I'm having a recurrence of a blood problem (ITP, for those who care about such things) that has been in remission for a couple of years. I noticed a lot of bruising and little red dots called petechiae on my legs and arms over the weekend, and when I had my blood tested, the platelet count was quite low. So now we're watching and waiting for a week - if it doesn't resolve itself (which it has sometimes in the past), it means a couple of days of being hooked up to an infusion pump and getting major drugs pumped into me.
Suffice to say, I'd like to avoid the infusion if possible. The funny thing is that I feel fine, except for the remnants of the cold in the form of a dry cough. Ah, well, stuff happens.
On a lighter note, I had lunch with the rector of my sponsoring parish today...yummy Indian food. Lots of hard-core theological conversation (he has a doctorate in theology and ethics), and it was fun to be able to have such a conversation and be able to hold my own in it. Guess I'm learning something after all.
Off to organize my closet and drawers!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Today's Sermon
Despite still feeling under the weather, I went to my home parish, St. P's, and preached for the first time. Here it is:
It’s good to be here with you, but I must admit it is rather odd standing up here, preaching. The preaching itself isn’t new: I’ve been preaching at least once a month at my field education site, Saint Middle School, since I started there in the fall. But this is the first time I’ve preached for YOU, and it is a very different thing preaching for my church family than it is to preach there. When I began to attend Saint P’s in 1995, I couldn’t have imagined standing here, and preaching the Gospel.
So this is a beginning of sorts, coming back here to preach. It is a redefining of our relationship, you and I. I am no longer Mibi who sings in choir, or Mibi who was Senior Warden, or Mibi who likes to cook. Now I am Mibi, on the road to becoming a priest. A beginning.
Beginnings are wonderful and frightening things, fraught with possibilities. When I began seminary, I had ideas about what it might be like, the work, the opportunity to pray in community so often throughout the day, the chance to study Scripture in depth. My ideas were uniformly wrong. The work was more intense than I expected. I needed to change my style of writing to an academic style I hadn’t used in thirty years. There wasn’t enough time to read everything that was assigned. There wasn’t enough time to truly digest all that I was given in my Scripture classes.
There were many joys, though. And in the midst of it all, I found a deeper, more spiritually mature relationship with God.
But make no mistake about it, beginnings are scary, even as they are exciting.
Our Gospel today is another beginning story, full of things that don’t turn out as expected. Just as I couldn’t have imagined preaching here a dozen years ago, neither did John the Baptist imagine that the Messiah would come to him and ask to be baptized. Think about this passage, and where it is in Matthew’s story: just before this, John has been telling off the Pharisees and Sadducees who came down to the Jordan to see what he was up to: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Harsh words. So John sets up a vision of the coming Messiah as someone powerful and even frightening. But now John is standing with this man, his own cousin, and he knows somehow who he is. Jesus quietly asks him for baptism in the River Jordan. John protests: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus is firm, saying it is necessary, “proper to fulfill all righteousness.” So John goes ahead as Jesus has asked.
And an unexpected thing happens, not the thing that normally happens when John baptizes people. The skies open, the spirit descends like a dove, the voice of God speaks. God, confirming who this is: His SON, in whom God is well-pleased. John may perform the act of baptism, but it is the spirit who anoints Jesus and God Himself who proclaims Jesus’ identity. “This is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” A Son of God, sent from God, beloved of God, made man.
This is not the baptism that John expected. It is something entirely different, a new kind of washing and anointing, the beginning of a new relationship between God and humanity, because God has sent his Son to be one of us.
It might be useful to take a moment to think about baptism at that time. Remember that ritual baths for cleansing – the mikvah - were a common part of the religion of the Jews. Very Orthodox Jews still use the mikvah as a melding of spiritual and physical cleansing. And in that time, when Gentiles were converted to Judaism, such a ritual bath would be part of the rite to affirm their new faith. So washing one’s body and one’s soul in the waters was a familiar image to them, and John’s act of baptizing would be seen as such a cleansing. Remember John’s words “I baptize with water for repentance.”
Think too about where this is happening: It’s the river Jordan. It’s the very water that Joshua led the Israelites through to the Promised Land. You may recall that when the feet of the priests touched the river waters, God parted those waters so the Israelites could cross, much as God parted the Red Sea when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. It was a beginning when the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, a fulfillment of God’s covenant to deliver them from the Egyptians. This River Jordan is a marker of new beginnings for the Jews. And it is a marker of new beginnings for Jesus, too, for this act of baptism is the first act of Christ’s active ministry, it is the first step on a long journey to Jerusalem, and to the cross.
If you were a Jew who was listening to this Gospel in the time that Matthew wrote it, you would have been give enough information to know exactly what was going on here. The location at the River Jordan, the reiteration of the quote from Isaiah, even the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, all would have established that Jesus was the Messiah. That would have been the central question to those listeners at that time.
But what of us? We are twenty-first century Christians. How do we hear it? When we hear this story, our likely question is the same as John’s. Why does Jesus need to be baptized? Isn’t he without sin? He doesn’t need cleansing.
Jesus says he should be baptized to “fulfill all righteousness.” These are words that aren’t common parlance for us. What does righteousness mean? Nowadays we’d say it means virtue, morality, justice, honesty. All those are good synonyms for righteousness in our time, in our culture. But perhaps we need to hear it as those first century Jews did. It is a word heard over and over again in the Hebrew Bible, and in that context, it means honoring the covenant. It means keeping one’s part of the contract, in this case the contract between God and his people.
All those prophecies of one who is to come, all those words about God keeping His promise: these are fulfilled in Jesus. He is the covenant. He is God keeping his promise that he will not forsake his people who believe in him. And this act, this anointing, this washing, is not only the act that identifies Jesus as God’s fulfillment of the covenant, it is the sanctification of that act itself, of that water, for us, too, to be blessed, to be one with the Son of God who was himself the fulfillment of the promise. Jesus Christ became man to save us, and in solidarity with humanity, he too stepped into the water of new beginnings, sanctifying it forevermore so that we might have a new beginning, washed clean in that holy water.
And here is the wonderful tension between the old and the new in this great story. This is a new beginning, a new story, a new covenant. But it is also a fulfillment of the original covenant between God and his people. Just as our baptism is a new story, a new contract, it also fulfills the original covenant. Think of the words of the Thanksgiving over the Water in our Service of Baptism: “We thank you for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of Creation. Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the Land of promise. In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.” It is a reiteration of the old promise even as it is a covenant of the new promise. And as my relationship with you all is an affirmation of all that has gone before, it, too is transformed into something new, a road that you all put me on.
We have put away the Christmas decorations, vacuumed up the pine needles, started our New Year’s diet, and begun a new year. But the calendar and the clock are not the only markers of new beginnings. The water is, too. In our baptism in that sanctified water, we have the opportunity to rewrite our own story, in faithfulness to our baptismal covenant, with God’s help. We can make the choices that reflect God’s priorities, not our own. We can reflect on our relationship with God, and what it might be, if we are willing to fulfill all righteousness. Christ has done it first. We need only make a new beginning, to step in His footsteps.
Amen.
