Auld Lang Syne Friday Five

So, it's time to reflect and ponder...for RGBP Friday Five. So...for 2007, five memorable moments. Bonus points for God sightings.
1. Getting offered two positions in one day, while walking a labyrinth in a cold and icy parking lot. CRazy.

2. Visting the vortexes in Sedona. Thought they would be more mystical, but the heat was pretty unbearable. Still pretty happy to have been there. Also, getting to go to Durango at Thanksgiving was cool too. LOVE the west.

3. Recently, (this is going to sound nuts, I know), I was so very, very restless. I couldn't do anything until I restrung some strings on my harp and found the damn tuner. The tuning key didn't turn up til a day later, and I was practically crawling the walls...it was like the harp was calling, calling, calling to be played. (please understand, I have been on hiatus from harp playing for like, five years). When I finally got it strung and tuned, I played over and over for hours over several days. My restlessness turned to calm....now, my harp stays close, next to my desk, so I can play whenever she calls. Or when I am restless. There is a God-sighting in there, I believe. A lil' being like the HOLY SPIRIT?

4. Learning to knit from my 93 year old friend Miriam. She is really good at knitting and teaching. She rocks my world! I also learned to make beaded crochet rope necklace from a woman named Lillian who owns a beadshop a town over. Man, that place is just like a little church--people come everyday to bead, and they share their troubles, their joys, their hopes....something to be said about the crafting community.

5. The death of Annie, our adopted retired guide dog, was memorable, becaues she made such an impact on our lives for the six months she lived with us, and she died so gracefully. I wrote about that earlier in the blog, but I don't know how to link that. What a gift she was!


6. I think the RevGalBlogPal community is pretty memorable. Haven't been able to dig in as much as I would like, but there is a lot of amazing folks in this community.

Peaceful blessings to all this New Year. With our world in so much tumult, people we know in places of danger and war, with a sense of powerlessness and being overwhelmed, may we all push ourselves and those we love and serve to step out and shout out and wage peace for those who know none.

sometimes...

you just want to stand at the window and howl.
I'm just sayin'

Friday Five...for RGBP

RevHROD shares this Friday Five. I haven't played in a long time...so I am taking time out from shoveling the white stuff to have some fun!
1.What was one of your favorite childhood gifts that you gave? I remember saving up to buy my mom this bottle of perfume at the drugstore that had a little black velvet cat for the top. I just loved it...not so sure mom did!

2.What is one of your favorite Christmas recipes? Bonus points if you share the recipe with us. Lefse, lefse, lefse. It is a Norwegian bread--sort of like a potatoe flat soft tortilla that you slather with butter and brown sugar and roll it up. I don't have a recipe, and I have never made it--you need a special griddle. Maybe next Christmas.....

3.What is a tradition that your family can't do without? (And by family, I mean family of origin, family of adulthood, or that bunch of cool people that just feel like family.)Growing up, we always went to church at 5:30, then home for lutefisk (codfish soaked in lye, then you boil the hell out of it til it looks like a flaky mass of wiggly white gel and then you pour clarified butter and salt and pepper and let it slide down your throat when you eat it.)and lefse and other wondrous white norwegian foods. After supper, we would have to wash every dish, and wait for my mom to freshen up in the bathroom. Then we would read the nativity story and sing Silent Night (I don't know why we did this. We weren't all that religious, just lutheran! It was the only time of the year we opened the bible at home!) and then we would open presents. After presents we would gorge on christmas cookies and milk.

My family of adulthood makes every effort NOT to have lutefisk on Christmas eve.


4.Pastors and other church folk often have very strange traditions dictated by the "work" of the holidays. What happens at your place? So far I haven't found anything strange...my colleague was cleaning wax out of the candlelabra and made a big mess in the kitchen to the chagrin of the church administrator. I laid low for that one. Don't know if that is an annual thing or not, but I am pretty sure he had more urgent things to do....

5.If you could just ditch all the traditions and do something unexpected... what would it be? One year I made an alternative advent wreath that actually was really beautiful. It started out with giant pillar candles at different heights on blocks of wood surrounded with twigs and stones on top of this lovely iridescent bluey-purply fabric that I bought in the fabric districtin NYC. Each week I added different greens, more interesting stones, culminating in a lush, fresh Advent wreath garden. The liturgy was pretty cool, too. It was my first year of ministry, and my colleague let me go for it...even though we didn't use the traditional wreath on the stand, people really seemed to appreciate something different. I would love to do that again....

