burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

I felt more awake when my 7am alarm went off this morning than when it did yesterday -- having gone to bed ~9pm as opposed to ~midnight.

Jeff M. said on Friday night Liz&Megan's small group was at Orleans for Trivia and he saw them and stopped by to say hi. The trivia question was which female musician set some record for digital music sales in 2010. He guessed Lady Gaga (which was wrong).
He said his second choice was Jesus. Someone said, "But Jesus isn't female," and in unison a whole bunch of people said, "Elizabeth [my surname] thinks so..." ♥♥♥

I told him how Ari had commented, "A lot more of your people know about my lesbian Christology than my people do, which says a lot about the kinds of people we are, I think."

I think it was Harold who said, "Elizabeth is not afraid of conflict. This is a true thing." -- I disputed this...

Ben said to Harold, "Did Liz tell you she gets all her news from your facebook feed?"
Harold: "Other people have told me that, but Liz did not." (He said he once posted saying no more NYT for the month because he'd hit the paywall and Molly gifted him 3 months becaue she said she needed him to tell her what she needed to know from the NYT.)

cadenzamuse called ~11am, while Harold and I were still talking, despite office hours having ended ~10am. He and I kept talking until ~11:45am and then I went to the gym and got groceries and came home ~2:30pm.

cadenzamuse and I did phonecall later -- which, okay, had the problem I always have with people I haven't talked to in ages -- "How have I been? Um, it's been 6 months... Um, stuff... At this exact moment, nothing is v. exciting..." But I was glad to get to hear from her -- and possibly we will get better at this if we do it more frequently :)

FCS Bible/book study potluck barbecue was fine. I was glad I had brought fake burgers so I could eat food. We had some good conversation about how next round might go.

Marlin's small group was meeting afterward and he invited me and Harold to tag along 'cause it was just him and Jamie and Lisa C.

Harold's going to the Zoo tomorrow, where he'll see dinosaurs -- because birds are dinosaurs.
I think it was in Harold joking about having a dinosaur dealer that Jamie mentioned if we couldn't get a donkey for the Palm Sunday Donkey Walk, we could have someone riding an ostrich.
I said I could imagine Carmen riding an ostrich -- so Jesus was a tiny blonde 6-year-old girl, I'm glad we can agree on that.

I've been frequently biking during ~rush hour (e.g., heading to 8:30am office hours) and it was so nice to bike home ~11:30pm when there was barely any traffic! (Yes, after about an hour, Marlin's husband came to pick him and eventually Lisa C. headed home, but the 3 of us stayed for quite a while.)

***

"Joy Sadhana is a daily practice in the observation of joy."
-mylittleredgirl [more info]
Thus says God to these bones: "I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am God." (Ezekiel 37:5-6, NRSV, alt.)

( Read more... )

Wednesday

We were prepping the Elements in the kitchen (the chalices and patten were still in the dish drainer from last week) when Kerrie came in.

She hadn't realized we were prepping for service, and she decided to stay for service (she's never been to Rest and Bread in the nearly two years it's been going on).  But she still wanted some wine now.  I said, "You can pre-party with Jesus."
Somehow vodka came up.
Keith said, mock-defensively, "Potatoes were very important to Celtic Christianity."
me: "So vodka and potatoes instead of wine and bread for Communion, huh?  Well when we talk about what if any changes we want to make to the Rest and Bread service, we can take that under consideration."

The Sacred Text reading was Luke 5:1-11.
I thought, "That's an Epiphany reading!  I remember Tiffany's sermon on that!"

Keith did the Reflection.  He talked about how this passage mirrored this past Sunday's Gospel passage.
He said that this Sunday the disciples go back to fishing -- we don't know if they've gone back to it as a way of life or if they just needed something to eat.
Again, they're catching nothing, and again Jesus shows up, and then they catch abundantly.
Keith talked about faithful living and faithful transition (this was the theme of his Reflection).
quote: "perhaps with some denial before the actual transition"
He reminded us that we will build on the beautiful and faithful life we lived before.
Jesus tells the first disciples that no longer will they fish for fish but rather they will fish among humankind -- keeping the metaphor.
His question for us to reflect on: what have you learned from your faithful living that will help you with your next faithful transition?
Marlin talked about how his father's mind is going: last time he went to see him, his father was living in 1968 -- and he said that that's not a bad time for his father to be, a time when his ministry and his family were both young and growing.  And he said that he hopes that he lives his own life such that if someday down the road he finds himself living certain times again, it will be a good life to be returning to.
Maria talked about actively having faith -- something she, like me, is bad at (e.g., it's easy to say I trust God, but when push comes to shove, I need to find a job, or whatever).

