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Remember Dick Tracy's radio watch? When the writers of that time thought about futuristic inventions, they knew that communications would be so important that everyone would need to do it, from any location. Especially people like Dick, out fighting crime and hunting down bad guys. And what did people always have with them? Their watches.
It never occurred to them (I mean, how could it?) that people would ever stop wearing watches. Everyone, they must have assumed, would always need to know what time it is.
Now, of course, in the actual future, we look at our phones to find out the time. How crazy is that?

Immersion Learning

I am an admitted Olympics geek. I love watching Olympic sports that I would never watch, in their non-olympic forms. At work this week I've even been streaming some games to keep an eye and ear on while I work, and I've been fascinated to find that some of them are being streamed without commentary.
There is something to be said about immersion in this. I just tuned in to badminton and it's impressive to see, but also sooooo quiet. I can hear the birdie hitting the racquets (or, vice-versa, I guess) with little clicks, and sometimes the squeak of a sneaker on the court. And when something good happens I can hear the crowd cheer. When something thrilling happens (a dive from one of the players, or a near-miss) I can hear the spectators say "ooooh!!!" I am learning a little bit about the game by experiencing it with my senses, even though no one is telling me outright what's going on.
I've learned a few things about a few sports already so far this Olympics, some of them through the commentary. I heard someone the other day talking about how fast that birdie flies, and that was pretty fascinating. But it was definitely a different kind of learning- facts, vs. experience. It was transactional, not communal. It's still good learning, but different.
It reminds me of the power of the community to teach. It makes me think of the catechetical power of attending Mass with a community, vs. sitting in front of a teacher, or textbook. And here's another thought: no one at the badminton game knows that I'm learning from them, but they're still teaching. They're teaching by being present, by caring about the game, by participating in their way. At Mass on any given Sunday, someone is learning from us as a community, even when we don't know that we're teaching.
We're teaching about how to behave at Mass. We're teaching someone that a lot of people care enough about the Eucharist to come to Mass every week. We're teaching that this Eucharist is good stuff, worth showing up for, and we're teaching that a community of believers exists and gathers.
What if we keep teaching, but no one comes to learn? What if someone comes to learn, and there are no teachers there? Just being Mass makes a difference- forms the next generations of Mass "fans". If we do it right, they'll catch on, and teach the generations after them.

Broken Watches

I wear a watch pretty much every day. I have a lovely watch that Scott gifted me for some holy day, which replaced the one he gave me on our wedding day. I have worn watches forever, I think- I remember I got  my first watch when I was just in kindergarten, it had a red alligator strap and gave me a rash, so my Mom painted the back of the watch (not the strap part...) with clear nail polish so I could wear it.
My current watch has a near-dead battery, and that means I've not been able to wear it for a week. I miss it! I can't tell you how many times I have looked at my naked wrist throughout the day. The other day while I was on my drive to work I thought about how weird I feel without a watch on and thought "I guess I could still wear it..." 
And I was struck by the silliness of that thought and thought "there's no point in wearing a broken watch." Of course there's no point! But it's tempting to wear it, useless as it is, because it's comfortable, it's what I'm used to. Even if it can't tell me the time, it at least would give me something to look at every time I hold my wrist up in front of my face... 
Really, it made me think of ministry (what doesn't?) and how we hang on to things that have become useless in our ministries. We know these things have long since lost their charm, relevance, ability to do what we want them to do, but we are comfortable with them. They fill space in our programs so that we can say "see, we're busy! We're doing something!"  Sure, we may say, hardly anyone continues with the Church after they're confirmed, but we have a busy program and they come to that consistently... until they are done.  They don't like it... but if it's there, it must be doing something-  no need to change it. 
I think it's a necessary skill for a minister to stop wearing broken watches. But not just a skill, it's... bravery. We need to step away from our comfortable, busy-looking, unproductive programs and try something new. If/when the new watch breaks, we change again. There's really no point in wearing a broken watch. 

God is Love, and Love is...

It's interesting (and completely understandable) to me how people start asking questions about God's whereabouts when tragedy strikes. It's then that our images of God so often turn out to be incomplete and unhelpful. If my idea of a God, of THE God, is one who keeps everyone safe and alive and comfortable, then what happens when the poop hits the fan?
What I'm suggesting is this: what if it's not God that fails in the hard times, but our understanding of God that falls short? A quick look around shows that God is clearly not a God who keeps us comfortable or safe or even alive. God is not like that, and believing in God that way does not keep anyone alive, safe, or comfortable.
But what if that's okay? What if God can be a God who doesn't make everything okay but still be a God who loves us? Would it be enough for God to be a God who walks with us, who weeps with us, who laughs and celebrates with us? Is the only God worth believing in a God who saves us from all harm and sadness?
If you're like me, then the more you think along these lines, the less comfortable you become with the kind of God that makes everything ok all the time. You start to notice how bad a job that God does, and how unfair the criteria seem to be. Why does this person get a "miracle" and that one doesn't? Why didn't God stop that man from shooting up the theater? Why did he "save" this girl once but not again?
The more I try to understand God, the more complex and simpler it becomes: God is love. Love doesn't fix things, love doesn't save us from harm, love doesn't make everything okay, love doesn't erase suffering. Love loves. God is love, and Love...
...is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

