Knitting Again - Yay!

Having finished the shawl/scarf for StrongOpinions while in Windy City, I have started a pair of socks. Feels good to be knitting again...I just have a couple of papers to complete this week that may interrupt the knitting fiesta. Dang!

Windy City Adventures

Thanksgiving. Wow.

Way too much food, especially of the carb-laden variety. My mother-in-law made the food extravanganza yesterday, while some of my generation and some of the littler ones went downtown to watch the parade. The Lawn Chair Dads precision lawn-chair drill team was the high point. They wore red union suits with sleeveless t-shirts and print boxer shorts over them, furry arctic bomber hats with earflaps, and black socks and sandals. Truly a sight to behold. We kept ourselves warm with a thermos of coffee for adults and of hot chocolate for the kids. I was surprised by the number of vendors giving out freebies (Naked Juice, for example, and free porta-potties with 7-11 logos plastered all over them!) Great fun, and not overly cold for Windy City on Thanksgiving.

I should have gone out walking each morning, but didn't. The jeans are definitely feeling snug.

I've got a pot of turkey wild rice vegetable soup on the stove, to get the last bits of flavor out of the carcass, and to give us something a little lighter on the digestive system for supper. There's also a butternut squash soup in the works. My veterinarian brother-in-law (a man of many talents) has a pumpkin cheesecake in the oven.

We went down to the great big art museum today. No icons per se, but some early Italian religious images in tempera on board that clearly were influenced by them. I successfully avoided buying stuff in the museum store. I did fall victim to a great buy on a Norwegian sweater in the store for all things Swedish. Here's the advantage to being short - you can fit into kid's size clothes sometimes. And a kid's Norwegian sweater is one-third the price of a grown-up one. And I never knit something for myself - I only knit for others, so I have to buy for myself (poor me!).

Speaking of knitting, I'm slowly getting back into it. Hadn't knit a thing since August when I started seminary. But StrongOpinions had asked for a combination shawl/scarf thing, and I saw some great bulky yarn, so I whipped that off. I should get back into gear on my sister-in-law's Norse sweater (it's about 1/2 done). I had planned to give it to her for this Christmas, but I'm afraid she'll get it next Christmas. Ah, well. It feels good to be knitting again, though.

Tomorrow we'll get up, have a bite, and head to the airport and back home to Your Nation's Capital. It's good to be with family, but it's also good to be home.

So where are you?

News update on break-ups, mess-ups, and speak-ups

On the breakup of StrongOpinions and Semi-Useless Boyfriend:
I was worried about my girl, so I cashed in some frequent flyer miles, went out to Buddhist University last weekend and made sure she was eating and such. I took her out to eat a couple of times, made a batch of vegetarian chili and put it in the freezer, adn took her for some retail therapy. she seems to be doing better. SUB called last week, though, and wanted to get back together. SO is appropriately skeptical. I'm hoping she decides it's over once and for all, but mothers can't push about such things. She can do better, though.

On the Congress:
No sooner did Nancy Pelosi ascend to the Speakership than she tripped over her (very chic) Armani pantsuit and backed Jack Murtha for her second in command. The predictable result was that he lost, and her former rival, Steny Hoyer, won. An embarrassment, since she expended much political capital trying to get her candidate the job. She should have done better, but I'm still hoping she can do better.

On ECUSA:
Our new Presiding Bishop, Katharine, sent a very crisp letter (http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_79844_ENG_HTM.htm) to a bishop who, unhappy about the past 30+ years of ECUSA's decisions, was threatening to pull his whole diocese out of the church. It was the letter I was hoping someone, somehow, someday would write. Finally! She has done better, and I'm proud. You go, girl!

On school:
I am busily writing, and reading, and translating, and memorizing. I'm trying to NOT feel guilty about going to PH's family in the Windy City for Thanksgiving. Rationally I know I cannot get it all done, even if I stay home chained to the books and the computer, but irrationally, I worry. (mumbling to myself: "all will be well, all will be well...")