I had no idea how I was going to tie any of this to the Call to Confession (I've taken to extemping a thematic connection), but when I started I found words.  I said we acknowledge those times when we have failed to live faithfully, not to wallow in the guilt but to move back to the path of faithful living, returning always to a God who is always welcoming us back.

Our closing hymn continues to be "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" ('cause it is Eastertide), and wow it's loud in that chapel with 11 people singing.  (I think we had about half that number last week.)

***

despite the 3:24pm timestamp, I still hadn't seen this by the time I went to bed ~9pm last night (Yahoo!Mail being wonky, I suspect):

[FirstChurch Mailing List] Rest and Bread tonight, then Council...

Dear Beloved,

We have our beautiful service of Rest and Bread this evening at 6:30. Keith will reflect, Elizabeth will help help us name what distracts us from rising, Tara will play and help us sing. Come share silence with us from 6:15-6:30. Our service of prayer and communion goes from 6:30-7:10.

Just after, our Church Council will meet. Do you ever wonder how things get done around here, how decisions get made? Come and see, come and be a part of the process. All are welcome. Ian, as Moderator, leads the meeting.

We'll be glad to see you tonight.

Love,
Laura Ruth

---

Thursday

morning prayer lectionary:
Esther 2:12-18
Acts 2:1-21

FCS-Ian commented on the fact that Esther spent a year (at a spa, it sounds like) preparing.  I was like, "Yeah, I know!  I had forgotten that!"
He also commented on the fact that he keeps expecting big things from Esther, since she has a book named after her and all, but she hasn't done anything heroic yet.  (He didn't say this as a criticism -- he said it partly as a statement of continuing anticipation and partly as a neutral/positive reflection.)
I (silently) recalled Tiffany's (frequent) invocation of "for just such a time as this" (which I assume must have been in her Esther sermon, unless she preached more than one Esther sermon) and thought about how God consistently chooses unlikely people and how yeah, sometimes we may end up in places not realizing what lies ahead of us, and we might find ourselves in situations thinking we are in no way equipped, but God is with us and God will be faithful.

***

I have a tendency to take lunch at my desk -- hi I am a control-freak workaholic.  But today I made a conscious decision to eat lunch outside in the sunshine (and work on my sermon).  \o/

Scattered thunderstorms were predicted, but it was a bright sunny warm day to have lunch outside.  Shortly before my workday ended, I heard thunder and looked out the window and hey, rain.  Which was even more like a summer thunderstorm because when I left the office less than a half an hour later it had stopped.  And it was still hoodie-wrapped-around-my-waist temperatures.

***

It was so nice out I almost didn't want to go inside a cafe for Laura Ruth's open office hours.

Significantly way through the time I'd been hanging out at her table (Al and Cindy and later Kathy were also there), she asked me, "How are you?" and I said, "I'm better than I was earlier this week," and I got instant concerned-face -- which actually threw me (I think because I'd sort of wanted to tell her last night and hadn't really had opportunity to -- before service, she asked me and Keith collectively how we were, and Keith answered and we got off on various topics, and it's hard for me to bring up an amorphous poor mood because there isn't anything specific to say about it or to ask for).

I said I'd been grumpy over the weekend and that I suspected some of that was grieving -- "I had lunch with you on Friday, and that was lovely, but it was also wrapping things up because you're leaving" -- and on Monday I was cranky and each day I had a new word for how I was feeling, but I wasn't quite sure why I was feeling, and this morning when I left my house and felt kinda like I wanted to cry I thought, "Okay, so it's grief?"  I also said it might be hormonal.  She talked about menstrual amnesia.  I feel like I don't necessarily get emotionally wonky around my cycle -- but my cycle is also so irregular that I dunno.  But the fact that tonight I feel like all this grump and cranky has been lifted from me does lend credence to the hormonal thing.  (Also, heh, look at me up past my bedtime and still energized -- as opposed to last night when I was tired like when I got home from church; and I did go to bed in time to get 8 hours of sleep last night even with getting up at 5:30am for morning prayer this morning.)