In My Own Horrifying Words

In my parents' move from their home to "The Home" (an apartment in a senior living community, really, not a HOME. But that's what they call it, affectionately). I was given boxes of my stuff that had languished in their basement for years.
We have no room in our house now for anything. Seriously, we are full-up. The process of claiming or reclaiming things from their home was fraught and difficult, with worries about hurting feelings, and actual hurting of feelings, and JUST TRYING TO GET THE DAMNED HOUSE CLEANED OUT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, I'LL TAKE IT AND THROW IT AWAY AT A REST AREA ON THE WAY HOME IF WE CAN JUST KEEP MOVING... that kind of thing. Anyway, now it's done and everyone has a few (or, many many) extra boxes of things in their houses.
I was given a passel of my old diaries from high school and college, and this Summer I've read through them. Some of it is so fun to revisit, and some of it is so horrifying. It's a funny thing to see how dramatic I was, how typical-teen I was, how... (how to say this? I'll just say it) ...randy I was. I hope to God my mother and father never read these journals, for their sake. As for me, as an adult and as someone who has worked with kids for so long, some of it was horrifying to read, and it was about me! Ay.
I was telling a friend about how alarming my relationships back then were to me, reading them now. I want to go find my former self and give her a shake, tell her she can do better, tell her to play it COOL every once in a while for crying out loud. I want to tell her she's better than waiting for a boy to call, and that the boy is just messing with her head and probably could use a good therapist! (I'm not even being specific to a boy now, they all messed with my head and all could have used a good therapist, and I could have used that shake for letting them mess with my head.)
I told my friend that I wished someone had told me this stuff. My friend (who always asks me great questions!) asked, "who should have said that to you? Who would you have heard it from?" and that is a (see?) great question. It wouldn't have been my mother... in my reading I saw with 20/20 hindsight  some of the opportunities that my parents missed, to help me. I'm not sure my Mother could have done much right in my opinion by then, but I do think she blew some chances to be supportive and uplifting. 
I don't know if my siblings could have helped, either. The me writing those journals felt very much in control of the situation. The thing about being in a bad relationship (I remember well) is that you work so hard to make the world think you're doing just fine, and you convince yourself, in order to convince them. These relationships weren't abusive, I should clearly state here. They just weren't healthy, and didn't honor who I was. It was a pattern I lived over and over again, until I met my husband. By the time I met him, I was sick and tired of bad boyfriends, and was rewarded for my new strength with a prince. (cue: Awww.)
Anyway, I think that if I could have heard the advice, taken the shaking, it might have been from adult leaders in youth ministry. I had some great relationships with people through YM, and they really honored who I was. I think it was this genuine respect for me, in these wonderful God-loving people, that gave them the kind of credibility that I respected, that I might have listened to. 
We can't re-write our youth, and as it turned out I learned a whole heck of a lot from all those bad relationships and here I am alive and a-love to blog about it. I hope all those boys have found great therapists and mates who don't let them mess with their heads. I am at peace with the fact that my parents did the best they could, and I am so thankful to my YM leaders for showing me what was valuable in me, so long ago. All this makes me want to be a better minister to young women, and to be bold in reminding them that things can be different. They don't have to live like they've lived. And they are worthy of good boys.

Summer Peeves

I love Summer. I'm a Summer girl! I love it so much I always capitalize it! Heck, I'm a Leo, so, you know... Summer Summer Summer.
But I have some pet-peeves. I mean, no love is pure, right? Here are my pet peeves. Just two, really!
I hate the humming sound that is everywhere in the Summer. I don't particularly like silence- in fact, it has a similar affect on me. Both silence and a humming sound (like that of a fan or an air-conditioner, or our damned broken refrigerator, which has been humming like mad for over a year now, since the refrigerator repairman told our landlord that it would need to be replaced, and she said to let her know when it really does die, which it hasn't. It just hums, super-loud. But that is not a summ... Summer-related thing. Let's go back) drive me to distraction.
Air conditioners and fans and other humming things, and silence, they make me tense up. My neck and shoulder muscles cringe until I can't take it anymore, and I need a break. When the humming sound stops, I feel instant relief. So, there's a thing that I don't like about my otherwise beloved Summer.
Another thing is being COLD. I'm talking about how people crank up their Air Conditioners until the room is icy. I don't want to be cold in the Summer any more than I do in the winter. I am looking for a comfy medium! I want to be cool, is all! In the winter, do we turn the heat up to 90? No. Of course we don't! We don't want to sweat, we just want to be warm. Why doesn't the world get that concept, in the Summer? Come on, people. If it were 60 outside, you'd want a sweater. Your house should not be 60 degrees. And there's nothing worse than walking into a store in the Summer and wishing you had a sweatshirt. Because, and I mean this, COME ON.
Summer has other annoyances, I'm sure. OH mosquitos! Mosquito bites, ugh! Someday I'll blog about how much I loathe, hate and abominate itching. Stay tuned, friends!!
Otherwise, I LOVE SUMMER!!
PS: Earwigs. Bleah.

7 Quick Takes Friday, on a Friday! I so have my life together!!

1) take a look at this summerchini!

