Since I knew I'd be downtown for a meeting at mid-day and couldn't get to our church's Good Friday noontime service, I went to Slightly Higher Church in the neighborhood at 6:30 am for the Mass of the PreSanctified.
It's always an interesting experience to go to a church other than one's home parish. Things are the same, but maybe a little bit...different. Familiar, but not quite. Very much the experience of Good Friday, when Christ's human frailty is in the forefront rather than His Godhood. We know that both natures are in Him, but when the human so outweighs the Godly, it disconcerts us.
It was a beautiful Eucharist, though, and their chapel is quite lovely. The chapel is also the columbarium, so one feels one is communing with the saints who have gone before us.
After that, I drove over to my church for our wonderful women's bible study group. We are deep into the Apocrypha, and wrapped up Greek Esther (regular Esther plus a bunch of stuff about God). Much discussion amongst us Christians about Purim and Hamantaschen (which made me hungry for one), and the intent of King Artaxerxes' letter (is it the giving of sovereignty to the nation of Israel for one day? is it anarchy for a day?). Somehow, a plastic surgery discussion happened, but I can't remember how we got there, maybe via Esther's beauty. It's a very stream-of-consciousness group. On to the Wisdom of Solomon next week, but I'll be gone for the day.
I had a long discussion with my boss about my doing work for the bank next year on a part-time basis while I'm in seminary. They will pay me half-time (that shocked me - I was thinking more like 1/4 or 1/3) for a year to help them transition. Blessings abound.
We chose a realtor, let the other candidates know we had decided in favor of someone else, and scheduled time for a series of things that have to be done to the house - carpeting the basement bedrooms, washing the windows, removing some furniture to make it look more spacious for potential buyers. I'm only slightly freaked out by it all. I'm just grateful that things are falling into place.
May we all have time to think and to pray today, and to thank God for the gift of His Son, and His Son's sacrifice for us.
So much going on for you!
ReplyDeleteAbout doing the pre-sell stuff in your home: can you get some friends to help you? It's easier to do stuff at other people's homes than our own.
Blessings to you...
We'll use a professional window-washing service, and friends will help by storing some stuff. Some things will also go to relatives' (like my grandmother's china and PH's tools, which are almost as many as my cooking equipment) to live with them until I'm done with seminary. Once the realtor tells us which furniture etc. has to go into storage (I've already got a pretty good idea what that might be), we'll have the movers take the storage stuff and hold it until we're ready to move, then they'll come get the rest of our worldly possessions to deliver it all to seminary housing. We've hit the point in life where we and our friends all have bad backs, so we want to minimize the possibility of injury. Worth it to pay professionals to do the actual moving and storing for a couple of months.
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