I will do better at managing my own expectations of myself.

Eventually.

(And you blog-lurkers, c'mon and check in with me. I love to know you're there reading my pithy prose.)

Gray Day

It's wet, the leaves are mostly on the ground, and I'm tired.

StrongOpinions and Semi-Useless Boyfriend broke up yesterday (his idea), and I've been fielding calls from far away from her as she deals with the pain. She called last night at 2:30 am. I am not at my best at 2:30 am (who is?) so I tried to comfort her and get her to sleep. More similar calls during school today. It's so hard when you lose your first love.

I managed to stay awake in classes today. Barely. I hope I'll get a full night's sleep tonight.

I'm feeling swamped by the amount of reading the profs are expecting this semester, but I think I'll survive. The good news is that Hebrew is such a gas that I end up doing more work than required since it's so amazing.

The other good news was the changeover in the House of Representatives - I'm not fond of one-party government. The bad news was the passage of a marriage bill in our state - marriage defined as one man and one woman - that seems to be legislation at its worst. It's mean-spirited, it has a number of unintended consequences not only for gay couples but for straight couples who are not married, and it does nothing to help the body politic.

Don't these folks have more important things to worry about?

Meanwhile, our bishop left this hospital this morning - they thought he might have had a little stroke, but he is doing fine. He doesn't have an easy job, and he does it with grace. I'm hoping this was just a blip on the radar screen.

I had to take the car to the body shop this afternoon after school. It was parked on the street in front of our house, and someone backed into the side of it and scraped the whole driver's side. It goes without saying that the guilty party didn't leave a note on my car. $1725 worth of damage. Thank goodness for insurance.

Yes, I know the good news items outnumber the bad news items. It's still a cold rainy gray day, though. Now if the Secretary of State of the Commonwealth would just certify that Jim Webb has beaten George Allen, I think I'd feel like the sun has come out.

The Investiture and Seating, and Why I Don't Like Liturgical Dance

On Saturday, I watched the investiture of our new Presiding Bishop, the incomparable Katharine Jefferts Schori, on my computer. We were supposed to watch it at Big Old Seminary on a big screen, but the technology failed us. That's fine, because my house is only five minutes away, and the service was two hours long. You can check it out here if you'd like:
http://www.episcopalchurch.org/investiture/

It was marvelous. Amazing music across many different cultures (you haven't lived until you've seen a couple hundred bishops - mostly WASP - in chimeres and rochets and all that, bopping to Siyahamba), beautiful liturgy, great sermon.

And then there were the liturgical dancers. I am admittedly a curmudgeon, but I just don't get a bunch of people running around whipping pieces of cloth in the air. None of these folks were Baryshnikov or Twyla Tharp by any stretch of the imagination. It all seems a bit forced to me. Maybe the more visually oriented people can explain what I'm missing, but it seems too 70s for words. I lived in the 70s the first time around, and it wasn't any more attractive then.

I could have done with something with a bit more gravitas than the tie-dyed look vestments (I'm turning intoPeaceBang) but other than that, it was wonderful. Very moving, and the sermon was powerful.

Then on Sunday, I went down to the Cathedral for her seating and Eucharist. Several fellow seminarians were part of it, and a number of us were among the congregation. Another amazing event, with many of the same features as the investiture (including the dancers, darnit) - it was great to see and feel it from another angle. Many of us were moved to tears by the import of it. Who'd have thought even 20 years ago that we'd see this moment?

God grant her strength for the time to come. It won't be easy.

Both ends of the spectrum

I got back my Hebrew final...

(drum roll, please)

97.7

Now you know exactly how geeky the prof is, that I ended up with a grade like that.

I got an A for the semester, since we started in August term. glad; it was hard work, and i loved it. Still, I'm taking the second semester pass-fail, since it will only get crazier.

I did my Liturgics mid-term. Sixteen questions, multiple choice, open book. A half-hour to take it.