Look how massive it is! It totally dwarfs that tomato!!
Okay that's a very small tomato. But it's still a really big... something. It came from a cucumber plant, and when it appeared I thought it was a zucchini, but it never turned green. My (actual gardener) neighbor said she's never seen anything like it, and that it might be a hybrid. But seriously, it's big. Here it is with an actual remote control! Cable, even!!

 

 I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I am in the midst of a passionate love affair with zucchini, so I have lots of recipes cued up. I'll let you know how it tastes. 

2) we have two new kittens! When our oldest cat went to "kitty heaven" we tried to adjust to living in a catless house. It was a surprising hard thing to get used to. I didn't enjoy the freedom like I might have expected to. We started to hear from our scouts (Scott's family) that there were two adorable kittens in the lobby of a nearby cat hospital. On a whim and with nothing ready, we drove over to take a look adopt them. They're littermates, about 16 weeks old, gangly and silly. It's been so fun having them, so far, despite all the scratch marks on Scott's ankles and the broken items around the house. Scott is absolutely besotted. Well, here, have a look: 

We're still a little hard-pressed for good pics so far, they are awfully wiggly. Stay tuned. 

3) I'm a little bit trapped in my living room, as Scott and some of his youth group kids are out in our yard. Somehow he suckered invited them to come up and paint our deck for us. I love his kids but have kept my distance from the group today, because it's my day off and I'm home and in my garden clothes (unattractive!). But I've been listening in on their conversations and checking in on them. I do miss hanging out with a group of kids. 

4) My dream job is open in my home diocese. Oh, how awful! And what's worse, I'm qualified for it!! I moved out of Maine in 1992... good Lord can that be true? I've lived here longer than I lived there. I've forgotten where things are in Maine, and lost track of the situation up there...  but when I moved to Massachusetts, I never dreamed I'd stay. Now I'm without a country, in a way, not willing to claim Massachusettianism and not willing to give up my Mainer-ness, but really, I'm pretty settled in down here. I can't very well pick up and leave here now, I have a wonderful job and a big social life, and pretty much the best place to live that we could possibly hope for. But oooooh that job looks cool.

5) Maybe this is my alternate timeline, coming around even though I left that path. My plan was always to come here for a while, get some experience in parish youth ministry, then go back to my beloved Diocese of Portland and work in the Youth Ministry Office. This dream job is not in the YM office, but it's still a diocesan position and would be, as I imagine it, awesome. I'm teasing myself with it, thinking about this alternate universe of my potential life, and I'm 8% worried that I'll let it go by and then find myself without a job in the new reconfiguration plans here in Boston. Well. We'll see, I guess. 

6) I can't tell you how many times in the past few minutes I've had to remove a kitten from my keyboard and then delete "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeokj." Kittens are very different from old cats. Wow. 

7) I've got nothing for 7. So, you know, go read this instead! HOW ABOUT THAT??

My Three Masses

I went to Mass in three different churches today. I'm not bragging. I only took Communion in one, and only really sat through one whole Mass. But the differences in the three were so fascinating to me.
At our own parish, I was there for the end of the 9. Maybe I'm too in love with this parish to be objective, but I could feel the joy at that Mass. People were nice, I was surprised to see how diverse the crowd was culturally, and the kids' choir was fun and happy and praise-y. The church is bright and wide open, and the feeling that I get there is overall joyful.
A friend and I then went to the 11 at another parish in town. Mass was in the lower (air-conditioned) church, and we were greeted by the staff (I knew them, and they recognized me, but we were by no means the only ones they greeted. The lower church is darker and smaller, but the feeling was friendly. The crowd was mostly late for Mass, and really very diverse. The priest saying Mass today was African, and we wondered if the crowd was mostly African too. But it didn't feel like an ethnic Mass. In fact, after the priest would start the prayers, the music minister would lead the response, and make it as white-sounding as humanly possible. I say this as one of the whitest people you'll ever meet. Anyway, my point is, if the people there were African, they weren't there because it would be an African-style Mass.
(Should I mention here that after Mass, the priest and the pastor were shaking people's hands, and my friend swore she saw him wipe his nose with his hand before shaking hers? Ew. We went directly to the car to douse ourselves in hand sanitizer.)
Finally, I met Scott (who is on vacation and so attending Mass in an exotic foreign location) for the last half of Mass. I just asked Scott how the homily was, now five hours later, and he said "it was fine." But he can't remember what the guy said. What was memorable was that there was no AC in this church, and that the priest was wearing a fiddle back. A frickin' fiddleback!! I've never seen one in real life. He told us after Mass that it was cooler. I don't know. Also, the altar was crowded with candles and a giant crucifix, gold and ostentatious. I can't help but wonder at a priest who is standing at table, with the honest-to-goodness body and blood of Christ in front of him,  but needs to look at a golden crucifix. Talk about missing the point. But hey, maybe that's just me.
All I do know is that I looked around that hot church and was amazed that so many people would come in there, on a hot Sunday evening, to sit through a less-than-memorable Mass. It gave me hope. People want to meet Christ, they want to worship, they want to pray. What if we made it just a little bit more pleasant, more meaningful, more inspiring? Just a little bit! Imagine!!