It’s good to be here with you, but I must admit it is rather odd standing up here, preaching. The preaching itself isn’t new: I’ve been preaching at least once a month at my field education site, Saint Middle School, since I started there in the fall. But this is the first time I’ve preached for YOU, and it is a very different thing preaching for my church family than it is to preach there. When I began to attend Saint P’s in 1995, I couldn’t have imagined standing here, and preaching the Gospel.
So this is a beginning of sorts, coming back here to preach. It is a redefining of our relationship, you and I. I am no longer Mibi who sings in choir, or Mibi who was Senior Warden, or Mibi who likes to cook. Now I am Mibi, on the road to becoming a priest. A beginning.
Beginnings are wonderful and frightening things, fraught with possibilities. When I began seminary, I had ideas about what it might be like, the work, the opportunity to pray in community so often throughout the day, the chance to study Scripture in depth. My ideas were uniformly wrong. The work was more intense than I expected. I needed to change my style of writing to an academic style I hadn’t used in thirty years. There wasn’t enough time to read everything that was assigned. There wasn’t enough time to truly digest all that I was given in my Scripture classes.
There were many joys, though. And in the midst of it all, I found a deeper, more spiritually mature relationship with God.
But make no mistake about it, beginnings are scary, even as they are exciting.
Our Gospel today is another beginning story, full of things that don’t turn out as expected. Just as I couldn’t have imagined preaching here a dozen years ago, neither did John the Baptist imagine that the Messiah would come to him and ask to be baptized. Think about this passage, and where it is in Matthew’s story: just before this, John has been telling off the Pharisees and Sadducees who came down to the Jordan to see what he was up to: “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me…He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Harsh words. So John sets up a vision of the coming Messiah as someone powerful and even frightening. But now John is standing with this man, his own cousin, and he knows somehow who he is. Jesus quietly asks him for baptism in the River Jordan. John protests: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus is firm, saying it is necessary, “proper to fulfill all righteousness.” So John goes ahead as Jesus has asked.
And an unexpected thing happens, not the thing that normally happens when John baptizes people. The skies open, the spirit descends like a dove, the voice of God speaks. God, confirming who this is: His SON, in whom God is well-pleased. John may perform the act of baptism, but it is the spirit who anoints Jesus and God Himself who proclaims Jesus’ identity. “This is my son, my beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” A Son of God, sent from God, beloved of God, made man.
This is not the baptism that John expected. It is something entirely different, a new kind of washing and anointing, the beginning of a new relationship between God and humanity, because God has sent his Son to be one of us.
It might be useful to take a moment to think about baptism at that time. Remember that ritual baths for cleansing – the mikvah - were a common part of the religion of the Jews. Very Orthodox Jews still use the mikvah as a melding of spiritual and physical cleansing. And in that time, when Gentiles were converted to Judaism, such a ritual bath would be part of the rite to affirm their new faith. So washing one’s body and one’s soul in the waters was a familiar image to them, and John’s act of baptizing would be seen as such a cleansing. Remember John’s words “I baptize with water for repentance.”
Think too about where this is happening: It’s the river Jordan. It’s the very water that Joshua led the Israelites through to the Promised Land. You may recall that when the feet of the priests touched the river waters, God parted those waters so the Israelites could cross, much as God parted the Red Sea when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. It was a beginning when the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, a fulfillment of God’s covenant to deliver them from the Egyptians. This River Jordan is a marker of new beginnings for the Jews. And it is a marker of new beginnings for Jesus, too, for this act of baptism is the first act of Christ’s active ministry, it is the first step on a long journey to Jerusalem, and to the cross.
If you were a Jew who was listening to this Gospel in the time that Matthew wrote it, you would have been give enough information to know exactly what was going on here. The location at the River Jordan, the reiteration of the quote from Isaiah, even the genealogy at the beginning of Matthew’s Gospel, all would have established that Jesus was the Messiah. That would have been the central question to those listeners at that time.
But what of us? We are twenty-first century Christians. How do we hear it? When we hear this story, our likely question is the same as John’s. Why does Jesus need to be baptized? Isn’t he without sin? He doesn’t need cleansing.
Jesus says he should be baptized to “fulfill all righteousness.” These are words that aren’t common parlance for us. What does righteousness mean? Nowadays we’d say it means virtue, morality, justice, honesty. All those are good synonyms for righteousness in our time, in our culture. But perhaps we need to hear it as those first century Jews did. It is a word heard over and over again in the Hebrew Bible, and in that context, it means honoring the covenant. It means keeping one’s part of the contract, in this case the contract between God and his people.
All those prophecies of one who is to come, all those words about God keeping His promise: these are fulfilled in Jesus. He is the covenant. He is God keeping his promise that he will not forsake his people who believe in him. And this act, this anointing, this washing, is not only the act that identifies Jesus as God’s fulfillment of the covenant, it is the sanctification of that act itself, of that water, for us, too, to be blessed, to be one with the Son of God who was himself the fulfillment of the promise. Jesus Christ became man to save us, and in solidarity with humanity, he too stepped into the water of new beginnings, sanctifying it forevermore so that we might have a new beginning, washed clean in that holy water.
And here is the wonderful tension between the old and the new in this great story. This is a new beginning, a new story, a new covenant. But it is also a fulfillment of the original covenant between God and his people. Just as our baptism is a new story, a new contract, it also fulfills the original covenant. Think of the words of the Thanksgiving over the Water in our Service of Baptism: “We thank you for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of Creation. Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the Land of promise. In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.” It is a reiteration of the old promise even as it is a covenant of the new promise. And as my relationship with you all is an affirmation of all that has gone before, it, too is transformed into something new, a road that you all put me on.
We have put away the Christmas decorations, vacuumed up the pine needles, started our New Year’s diet, and begun a new year. But the calendar and the clock are not the only markers of new beginnings. The water is, too. In our baptism in that sanctified water, we have the opportunity to rewrite our own story, in faithfulness to our baptismal covenant, with God’s help. We can make the choices that reflect God’s priorities, not our own. We can reflect on our relationship with God, and what it might be, if we are willing to fulfill all righteousness. Christ has done it first. We need only make a new beginning, to step in His footsteps.
Amen.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Strange Weather
Yesterday, it made it all the way up to 73 degrees Fahrenheit. Today, it's 63. One would hope that it would have baked this nasty cold out of me, but it is not so. Still have a nasty cough.
I'm taking a Jan term course this week, "Reconciliation and Transformation in a Post-Apartheid Culture" with the woman who runs the Spirals Trust in South Africa, which does a lot of work in helping people heal in that world. Difficult issues, difficult conversations. Taking this class from 6:45 to 9:45 at night is exhausting. The class is a good mix of seminary students and laity. Ages run from 24 to somewhere around 75. A diverse group in every way. It has really gotten me chewing on the differences between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness is something I give someone else, because at the heart of it, it is healing for me to do that. Reconciliation is a reciprocal act, and requires the person who wounds to acknowledge their act, repent of it, and ask to reconstruct a broken relationship. It is not a quick process.