Piece of cake, right?

Not.

Only two questions referenced what was covered in the lectures. The rest were obscure factoids from the readings, and we're talking obscure here, not the main themes.

My grade? 75. And I was grateful to get that, given what some of my classmates got.

This was a lesson in humility. Also in not getting too wrapped up in the grade thing. It's about the skills and about grace, and not about a number. I need reminding of that on a regular basis.

As for the other exams and papers, none have yet been returned. Another lesson: patience. Drat.

PH is off at a conference this weekend, so the cats and I are alone in the house. I have gotten a few movies from Blockbuster, and I intend to do studying/reading/homework and videowatching. Tomorrow at 11 I'll join a bunch of fellow seminarians in one of our auditoriums to watch the investiture of our new Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori. Sunday, a number of us will go to the Washington National Cathedral for her seating. I am thrilled!

RevGals Friday Five: Toofies

Friday Five: Toofies

Please share your thoughts on the following:

1) The Tooth Fairy
I got quarters, too. My kids got a buck a tooth. now I hear that some little ones around here get a fiver per tooth. Seems a bit high to me - does that make me a curmudgeon?

2) Flossing
I don't like to floss, but I do love my little steel curved toothpick that does the same thing, only better. I use an electric toothbrush that's supposed to stimulate my gums.

3) Toothpaste Brands
StrongOpinions, being Miss organic, uses Tom's of Maine. I like plain old garden variety Colgate.

4) Orthodontia for Adults
If you need 'em, get 'em. Lots of folks (like RM's friend) come from families that didn't have the resources when they were kids. Go for it. PH, who grew up a missionary kid in Africa, dodged the bullet, but others he knew didn't. Since they were home on itineration for a year, all orthodontic work had to be completed in that timeframe. It was a painful thing, getting what took the rest of us three or four years all done in one. Poor things. I wonder if they would have preferred to have waited until they got home for college.

5) Whitening products
They often make the teeth look unnaturally white. Seems a bit much for me, but I think we've already established that I'm a curmudgeon.

RevGals Ghoulish Friday Five

1. Do you enjoy a good fright?
No. I've had some bad stuff happen to me that make me less than enthralled by scary happenings, because sometimes it's not a game.

2. Scariest movie you've ever seen
I'm with RM - "Silence of the Lambs" tops my scary movie list. When I was a teen, "The Exorcist" was way up there on the scare list. For some strange reason, an old movie called "Soylent Green" scared the *** out of me when I was in college, but who knows why.

3. Bobbing for apples: choose one and discuss: a) Nothing scary about that! Good wholesome fun. b) Are you *kidding* me?!? The germs, the germs!
I don't find it scary. I don't worry about the germs. However, as someone with temperature sensitive teeth, I have been unpleasantly surprised when my mouth hit the water once or twice in the past. Yeeoow!

4. Real-life phobia
Having to walk in a dark place at night in a less-than-savory neighborhood. See #1 above. Something similarly scary happened to StrongOpinions last week, and we're still both a bit freaked out by it.

5. Favorite "ghost story"
The opera DonGiovanni, and the ghost of the Commendatore. If you've got to have someone scary, make him a good singer. Second best: "Hamlet." What can I say? If it's in iambic pentameter, it can't be all THAT scary!

Prayers, Please-

...for dear L. She had become engaged to a wonderful man (after a number of years as a single mother) and was looking forward to the wedding in a few months.

Her fiancee was found dead of a heart attack two days ago.

Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant W. with thy saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing but life everlasting.

Sometimes God gives us gifts that last a lifetime, like a slow-burning candle. Sometimes God gives us gifts that are like a meteor shower, exploding with beauty, but so very transitory. Who is to say which is the greater gift? We can only thank God for His gifts, even as we grieve their transitory nature.

Almighty God, Father of mercies and giver of all confort: deal graciously, we pray thee, with all those who mourn, that casting every care on thee, they may know the consolation of thy love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We love you, L. We loved W. for loving you, and we grieve with you.