Let's Not Get Together

It's reunion time again. This year marks 25 years since I graduated from high school. I'm always a little iffy about reunioning, which would have come as such a shock to my 18 year old graduating self. I wailed at graduation, scanning the faces of my beloved friends, and swearing never to forget any of them.
Five years later, I went to our first reunion, and it was pretty fun, I guess. I saw people who I'd only just lost touch with, and they were pretty much the same as they'd been in high school. I got a little tipsy and went to a party at someone's house after the reunion. It was fun enough.
When the 10th year reunion came around, I didn't want to go at all. I was single and working at a job that I didn't like much (social work) and I remember thinking "I don't have a story to tell these people." I wasn't proud of my life, hadn't made anything impressive of myself, and didn't have a thing to brag about. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a derelict, and wasn't living a miserable or debauched life, I just wasn't living what I considered to be an impressive one.
At our 20th, things had changed. I was married, and pregnant, and so felt like I had an excuse for being as overweight as I was. The internet had come into play enough that I had been in touch with some of my old classmates, and had found pictures of most of the others online, so I knew that a lot of them had put on weight too, and lost hair, and started to sag, in spots. I was doing a job I loved (ministry) and had a husband I was proud to show off, so I went. I was nauseous the whole time from the pregnancy, and couldn't have a beer, either- there was a DJ who played music really loud, so we had to shout to each other. I saw some dear old friends and it was nice.
This year, 25, I'm not as overweight as I was 5 years ago, still in a wonderful job, still married to a wonderful husband, but... I just don't feel like I have much to talk about with my classmates. I don't want to go and dance or drink with them, and those whose stories I want to keep up on, I already do. I can see all their faces on Facebook anytime, and even chat with them. It suits my introverted self much better than dressing up and hollering at each other over the DJ's tunes. I'm going to skip it.

7 Quick Takes: Vacation Edition

1) I've got myself a new Ipad, and it's pretty awesome. My learning curve with it has been a little slow, but I'm figuring out why I wanted it, and why it will prob. become a big part of my everydays. I still have the rookie cover on it, and no keyboard, and I'm still figuring out which apps are helpful- but I'm coming to see that with it, I can do a whole heck of a lot of stuff that I love to do.
2) I downloaded my first book on the Ipad (I have the kindle app, but can't figure out how to get books into it... ) and it's Seven Storey Mountain, by Thos. Merton. It's one of those spiritual books that all the most holy people have read, and I never have. It's LONG! It's an autobiography, full of typos (is that an ipad books thing?) and I guess either Merton wrote it before honing his writing skills or it'll turn out to be awesome enough that the... (well, amateurish?) quality of his writing won't be a big deal, ultimately. He is a funny kind of guy, sort of curmudgeonly and at turns super-critical of anyone who disagrees with him philosophically, including his own younger self. And he includes weird tangential stories from his childhood that don't seem to have much to do with the greater narrative of the thing. But still, I'm hanging in there, despite the lovely and tempting books that keep popping up in my periphery.
3) Next, for instance, on my wish-list is... well, several books are tempting me. I still haven't read Bossypants, and want to- it seems like a much better suited-to-vacation kind of book than SSM. But also I'm wanting to read The Goal and Ideas. I think it's a new sense of liberation that my mind is feeling from being sprung from grad school. I love books and reading and hate being told what to do/read. Now that I can read whatever the heck I want, Amazon is my oyster.
4) But, shouldn't I be hiking? Or, walking, or something active? I've been thinking about the difference between being lazy and being sedentary. My Mom always called me lazy, and maybe I've had my lazy stretches, but I don't mind hard work or activity really. I work hard in my garden, and do my chores, and I used to love hiking when I lived by the woods and hills in my first apartment, and/or when I had a dog to hike with. But I also really love reading, I love watching tv, I love using the internet. My mind is, I reckon, much more active than my body is, by nature. I worry about time lost to sitting around, mostly because I see how my Mom's body seems to have withered from (in my estimation) lack of movement over the past several years. Like me, Mom prefers to sit. But I saw her struggle this weekend to get into a car, and worried about my own fate.
5) This week though, it's been raining and thundering every day, which means I'm stuck close to home, and as another convenient excuse, my foot hurts!  A few weeks back I was gardening and felt my big toe snap, and then a shooting stab of pain. I tried to take it easy on my right foot for the next couple of weeks, and was starting to feel good again, but now suddenly I feel like I have a bruise on the bottom of my foot- in the pad behind that big toe. What can you do but rest it, right? So maybe next week, I'll start that walking routine.
6) So here's the apps I have on my ipad, because I know you're dying to know: Slate, IMDB, Inkflow, NPR/WBUR/CBC apps, Pandora, Google Translate, a stunning Weather Channel app, Amazon, and Dropbox. Oh, and Bejeweled Blitz.
7) So in sum: I'm spending these few days off from work reading, sitting around, worrying about how much I'm sitting around, thinking about books I'd rather/should be reading, and trying not to eat carbs. I've got some other plans (something every day! I'm so active!)so my social skills won't completely whither away before I get back to work.

