy little thoughts lately, even when I don't agree with him.
"Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban … At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals ... If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear," - George Orwell, from his proposed preface to "Animal Farm."
So what are some of the things we do not want to hear right now?
I know one of the things I am thinking is:
So, with all of the talk about stimulating the economy and tax cuts, what ARE we going to do with the national debt? How much is it right now? Does it not matter any more?
Another is: I believe that one of the best hopes for this country is to resurrect and re-invigorate the promise of citizen democracy. Early on, I thought that Barack Obama's theme, "Yes, We can" might represent that post-partisan promise. But, being a citizen is hard work. Maybe "Yes We Can" sounds good, but is really too difficult to do. What do you think?
What are some other things you aren't hearing anyone saying?
Fall Equinox Friday Five
Songbird from over at Revgalblogpals says:
It's that time of year, at least north of the equator. The windows are still open, but the darned furnace comes on early in the morning. My husband went out for a walk after an early supper and came home in full darkness. And yes, where we live, leaves are beginning to turn.
As this vivid season begins, tell us five favorite things about fall:
1) A fragrance
My mother used to tell me that she didn't miss the farm at all, except in the fall. Harvest has a smell, and that is what she missed: the smell of hay, and crisp coldness just starting, and the turning of the wind. It is a smell of abundance.
2) A color
I like that rusty red color that you get in some of the leaves of fall.
3) An item of clothing
I just got a new cordoroy jacket: barn red color, that is rapidly becoming one of my favorite items of clothing.Also a big brown cable sweater. I do love sweaters, of all kinds: cable and cardigan, casual or dressy, plain or colorful.
4) An activity
I love to go to apple orchards, and come back with a basket of apples. We used to take my neice and nephew, when they were small, to an apple orchard north of us. Not only were there many varieties of apples to pick and to sample, but there were also activities for children: and apple pie!
5) A special day
The fall equinodox is a holiday in Japan: a day off from work and school. But not here! I can't think of any "special days" except the ones we make for ourselves: the day trip down the Mississippi river, admiring the changing colors, the overnight stay at a small town near here, looking for antiques and remembering what a small-town autumn looks like. We will try to make our ordinary days special.
It's that time of year, at least north of the equator. The windows are still open, but the darned furnace comes on early in the morning. My husband went out for a walk after an early supper and came home in full darkness. And yes, where we live, leaves are beginning to turn.
As this vivid season begins, tell us five favorite things about fall:
1) A fragrance
My mother used to tell me that she didn't miss the farm at all, except in the fall. Harvest has a smell, and that is what she missed: the smell of hay, and crisp coldness just starting, and the turning of the wind. It is a smell of abundance.
2) A color
I like that rusty red color that you get in some of the leaves of fall.
3) An item of clothing
I just got a new cordoroy jacket: barn red color, that is rapidly becoming one of my favorite items of clothing.Also a big brown cable sweater. I do love sweaters, of all kinds: cable and cardigan, casual or dressy, plain or colorful.
4) An activity
I love to go to apple orchards, and come back with a basket of apples. We used to take my neice and nephew, when they were small, to an apple orchard north of us. Not only were there many varieties of apples to pick and to sample, but there were also activities for children: and apple pie!
5) A special day
The fall equinodox is a holiday in Japan: a day off from work and school. But not here! I can't think of any "special days" except the ones we make for ourselves: the day trip down the Mississippi river, admiring the changing colors, the overnight stay at a small town near here, looking for antiques and remembering what a small-town autumn looks like. We will try to make our ordinary days special.
The last shall be first
Do you remember, 6:00 P.M., August 1, 2007? It was the day that the 35W bridge collapsed. Thirteen people died.
Today at 5:00 a.m. the new bridge opened.
There was a lot of fanfare: a sort of mini-parade across the bridge to open things up. On the radio I heard the voice of a man from our congregation. He came on his motorcycle, because he wanted to say that he had been the first motorcycle over the bridge.
At my bag lunch Bible study on Wednesday, we had the opposite reaction. We discussed the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, and paused over the curious detail that the workers who were hired last were paid first. Think about it. The vineyard owner would not have run in to any problems if he had paid the early workers first; they would never have known that he had paid everyone the same.
But that's not what he did.
And then there is that curious line: "The last shall be first, and the first shall be last." We talked about why it is we all want to be first in line. We're in a hurry, maybe: that's one reason. Or, it is a shame to be at the end of the line, sort of like it is a shame to be the last one chosen to be on the softball team.
