All in all,

...not as crazy a day today as it has been on other ways recently.

Momentary rant: two people at St Middle School were quite insistent that I send out copies of the Passion for Palm Sunday with their reading assignments so they could properly prepare. So I sent out the script of the Passion with the reading assignments two weeks ago. Ample time to sort this all out, right? The same two folks just told me they will be away for Palm Sunday. The grumbler in me says that next year I will simply hand out the assignments on Palm Sunday morning to whoever shows up, but that doesn't work terribly well, either.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that the schools are on vacation from this Friday through Easter Monday, so many families go away. The schools swear that they don't schedule their vacation based upon the date of Easter, but it sure looks like that to me and every other clergyperson I know. Would that they just decided that the last week in March would be their vacation week every year, then we could deal with it. But the other part of the problem is the usual one with volunteers who have very busy lives and precious little down time. For all my talk with them about finding Sabbath, often finding Sabbath means not being in church, even on major feast days, and that saddens me. I hope those who are away for Palm Sunday and/or Easter Sunday go to church wherever they may be. They may take vacation, but God doesn't.

Okay, rant over.

That said, things are moving apace for all the various and sundry things that will make the next ten days' services the wonderful celebrations of the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that they should be. I am so grateful for the gifts of TS, our music director, who goes way beyond the basic scope of work every day and every week, and our Parish Administrator, who is bravely fighting the good fight to get the bulletins for all these services done, with the assistance of a parish volunteer who does the first draft of many of these bulletins.

Stuff that needs to be done yet:

• Printing out of the various bulletins for Palm Sunday, Tenebrae, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.
• Doing the bulletins for the two Easter Services (one a sunrise service outdoors, another a festal celebration at our normal meeting place with trumpet, childrens' choir, adult choir, a zillion guests).
• Making sure we're on track for the Newcomers' brunch this Sunday and the Easter potluck brunch/Easter egg hunt.
• Finishing homily for this Sunday and starting the sermons for Maundy Thursday and Easter Sunday.

And in the midst of this, I am busy doing logistical stuff for the purchase of the new house and the move. One major change from the last time we bought a house: emailing docs for signature, then signing them and scanning them and then re-emailing them back. Folks don't seem to use fax machines much anymore. That's fine by me.

One little joyful moment: we decided we would get ourselves a new bed. I think I've mentioned before that we've been using the one that PH got from a parishioner some 30 years ago. It's still a good serviceable bed, but it's time we got a new one, this time a queen size. So I went to a wonderful resale place near here on a whim, and found a beautiful Henkel Harris pencil post in dark cherry, for a fraction of what such a bed costs new. Yay!

Off now to run an errand, then get a haricut, before settling in for a long afternoon of sermonating!

BBL