burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

Lectionary at morning prayer this morning switched up the Gospel -- John instead of Luke (we've been doing narrative arcs in Isaiah and Luke) -- and The Inclusive Bible doesn't always mark chapters in an entirely intuitive way, so I ended up reading from the wrong chapter, but it still went well. (And I really felt minimal stress about it.)

I haven't had as much time/energy as I would have liked to prepare my Incarnation Reflection for Rest and Bread tonight, but I got a working draft done this afternoon, extemporized the very ending, and it seemed to go fairly well. (Thanks to la bff for suggesting to me Isaiah 55-1-3, which I also used as our opening passage for Rooftop People -- topic: "self care" -- on Sunday. Keith said he really liked it, that it worked well, which I was glad to hear, as there was a small part of me that was worried I was too personally enamoured of the passage and the fit wasn't going to work for everyone else -- and he liked the Inclusive Bible translation as well.) Jeff said he feels like Body Theology is what everyone at HDS is doing these days. This pleases me :)

FCS is hosting West Somerville's Longest Night service this year -- next Wednesday, replacing Rest and Bread. I am remarkably not bent out of shape about this. (Though there is a part of me that wants to punch FCS-Ian in the face for suggesting replacing Rest and Bread to begin with, because when you barely ever come to a particular service, it's not your place to suggest overwriting it for some other service.)

Support Pastor Ian asked me if I'd had a chance to look at the liturgy for the Longest Night service (I was on the list of people it got emailed to). I said yes. He had suggested Keith and I do the candle lighting, so he asked me tonight if that was okay with me. I said yeah -- said I had left my printout of the bulletin at my office, but that in skimming it I felt like there should be silent space, but it wasn't explicitly written in, so I wanted to check in first. He said he hadn't read the liturgy that thoroughly, but that since I would be the one who was up there, I could basically do whatever felt appropriate to me, just "hold us in that space in a faithful way." [Edit: That's what I get for skimming; I looked later, and there's totally "silence" written in to the program at the moments where I thought it should be. /edit] He also mentioned the anointing for healing part of the service and asked me if I would be interested in doing that as well. I said I couldn't give him a definite answer in this moment but that I would think about it. Of course my immediate thought was of the anointing for healing ~training Laura Ruth did at the last FCS retreat. Part of me wants to ask, "What is it about me that makes you think I would be interested in doing that?" but I don't know how to ask that question in a way that doesn't sound argumentative or whatever.