So much of what we seem to focus on these days is the quick fix in a crisis situation. We tell the little child who has struck her playmate "Tell her you're sorry." And she does, but we can tell from the tone of her voice that she doesn't mean it, doesn't understand it. I wonder if it leads to a mechanical "I'm sorry" with no heart behind it that we use for the rest of our lives.
If we can't look into ourselves and see what we have done, when we have done wrong, how can we look into the eyes of someone we've hurt and ask if it is possible to rebuild the relationship?
I'm taking a Jan term course this week, "Reconciliation and Transformation in a Post-Apartheid Culture" with the woman who runs the Spirals Trust in South Africa, which does a lot of work in helping people heal in that world. Difficult issues, difficult conversations. Taking this class from 6:45 to 9:45 at night is exhausting. The class is a good mix of seminary students and laity. Ages run from 24 to somewhere around 75. A diverse group in every way. It has really gotten me chewing on the differences between forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness is something I give someone else, because at the heart of it, it is healing for me to do that. Reconciliation is a reciprocal act, and requires the person who wounds to acknowledge their act, repent of it, and ask to reconstruct a broken relationship. It is not a quick process.
So much of what we seem to focus on these days is the quick fix in a crisis situation. We tell the little child who has struck her playmate "Tell her you're sorry." And she does, but we can tell from the tone of her voice that she doesn't mean it, doesn't understand it. I wonder if it leads to a mechanical "I'm sorry" with no heart behind it that we use for the rest of our lives.
If we can't look into ourselves and see what we have done, when we have done wrong, how can we look into the eyes of someone we've hurt and ask if it is possible to rebuild the relationship?
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Christmas is over
StrongOpinions is back in the shadow of the Flatiron Range, the decorations are off the Christmas tree (but the tree hasn't been put out back yet), and the cold is starting to fade, thank goodness. I'm passing on church tomorrow, for fear of giving others this cold, but will go later in the evening to a soup party at L's house with all the folks from school who are in town, mostly GOE-takers. They finished their ordeal today. Blessings on them all.
They had gotten a letter from our Bishop prior to the exam, telling them not to worry - that he viewed GOEs as diagnostic rather than something that would block someone from ordination. So what are the prescriptions that follow a bad grade on one of the sections? Usually a paper of some sort. Some folks are bad test-takers, so doing a paper is a more comfortable thing. I just keep wondering what the true purpose of these exams are. Since all Episcopal seminarians either attend an Episcopal seminary for all three years, or get an MDiv from another seminary and then spend a year doing what is referred to as an "Anglican year" getting Anglican Church History and litugics and such, and since the curricula amongst the various schools is pretty consistent, the product the church gets - we seminarians - is as consistent as it could be, assuming our grades are honest representations of our work. And if our passing or failing these exams has no bearing on whether we are ordained, why take them? If there is a major failing in a particular area, a paper won't solve the problem.
It seems we should either take these tests seriously or eliminate them. The stress - and it IS stressful taking these tests, regardless of the comfort of the Bishop's letter - seems unnecessary. The questions seem directed toward academic interests (one this year was "Do you believe there is such a thing as an intrinsically evil act?" and one was expected to answer it with a three page paper in three and a half hours...heaven help us) rather than the practical problems of the parish.
Just wondering why we do this. I will take them next year and will do adequately on them, I hope. But it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Seems more like a hazing stunt than a useful measure of our readiness for the priesthood.
They had gotten a letter from our Bishop prior to the exam, telling them not to worry - that he viewed GOEs as diagnostic rather than something that would block someone from ordination. So what are the prescriptions that follow a bad grade on one of the sections? Usually a paper of some sort. Some folks are bad test-takers, so doing a paper is a more comfortable thing. I just keep wondering what the true purpose of these exams are. Since all Episcopal seminarians either attend an Episcopal seminary for all three years, or get an MDiv from another seminary and then spend a year doing what is referred to as an "Anglican year" getting Anglican Church History and litugics and such, and since the curricula amongst the various schools is pretty consistent, the product the church gets - we seminarians - is as consistent as it could be, assuming our grades are honest representations of our work. And if our passing or failing these exams has no bearing on whether we are ordained, why take them? If there is a major failing in a particular area, a paper won't solve the problem.
It seems we should either take these tests seriously or eliminate them. The stress - and it IS stressful taking these tests, regardless of the comfort of the Bishop's letter - seems unnecessary. The questions seem directed toward academic interests (one this year was "Do you believe there is such a thing as an intrinsically evil act?" and one was expected to answer it with a three page paper in three and a half hours...heaven help us) rather than the practical problems of the parish.
Just wondering why we do this. I will take them next year and will do adequately on them, I hope. But it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Seems more like a hazing stunt than a useful measure of our readiness for the priesthood.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Foggy thoughts
I'm a bit foggy from all the cold meds, which only partially treat the symptoms of this catarrh that has me in its clutches. Nonetheless, I've gotten some good things done today. I got up early and went over to school to make sure my volunteers had gotten the GOE hospitality all set up. I ran over at lunchtime and a merry band was there, playing Hearts and applauding each senior as they came in from the rigors of exam-taking. Tomorrow my co-leader in this project will be back from Texas and can finish things up. Tomorrow is a light day anyway - they only have one exam section, in the afternoon.
I got about halfway through the sermon for 1/13, at my home parish. It's a very intellectual crowd, and it will be a challenge coming up with something that will be fresh for them. Nevertheless, I'm really looking forward to preaching there.
I made dinner this evening for my best friend L and her family - roast chicken, roasted new potatoes, green beans amandine and fresh chocolate chip cookies. Strong Opinions and I brought it over to her. She looks so happy to be past the halfway point of GOEs.
So I'm back on the couch getting up my energy to make dinner for PH and StrongOpinions - roast salmon, mashed potatoes, asparagus. And the other half of the batch of chocolate chip cookies.
Life - even in the midst of a bad cold - is good.
I got about halfway through the sermon for 1/13, at my home parish. It's a very intellectual crowd, and it will be a challenge coming up with something that will be fresh for them. Nevertheless, I'm really looking forward to preaching there.
I made dinner this evening for my best friend L and her family - roast chicken, roasted new potatoes, green beans amandine and fresh chocolate chip cookies. Strong Opinions and I brought it over to her. She looks so happy to be past the halfway point of GOEs.
So I'm back on the couch getting up my energy to make dinner for PH and StrongOpinions - roast salmon, mashed potatoes, asparagus. And the other half of the batch of chocolate chip cookies.
Life - even in the midst of a bad cold - is good.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Snort, snort, Cough, cough, ick.
Colds are nasty things. Mine is wandering around various body parts, trying to decide if it will migrate to my chest and become bronchitis, or simply stay in my head, making it well nigh impossible to breathe in bed at night. I usually get one bad old cold a year, and this is it. I'm hoping that this time next year, when I'll be taking the GOEs, I will not have this cold, or any other cold.
Speaking of GOEs, they started today. My lovely crew of GOE hospitality folks did a good job, with very little work on my part, providing the goodies that helped our seniors survive the first two sections of the exams. The reactions of the seniors reinforced my belief that GOEs cannot be studied for, one can only organize one's reference materials and pray.