No Rest for the Weary

...not when there are two cats in the house.

I was up early this morning, getting ready for a field trip to a funeral home. I was just getting dressed when I heard a mighty crash from downstairs. I went downstairs and the two cats were in the kitchen, looking nervous. A marble cheese board which normally resides on the counter was on the floor, broken in two. I suspect one or the other of them tried to jump up on the counter onto it, and it slipped off and broke. In thinking of the expressions on the cats' faces, I'm reminded of the first words my dear husband learned as a second-grader in Belgium many years ago: "Ce n'etait pas moi." The cats always speak French when they do something bad; they think it makes them seem less guilty and more charmant...

Then it was off to the farmer's market for beautiful apples, then to the funeral home, and now I'm hip-deep in Hebrew and Liturgics et al for my exams next week. Later I've got a rehearsal for a concert I'm singing in tomorrow, a fundraiser for a homeless ministry here in Your Nation's Capitol, and a dinner part tonight. I'm trying not to feel guilty about the time spent away from studying. It will be what it will be.

Word for the Day: Hesychasm

So a goodly part of the day was spent doing abstracts of previous lectures for my New Testament study group. Reading, analyzing, winnowing out the important factoids and themes. It's necessary work (our mid-terms are next week) but it's not the most rewarding stuff in the world.

I took a break to go to Evensong at 5:30. It was a wonderful and peaceful end to a rainy, cool day. I love the quiet. I love the singing. I love the meditation on Scripture (great reading from Jeremiah tonight). I love the incense. It's an opportunity to take the time to go deep into prayer, which is often very difficult to do. Mostly I love the darkness in the chapel (this service is lit by four candles and just a bit of light over our psalters) and the quiet.

After evensong, I came back home, finished up the fifth lecture write-up, and cooked dinner. I had grand plans for studying Hebrew, but I was too tired, so I went upstairs with my big book on icons, to research an icon of unknown provenance in the seminary's Oratory. I got what I needed (it's a Harrowing of Hell, probably a copy of something from early Moscow school), but I got lost in the wonderful book, reading and remembering why I love icons so much.

And I found out about hesychasts, who spent their life in silence so they could meditate and pray. They may have used repetition of the Jesus Prayer as a meditative tool. It's an ascetic practice from the 3rd C, noted by Chrysostom and the Sayings of the Desert Fathers.

It also informs the work of some of the early icon writers. Some of the proponents of the practice were the subjects of icons as well.

The thought of quiet and a disciplined meditative practice seems very appealing right now, although I doubt I could sustain it for the long haul. Maybe just an evensong's worth of hesychasm...

Sex Ed For Clergy

One of the requirements in this diocese for all clergy, seminarians, and paid staff in parishes is that they take two sexual abuse/misconduct prevention classes, one targeted at protecting children, one dealing with issues for and about adults. I spent my Thursday at the Adult class.

I wanted to take a shower when I came home.

I understand the importance of this training, and I buy into the ways we need to prevent such bad acts and protect ourselves as clergy.

I just wish this was a different world, and we didn't have to think about it. One of my seminary classmates was there with me, and she and I were disturbed to see that one description of bad acting sounded frighteningly like some behavior we've observed in one of our classmates, who has, as they say, "issues." The surprising thing in both of our minds is how we thought our rigorous "process of discernment" was supposed to take folks like that off the front burner until they had worked through those issues. I guess it doesn't always work that way. Dang.

I came home to wonderful, delightfully sane PH, who doesn't have any issues (or any issues he has complement mine delightfully). We went out for an anniversary dinner that we could ill afford, but life is short and we both were ready for a treat. It cleaned away that icky feeling I'd had all day in the class. Life is good.

I'm past my whine-fest of the other day - thanks for understanding.