And Now We Are Catless

It's a strange feeling to take a cat to the vet, and then come home without her. Of course, we did bring her home, but not really her. Of course, she hadn't been herself for a while. But still, just like we did three months ago, we loved her and cried on her, loaded her into the crate, and took her, tearily, to the vet- the lovely vet who helped us help her. Since Pip's trip to the vet was so recent,  it was a familiar process- we knew what decisions we had to make, and how to make them. We pre-knew our preferences. Blessedly, it was smooth and peaceful, and we brought Zarley home and buried her next to Pip, under the rhododendron bush.
When we were finished, we ritually started to strip and clean the house. We threw away the litter box, gathered up all the random water bowls that were scattered around the house. We disassembled the steps that our old girls had needed to get up on the bed in their later years, and pulled out the scratching post and bed and various other things. It felt cathartic, to me- not because I wanted all traces of Zarley to be gone, but because it felt right to address the truth that the cats were here, and now things have changed- now they are not here.
But the weirdest thing of it all is not... I don't know. Considering? Taking care? Worrying? Scott vacuumed and I didn't have to worry about the cat being afraid of the machine. I mixed up some tuna and didn't have to worry about cats circling my feet and crying for the juice. We went in and out of the house without having to worry about Zarley slipping out. Zarley was a little "special" and was the neediest, loviest cat ever. She followed me constantly, would pace back and forth while I puttered in the kitchen, begging to be held like a baby. She would pounce onto me if I took too long to pick her up. Now I can walk and putter unfettered.
You know me and my heretical faith, refusing to see a divinely-intended point in suffering. But I do think that if we are paying attention, we can develop empathy from our relatively small suffering, for all those who are suffering greatly. Putting Zarley's things away and facing a catless future makes me ache for people who pack up a child's things, or a husband's. It pricks at my undercurrent of fear of the day when I come home without Scott, or he comes home without me. I can't can't can't imagine.
For now we clean up and carry on and feel this sorrow, and hope never to feel any sorrow worse.

Prayers of the Faithful

When our office manager took sick last year, I took over the preparing of the Prayers of the Faithful for our parish's weekend Masses. I had been toying with the thought of taking it on for a while, anyway, so when she was getting sicker and couldn't keep up with her work, I volunteered to take them off her hands.
I don't really write them, for the most part- I use a couple of books from a publisher, but adapt them and borrow from other places if they don't sound right. I don't want to add my own agenda to the prayers, but I do always go by the rule that the prayers of the faithful should represent the prayers of all the faithful- they should be prayers that everyone can agree with. I also change things like this: "for all who teach about the love of Christ...may they something something..." I make that "they" a "we" because I want to remind everyone that WE are all supposed to be teaching the love of Christ. That kinda thing.
Every week as I listen to someone read the prayers I've put together, I worry that they'll sound ridiculous, or that the lector will stop and the middle and say "wait... no, um, that doesn't make sense. Whatttt?" or something like that. I want them to sound sincere, applicable, and personal for our community. This weekend it dawned on me- we should be praying for the babies who are baptized each month! Of course!!! So, long story long, the Prayers are always a work in progress.
Monday, my pastor said "Oh I need to talk to you about the Prayers of the Faithful after the meeting." I wondered,  had my almost-all Father-theme prayers that weekend pushed the limits? (There had been one for the fatherless, men who long to be fathers, and those who have lost children... I thought it was so beautiful and thoughtful- reaching out to the very people who might feel alienated by Father's Day.) But he didn't have a comment on the content, or even the writing- he wanted me to make a change to the closing prayer.
This is the prayer that the priest says after the lector has finished the other intercessions. It's something like "Oh Lord, Oooh you are so big, so absolutely huge..." and it brings the POTF's to a conclusion, whereupon we all say "amen." But my pastor said that people didn't seem to know, lately, when to say "amen" because the conclusions didn't end with the pavlovian Catholic cue, "forever and ever" or "through Christ our Lord..." so he asked me to be sure one of those phrases will be in there to end the closing prayer.
I find this interesting- we're so used to just saying our lines on cue that it's not enough to listen to the prayer to know when to say "amen." And there are people who would land on both sides of the argument: that A) we need to stretch people to listen more intently (prayerfully?) to the Prayers, or that B) we should encourage people to develop the reflex of saying "amen" whenever they hear the phrase "forever and ever." Maybe both. Either way, next week, I'll be making that change in the Prayers.

Oh Death

Today I attended a funeral for my first Hospice patient. I only saw her twice, but I was so impressed by her positive nature and great spirit that I really felt like I wanted to go and honor her at the funeral. (Not impressed like, hey, great work Champ, but impressed as in she made an impression on me. You got that.) I wasn't exactly sad when I heard she had died, and I guess that's because 1) I knew it was coming. I mean, Hospice. 2) I think she was tired and ready for relief from her body and 3) I have faith in an eternal life with God, and she did too. (Today the minister read these words: "For if we are united to Jesus in a death like his, then surely we are also united to him in a resurrection like his." And there is the hope, in a nutshell.)
But as I sat in the church (a tiny, but lovely, friendly but COLD Lutheran church that I'd never noticed before, even though it is in the same town where I work) I thought to myself "uh oh."
I realized with a bit of a start that I had invited death to be a reality in my life, by starting to volunteer with Hospice. This will be the repeating pattern from now on- meet someone new, journey with them briefly toward their death, and say goodbye. No pretending that death doesn't happen, or doesn't happen much, or doesn't happen to good people.
I've been in a pretty good place with death for a long time now. Recently a friend at church pulled me aside and told me that, that week, she'd realized that she is okay about dying. She had discovered that she was in a place where her faith made death less scary, and it was a real lightning-bolt kind of moment. Lightbulb moment? Well, you know what I mean. And I knew what she meant, because I had that revelation at some point- and I feel overall okay about death. You know, in theory, at least. But it seems I've marched into a situation where I'm bound to have that okay-ness tested.