StrongOpinions is home from the Big Apple, which she adored. I think she'll sleep for another day to fully recover. She may apply to a few schools there, transferring from her present tiny college in the shadow of the Flatiron Range. That'll be a culture shock. She'd only be two and a half hours away from us by Acela, as opposed to five hours by plane. I'd like that, although when she said her friend's neighborhood looked like a set from Law and Order, I had second thoughts.
Parenting is hard work.
Today is Litigator's 24th birthday. Holy cow - how did that creep up on me?
Speaking of GOEs, they started today. My lovely crew of GOE hospitality folks did a good job, with very little work on my part, providing the goodies that helped our seniors survive the first two sections of the exams. The reactions of the seniors reinforced my belief that GOEs cannot be studied for, one can only organize one's reference materials and pray.
StrongOpinions is home from the Big Apple, which she adored. I think she'll sleep for another day to fully recover. She may apply to a few schools there, transferring from her present tiny college in the shadow of the Flatiron Range. That'll be a culture shock. She'd only be two and a half hours away from us by Acela, as opposed to five hours by plane. I'd like that, although when she said her friend's neighborhood looked like a set from Law and Order, I had second thoughts.
Parenting is hard work.
Today is Litigator's 24th birthday. Holy cow - how did that creep up on me?
Monday, December 31, 2007
You're Never Too Old
...to sit on Santa's Lap.
Herewith, my dear father-in-law and I getting our gifts from Santa out in Windy City. Santa must have very strong quads. Father-in-law is wearing the sweater I knit for him a couple of Christmases ago - it portrays noble Norse birkebeiners saving the baby king Haakon from the bad guys. Yet another thing I don't have enough time for anymore.
Miserable with the cold. I'm hoping it fades fast, because I'm in charge of hospitality for our seniors who are taking their General Ordination Exams starting on Wednesday. Heaven forbid any of them should catch this icky thing in the midst of four days of exams!
News on the children front: Litigator passed all of his courses last semester, so he is now done with college. Hallelujah! Took him 5 and a half years and a change of major, but he hung in there and got it done. He will "officially" graduate in May, but he is done. He is a screenwriting major, and they're still on strike, so it seems he'll be working at Chili's for a bit longer. Ah, well.
StrongOpinions is spending New Years in the Big Apple, where she is contemplating transferring to complete college. It would be nice having her closer than a five hour plane flight. We shall see what happens.
Time to squirt some more nasal spray...what a lovely, romantic New Year's Eve!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Cold
The temp, and my health...
Preached this a.m. at Cool Presby Church. It was well-received.
The good thing about it was that I was feeling too awful to worry. Dear friend LL from Big Old Seminary was there, as well as PH's cousins (B & D, and B's daugher S and her husband F). Bless them for coming to lend moral support. We went out for brunch afterwards, and I kept my game face on because they are all so sweet, but I'm happy to be home now on the sofa, with my fleece robe and warm slippers. We're supposed to go to the home of Saint Middle School's vicar for a post-Christmas party. I'll see how I feel in a couple of hours, whether we'll drive the hour it takes to get out there...
Preached this a.m. at Cool Presby Church. It was well-received.
The good thing about it was that I was feeling too awful to worry. Dear friend LL from Big Old Seminary was there, as well as PH's cousins (B & D, and B's daugher S and her husband F). Bless them for coming to lend moral support. We went out for brunch afterwards, and I kept my game face on because they are all so sweet, but I'm happy to be home now on the sofa, with my fleece robe and warm slippers. We're supposed to go to the home of Saint Middle School's vicar for a post-Christmas party. I'll see how I feel in a couple of hours, whether we'll drive the hour it takes to get out there...
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Back from Windy City
...and here's the sermon for tomorrow morning at cool Presbyterian Church in Gen-X neighborhood:
Sermon: December 30, 2007
Text: Matthew 2: 13-23
You know the feeling.
You sit up straight in bed in a cold sweat. It’s two in the morning, and you’re wide awake. A dream has shaken you out of a sound sleep, and now your heart is racing and your head is aching.
So it is with Joseph in this story in today’s gospel.
We can picture it. He’s sitting up in that cold sweat. He looks toward the heavens.
“Again with the dreams, God? This is you again, isn’t it? The last time, you sent an angel to tell me I should go ahead and marry her, pregnant as she was, despite the fact that the child wasn’t mine, because….because why? Because the child was from the Holy Spirit? It was a strange dream then, but I obeyed it, because when You send a messenger, we’re supposed to obey.
So now I have another strange dream, a frightening dream, and I’m supposed to pack her up and the baby and travel quickly to Egypt – no easy trip, mind you, with a wife who has just given birth and a newborn. Yes. Yes, I’ll go…but what is this you’ve gotten me into now?”
Yes, we can picture it, his confusion, his fear. Herod had a reputation for doing bad things. He was worse than his Roman masters. The Lord warning Joseph that Herod wanted to kill this child, well, it was a strange thing that Herod would take notice of Jesus, but strange things had been happening to Joseph lately, so he took heed and took them to Egypt. In the aftermath of that escape, a generation of Bethlehem’s infant sons was killed at Herod’s command. Then it was quiet, except for the weeping of the grieving mothers. Herod assumed he had solved his problem, this problem child whom he feared would challenge his throne.
A few years passed. It was quiet. Herod died. Joseph and Mary and Jesus were living under the radar screen in Egypt. And once again, Joseph’s sleep was disturbed by a dream. God’s voice, once again: "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead." That familiar voice, once again commanding him. And all the gospel tells us is that he didn’t question, didn’t negotiate…he just did as he was told…but he was afraid. He had heard that Herod’s son, just as frightening as his father, had taken the throne. So God gave Joseph another dream, and Joseph took his little family to Galilee.
Kind of makes you wonder about Joseph, when you hear about all those dreams, and how each time, Joseph obeyed, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you want to question God at least a little? At least say “Why me, God?”
Because above all, Joseph was an ordinary man. Extraordinary things didn’t happen to him. He was just a carpenter, an older guy, lived simply. He just wanted a wife and family, and he got…this. A pregnant wife who wasn’t pregnant by him. A child who came from some sort of action of God, he wasn’t sure how to explain it. And dreams. Dream after dream, ruining his sleep, making his life so much more complicated than he wanted it to be. He was an ordinary man, and God called him to be extraordinary.
There’s a picture at the National Gallery. It is small, just a pencil sketch, really, by Rembrandt. It is later in Jesus’ life. Remember when Jesus was twelve and got separated from his parents after the Passover feast and he started teaching in the Temple? This picture tells the tale of the three of them, reunited again, heading for home. A mother, a preteen boy, the family dog, and dad. And let me tell you, dad is mightily ticked off. The expression on his face, his strong carpenter’s hand gripping his son’s wrist like a vise, his hat squashed down over his grumpy face. The tension is so high in this little sketch that even the dog is cringing, running alongside them, looking like he’s afraid he might get whacked with Joseph’s walking stick. This is not a handsome older gentleman who is distant from Mary and Jesus, this is an angry workman whose son got lost, whose wife had been a basket case for the past three days, who is wondering, for perhaps the thousandth time since the first dream, what he had gotten himself into and why he kept saying “yes” to the God who had put him there. His face is an ordinary father’s face. This ordinary, faithful man who loved a child who in the sketch is staring up to the sky as if he wants to commune with his heavenly father. This ordinary man with an extraordinary child.