Friday Five: Creature Comforts

Thanks to ReverendMother for this lovely Friday Five - it made me feel relaxed just thinking about it:

1. Comfort beverage : a pot of white jasmine tea, or a mix of Diet V-8 Tropical Splash and sparkling water, or a glass of Sancerre.
2. Comfort chair: the big old burgundy leather sofa in the living room. I stretch out on it with my nice warm laptop on my lap and websurf, or I put the laptop down and pretend to read wile actually dozing.
3. Comfort read: silly mindless detective novels and thrillers, or nonfiction about food.
4. Comfort television/DVD/music
TV: Grey's Anatomy and House...I've always had a thing for doctor shows.
DVD: Anything with Alan Rickman, or the Vicar of Dibley videos, or anything with Helen Mirren.
Music: Carrie Newcomer (just like RM), Bryn Terfel (great Welsh bass-baritone), Thomas Quasthoff (great German bass-baritone). Bach. Some Mozart. Anything done by Yo-Yo Ma.
5. Comfort companion(s): PH, of course. The cats, although only Spooky seems to like to cuddle up next to me. My friend L, who's been a pal through thick and thin.

The other great comfort thing is a nap. That's my Sunday pleasure: falling asleep for an hour or so on the aforementioned sofa, with the New York Times magazine section on my lap, and a pot of tea on the table beside me. Bliss!

Want Some Cheese with that Whine?

I volunteered to be a class chaplain. It's the sort of thing I love to do, and that I think I do pretty well. Apparently a number of other folks felt the same way, and also volunteered. I didn't get picked.

So now I feel like an eight year old who didn't get picked for the school play. Cranky and rejected and wondering why I'm doing this.

Yes, I know it's childish.

Part of the challenge of going to seminary is having to redefine myself. No one here knows me as a very smart person. I'm not feeling terribly bright these days, frankly. No one here knows me as a good musician. I'm intimidated by the choir director, who has very strong opinions, not all of which I agree with. No one here knows me as an excellent administrator. The folks who got elected to those sorts of roles are living in the dorms and were elected because they were popular amongst the dorm residents.

So today I'm feeling old, dumb, unwanted, and invisible. I'm doing it to myself, of course. That doesn't make it any less painful.

Somebody please kick me in the butt and tell me to stop being such an idiot.

What Day Off?

I'm working my way through Leander Keck's "Who is Jesus." Only problem with reading this stretched out on the couch is that I keep dozing off. This may be the sum total of restful activities for this three day weekend.

PH has been down in New Orleans for the past several days, gutting houses in the Lower Ninth Ward with a team from our church. He's coming home tonight, tired and a little sore, but glad to have done the work. I've missed him so much. I can't wait to pick him up at the airport tonight.

I've been doing all the wonderful stuff one does when one is alone for a few days: catching up on laundry, planting a hundred spring bulbs, watching a couple of videos, cooking dinner for two other friends from seminary who are part of our midlife seminarian group (giving them a break from the refectory cuisine), cleaning, problem-solving from afar for StrongOpinions, whose phone gave up the ghost, taking stuff to the recycling center...you get the picture.

For my Field Ed prep class, I went out on my third church visit yesterday, to a corporate-sized church. This category is for churches with over 450 members. The church I visited has 1500 members, with seven services from Sat. night through Sunday evening. Very, very low church, and very conservative. They are going through 40 days of discernment after which they will decide if they are leaving the Episcopal church. From the sermon that was preached, they've already decided they're leaving. The only open question is whether they'll try to affiliate with the Anglican Church in Nigeria, Rwanda, or Uganda, or form something else entirely here in the US. The priest told us that ECUSA is preaching apostasy.

Suffice to say it was rather difficult to sit through.

The Sunday before, we visited a tiny African American church across the river. No magnificent Steiner Renk organ with trumpets en chamade, just a little electric organ that had seen better days. No thirty thousand dollar sound board and awesome praise band, just a rector who could preach with power and joy and a five member choir that got the rest of the parishioners singing, too. No fancy Newcomers' Welcome Center, just parishioners that all wanted to greet us and give us a hug and ask us "are you going to be our seminarian?" No message filled with political rancor, just a sermon that encouraged us to take on the responsibility of all that God calls us to be.

