Over the moon...

Our first session of our "Saturday School" Christian ed and worship for God's special kids was this morning. It went better than I even imagined. To read more about it, check out the Other Blog. So many people worked to make this happen, and will continue to work to improve it. I have no doubt now that the Spirit has moved us to do this thing, and that come the fall we will be able to welcome other special kids to join us. I am grateful for Rev. Jerome Berryman for creating the Godly Play curriculum, which fits us so well, for the folks who developed the "Rhythms of Grace" curriculum which dovetails so nicely with the Godly Play stuff, for Rev. Amy P-T who served as a wise resource, and for a whole raft of wonderful Epiphany people who did a whole bunch of stuff to make this come to life, and who will continue to sustain and evolve it as necessary. And special shout-out to I and N, our first two students, who were a delight and a reminder that God's love comes in all different shapes and packages.

I came home shell-shocked from the wonder of it, and decompressed for a little while before going to Maymont and wandering around the whole place with PH this afternoon. It's a huge estate/park/nature center/wildlife center. PH presided at a wedding there in the Italian garden a few months ago. It was hot, tres hot, but beautiful. We saw a peacock who apparently has an unrequited love for a duck (peacock was following the duck around forlornly the whole time we watched), various raptors who live there because they have been injured and can no longer survive in the wild, foxes, deer, plus the usual array of barnyard denizens. The black bears were hiding. Great Japanese garden with a three story waterfall, magnificent Tudor revival buildings, plus the usual (snark alert) folks who should not be wearing little sundresses or Daisy Duke shorts or close-fitting polo shirts. Dear moment when a fellow was trying to get the wheelchair of his lady over one of the Japanese moon bridges, but decided it was too hard for him...a Mennonite lady said, "Oh I've got a strong son - he'll help you." Up popped the lad, who looked pretty strong, but the lady in the wheelchair took a bye. Still, so nice to see helpful people with generous hearts.

Other big thumbs up for the day: I had seen a pretty loveseat at a local consignment place - it was a reasonable price and appeared to be a good match for our bedroom colors. I stopped by today to verify the color was right, but it had a "hold" sticker on it. I went to the front and said, "I see it's got a hold on it. Would you let me put a back-up hold on it, since the hold will expire at 5 pm?" They said sure - just call them right before 5 to see if the people had come back for it. I just called and they said the people hadn't come back, so now I've got a beautiful aqua damask loveseat that will fit perfectly against the wall opposite our bed. Now all I need to do is to make sure the cat doesn't decide it's her scratching post (double-sided tape, do your stuff!)

Tomorrow we'll celebrate PH's 25th anniversary of his ordination. I baked a cake for our coffee hour at church. I may take pictures of the cake if it looks decent when I finish decorating it. If it doesn't, I won't. If it looks REALLY bad, I may post a picture just for giggles...

Picture at the top of the bread and grape juice from our first St Giles worship, plus the great stole that I wore, a gift from a mom of a boy who would love this ministry if he lived a little closer.