On a personal level, a trip to Hawaii is sounding pretty good right now....

taking charge....

I am really cranky and unsettled these days. I wish it had everything to do with hormones, but it doesn't. I am too busy, I am doing to much administrivia, and I am not creating. I am not doing what I am good at in my work; and after I finish what is expected, there isn't much energy left to muse, to wonder, to connect to Spirit...
and that is wrong. I am not unhappy, but I am not necessarily fulfilled.

It occurs to me, though, that things might not change much. But I don't have to adapt so much in such a way that it kills my spirit. That's wrong, and not good for anyone.

I have to take charge of what I have to offer. And find ways that reflect some room for movement and growth in all of us. No one is going to make that space...I just have to start the carving it out of some of the minutiae (minutia?)(sp? is that even a word? I think I have heard it, just not seen it....hmmm.)

So, last night, I took some time to play my harp. Today, I am going to visit my 93 year old friend, and we are going to knit together. Then, I am going to visit baby C and her five week old self. And then, only then, if I have time, will I do administrivia. If not, it can wait.

Take charge, girl! No one is going to do that for ya! Listen for the Spirit leading you to exactly where you are. Listen for the wisdom, the strength, the challenge, and the grace.
Amen.

homage to my '95 hippie honda

wow. I have known you for over seven years...paid cash for you in North Dakota and drove you down to North Carolina for my first call. You played hours of Harry Potter on the cd player so I wouldn't fall asleep. On my ordinatin weekend, Yeong Mee blessed you with her brand of backing up which was accidentally going forward and ripping up your front bumper on a mountain boulder. In a couple of months, I dented your door in a hospital parking lot running into a safety pole. You didn't seem to mind.

We have gone everywhere. You have carried all kinds of stuff in your handy hatchback~`my harp, my djembe, my dogs, my cats, my family, my friends..... You have been my travelling office and the family u-haul from NC to Boston.

You didn't mind it when I put all kinds of bumper stickers that revealed MY political leanings, my love for the rainbow and outdoors. You even didn't mind having Jesus on your dashboard for the past year.

But now, it is time...you have trouble starting sometimes, and your airbag status is iffy, at best. Please don't take it as betrayal. I know someone will love you as much as you have been loved by me...and it is just time.

I will miss you, my dear champagne hippie honda wagon. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your faithful service. Go in peace.

it is cave time...

Jan Richardson writes about advent being "cave time" in one of her brilliantly illustrated books.

I feel like I am in a cave, somewhat....not really gestating anything, though...but more just waiting in the dark for some kind of light to flicker, or an ember to glow so that I can be more illumined, enlightened.
Cave time is good,I suppose,
but in this dormant stage
I don't feel all that creative...
or energized.
I suppose that's because I am in the cave...and all I need to do is be here for awhile.
just breathe,
give in to the cave time
and let it speak to me...
rather than me trying to control it or make is something that it isn't.

Visit me, O Holy One...
I wait for your coming in the shadows.
Amen.

a thousand splendid suns

...big exhale.
I just finished this book..and it was hard, hard, hard read...even more so than kiterunner. It was beautiful, wrenching, convicting, revealing...and hard.
I just am glad to have finished it...
and realize how much we need to be thinking of the human side of war...of the women and children and weak who are the helpless victims....
sigh.
quiet inside my heart this day.
lead me God.
amen.

rainy days and tuesdays and life, randomly

*Today is raining, raining, raining--a Gray Day in November here in Beantown.

*A phone line, power line or some kind of line was down on my car in the driveway as I dashed out the door to make an appointment at 10:30 across town. I decided to live on the edge and back the car away from it, praying that I didnt' get zapped. Obviously, I didn't. I called the power company, but they said it wasn't a power line. I asked them to check, anyway.

*I have done "yogamazing" podcasts the last four days in a row. I love that Chaz and his Tennesee accent coaxing his viewers into "downward dog"--your best friend. My body is feeling more loose, thank God.

*Yesterday, I had PMS depression from hell. It hit me like a brick. Totally gone today. Weird.

*A saint died this morning. He was 96, and a member of this church for 62 years. I didn't really know him all that well, but there is a great collective sadness and gratitude for his life around here. I know there is great celebrating in the heavens today for the humility and beauty of his good life.