+

When we wrapped ~7 tonight, Laura Ruth offered to drive me home (possibly in part because of the light rain), and I said yes (hello maximizing time before she leaves).
We passed CAUMC with all its scaffolding and I said I keep forgetting to ask Sean what's up with that and I said I wondered if it was part of the Terms of Sale or something.  I said the building sale was finalized, and she expressed surprise, and I talked about that a little and I said that meant we definitely had to be living somewhere else come July 1, which would also be when we started with our new pastor, and, "Do you care who our new pastor is?  Do you know who our new pastor is?"
She said, "Yeah, I know, Nizzi..." and I said, "No, she's our interim appointment.  We found out who our new pastor effective July 1 is."  I said that when I had lifted up as Joy in Prayers of the People last night, that's what I was talking about.  I said I was surprised she hadn't asked me who our new pastor was -- I mean, I know she's leaving Somerville and so it's not directly relevant to her, but still.  She said she thought I was saying that Nizzi was finally coming and she was like, "I thought she'd already been here but okay."

So I told her who our new appointment is.  She busted out in excitement.  She said that was so "fucking" great.  I was really pleased at her excitement.  And glad that I got to tell her, and tell her in a context where she could be overflowing with excitement.

We both recalled the story LR told me one of the Thursdays before Holy Week about Lisa facebook messaging her to say, "I hear you're leaving Somerville..." and Lisa said Marla had told her, and LR was like, "Who's Marla?" and I told her Marla's one of the lay leaders at CWM but I didn't know how she knew though I guess I had raised it up at prayertime or something.  Yes, this story is literally one of the first things I thought of when Rob announced Lisa's appointment on Sunday.

I told her most of the stuff I said in that first block of text in my LJ post -- about Lisa and Annie and Nizzi, about transition and relationship and etc.  She said she thinks I'm good at building relationships -- that she's seen me do it.

+

During office hours, she said she's cried twice today because of saying goodbye to people.

Before service last night, she was like dancing excited -- "I got a job!"  Tonight she said she doesn't really feel yet that she's going [to somewhere] -- that she's keenly aware that she's leaving [here/us].  I'm glad that she has three weeks in between ending at First Church and starting at Hope Central.  She said early on tonight that she was really only starting to get her wits back about her yesterday and today.  The weekend was just so intense.  She wrote so many sermons for Sunday and none of them worked and Sunday morning she had three sentences and that's what she preached off of and that was so scary.  And there were so many meetings on Sunday.  And they voted on her unanimously.

She said she had lunch with First Churchers in JP today.  I love how many different specific and general venues for saying goodbye FCS has.  (LR's last re/New is this Sunday, and folks are going out for a beer afterward.  The Saturday night before her last Sunday, there's some sort of party at the church -- there was to be a meeting about this after church last Sunday, but I was at Scott's birthday brunch.)

Somewhere else in conversation, she asked me if I'd gotten the invitation to the queer women of First Church event tomorrow night and I was like, "Uh ... no?"  So she forwarded it to me.  Touro Ave. in Medford.  Which is totes walkable from my place.  \o/

+

Oh, and LR said something she learned in Al-Anon is that "dreading is a form of control."

Serendipitously, this morning's daily lectionary readings were: Isaiah 61:1-7 and Romans 7:1-6.

I saw FCS-Ian last night 'cause there was Council after Rest and Bread.  The copier's still broken, and he asked me if I still had the lectionary sheet* and I said yeah, not with me but at home, that I was planning to bring it to church and that I could also email him the Thursday daily lectionaries for the weeks until Lent.  I got home and couldn't find it, so I typed up the Thursdays until Lent from my RCL book.

*Two Thursdays ago, he hadn't printed up slips, so I used his sheet of the month's daily lectionaries, and took it with me, thinking he had another copy, and the next week he didn't have a copy but I still had mine in my bag.

He replied later this morning:

Thank you very much.  It is so nice to see you on Thursday mornings.

Bless,
Ian

***

Today was really busy at work.  I literally didn't get done all the things I had to get done.  I didn't feel like I was dropping balls, though, and I did take various breathers (including a comfortable lunch -- outside! -- with Cate).  Scott said he'd never seen me so busy.  I pointed out that the day Sonia came to visit was really busy.  He said that was the second busiest.