And that’s the most remarkable thing of all. In Matthew’s gospel, Joseph is given only a hint of what is to come. He knows from the beginning that this is a special child, from God, destined to “save the people from their sins.” This is a child to fulfill the prophecies of old. Joseph knew his Isaiah, that passage that was read this morning. He knew that there was to be a savior, and God told him that this little child was it. But how was this to play out? Was this to be a military leader? A king? Joseph knew they were from the line of David, but it was beyond all comprehension, what this all would mean. And yet, although he did not know the whole story, he followed God’s directions. He acted on faith. This ordinary man who just wanted a family of his own ended up with something very different, but he didn’t shrink away from the task. He stayed with Mary, and he raised Jesus as his own.
The gospels don’t tell us anything about Joseph after the incident at the Temple, but I picture him as an ordinary father, letting his toddler son play with blocks of wood in the shop, while keeping the sharp tools out of his reach, I picture him asking the boy if he had said his prayers in the evening, telling him to help his mother with that heavy bucket of water from the well, showing him how to throw a ball. I imagine him wondering what the future held for this boy, who in childhood seemed like any other little boy. His boy, and yet not. Not his boy, and yet utterly his. An ordinary man, with a child who held the promise of us all.
Sometimes we are shaken by what God seems to be asking us to do. When I realized I was being called to ordained ministry, I said no for several years, before I was brave enough to say yes. It frightened me. I was just an ordinary woman, wanting to live my life in a way that was good for my family and was faithful to God. But God asked me to do something I didn’t expect. I sat up in bed, shaking, in a cold sweat. I was frightened, even though what God was asking of me was a great deal less than what he asked of Joseph. But Joseph was my teacher.
What did Joseph do, in those moments of his dreams? When God was asking him to do the unexpected thing, something he felt was beyond him? He said yes. And his yes was a deeply moving one.
When Jesus was born, Matthew tells us that Joseph named him. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It’s more significant than that brief phrase suggests. Scholars tell us that by giving Jesus his name, Joseph was identifying him in that society, in that time, as his own son. He was adopting him as his own.
There may have been whispers about Jesus’ paternity in those days; the town was small and there was little privacy. The gospel doesn’t tell us. But if there were, those whispers would have been shut down by this act, this naming. It protected both Mary and Jesus. It was a first act of love toward a child who was a mystery to him. The name, too was an act of faith. The name he gave him was Jesus, or Yeshua – God saves. An act of faith, in that name, an act of belief in the God of his dreams. And the subsequent acts of love, of protecting, of teaching, were the same beautiful acts of a caring father, an ordinary man who did the extraordinary. Why? Because this ordinary man was extraordinary in his faith, in his righteousness, in his love of his God.
So this day, after the glory and angel songs of Christ’s birth, when the presents are unwrapped and some toys are already broken, when we’re thinking we really should take down the decorations and put the tree out on the curb, when we begin to move back into the humdrum of short winter days, we remember an ordinary man who listened to what God told him in his dreams and who said yes, and yes again.
We are ordinary people. God may not ask us the big things. But there may a thousand little extraordinary ways in which we can be faithful in our days, even in these short, dark, winter days, that will make the light shine and the angels sing once again,
Amen.
Sermon: December 30, 2007
Text: Matthew 2: 13-23
You know the feeling.
You sit up straight in bed in a cold sweat. It’s two in the morning, and you’re wide awake. A dream has shaken you out of a sound sleep, and now your heart is racing and your head is aching.
So it is with Joseph in this story in today’s gospel.
We can picture it. He’s sitting up in that cold sweat. He looks toward the heavens.
“Again with the dreams, God? This is you again, isn’t it? The last time, you sent an angel to tell me I should go ahead and marry her, pregnant as she was, despite the fact that the child wasn’t mine, because….because why? Because the child was from the Holy Spirit? It was a strange dream then, but I obeyed it, because when You send a messenger, we’re supposed to obey.
So now I have another strange dream, a frightening dream, and I’m supposed to pack her up and the baby and travel quickly to Egypt – no easy trip, mind you, with a wife who has just given birth and a newborn. Yes. Yes, I’ll go…but what is this you’ve gotten me into now?”
Yes, we can picture it, his confusion, his fear. Herod had a reputation for doing bad things. He was worse than his Roman masters. The Lord warning Joseph that Herod wanted to kill this child, well, it was a strange thing that Herod would take notice of Jesus, but strange things had been happening to Joseph lately, so he took heed and took them to Egypt. In the aftermath of that escape, a generation of Bethlehem’s infant sons was killed at Herod’s command. Then it was quiet, except for the weeping of the grieving mothers. Herod assumed he had solved his problem, this problem child whom he feared would challenge his throne.
A few years passed. It was quiet. Herod died. Joseph and Mary and Jesus were living under the radar screen in Egypt. And once again, Joseph’s sleep was disturbed by a dream. God’s voice, once again: "Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead." That familiar voice, once again commanding him. And all the gospel tells us is that he didn’t question, didn’t negotiate…he just did as he was told…but he was afraid. He had heard that Herod’s son, just as frightening as his father, had taken the throne. So God gave Joseph another dream, and Joseph took his little family to Galilee.
Kind of makes you wonder about Joseph, when you hear about all those dreams, and how each time, Joseph obeyed, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you want to question God at least a little? At least say “Why me, God?”
Because above all, Joseph was an ordinary man. Extraordinary things didn’t happen to him. He was just a carpenter, an older guy, lived simply. He just wanted a wife and family, and he got…this. A pregnant wife who wasn’t pregnant by him. A child who came from some sort of action of God, he wasn’t sure how to explain it. And dreams. Dream after dream, ruining his sleep, making his life so much more complicated than he wanted it to be. He was an ordinary man, and God called him to be extraordinary.
There’s a picture at the National Gallery. It is small, just a pencil sketch, really, by Rembrandt. It is later in Jesus’ life. Remember when Jesus was twelve and got separated from his parents after the Passover feast and he started teaching in the Temple? This picture tells the tale of the three of them, reunited again, heading for home. A mother, a preteen boy, the family dog, and dad. And let me tell you, dad is mightily ticked off. The expression on his face, his strong carpenter’s hand gripping his son’s wrist like a vise, his hat squashed down over his grumpy face. The tension is so high in this little sketch that even the dog is cringing, running alongside them, looking like he’s afraid he might get whacked with Joseph’s walking stick. This is not a handsome older gentleman who is distant from Mary and Jesus, this is an angry workman whose son got lost, whose wife had been a basket case for the past three days, who is wondering, for perhaps the thousandth time since the first dream, what he had gotten himself into and why he kept saying “yes” to the God who had put him there. His face is an ordinary father’s face. This ordinary, faithful man who loved a child who in the sketch is staring up to the sky as if he wants to commune with his heavenly father. This ordinary man with an extraordinary child.