*I received a gift of three hours today. The bible study I was going to cover for my colleague was cancelled. I am secretly (not so secret, since I am blogging about it) relieved. I have a few things I need to focus upon.

*My beloved and I are thinking to buy a new house. Across the street. But we don't want to get ripped off on the selling price. Our financial advisor says, be careful.
The house is just like ours, except very beautiful. I don't know what we will do. We could live there forever; but it will bind me even more geographically--not that I am going anywhere, soon...my beloved will retire from where she is employed. I will definitely NOT retire from my present situation. Just sayin'.

*Venus Las Vegas, my border collie sheltie wants her own blog. I think she sees it as an activity to keep her occupied til spring when the squirrels come back out again and she can resume chasing them. I told her she needed to pass a typing test, first.
She said, "Bring it On!"

*Lunch is over. 6 points. (yes, I signed up for WW AGAIN!)

*So, time to put my newfound time to use.

*It's still raining. raining. raining.

Newsflash! Big, Fat, Black Hole!

This just in from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

(My thoughts: 1)Who knew black holes were thought to be so gorgeous, and 2) There is a sermon in here some where, and 3) I don't understand about 3/5 of below, but it sounds cool...)

Massive Black Hole Smashes RecordCambridge, MA - Using two NASA satellites, astronomers have discovered a black hole that obliterates a record announced just two weeks ago. The new black hole, with a mass 24 to 33 times that of our Sun, is the heftiest known black hole that orbits another star.
The record-breaker belongs to the category of "stellar-mass" black holes. Formed in the death throes of massive stars, they are smaller than the monster black holes found in galactic cores. The previous record holder for largest stellar-mass black hole is a 16-solar-mass black hole in the galaxy M33, announced on October 17.

"We weren’t expecting to find a stellar-mass black hole this massive," says Andrea Prestwich of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., lead author of the discovery paper in the November 1 Astrophysical Journal Letters. "We now know that black holes that form from dying stars can be much larger than we had realized."

The black hole is located in the nearby dwarf galaxy IC 10, 1.8 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. Prestwich’s team could measure the black hole’s mass because it has an orbiting companion: a hot, highly evolved star. The star is ejecting gas in the form of a wind. Some of this material spirals toward the black hole, heats up, and gives off powerful X-rays before crossing the point of no return.

In November 2006, Prestwich and her colleagues observed the dwarf galaxy with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The group discovered that the galaxy’s brightest X-ray source, IC 10 X-1, exhibits sharp changes in X-ray brightness. Such behavior suggests a star periodically passing in front of a companion black hole and blocking the X-rays, creating an eclipse. In late November, NASA’s Swift satellite confirmed the eclipses and revealed details about the star’s orbit. The star in IC 10 X-1 appears to orbit in a plane that lies nearly edge-on to Earth’s line of sight, so a simple application of Kepler’s Laws show that the companion black hole has a mass of at least 24 Suns.

There are still some uncertainties in the black hole’s mass estimate, but as Prestwich notes, ”Future optical observations will provide a final check. Any refinements in the IC 10 X-1 measurement are likely to increase the black hole’s mass rather than reduce it.”

The black hole’s large mass is surprising because massive stars generate powerful winds that blow off many Suns worth of gas before the stars explode. Calculations suggest massive stars in our galaxy leave behind black holes no heavier than about 15 Suns.

The IC 10 X-1 black hole has gained mass since its birth by gobbling up gas from its companion star, but the rate is so slow that the black hole would have gained no more than 1 or 2 solar masses. "This black hole was born fat; it didn’t grow fat," says astrophysicist Richard Mushotzky of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is not a member of the discovery team.

The progenitor star probably started its life with 60 or more solar masses. Like its host galaxy, it was probably deficient in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. In massive, luminous stars with a high fraction of heavy elements, the extra electrons of elements such as carbon and oxygen “feel” the outward pressure of light and are more susceptible to being swept away in stellar winds. But with its low fraction of heavy elements, the IC 10 X-1 progenitor shed comparatively little mass before it exploded, so it could leave behind a heavier black hole.

"Massive stars in our galaxy today are probably not producing very heavy stellar-mass black holes like this one," says coauthor Roy Kilgard of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. "But there could be millions of heavy stellar-mass black holes lurking out there that were produced early in the Milky Way’s history, before it had a chance to build up heavy elements."

