burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

Following up on Wednesday, Jeff M. preached this morning. He mentioned that while we in the West talk about "Doubting Thomas," in the Eastern Church he is "Saint Thomas the Believer."

Our opening hymn was #253, so I noticed #254 on the facing page, whose first verse is: "These things did Thomas count as real: the warmth of blood, the chill of steel, The grain of wood, the heft of stone, the last frail twitch of flesh and bone." I don't much like most of the rest of the hymn ("These Things Did Thomas Count," Thomas H. Troeger) but I do like that opening verse.

Our Unison Prayer of Confession:

Holy Jesus,
We thought we had lost you
But you broke open your tomb in victory.
It fills our hearts with joy
When we are able to see it.

Forgive us, God, that the truth of Easter is so hard to accept.

We confess, Jesus that we sometimes doubt resurrection.
We see the wounds of the world and despair.
We forget that your resurrected body still bore the marks of the cross.

We confess, Jesus, that when we doubt, we feel lost.
We turn our faces away from you in shame and lock the door out of fear.
We forget that doubt is an invitation to touch you more deeply.

Forgive us, God, that it takes so much convincing for us to hope.

***

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]
Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will rule over all." (The Gospel of Thomas 2:1-4)

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A friend had a retro sleepover this holiday weekend. We watched Real Genius (carlyinrome, as soon as it was mentioned that this movie contains young!ValKilmer, I thought of you) and Labyrinth and played Never Have I Ever. I was expecting everyone to play R+ rated, so I was surprised to actually have fingers down -- though of course one of the challenges of the game is that your brain keeps coming up with things you HAVE done, and given this crowd it would have been even harder to come up with R+ rated things that one HADN'T done.

I have:
* been to Europe
* been to the West Coast [of the USA]
* eaten a grilled cheese sandwich
* consumed illegal substances (this was stated to include imbibing alcohol underage)
* been drunk

I feel certain that when I "won" I had 4/10 fingers left, but I can't remember what the 6th thing I had done was.

I was like, "Raise your hand if you're surprised that I won for boringest?" and people made reassuring noises, but I really wasn't distressed about it at all.

Apples to Apples: Bible Edition
Wed. Dec. 29: beginning ~8pm
Having learned that a Bible Edition of Apples to Apples exists, I had to get myself a copy.  I make no promises about the game itself (this will be the first time I play it), but I can promise the presence of myself and my bff and an Internet and a host of books, so good times should be assured :)

New Year's Eve
Fri. Dec. 31: beginning ~7pm
Food, drinks, games ... the usual.  (Will also contain bff.)

( gym: Wed-Fri )

***

Thursday I had my 6-month dental appointment.

When I first came in, the hygienist (Meg) was chatting with me and then the dentist came in and said, "What are you talking about?"
me: How much I hate you, of course.
dentist: Hate is a big word.
me: It's only 4 letters, so it's actually a pretty small word.
dentist: We don't use the word "hate" in the Cook house.
me: I'm not in your house.
[...]
dentist: Guess who has 3 cavities?
me: Guess who could walk out of here right now?
dentist: But then I'd tackle you.

As it turned out, my teeth were totally fine, which was a nice change from oh every dentist appointment I've had since I started going to the dentist again.

Meg was visibly pregnant, and we were talking about my coming back in six months -- at which point she will surely no longer be pregnant.  She was saying that even with the ultrasounds and everything, until it's born you don't really know that it's a baby -- "It might be a dragon."  (Hi, Megan, I immediately thought of you.)
The (male) receptionist said, "Who would marry a dragon?"
I said, "Who wouldn't marry a dragon?"

***

Saturday, I was gonna go to the "hollyberry fair" at the Baptist Church (in part because I emailed their young adult minister back on Monday and haven't gotten a reply from him), but I slept in (I woke up at 7:30 and thought, "I went to bed after 1am... If I get up now, it will be naptime in a few hours," and ultimately I didn't get up until about 10am) and was then puttering and lazy and avoidant.  I'd also been talking about getting my hair trimmed, but it hadn't been annoying me much the last few days, so, see aforememtioned lazy... I finally (i.e., 2:30pm) did go pick up some groceries and did a load of laundry.

Somerville UCC was hosting a Game Night at 6:30pm.  I didn't really wanna go, but I'd mentioned it to a number of coworkers when answering the "weekend plans?" question, and I suspected it was the kind of thing where I was likely to enjoy myself once I got there.  Plus I could always leave and walk home.

One of the games was Crokinole (described by Shane as Canadian Amish Shuffleboard; I'd never played Shuffleboard, but it turned out to be much reminiscent of pool, with the spatial and the embodied).  We played me and Gary vs. Shane and Jenny.  Gary and I started out playing poorly, but then I got an awesome shot, and we did really well for the duration of the round (end: 30 points).  We lost the next two rounds, though -- 15 points and like 50 points the third round.  We stopped after 3 rounds instead of playing to 100 points because everyone else was ready to play Apples to Apples.

I won:
Talented (Indiana Jones - Christy)
Colorful (The Land of Oz - Peter and Rafe)
Quiet (Hair Transplants - Gary)
Selfish (Mafia)

And that was within the first like five or six hands.  But Gary came from behind and was the first to hit 5 (the winning mark).