And that’s the most remarkable thing of all. In Matthew’s gospel, Joseph is given only a hint of what is to come. He knows from the beginning that this is a special child, from God, destined to “save the people from their sins.” This is a child to fulfill the prophecies of old. Joseph knew his Isaiah, that passage that was read this morning. He knew that there was to be a savior, and God told him that this little child was it. But how was this to play out? Was this to be a military leader? A king? Joseph knew they were from the line of David, but it was beyond all comprehension, what this all would mean. And yet, although he did not know the whole story, he followed God’s directions. He acted on faith. This ordinary man who just wanted a family of his own ended up with something very different, but he didn’t shrink away from the task. He stayed with Mary, and he raised Jesus as his own.
The gospels don’t tell us anything about Joseph after the incident at the Temple, but I picture him as an ordinary father, letting his toddler son play with blocks of wood in the shop, while keeping the sharp tools out of his reach, I picture him asking the boy if he had said his prayers in the evening, telling him to help his mother with that heavy bucket of water from the well, showing him how to throw a ball. I imagine him wondering what the future held for this boy, who in childhood seemed like any other little boy. His boy, and yet not. Not his boy, and yet utterly his. An ordinary man, with a child who held the promise of us all.
Sometimes we are shaken by what God seems to be asking us to do. When I realized I was being called to ordained ministry, I said no for several years, before I was brave enough to say yes. It frightened me. I was just an ordinary woman, wanting to live my life in a way that was good for my family and was faithful to God. But God asked me to do something I didn’t expect. I sat up in bed, shaking, in a cold sweat. I was frightened, even though what God was asking of me was a great deal less than what he asked of Joseph. But Joseph was my teacher.
What did Joseph do, in those moments of his dreams? When God was asking him to do the unexpected thing, something he felt was beyond him? He said yes. And his yes was a deeply moving one.
When Jesus was born, Matthew tells us that Joseph named him. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? It’s more significant than that brief phrase suggests. Scholars tell us that by giving Jesus his name, Joseph was identifying him in that society, in that time, as his own son. He was adopting him as his own.
There may have been whispers about Jesus’ paternity in those days; the town was small and there was little privacy. The gospel doesn’t tell us. But if there were, those whispers would have been shut down by this act, this naming. It protected both Mary and Jesus. It was a first act of love toward a child who was a mystery to him. The name, too was an act of faith. The name he gave him was Jesus, or Yeshua – God saves. An act of faith, in that name, an act of belief in the God of his dreams. And the subsequent acts of love, of protecting, of teaching, were the same beautiful acts of a caring father, an ordinary man who did the extraordinary. Why? Because this ordinary man was extraordinary in his faith, in his righteousness, in his love of his God.
So this day, after the glory and angel songs of Christ’s birth, when the presents are unwrapped and some toys are already broken, when we’re thinking we really should take down the decorations and put the tree out on the curb, when we begin to move back into the humdrum of short winter days, we remember an ordinary man who listened to what God told him in his dreams and who said yes, and yes again.
We are ordinary people. God may not ask us the big things. But there may a thousand little extraordinary ways in which we can be faithful in our days, even in these short, dark, winter days, that will make the light shine and the angels sing once again,
Amen.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Post Christmas Post
Yesterday was quiet and delightful. PH and I slept in a bit (anything past 6 is sleeping in for us), had coffee in bed, came down and opened the stockings, then had breakfast and opened the rest fo the gifts. My big present was a Palm PDA - PH's was software and cabling that allows him to convert his LPs into MP3 or CD format. We spent much of the day playing with our toys...it never gets old, does it?
I talked to StrongOpinions, who is up north with her dad, and Litigator and StoneMason, who were working during this busy season in CA and VT. StoneMason and StrongOpinions will be here for their second Christmas in a couple of days - Litigator won't make it east until Feb. We are waiting for him to get his grades back from this past semester. If he passes everything, he will (finally) graduate from college. I think we all willl be relieved and grateful when that happens. College was not intellectually difficult for him, but he had some growing up to do.
Dinner was rack of lamb, sauteed brussels sprouts, roasted new potatoes, carrots, a bit of red wine, and German chocolate cake. Today the diet starts again.
I also got to talk by phone to the grandbabies. The Princess was very taken with the American Girl colonial dress I got for her AG doll. There is a lady at the Old Town Farmer's Market who makes them by hand - appropriate in a town that prides itself on its colonial roots - and they are precious. D-I-L wondered if I had made it myself. There was a time when I did do such things - StrongOpinions had mom-made outfits of all kinds for her AG dolls, and I also made her princess costumes and her dress-up-go-to-church clothes when she was a sprout - but I fear I no longer have the time for such lovely pursuits. Hard to believe a student has less time than a lobbyist, but that's the truth!
On this last day before we fly to Windy City for a couple of days with PH's family, I think I'll clean the house and organize my very messy closet.
Or I may just read and knit on a pair of socks...
What are YOU doing in the aftermath?
I talked to StrongOpinions, who is up north with her dad, and Litigator and StoneMason, who were working during this busy season in CA and VT. StoneMason and StrongOpinions will be here for their second Christmas in a couple of days - Litigator won't make it east until Feb. We are waiting for him to get his grades back from this past semester. If he passes everything, he will (finally) graduate from college. I think we all willl be relieved and grateful when that happens. College was not intellectually difficult for him, but he had some growing up to do.
Dinner was rack of lamb, sauteed brussels sprouts, roasted new potatoes, carrots, a bit of red wine, and German chocolate cake. Today the diet starts again.
I also got to talk by phone to the grandbabies. The Princess was very taken with the American Girl colonial dress I got for her AG doll. There is a lady at the Old Town Farmer's Market who makes them by hand - appropriate in a town that prides itself on its colonial roots - and they are precious. D-I-L wondered if I had made it myself. There was a time when I did do such things - StrongOpinions had mom-made outfits of all kinds for her AG dolls, and I also made her princess costumes and her dress-up-go-to-church clothes when she was a sprout - but I fear I no longer have the time for such lovely pursuits. Hard to believe a student has less time than a lobbyist, but that's the truth!
On this last day before we fly to Windy City for a couple of days with PH's family, I think I'll clean the house and organize my very messy closet.
Or I may just read and knit on a pair of socks...
What are YOU doing in the aftermath?
Monday, December 24, 2007
A Peaceful Christmas Eve
PH and I slept in (for us) all the way to 7 a.m. A leisurely breakfast of Swedish pancakes with lingonberries, then a drive to Annapolis to wander through shops and have crabcakes. We came home, I wrote the sermon for 12/30, I cooked us dinner (steak, pureed cauliflower, zucchini sauteed with garlic, dishes of fresh raspberries with whipped cream, red wine) and rewrote the sermon for 12/30. I suspect it will go through at least one more rewrite before it's done.
In 90 minutes we'll drive to St P's, my home parish, to sing with the choir for the 11 pm service. Candles, a packed house, a lot of familiar carols and a few unfamiliar ones, hugs with friends, then home by 1 a.m.
StrongOpinions is up north at her dad's, Litigator and StoneMason are working through the holidays.
The quiet is good.
Tomorrow we may actually sleep until 8 a.m. A blessed Christmas in so many ways to each and every one of you!