This release is being issued jointly with NASA


Image 1:This artist's conception shows the biggest stellar-mass black hole (upper left), which weighs 24 to 33 times as much as the Sun. It is pulling gas from a companion Wolf-Rayet star (lower right). Experts say the black hole was "born fat, it didn't grow fat." Credit: Aurore Simonnet/Sonoma State
Image 2: This close-up from the artist's conception shows gas spiraling into the heftiest known solar-mass black hole. The gas heats up and emits X-rays, which allows astronomers to deduce the black hole's presence. Credit: Aurore Simonnet/Sonoma State University/NASA

Daisy and Tikvah

These poodles want their own blog, since Tanner got his own and is a revgalpetpal. Maybe when they wake up I will teach them to use the computer. See how nice they are being to Barley? Sharing the blanket? That happens about once every 232 days.

Friday Five Interviews....

Over at RevGals, Mother Laura has posted an intriguing Friday Five, "Interviews". Here is my play:

1. What was the most memorable interview you ever had? Two come to mind. First, several years ago, I was interviewing at an institution for a chaplaincy position. I wasn't out at the time, but had progressive views on GLBT ordination, rights, etc. The interviewer, trying to intimidate me, asked me point blank if "I was one" Shocked, I said, "are you asking me if I am a lesbian?" The person smugly sat back and said, "yes". I was flabbergasted, so much so, when my escorts picked me up, and asked me how it went, I just blurted out the experience. As I went off to my next appointment with a group of people, they went straight to the CEO of the institution. Of course there were profuse apologies, and I think they were skeered I would sue. I was outrageously and deeply shocked at the interviewer's hate and sense of control and power

The second was for my present ministry. It was my second interview, they asked for several presentations. It was pretty rigorous...but in the two hours we were together, the experience was grounding, real, honest--for me, and the committee. It felt like communion. Driving home, I felt so integrated, and it was the turning point in the process for all of us. It was pretty amazing.

2. Have you ever been the interviewer rather than the interviewee? If so, are you a tiger, a creampuff, or somewhere in between? I am friendly, pointed, clear....I try to listen alot and then poke between the lines to get a sense if the job and the person are a good fit. I like interviewing people....

3. Do phone interviews make you more or less nervous than in-person ones? I don't get nervous, and I don't mind a phone interview to figure out if the next step in the process is one to take or leap into.

4. What was the best advice you ever got to prepare for an interview? How about the worst? hmmm. Best? Dress for success baby! Look as fabulous as you ARE! Can't think of bad advice....

5. Do you have any pre-interview rituals that give you confidence? Praying, singing, and mediating works for me!

oh YEAH!!!!!!

Doing the Papelbon jig today!
whoo hooo!!!

(pic from boston.com)

word wrangler

Sometimes, writing sermons feels like I am on a wild ride on a bucking bronco. I never know what is going to happen....I am holding on to my hat, swinging my lasso of study, preparation, and the horse is the wild Holy Spirit taking me for a ride as I try to wrangle something that is at least articulate. The process is unbridled, breathtaking, and frustrating. I often get thrown off, and have to dust off my chaps and get back on. My sermon for tomorrow? I am inbetween rides right now, but I will have to jump back on that bucking bronco Sophia at least one or two more times tonight! (my butt is sore!)

I should be writing my sermon on prayer, but...

Every night this week, on my way home from my church, I drive through Boston on the pike and I-93. I love passing by Fenway, and I LOVE the message on the Prudential building.

I have GOT to finish (start?) my sermon today. All I can think about is baseball.

God, be merciful!

Pumpkin/Apple Friday Five (Six!)

Over at RevGals, Singing Owl came up with this FF, which is really six. Here is my play!
1. How did you celebrate this time of year when you were a child? By carving pumpkins, planning my Halloween strategy for trick-or-treating with my friends. How much of the town can a nine year old realistically cover in three hours of gathering free candy? Is a plastic bucket or pillow case better to hold it all? Should we plan drop-offs in the night, so as not to be lugging giant loads of snickers and sweet-tarts and risk dropping them all over the sidewalk?

2. Do you and/or your family “celebrate” Halloween? Why or why not? And if you do, has it changed from what you used to do? It seems there aren't as many trick-or-treaters in our new neighborhood, but we will have the porch light on, a bowl of kitkats and m and m's to share with baby ghouls, and of course, maybe a pumpkin beer or two to celebrate the evening.....
2. Candy apples: Do you prefer red cinnamon or caramel covered? Or something else?
CARAMEL. with nuts. and chocolate.

