Sundays are not necessarily a time for Sabbath Rest

A great Advent I at Saint Middle School, with an all-time high number of attendees, 126! New families, some of whom have already pledged. This is real progress for us. We'd need to be over 200 per week to be able to build -we already have the land - maybe someday soon! The Alternative Gift Fair is going very well. People make donations to local charities in honor of a family member or friend and get gift cards they can give the honored person. Already well over $10K and we may make it to $40K when we're done.

It was one of those mornings when the junior acolytes were antsy, the senior acolyte seemed of the verge of total meltdown because she didn't know when to ring the bells, I messed up one of the page turns in the altar book, but somehow we got through it all. The Vicar's sermon was lovely, and a nice set-up for my sermon next week (thanks, Vicar!) and people were talking at coffee hour. I had a several minute pastoral conversation with someone I hadn't yet talked to - feels like they do see me as a pastor-type.

Then we had my Lay Committee meeting - this is my support team who talk about things like how things are going, how they can support me, what they think about my sermon, ideas and suggestions for the teen sunday school class...lovely people, and interesting conversation.

Got home at 3:15 pm, in time to clean up and cook. The third load of wash is in right now. A classmate, a dear young man who is interested in doing further work in pastoral counseling, is coming for dinner. I wanted to get him together with PH, who is of course a pastoral counselor, to talk about programs and particular interests and such. I should be writing my papers, but it feels like this is more important, for him, and especially for me, since I need to feel like a human and not a student, and do something I know how to do well, like cooking and drinking wine.

The menu is roast pork stuffed with dried fruit, red cabbage, sauteed zucchini, hasselback potatoes (shout-out to Nigella Lawson!), French bread, homemade apple pie with vanilla ice cream. Wine. life is good, if not very restful right now.

Papers can wait.