Random rainy day thoughts

Here's some follow-up for ya. Rose wine? Gross. At least the one I bought. I wanted it to be like red wine, but lighter, and refreshing. But it was... I don't even know how to describe it. Blech.

Why do movie ads have to be so obnoxious? Take, for example, the recent ad for Promethius. That movie, it's targeted at a specific kind of viewer, right? The horror/sci fi kind of viewer? Then why are they advertising during Cougar Town? And why do they have to play that annoying sound over and over? I can't wait for that movie to come out, but not because I want to see it.

Speaking of ads, that John Malkovich one for the iphone... it does not make me want to get a phone with Siri. That joke's not funny, and I don't buy that he's entertained by it. And while we're at it, I hope Samuel L. Jackson knows that just removing a golf game from your calendar isn't the same as canceling it. Was it a game with no partners? Did he have a tee time?

Lastly, we had a party to celebrate my graduation. I had no idea how big a deal it seems to be, to graduate from grad school. I'm always glad for a reason to throw a party, but my overall attitude toward grad school is more that of bearing it, rather than... I don't know, triumphing. I certainly wasn't expecting gifts, but I got great ones! And I was really honored and touched that people would come and celebrate. As my parents were leaving, my Dad hugged me and said "you have really great friends" and he's right. I remember my parents having big groups of friends who would have pool parties and cookouts together, and I love having that big bunch of people to gather with. Did I mention a bagpiper played on our lawn, in the pouring rain? That's the kind of friends I have. I'm a fortunate, lucky, blessed girl, and very thankful.

7 Quick Takes, on the Wrong Day. So.

1) I know this  is a Friday thing, but I feel like Monday holidays are much like Fridays, right? I mean really I have Fridays off so Thursdays are MY Fridays, and once you start thinking like that, you can write a Friday blog post any old day of the week. It's a slippery slope.

2) So, I graduated from grad school. It felt great! I did wonder if maybe I'd done the whole thing wrong when hardly any of my professors seemed to recognize me on graduation day, and I had to introduce myself to the three other people in my program as we lined up. To be fair, they didn't know each other either, and the class sizes were big, so it's not completely unthinkable that I didn't become a star in the professor's estimation. But a friend (I did make one friend) introduced me to a faculty member (the dean of students, I think?) who said "how did I never meet you all this time?" and I said "well I haven't spoken to anyone during my whole time here." Which is, a little bit, true. Around me, people were misty-eyed at leaving this time in their lives behind, and everyone understood the inside jokes in the dean's homily, but not me. I found out that my Dad had had the same experience in grad school. He said "I just drove in, took my classes, and drove home." Still, everyone's been congratulating me and there's a big party planned, and I'm trying to give myself credit for having achieved something not everyone does and having worked hard and whatnot. But the truth is, I feel mostly proud of having slogged through it. More like a veteran than a victor.

3) after graduation we went to lunch, a lovely place near my parish, where the waitress almost immediately dumped an entire tray of drinks down my back. I still giggle just thinking about it, it was sangria mostly, and a bloody mary ended up mostly in my purse. It happened in slow motion, I swear, and I remember looking down at a stick of olives sitting on top of my iphone in my purse. I laughed, because, you know, what can you do? People are... dying... somewhere. You know? And the poor waitress cried. Cried! The dress came clean, and I got a free lunch and a funny memory from graduation day. And I think I'm the first child in our family to be responsible for wine stains on my dad's pants. So!

Come on, that's funny!

4) On Saturday Scott was away on retreat and I had a whole lot of weekending to cram into one, beautiful day. I was super productive; weeding the garden, putting my new compost bin together, fixing the damned bird feeder (again), cleaning up some of the yard, grocery shopping, snacking, napping, etc. etc... by about 3:30 my back was OUT. I have come to the conclusion (late, as usual for me) that I have a bad back. It occurs to me that it's been bad for a pretty long time. In fact, the first time I came to understand what the word "out" meant in this context, I finally went to the doctor, who asked me how long I'd been in pain. I reviewed my life, and said "I guess... about three years now?" Turns out I have "high pain tolerance" and can stand more than the average wimp, pain-wise. That's a pretty cool thing to learn about myself, like a newly-discovered super power. I don't complain much, I don't think, pain-wise, so when I do you can know I'm in deep. I've never seen a chiropractor, and I suppose I should. Maybe that's something I can do with all my extra time and money now that I'm all graduated and stuff.

5) I've had to stop myself from watching the Red Sox this season. It seems like every time I tuned in, they'd start to tank, so I'm taking one from the team. I love watching/listening to Sox games so it is an actual sacrifice. I'm giddy with excitement for the Olympics though, and I probably would have lost track of the Sox once they start anyway, so I will still have lots of stuff to watch over the summer. I think the Olympics and the Tour de France start the same week, so I may have to take some vacation days.