(P.S. - for Lorraine - the high tea was fabulous. Little open-faced sandwiches with cucumber and shrimp, egg salad, chicken mousse. Scones with clotted cream, lemon curd, raspberry spread. Mini-pastries with chocolate mousse, raspberry tarts, pine nut and candied fruit tarts. A glass of champagne. At least a dozen teas to choose from. Plus great conversation. We've decided that this will be a tradition amongst us. Life is good!)
In 90 minutes we'll drive to St P's, my home parish, to sing with the choir for the 11 pm service. Candles, a packed house, a lot of familiar carols and a few unfamiliar ones, hugs with friends, then home by 1 a.m.
StrongOpinions is up north at her dad's, Litigator and StoneMason are working through the holidays.
The quiet is good.
Tomorrow we may actually sleep until 8 a.m. A blessed Christmas in so many ways to each and every one of you!
(P.S. - for Lorraine - the high tea was fabulous. Little open-faced sandwiches with cucumber and shrimp, egg salad, chicken mousse. Scones with clotted cream, lemon curd, raspberry spread. Mini-pastries with chocolate mousse, raspberry tarts, pine nut and candied fruit tarts. A glass of champagne. At least a dozen teas to choose from. Plus great conversation. We've decided that this will be a tradition amongst us. Life is good!)
Friday, December 21, 2007
Friday Five: It's Almost Christmas!
What was one of your favorite childhood gifts that you gave?
It has to be a warm nightgown I gave my mother. Daddy gave me the money, but I picked it out myself, for the first time. I think I was seven or eight. Mom loved it.
What is one of your favorite Christmas recipes? Bonus points if you share the recipe with us.
Buche de Noel. A chocolate Yule Log cake made like a jellyroll, with delicate chocolate sponge cake surrounding either whipped cream or mocha ganache (rich chocolate and espresso buttercream), frosted with dark chocolate ganache. You slice a bit off the end at an angle, and attach it to the side of the main log to make a branch. You use the tines of a fork to make a bark pattern on the frosting. My kids always called it "Log" after the faux ad on "Ren and Stimpy" - remember the song? "It's log, it's log, it's better than bad, it's good!"
What is a tradition that your family can't do without? (And by family, I mean family of origin, family of adulthood, or that bunch of cool people that just feel like family.)
This is one from PH's Swedish family - it's a Christmas smorgasbord, with sil (pickled herring), potato salad, korv (a pork and potato sausage), crispbread, pickles, rice pudding with lingonberries, limpa (Swedish rye bread)...an amazing feast.
Pastors and other church folk often have very strange traditions dictated by the "work" of the holidays. What happens at your place?
Because our big Christmas services are the night before (including a service that finishes at midnight), we usually come home, have a drink of some suitable libation, and open one present. The other gifts are opened after the Christmas morning service.
If you could just ditch all the traditions and do something unexpected... what would it be?
One of my friends from seminary will be winging his way to a January term in South Africa at Christmastime, so he is flying to Paris for Christmas Eve, staying at a lovely hotel, having a fine dinner, going to Notre Dame for midnight Mass, and spending part of the next day relaxing and walking around Paris before he heads to the airport and his flight to Johannesburg. Sounds like a wonderful trip, doesn't it?
It has to be a warm nightgown I gave my mother. Daddy gave me the money, but I picked it out myself, for the first time. I think I was seven or eight. Mom loved it.
What is one of your favorite Christmas recipes? Bonus points if you share the recipe with us.
Buche de Noel. A chocolate Yule Log cake made like a jellyroll, with delicate chocolate sponge cake surrounding either whipped cream or mocha ganache (rich chocolate and espresso buttercream), frosted with dark chocolate ganache. You slice a bit off the end at an angle, and attach it to the side of the main log to make a branch. You use the tines of a fork to make a bark pattern on the frosting. My kids always called it "Log" after the faux ad on "Ren and Stimpy" - remember the song? "It's log, it's log, it's better than bad, it's good!"
What is a tradition that your family can't do without? (And by family, I mean family of origin, family of adulthood, or that bunch of cool people that just feel like family.)
This is one from PH's Swedish family - it's a Christmas smorgasbord, with sil (pickled herring), potato salad, korv (a pork and potato sausage), crispbread, pickles, rice pudding with lingonberries, limpa (Swedish rye bread)...an amazing feast.
Pastors and other church folk often have very strange traditions dictated by the "work" of the holidays. What happens at your place?
Because our big Christmas services are the night before (including a service that finishes at midnight), we usually come home, have a drink of some suitable libation, and open one present. The other gifts are opened after the Christmas morning service.
If you could just ditch all the traditions and do something unexpected... what would it be?
One of my friends from seminary will be winging his way to a January term in South Africa at Christmastime, so he is flying to Paris for Christmas Eve, staying at a lovely hotel, having a fine dinner, going to Notre Dame for midnight Mass, and spending part of the next day relaxing and walking around Paris before he heads to the airport and his flight to Johannesburg. Sounds like a wonderful trip, doesn't it?
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Almost there...
The ST exam was fine. At least I think it was fine. She posed a series of practical questions that someone might ask us in a congregational setting. We were to compose our answers drawing on a couple of the several theologians we had read in each topic area. I know I passed, the question is just whether it was a B or a B+. I doubt it was A material. I'm just glad it is over.
The ST paper is essentially done. I want to do some final edits tomorrow and will drop it off. Then I can breathe. It is a sign, however, of the fact that I am almost done that I actually baked StrongOpinions' favorite cookies this evening.
Today I dropped off the Church History Christian Ed project - it ran to 100 pages of materials plus two CDs - and tomorrow I will drop off the St paper. Then I can truly say I am halfway through seminary.
Wow.
Then it's time to start writing the three sermons I am preaching between now and the end of January.
Update:
8:32 a.m. on Thursday - ST paper is done. Life is good!
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Functioning, Barely
The husband of dear friend L lent me a power cord, so I have a functional laptop. After speaking to Dell folks in Mumbai and Texas, another power cord is winging its way to me, but won't arrive until after the ST exam, so I am doubly grateful for the lent cord.
A dear friend is leaving seminary to take some time to heal his heart and soul. Peace to him.
The Systematics exam looms tomorrow. I am given to understand that the prof is very gracious in her grading. May it be so. My brain is mush.
The long paper for her class is now over 10 pages and is still not done. I think it will clock in at 13 or 14. I hope to finish it tomorrow afternoon.
Several of us are going to tea on Friday afternoon at the Ritz. We can probably ill afford it financially, but we can most definitely use the pampering after this semester. Several of us will be celebrating the mid-point of our life at seminary, two will celebrate heading into their last semester, two will celebrate surviving their first semester. These measures are not reflective of the depth of the feelings we have about all this, and the length of the journey we are all on.
Thank God for the time to step away from our studies and immerse ourselves in this season of hope and family.
A dear friend is leaving seminary to take some time to heal his heart and soul. Peace to him.
The Systematics exam looms tomorrow. I am given to understand that the prof is very gracious in her grading. May it be so. My brain is mush.