Or, maybe we are not sure there will be enough. Supplies may be limited, you know. So we don't want to be last in line, stuck with empty hands and dashed hopes.
Yep, we all wanted to be at the front of the line, not at the end.
Except for the bridge. We all decided we could wait and not be the first to go over the bridge. We would gladly let all those other people test it out, and make sure that it worked.
So, tonight I'm celebrating: the new bridge, put up in record time. I'm celebrating the motorcyclist from my church, brave enough to be first across. I'm celebrating the last who will be first, and the promise that supplies will not be limited.
And I'm wondering: why can't all bridges across chasms be so strong, so quickly built, so bravely crossed?
Today at 5:00 a.m. the new bridge opened.
There was a lot of fanfare: a sort of mini-parade across the bridge to open things up. On the radio I heard the voice of a man from our congregation. He came on his motorcycle, because he wanted to say that he had been the first motorcycle over the bridge.
At my bag lunch Bible study on Wednesday, we had the opposite reaction. We discussed the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, and paused over the curious detail that the workers who were hired last were paid first. Think about it. The vineyard owner would not have run in to any problems if he had paid the early workers first; they would never have known that he had paid everyone the same.
But that's not what he did.
And then there is that curious line: "The last shall be first, and the first shall be last." We talked about why it is we all want to be first in line. We're in a hurry, maybe: that's one reason. Or, it is a shame to be at the end of the line, sort of like it is a shame to be the last one chosen to be on the softball team.
Or, maybe we are not sure there will be enough. Supplies may be limited, you know. So we don't want to be last in line, stuck with empty hands and dashed hopes.
Yep, we all wanted to be at the front of the line, not at the end.
Except for the bridge. We all decided we could wait and not be the first to go over the bridge. We would gladly let all those other people test it out, and make sure that it worked.
So, tonight I'm celebrating: the new bridge, put up in record time. I'm celebrating the motorcyclist from my church, brave enough to be first across. I'm celebrating the last who will be first, and the promise that supplies will not be limited.
And I'm wondering: why can't all bridges across chasms be so strong, so quickly built, so bravely crossed?
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Small Town Values
I used to shop often at an antique store in a regional city near my home in rural South Dakota. It was a regular day-off stop, so much so that I got to know one of the shop managers pretty well. We'd talk a little about the antique business, farm auctions, folk crafts and regional artists. There were certain items that they wouldn't carry in the store, because there wasn't any market, she said. Most people didn't have money for that.
Then she said something that has stayed with me for over ten years.
"They really take advantage of the hard-working people of this state."
What do you mean? I asked.
She said, the business community and the political community in her town banded together to keep wages low, knowing that most people would by their nature work hard no matter how little they were getting paid.
I've been thinking about "small town values" lately. We love those small town values: work hard, go to church, know your neighbors, care about each other. We love those small town values: independence, simple living, growing gardens, telling stories, knowing your history, knowing your limits.
But, it's a funny thing.
Those great small towns, the best places to raise children, the backbone of our country: most of them don't seem to be doing very well. My town, for example, had no bank, no school, no cafe, no grocery store and no gas station. Just the church, and the grain elevator, and the post office.
Not all small towns are in the the same boat, I know. A few have figured out creative ways to flourish. Some benefit by their proximity to larger cities.
Still, I wonder, if we love small towns so much, if we think they are such good places to raise future citizens, why are they getting to be endangered species?
While I don't agree with everything in this article, it does give some excellent food for thought.
Then she said something that has stayed with me for over ten years.
"They really take advantage of the hard-working people of this state."
What do you mean? I asked.
She said, the business community and the political community in her town banded together to keep wages low, knowing that most people would by their nature work hard no matter how little they were getting paid.
I've been thinking about "small town values" lately. We love those small town values: work hard, go to church, know your neighbors, care about each other. We love those small town values: independence, simple living, growing gardens, telling stories, knowing your history, knowing your limits.
But, it's a funny thing.
Those great small towns, the best places to raise children, the backbone of our country: most of them don't seem to be doing very well. My town, for example, had no bank, no school, no cafe, no grocery store and no gas station. Just the church, and the grain elevator, and the post office.
Not all small towns are in the the same boat, I know. A few have figured out creative ways to flourish. Some benefit by their proximity to larger cities.
Still, I wonder, if we love small towns so much, if we think they are such good places to raise future citizens, why are they getting to be endangered species?
While I don't agree with everything in this article, it does give some excellent food for thought.
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