First Day of School

No, not me...it's the first day of school (and also the birthday of) Princess Granddaughter. Her little brother, the B-Man, doesn't seem overly distressed by her departure. He just turned one last month.

Somehow it makes my impending school year seem not so overwhelming.

Random Dots of Monday

• I've made an initial stab (or poke) at the next sermon in my queue: Matt 10:1-7. Go do good stuff and preach and share the good news, but go the the Jews, not those heathen Gentiles. Should be fun. Only two more sermons for my time here at Saint Diverse. Only three more weeks here...the time has gone so quickly.

• Lunch plans today with my rector from my home parish - that should be fascinating, as he is just back from a trip to Africa as part of our diocesan work on the complicity of the church in the slave trade. All that and Indian food...it will be a feeding of body and soul.

• Blue Saabie is in the shop with a flukey ABS controller. The instrument lights on the dashboard panel - all those little warning lights that usually come on when I turn the car on in the morning and they do the self-test - stay on all the time. The car runs fine, but my mechanic says the braking system may punk out if I don't get it fixed. If I took it to the dealership, they'd make me get the whole board replaced, to the tune of $3K. My trusty Swedish Motors guys send the board to someone who rebuilds it...only $700. Of course, it's $700 I don't really have, but we will figure it out. I'm just hoping Saabie will last until I'm through with seminary. Then I can get something tiny and green, with all-wheel drive for when I get middle-of-the-night pastoral calls. I always wondered why clergy all seemed to have Subaru Outbacks. Now I understand.

• StrongOpinions is having a blast at the writer's conference where she's spending the summer months. She's been invited to read some of her work publicly, and she'll be interviewed on local radio about the nexus of poetry and political activism. Can you tell this is happening in a radically liberal college in a radically liberal mountain community in the Rockies?

• StoneMason is coming down here for a visit. in a few weeks. We're trying to figure out the cheapest way to get him down from the Green Mountain State without spending megabucks. It may be possible to coordinate his visit with StrongOpinions'...it would be great to have them both here at the same time.

• PH is having that test on Wednesday that all of us have to have when we turn fifty. For a surgeon's son, he has little stomach for things medical. He will start the prep meds tonight. We may move the television and his laptop into our tiny WC for the duration. Poor baby! Say a prayer it all goes well. We expect no problems, since there is no family history of such stuff.

• Summer months are quiet at little churches, and I have moments of feeling guilty that I'm not more busy here at Saint Diverse. The convener of my peer colloquy group says that this is one of the things we as soon-to-be-priests need to learn - to be at peace with the lull times as well as to be ready to dig in during the busy times. Frankly, I'm happier when I've got my hands full.

Transitions

Yesterday, I attended Litigator's college graduation out in California. His hasn't always been the easiest of roads - it took him 5 1/2 years to complete his degree - but he is doing wonderfully, and I am so proud of him. Since I very much wanted to be at the graduation at Big Old Seminary today, I flew out to LA very early in the morning yesterday and took the red-eye flight back last night, arriving at Big Old Seminary at a quarter of the hour when the ceremony was to begin.

About that early flight yesterday - it was scheduled to depart at 5:45 a.m., so I set the alarm on my watch for 4 am so I could take a shower and have a healthy breakfast. I slept through the alarm and awoke with a start (and a moderately loud "oh, @#$@" that roused poor PH) at 5:11 a.m. Don't know how I did it, but I did make the flight, running down the concourse with my sandals in my hand since it was faster than stopping to put them back on after going through security. The rest of the flight out was uneventful, although it took a while for my heart to stop pounding. I was looking forward to getting to LAX, meeting up with StrongOpinions, whose flight was set to arrive 15 minutes after mine, picking up the rental car and heading to Litigator's place. SO, however, missed her flight, so I sat around LAX for two and a half hours - and it really isn't an airport which is friendly to those who wait for an incoming passenger. When we went to pick up the rental car, there was a line of 70 people (no, I am not exaggerating here) waiting. So we got up to Litigator's several hours later than planned, but still in plenty of time to go to the graduation. His school (of Communications, Media, and the Arts) graduated something around 700 students. Names indicated heritage that was Latino, Armenian, Hawaiian, Italian, German, Georgian, Chinese, Filipino, French, Japanese, Swedish, Irish - you name it). A large percentage of students were the first generation in their family to go to college; an equally large number worked while they studied. A very exciting and impressive group of young people, and it was wonderful to see Litigator amongst his friends, who hold him dear as we do.

This morning's graduation ceremony at BOS was less than a tenth the size. Our Presiding Bishop was there, receiving an honorary degree, as was a former BOS graduate who is now Primate of Sudan, who also received an honorary degree. The address to the students was given by a beloved professor, a very gifted speaker and homiletician - our class will be hard pressed to find a speaker as wonderful. If you want to read the address it can be found here: https://www.vts.edu/ftpimages/95/misc/misc_54414.pdf

It was wonderful and sad to bid farewell to the seniors, who enriched our lives in ways both spiritual and more mundane. They will strengthen the church and the larger world, just as the young people I saw graduate yesterday in the California sun will transform their world.

Godspeed!

No More Teenagers

As of 12:07 am, I will have no more teenagers. StrongOpinions, my youngest child, will turn 20 then. She called up this evening to tell us she is now officially a junior in college, having completed her exams successfully. Given that she took a semester off, that's pretty remarkable.

Than again, she's pretty remarkable most all the time.

Happy birthday, SO!

PH just reminded me that I have been raising teenagers for almost 25 years (I raised two stepsons as well as the three kiddos that I birthed).

Perhaps what's truly remarkable is that I've survived it!