The long paper for her class is now over 10 pages and is still not done. I think it will clock in at 13 or 14. I hope to finish it tomorrow afternoon.
Several of us are going to tea on Friday afternoon at the Ritz. We can probably ill afford it financially, but we can most definitely use the pampering after this semester. Several of us will be celebrating the mid-point of our life at seminary, two will celebrate heading into their last semester, two will celebrate surviving their first semester. These measures are not reflective of the depth of the feelings we have about all this, and the length of the journey we are all on.
Thank God for the time to step away from our studies and immerse ourselves in this season of hope and family.
Humbug!
The power adapter on my laptop has died. A major project and a major paper are on the laptop, which has no power...the battery has no juice either. I'm on the phone with Dell support to get a replacement power adapter which won't get here until tomorrow, after the Systematics final. The project is due tomorrow. I've got an earlier version of it on my flash drive, but it would mean a few hours of reconstruction to get it back up to speed.
This stinks.
This stinks.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Progress Report
The Church History final is now done - I just sent it off via email to the prof. I think I did a B+ job on it, but the TA is grading it, and he's a harder grader than the professor, so we'll see. He did it like a General Ordination Exam question. Timed, with a fairly complex question that drew on familiar and unfamiliar sources. In a strange way, it was fun.
The Church History team project is 3/4 of the way done. Just waiting on the last set of materials from the third person on our team. It will take me another hour or two to integrate her pieces, then it gets a final proof-reading, and it's ready for delivery.
I'm still procrastinating on the ST paper. I really only have one more section to write, maybe expanding a little in the other parts, but it's really close. I don't know whether I'll get it done tomorrow morning or Tuesday, but I'm determined to get it out of my hands and into the prof's mailbox.
That leaves only the ST exam. Daunting but manageable, I think. A study session tomorrow afternoon, maybe one more on Tuesday, then the exam Wednesday morning. I will be very happy to have it over with.
The Church History team project is 3/4 of the way done. Just waiting on the last set of materials from the third person on our team. It will take me another hour or two to integrate her pieces, then it gets a final proof-reading, and it's ready for delivery.
I'm still procrastinating on the ST paper. I really only have one more section to write, maybe expanding a little in the other parts, but it's really close. I don't know whether I'll get it done tomorrow morning or Tuesday, but I'm determined to get it out of my hands and into the prof's mailbox.
That leaves only the ST exam. Daunting but manageable, I think. A study session tomorrow afternoon, maybe one more on Tuesday, then the exam Wednesday morning. I will be very happy to have it over with.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Friday
Two momentous things:
I am now at the halfway point at Big Old Seminary. One more paper to wrap up and two more exams to complete for the semester to be truly over, but this is manageable.
I am now officially retired from the bank. I continued working part-time doing government relations work for them for the past year and a half. It has been hard to balance competing interests, but the bank has been quite flexible and the income has been a blessing. It will be good to have all the bank stuff off my desk, making room for more school stuff. I unplugged the computer and printer and BlackBerry and such this afternoon. It felt very cathartic.
Now I am truly on the way to a new life! I will celebrate by going to a party tonight.
I am now at the halfway point at Big Old Seminary. One more paper to wrap up and two more exams to complete for the semester to be truly over, but this is manageable.
I am now officially retired from the bank. I continued working part-time doing government relations work for them for the past year and a half. It has been hard to balance competing interests, but the bank has been quite flexible and the income has been a blessing. It will be good to have all the bank stuff off my desk, making room for more school stuff. I unplugged the computer and printer and BlackBerry and such this afternoon. It felt very cathartic.
Now I am truly on the way to a new life! I will celebrate by going to a party tonight.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Rainy Thursday, Too
It's gray and cool and damp, but it's okay. The Systematics paper isn't done yet, but it's okay. I'm not done studying yet for my two exams, but it's okay. Dinner isn't ready yet, but it's okay.
Somehow, that stuff doesn't really matter.
Christmas is coming. Christ is coming.
I had to remind myself of that when I heard of some troubling news from one friend, and some sad news from another. Nothing world-shattering or fatal, just the sort of thing that makes you shake your head and sigh.
People around Big Old Seminary are getting a bit antsy with exam week coming up. For some reason, I'm not feeling that way. I know I'll at least pass the tests, and the paper will get done in time, and will be at least adequate. Those things are not the point of what I'm doing.
If I keep praying, then I'll be able to do the real work of this time of my life. And prayer is something I do know how to do. Thank you, Jesus.
Somehow, that stuff doesn't really matter.
Christmas is coming. Christ is coming.
I had to remind myself of that when I heard of some troubling news from one friend, and some sad news from another. Nothing world-shattering or fatal, just the sort of thing that makes you shake your head and sigh.
People around Big Old Seminary are getting a bit antsy with exam week coming up. For some reason, I'm not feeling that way. I know I'll at least pass the tests, and the paper will get done in time, and will be at least adequate. Those things are not the point of what I'm doing.
If I keep praying, then I'll be able to do the real work of this time of my life. And prayer is something I do know how to do. Thank you, Jesus.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Rainy Days and Mondays
So very tired, and the gray damp weather isn't helping.
The preaching went well on Sunday morning, and the singing went surprisingly well Sunday night. I guess when you're singing the Messiah and you have to go to the bathroom through the whole dang thing, and you're thinking about that, you don't have the bandwidth to worry about the singing.
Not enough hours to sleep and do all the reading, so I think I'll opt for sleep. StrongOpinions has been ill, and there have been several tearful phone calls, so I'm short on sleep right now.
Spiritual direction was a real blessing today. An hour of lectio divina wasn't nearly enough, but it helped. I am so ready for this semester to be over.
On a positive note (one should always end on a positive note, right?) I found some really cool music (check it out: http://www.savae.org/echoes1.html) for my Church History Christian Ed project. Very wild stuff, very Middle Eastern. If that doesn't make students feel they're in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus, I don't know what would.
I got my three parishes to check out for my summer internship. Interviewing with two of them on Thursday, and hoping to hear from the third tomorrow. It's hard to have energy about it right now, but the sooner that gets decided, the better.
Sorry I don't sound more enthusiastic. I think I need a vacation.
The preaching went well on Sunday morning, and the singing went surprisingly well Sunday night. I guess when you're singing the Messiah and you have to go to the bathroom through the whole dang thing, and you're thinking about that, you don't have the bandwidth to worry about the singing.
Not enough hours to sleep and do all the reading, so I think I'll opt for sleep. StrongOpinions has been ill, and there have been several tearful phone calls, so I'm short on sleep right now.
Spiritual direction was a real blessing today. An hour of lectio divina wasn't nearly enough, but it helped. I am so ready for this semester to be over.
On a positive note (one should always end on a positive note, right?) I found some really cool music (check it out: http://www.savae.org/echoes1.html) for my Church History Christian Ed project. Very wild stuff, very Middle Eastern. If that doesn't make students feel they're in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus, I don't know what would.
I got my three parishes to check out for my summer internship. Interviewing with two of them on Thursday, and hoping to hear from the third tomorrow. It's hard to have energy about it right now, but the sooner that gets decided, the better.
Sorry I don't sound more enthusiastic. I think I need a vacation.
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