3. Pumpkins: Do you make Jack O’ Lanterns? Any ideas of what else to do with them?
I love pumpkin soup and pumpkin ravioli, but I would probably used canned for both.

4. Do you decorate your home for fall or Halloween? If so, what do you do? Bonus points for pictures. Do frozen, dead mums count? Or a fake potted plant of unidentifiable golden blooms I got for 75% off at Michaels? Devil ears on the poodles?

5. Do you like pretending to be something different? Does a costume bring our an alternate personality? Yes. and yes. It is fun to dress up and just bring out a part of ourselves that sometimes we don't know is even there. One time I played a fortune teller, and had so much fun telling fortunes, I wished I could do it full time. However, there is that piece of actually knowing how to do it, or being called to that, which...well, I will stick to my present call of pastoring!

Bonus: Share your favorite recipe for an autumn food, particularly apple or pumpkin ones. I don't have a recipe, but again, I might say that fresh pumpkin ravioli with marinara sauce is a delicacy one shouldn't miss!

holy sister half-way around the world!

This is my holy sister, Yeong Mee....
When I was doing my MDIV, she was working on her doctorate in hebrew bible with Phyllis Trible at Union.
We, Yeong Mee, and I were best of friends. She got me through Hebrew, Greek; and the footnotes of my thesis (God Bless her). We would walk dogs together in Riverside Park and spend our $1 for a bagel and coffee at the stand on the corner and have breakfast together most mornings. We would study all day, and then order in pizza or go out for Indian food. She gave me bim bim bop, and a love for the spicy taste of kimchee. We had LOTS of fun shopping for shoes--at Tops and Harry's and Aerosoles, all on the upper West Side of Manhattan. I had the privilege of participating in her ordination, and she honored me with her words at my ordination. I have lived through her crazy driving--she was the first to baptize my 1995 Honda Wagon with its first dent/rip in the front bumper, accidentally going forward instead of reverse. I love seeing it, because it reminds me of my dear friend, now living in Seoul, and living as a successful academic in a very, very, patriarchal system. Only woman in the department! Yikes. She writes amazing papers and books; she teaches her nephew English; she sends me beautiful fans and paper from Korea. When we talk, it is like we are next door. What a blessing. We encourage one another...always.
I am grateful that time and distance have not diminished the strength of our holy sisterhood. I am grateful that we have an amazing friendship that transcends the pragmatic here and now and rests in the sacred here and now.
Thank you God,
for my holy sister.
Bless her today...and infuse her with your grace, your hope, your courage, your love.
Amen.

ticker

Sometimes,
When I sign on to my blog,
I get distracted by the counter on how much is spent on the Iraq war. That durn thing goes by the thousands.
I just go bonkers.
BONKERS.

Speaking of bonkers, I hate it when people send emails where they capitalize multiple phrases to make a point...too much shouting, and most of the time, I don't THINK THAT IS WHAT THEY MEAN TO RELAY. I dunno. I have a headache from a recent email I just read.

A Saturday nap sounds good right now.

gettin' ready for sunday

so...have a children's time to write, an invocation, a children's worship to plan, for tomorrow. not much, but enough. I have a godly play story to memorize for the children's worship...and it will be fine.

I was struck last week, in collegial meeting, when one person said, I did the associate pastor thing for a few years and hated it, so I started looking to be a solo in a congregation...and am so happy doing this.

whoah. I realize how little credit I give myself sometimes. I always think I need to learn one more thing to be truly prepared to be the solo leader of a flock, but I have to stop and say--wait! I have literally twenty years of experience as a church professional, and seven of those are in sacramental ministry. shoot! I mean dang! What else am I waiting for?

Don't get me wrong. I really, really, really love the work I get to do with children. I loved teaching bible/religion for eight years before seminary, and I loved the four years of youth ministry I did before that. I loved my three years of seminary, focusing on worship and arts and ministry and children's spirituality. my seven years of ministry in three...well, now on my fourth, but two were simultaneous (lest you think I am a short timer) and I really love this work in my new congregation, but I totally know what my colleague meant, too. I think I have been very deliberate in listening to where I have been called...and each place, congregation/campus, chaplaincy, new church start, and now established traditional NE church has been the right place for me. I don't think anyone could be more fortunate than me in the amazing places of ministry I have landed. I have to be honest, though, the part I miss...and have missed in all of them is more involvement in worship, aka preaching, planning the whole of a service. It is funny, ironic, even, the most involved in worship was in my first congregation. In any case, that doesn't mean that can't happen where I am now...I will just need to find my place in all of it.

huh. who knew I was thinking about that this morning? when I sat down to the computer, I was really thinking about the RED SOX and how they pulled it out last night!