Guess which one I liked better?

R.I.P. Moses

At 11 pm last night, the phone rang.

Never a good sign, since the universe knows I'm incoherent after ten.

It was StrongOpinions, in tears because Moses, her gecko, died while she was in class. She hadn't thought he was sick, although he seemed a tad sluggish to her. She came home from food-shopping, and there he was in his little habitat, on his back. She was inconsolable. I talked to her and tried to soothe her from afar for a half hour.

This morning in chapel we celebrated the feast of St Francis of Assisi, who is known, of course, for his great love of animals. All I could think of was poor Moses, and poor StrongOpinions, who shares Francis' deep respect and love for all of God's creatures, even the least of them.

I told her tonight that I admired her love and care for her little gecko, and that he had a good life with her.

Not that I'm anxious to see another gecko in our household, but I think I'll miss the little guy.

Just in case you were wondering...

RM mentioned in a comment on a prior post that I was looking radiant when I was at the concert at her church last weekend.

The truth is that it has nothing to do with seminary.

It's the vast quantities of silver hair shining under the lights now that I've stopped dyeing it.

Aw, shucks! It's no fun basking in the reflected glory of your own gray hair.

Yes, I'm Still Here

...just a little swamped with work right now. It's all good, and I'm loving it. I got deeply engrossed in an exegesis last night and the next thing I knew, it was 11:30 pm. Would that I could get as joyfully engrossed in Hebrew grammar!

I did get to do some fun things this weekend: a community dinner at the seminary, a dinner with the rector of the church we helped out on the Gulf Coast this past February, a concert by the absolutely transcendent Carrie Newcomer at RM's church, and dinner out with dear PH last night. In between, it was reading, reading, reading, writing, writing, writing (with some loads of laundry in-between).

StrongOpinions got an A+ on a paper about feminist perspectives on the Bible. I hope some of her smarts rub off on her mother!

I am mostly over the icky cold, just some occasional sniffles and hacks. This, too, shall pass.

Back later.

Bleahhh

Still feeling awful. I went to bed early, and slept in StrongOpinions' room since I didn't want to infect poor PH, who's doing a 100-mile bike ride today (what cyclists call a century) up in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

I got up and took some DayQuil in hopes of beating it back, so my nose isn't drippy, but my throat still hurts and my head feels like it's stuffed full of cotton. I will skip icon writing today, which gives you an indicator of how vile I feel.

I'm perched on the couch with my nice warm laptop, and should really put it away and get started on my Hebrew homework. I can't afford to be sick right now, but whining about it won't help. Is it too early for me to take a nap?

Friday Five: Five Things I've enjoyed This Week

I'm sitting here feeling yucky from what feels like a bad sore throat/flu coming on, so meditating on things I've enjoyed may put me in a better frame of mind (I hope):

1. Small group worship this morning. Here at Big old Seminary, on Fridays we don't go to chapel in the mornings, we go to our faculty advisor's home (all faculty are given houses on the campus) for worship, fellowship, meetings about stuff. We had a lovely Presbyterian service led by one of our two advisors, some great coffee cake made by the other advisor, and some wonderful and frank conversation among our group of nine students and the advisors.

2. Blue Bunny Sweet Freedom Ice Cream Bars. Sugarfree, so I don't feel guilty. Delicious so I feel indulged. Life is good.

3. A hug this morning from PH that made me feel so safe and loved in the midst of all this change and chaos and fear in my life.

4. The first rehearsal of the motet choir. It was so good to be singing with a group of good singers. I NEEDED to sing, even though my voice wasn't at its best. And the new choir director is awesome.

5. A commitment from my rector to help cover the cost of some vestments I need to buy. Whew!

I'm going away now to take some TheraFlu.