6) I picked up an Anne Tyler book the other day, and already I'm starting to think/talk like she writes. Maybe it's really that she writes like I think/talk, but whenever I read her books I find myself feeling a little weird, and more myself at the same time. I don't know how to describe what happens, it's just that her use of language is a lot like mine, at least in my head. Here's a sample sentence:

Well. So. Here he was.

I know, right? There's something about using "So" as a sentence that just gives me a thrill. Anyway, that's where I'll be today,  on the porch reading something not at all about God or moral theology or any such stuff.

7) ... and drinking rose wine (I bought some the other day, it's NOT THE SAME THING AS WHITE ZINFANDEL, it's much more classy and adult, I hear. I haven't tried it yet but it looks lovely and so summery. I'll let you know.)... and dreaming of strawberry desserts. I have a whole bank of strawberry plants with green berries just waiting to turn red. From there it'll be a full-on battle, racing the bunnies and squirrels (I blame the squirrels) for the just-ripe berries. I have a cage for some of the plants that saves me a few, and embarrasses Scott. But mmmmmm strawberries, you know? Mmmmm.

Who Do I Say That I Am?

When I was in High School, I received My Calling... to you Youth Ministry. Of course, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, answering that call. My life now does not match my vision back then, of where I'd be and what I'd be doing. But I'm still answering that call, in new ways and new directions all the time. My call has evolved and so have I.
I never dreamed I'd NOT be a Youth Ministry coordinator, but here I am, the Chief Evangelization Officer at a parish that does Total Community Catechesis and working with people through the lifespan- really now from birth to death. I've fallen in tortured love with faith formation, found my spot, at least for now. I have (as of next Monday) a freakin' MASTERS DEGREE in religious education! Really, Go figure.
Last week at the conference I attended (seriously, go join NCCL right now), I decided to join a committee, and had my choice of many, including a Youth Ministry subcommittee, an adult faith formation committee, a "practical and theoretical foundations" committee, among others. I found myself wondering where I fit in. It was like one of those youth group "forced choice" activities. Pick one and defend it. You can't stand in the middle of the room pointing at all the corners, you just have to GO. Choose. But for me, it was about identity, in a real way. Who am I now, in this Church? A faith formation person, yes. But, still a Youth Minister? An Adult Faith Formation person? An academic?
I joined the Evangelization committee, and found my people. These are faith formation professionals with an eye trained on the horizon of evangelization. I think it was a good choice. Meanwhile, at home, we're being encouraged to be certified as Pastoral Associates, that nebulous title that means... whatever the hiring pastor wants it to mean. Should I add this title to my list? I'm not sure.
I never would have guessed that accepting a call really meant accepting a life of accepting calls.

The End of the Beginning

Zarley and her Lion friend, surveying the yard

When we got home from California, it was after 2:00AM. Zarley was fast asleep and when we woke her to greet her, she was stunned and groggy, and didn't really warm up to us for a while, which is unusual for her. We brought her to our bedroom, put her on the bed and she didn't move, just sort of hovered there not standing, not sitting, blinking. Finally, I put her back on the couch in the living room, where she'd been found, and went to bed. She looks skinnier than she did (to my memory anyway) a week ago. We weighed her this morning and she's a wee 5 pounds. At some point, she rejoined us in her usual spot in bed, and today she's a bit more back in the usual swing of things. Last night, after putting her back to reset herself, I lay in bed and suddenly had tears in my eyes, remembering how little time we have with her, remembering how deeply sad it was to lose Pip and how much I miss her, and mourning this soon-to-be-totally-over part of my life, the part with two cats in the yard. I felt guilty about leaving her for this week, but she was visited by loving friends and family, who all reported her to be purring and eating and drinking, so that was a relief. I guess now we just wait, and watch, and snuggle as much as time will let us.

I get it

This week I can say I truly understand the Paschal Mystery in a real and serious way. Let me start at the beginning of our trip, on Sunday. We were scheduled to leave Boston at 1:30 or thereabouts, and we boarded on time, but spent the next three hours either at the gate, sitting on the tarmac, or idling somewhere in wait, due to a storm in Chicago, where we were due to meet our connecting flight. So, three hours of sitting before we ever got out of town. When we got into Chicago, finally, we launched out of our plane, ran through the terminal, down the escalator, through the tunnel to the other terminal, up the escalator, and to the end of that terminal. When we got there, we found out that A) our gate had been changed, and B) that the flight had left already anyway. So we went back through the terminal, down the escalator, across the tunnel, up the escalator, and went to find the line for United Airlines customer service. It was, and I kid you not, at least a quarter mile long. Someone told us there were 500 people ahead of us. Walking along that line, looking for the end of it, was one of the soul-crushingest experiences I can remember. Finally, a CS person came along and advised us to check the kiosk rather than waiting to see a real person, and so we found that we'd (fortunately!) already been rebooked by the airline for another flight, due to leave in about 2.5 hours. Guess where the new flight would be leaving from? Yep, that other terminal... in fact the one we'd gone to first.
So back we went, at least knowing we'd have time for dinner while we waited. UNfortunately, the plane at our gate (the one before ours) had a serious hold up (as in, 4 hours of waiting for their flight, and they still hadn't left by the time we did.) Since they weren't leaving, we had to change gates AGAIN, but only to one nearby. Once we got on the plane, we had to wait a while, because since our flight was SO late, one of the crew was now "illegal" and they had to wait for someone to replace her. As in, come to the airport from home.
Now here's where the Paschal Mystery comes in. I had the center seat all this time, and Scott, who I love, had an aisle seat. When we got on in Chicago, about to ride through the night to California, I had the aisle seat, and Scott had the center. He was miserable, but we had had such a rough day, and I was tired of being all cooped up, and I thought to myself "enjoy the aisle seat! He'll survive the middle, after all, I did! Why should I have to sit in the middle? After all, I was assigned this seat!"
But at one point, I heard Scott moan. Just a little mewling kind of sound, and he didn't ask for the aisle seat, but what could I do? When he got up to go to the bathroom, I took his seat.
When Scott came back to sit down, I very un-Jesus-like told him that he was a lucky man, and I was super-nice, and that he should never forget it. Ah, what can I say? I'm only human!