Thankful Friday Five...for RGBP

Welcome to the Friday Five!
RGBP writesThis one is going to be veeeery simple: List at least five things (people, places, graces, miracles...) for which you are thankful. You may elaborate as you wish, or keep it simple.

I am grateful for my beloved, and the amazing life we have together....our home, our love, our many critters that make us laugh....

I am grateful for post-season baseball playoffs, which so far are going grrreeat!!

I am grateful for my morning coffee, which was especially tasty this morning.

I am grateful for my dear friend, Yeong Mee, who is an amazing scholar and pastor in South Korea...and for our enduring sister-friendship across the continents. She is a treasure.

I am grateful for all the sounds I hear outside...the traffic, cars starting, birds singing...I love my neighborhood.

I feel especially full of thankfulness, this morning.

out of the park!

this weekend was amazing.
I wrote most of my sermon on Friday, as we had a denominational event all day Saturday. What I wrote wasn't really what I planned on, but I read it to my beloved and she thought it was pretty good, so I kept it. I had not idea, though, where it was going to lead me--the writing, the Spirit, the muse of God!

So, Saturday was so fun because I got to pull out my dusty djembe and drum with a group for the worship service. It was fabulous and delirious. If you have never had the opportunity to learn drumming, and always wanted to, you should. It really sinks into your body and raises your energy....and our leader was terrific. Very gifted in creating community (none of knew each other) and pastorally leading a group of gifted and experienced drummers with those of us that weren't as confident. I just loved it.

Then, I got home around 8, and tried to sit down to write, but my hands and fingers were numb--I sort of overdid it, and it was hard to type. I worked until 10 or so,and I wrote about six sentences...and couldn't go on. I went to bed, quite nervous about not having an end to my sermon, but I was depleted--physically and mentally. So I got up at 4 to finish things up, which it just came together...and I had time to edit it a couple of times, and I felt good.

The passage was Luke 16:19-29--The rich man and Lazarus. Not something easy to preach on--privilege, affluence, the Great Chasm.

So, Sunday was typically busy before worship, greeting people, making coffee for my CE staff, the youth and committed adults were in the large kitchen making 150 lunches for the Common Cathedral (outdoor church for people who are homeless on the Boston Common, my coffee maker broke, things were crazy! I managed ten minutes before service to sling on my robe and stole, but missed the prayers with the choir, OOPS!

The service was great, the music, the liturgy, the announcements..but right before I got up to preach, I got really nervous. I wasn't sure why, the part of preaching I love is the preaching part! But I got up, and started, and realized that the sermon was much more prophetic than pastoral, and it was huge. It was a little scarey! They were with me the whole time, but I really have never felt God's power/spirit as strongly within as I did yesterday. When I finished, I was a little dazed, and after the call to prayer, I was still sort of not ready for the transition, and I couldn't remember how to lead the prayers of the people (someone makes a request, I repeat it in the mike, I say "For this we pray", and the congregation says "Gracious God, receive our prayer"). I was still feeling like either I had hit a home run, or struck out hugely, or just had done a 15 mile hike in New Hampshire White Mountains.

It was sort of funny, because I had to ask my colleague what to do , as I didnt' have my bulletin (Note. To. Self: even if you have done it thousands of times, still have it in your worship folder, printed and BIG)

After the service, I was inundated with people thanking me for the sermon, for prickling their consciousness...it was extraordinary.... retired seminary professors and working moms and pillars of the congregation.....and so I just throw that feedback to the Spirit. Thank you for blessing the words that we wrote together. Thank you for helping me be open. Thank you.

and there is more, because then we went down to the common cathedral, and worshipped there, in the crux of tourists and people who are homeless and people who lived in the neighborhood. We talked about the experience....with the youth...and then back to the church at 4:00 for this great concert of lute, voice and piano--selections from Purcell, Rodrigo, Hayden, and African-American Spirituals.

God is good.