As Judge, I awarded:
Fur to Emily for Cruel (narrowly beating out Jeffry's? Infomercials)
Absurd (Homer Simpson beat out Oranges, Hockey, and The Academy Awards)

It was about 8:30pm when the game ended, and at that point people headed out.  They're talking about doing it every couple of months or something.

***

I'm totally gonna be That Girl who, in like 30 years when my parents die, sends a departmental email saying: "My [loved one] died on [date].  Funeral information below.  I expect to be out on bereavement leave until [date] and have put in a call for a temp. I have purchased myself a tower of chocolate as a sympathy gift, to be expensed to the department.  Memorial contributions may be made to [charitable organization of loved one's choice].  If you would like to contribute through the Unit, you may do so through [coworker whom I've delegated]."


***

Before CWM tonight, Tiffany told me, "We were talking about you at SPRC."  Apparently like since I first showed up people have been excited about the prospect of putting me on a committee (this is what happens when you are a talented parishioner, Tiffany said -- not everyone gets this kind of welcome; in the Methodist church it's a sign of love and respect and welcome) and she's been putting them off, but she thought this was something I would be good at and would like to do.

After dinner I told Tiffany that I'd talked to Thi and Dan and I'd do it.  She said this was the easiest/fastest anyone's ever accepted a committee position -- usually people are like, "I'll get back to you... I'm gonna pray about it... I'm gonna discern..." and I said, "Yeah, but for something this easy..."  She said it's not easy for everyone, and I said, "I'm willing to believe that."

I really don't think of myself as a Finance person, but I guess I do fit basic criteria like: Showing up regularly, and Being organized.

At Singspiration I went from hanging out with the ushers to being one of the ushers -- filling in for Elyse, including becoming one of the people who double-counts the offering (which I learned to do working with Stacey at SCMA).  And of course there was Megan's email this morning.

Tiffany said that I am a loved and valued member of this community and she hopes I know that.  I said that I was thinking during service tonight that if I had to pick one to be "my church" it would still be this one.  She said they'd be welcoming new members in December.  I was like, "Ehhh, no."  She said, "You can discern..."  I said, "I'll think about discerning."

"When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home."

Yeah, that's about all I got.  I've never been a big movie watcher, and when I do watch movies they're usually contemporary ones, so I have literally never seen Paul Newman in anything.

***

Saturday night, My housemate had her boyfriend and a couple friends over and I watched them play a round of Chez Geek (I was unimpressed by the game) and then I headed out to Althea's birthday party.

At Althea's I picked up a bottle of Smuttynose beer (India Pale Ale).  I didn't like it much.  On Kim's suggestion, I mixed it with apple cider, which much improved it -- I could still taste the beer undertone, but it mostly tasted like apple cider.

Althea had rented a karaoke machine, and it mostly turned into group sing, which was lots of fun, though it didn't really lend itself to actually talking to anyone.

One of the people I did manage to talk to for a while was Megan (sp?) whom I'd met at the potluck.  Turns out she works at KSG.  She asked if I was interested in business (since I work at HBS).  I said I'm growing interested in it (though I later clarified that what I'm growing interested in is the negotiation, psychology, behavioral decision making, sort of stuff) but it's not something I would actually want to do as a job.  She said she feels similarly about some of the stuff her profs do (yeah, she does faculty support, too), like interfaith stuff is really interesting but she 'cause it's so political.  I said interfaith work is something that I actually could see myself doing and asked what kind of stuff her prof does.

It's beginning to feel like hints of Call -- though it may also just be sychronicity confirmation bias.

This morning was session #3 of the adult ed series on Shalom at CHPC, and, largely riffing off of some Gregory of Nyssa (hi, sk8eeyore), we talked about that tension of developing peace within yourself and working toward piece in the greater world/community.  I thus got to hit various of my favorite talking points (mostly in affirming what other people were saying).

At CWM tonight, Tiffany asked us to think about what makes this community (since the mission statement doesn't exactly capture who we really are as church), and Chelsea mentioned inclusion (which I figured was a given that like everyone was gonna say) and went on to say that given the type of people at CWM, it would be easy for us to speak negatively of people who disagree (she used the phrase "finger-pointing"), but we don't, and when we do, it gets discussed afterward like how we can do better.  This is not exactly my experience of CWM.  Though I recognize that part of that is my own baggage from First Churches Northampton, and it's rare that there are really overt explicit incidents.  And I'd been thinking earlier that one of the things that makes CWM feel like most like "my home church" of all the churches is how comfortable I've grown arguing with people.  (Appearances to the contrary, I do not actually get confrontational until I have some degree of comfort with the other party.)

Waling to morning church in the light rain, I noticed the colored leaves on the ground (and on the trees) for the first time this season.

***

Saturday: I slept for 12 hours (hallelujah!), did 80 pages of RED reading, hung out with housemate &co., and went to a birthday party (the first time I had left the house all day).

Sunday: I slept for 6 hours (I stayed at Althea's party until just about the very end), watched last Monday's HIMYM while eating breakfast before morning church, went to morning church + adult ed, did my remaining 50 pages of RED reading (not counting the one article that's on reserve at Gutman [edit: Technically it's on reserve at Andover, but there was an available copy of the book at Gutman, so I just photocopied the essay and went on my way. /edit], which I intend to obtain and read tomorrow), went to evening church + council.

Yeah, it's gonna be quite a semester.