Apple doesn't know the words Catechetical OR Evangelization.

So here we are in California for the NCCL conference. It's one of the best organizations/conferences I've worked with over these years. NCCL is academic, wholistic, cutting edge, evolutionary and open-minded. The topics they are interested are the same things I'm interested in. I'm so among my people here, even in a way that's beyond being at school among my academic peers. This organization is made up of people who know whereof they speak. Lots of the people I've met here have the word "evangelization" in their titles, and they mean it. I love being in this world of like-minded, dedicated people, and it gives me hope.
It also makes my mind race, lots of new ideas and great tips and tricks to apply right away. I'm inspired to take on huge projects this coming year, huger than I should probably. I can't wait to get back (well, I can wait, I mean... we are in California after all!) and try things out.
We've been rubbing elbows with catechetical and evangelization rockstars. Everyone is approachable and supportive and helpful. Someday I hope to be one of those rock stars, receiving awards while bored people who have barely heard my name eat their free lunch and plan to steal my ideas.
Many years ago now, we attended the NCCYM in, as it turned out, the apex of the sexual abuse crisis. While we were there that week (Denver, was it?), we'd be pulled into Boston meetings to hear about which of our pastors had been removed that day, due to accusations that were either founded or un-founded. We would watch our friends' faces flicker with worry when they were told their own pastor was already gone, and we'd wait in fear to hear our own pastor's names be read. Outside of those meetings, we'd introduce ourselves to other conventioneers and when we said "from Boston" they would sympathetically frown and offer prayers. It was a weird feeling that week, a feeling of being marked as doomed, yet still walking around amongst the living.
Now, many years later, we are starting to get that sympathetic reaction from people again. The people here know about what's going on in the American Church, what dioceses are in trouble, etc. Cleveland people get that sympathetic cluck too, now. We sympathize with them.
Still we soldier on, and wish everyone from poor old Boston could come to a week like this and be bolstered with hope for the future, even while we hang in limbo and wait to see what will become of us. We'll breathe in as much of the sunshine as we can while we are here and hope to carry it home in our hearts. 

Get Your Business Done

I graduated from my first round of training with Hospice last week, and I've learned a lot. From here, I will be a "direct care volunteer" for 6 months, and then can go on to have specialized training to be a vigil volunteer. Vigil volunteers wait with patients at their last moments, or hours, especially if they have no one to be with them at that time.
Our training covered a lot about the philosophy and history of the Hospice movement. Each patient who enters hospice is given access to services of a doctor, a nurse, a social worker, a bereavement counselor, a chaplain, and a volunteer. The team works together to offer a comprehensive treatment for each patient and their family, communicating between each member and serving the patient in a really wholistic way. On top of that, Hospice has a true respect for the dying process that I think most medical systems don't. They acknowledge that death happens, and is part of life. They say things like "our bodies know how to die" and "the patient is doing the hard work of dying." They don't see death as a failure of treatment or a tragic ending to be avoided. Just part of the deal, and something important and defining in a person's life and in the family's life.
What's also impressive to me is that unlike most social service systems, they don't have to deny the existence of spirituality. They take all comers, religion-wise, as they should, and work with people to understand the... (not their word) mystical part of the process of dying. It's really impressive.
All through the training, I kept thinking "people need to know more about this." Everyone I know considers Hospice to be a very-last-minute effort to keep pain away when there's no more hope. But I want everyone to know that Hospice is more like a team of tour guides who will help you get ready- they'll help you think about what you want and let your family know, they'll help you "get your business done" with your family and friends, help you get your house in order and figure out who'll take your cats when you're gone, help you come to a comfortable place with what you are going through. Medicare will fund Hospice, as I understand it, to those who have 6 months or less to live (with a chance to re-register if you live beyond your prognosis). Private insurance companies, I'm told, sometimes cover a year! Imagine having a kind and attentive team to help you and your family prepare for your fate, for a whole year. Honestly, I'd like that now, even though I'm not dying, that I know of.
So if/when someday you find yourself (or someone you love) facing the inevitable hard work of dying, think about Hospice for yourself and for your family. Don't wait.