At one point, he complimented me on a phone call he had been present for, said I clearly work in the Negotiations unit.  I said that was funny because when Jim had approached me and said, "A project for your diplomacy skills," I had mentally recoiled, thinking, "Least favorite part of my job -- diplomacy, politic, negotiation."  Scott said be that as it may, it doesn't change the fact that I'm good at it.  "In certain contexts," I insisted.  (I feel like what Scott was present for wasn't much of a negotiation.)

I am good at being mad at people, and I am good at taking care of people -- these are modes I operate really well (comfortably) in.  I debated going to Blue Shirt tonight, because I was feeling like I needed to recharge and being around people was going to drain me further.  But I went anyway.  I got a sandwich and a fruit&sorbet smoothie -- yay healthy food.  It was just Kathy and Gianna, and Gianna was leaving.  We talked about church and family and etc.  (Laura Ruth greeted me with, "Doctor [surname].")  Erica, and Jeff, came later.

Laura Ruth told the story of going to Scott Brown's office today -- she was at the State House to lobby for trans rights, and Scott Brown's office is right near her Senator's office (Sonia Chang-Díaz) -- and confessing that she had thought she didn't need to know anything about Scott Brown because she was so sure that Martha Coakley would be elected, and so she doesn't know anything about him, and she talked to his legislative liaison or somebody (I forget) and asked questions, including, "My congregation is really progressive, so what can we do to support you, given how different we are?" and the guy said, "Talk to us -- write to us, email us ... we have to represent the whole state, not just a part of it."

Around 7 (I got there around 6) Laura Ruth and Jeff had their meeting about re/New etc.  Well, it started with Laura Ruth saying that she and Jeff needed to have their meeting, and I got up, and Jeff said, "It's an open meeting," and I sat back down.

I wasn't sure how helpful I would be, but I had some potentially useful thoughts, and I was really useful in practical matters of reminding them of things they had said they would talk about, asking Laura Ruth if she should input into her phone calendar a change they had agreed on verbally, etc.  At point I said, "And people wonder why I'm never planning to quit my job -- this is what I do," and Laura Ruth said something about Calling (in a way which Affirmed that this is a gift of mine).

They talked about "Christian rockstar music," and she made a disgusted face.  She said, "My nephew's a Christian rockstar.  I love the boy, but it's nauseating," and she mimed preening flowing hair.  I said, "Would you feel the same way if he were gay?  I'm just thinking, with the [miming], that if he were gay, you would be like, 'Oh, that's so [mentally searches for a good word].' "  She was appropriately abashed and said, "Point taken, you don't even need to finish the sentence."

At one point, Laura Ruth mentioned a couple in the church and referred to them as a straight couple and then said, "Well, I don't know -- [male name] might be trans."  I said, "Trans people can be straight," and later, "If one person uses masculine pronouns and the other person uses female pronouns, they're an opposite-gender couple -- who may or may not identify as queer."  Jeff asked, "When are we [First Church] gonna do queer theory 101?" and I got all excited.  He said, "I probably sound like my grandma does on race," and Laura Ruth assured him that wasn't so, and she also said she wasn't sure she even knows what queer theory is.  I said that "queer theory" in the academic sense contains a lot including a lot of stuff I don't necessarily understand, but that what Jeff meant, like GLBT Issues 300, is something I'm really excited about -- about the nuances of language and the difference between sex and gender and all that.

We finally departed around 8:30.

Other good things about today: The job candidate didn't mind my taking him outside, the glitches that there were seemed to be fine, my W-2 came in the mail so I can now file my taxes, the FCS prayer retreat is 5pm-5pm so I don't have to miss the teaching part of that workday.

Edit: Tiffany and I made a date for coffee before she leaves, and I asked if she wanted to meet at Mr. Crepe or somewhere else, and she said, "Why break with tradition? Mr. Crepe works for me."  ♥

The readings at morning prayer this morning were

Micah 4:6-8
Luke 2:1-14

FCS-Ian commented that he's struck by how short a story it is that we stretch into movies and all.
Ellie said we haven't heard about the 3 kings.  I said that's in Matthew.  (Hi, I just recently read Borg and Crossan's The First Christmas.)  At the same time, Billy said: "Society always comes late."  I really liked that -- and linked it to the Micah passage, about making those who were cast off into a strong nation.
Ian commented on how reading the Old Testament passages reminds him that while we wait 4 weeks for Christmas, people had been waiting for millennia.  (We pointed out that the Jews are still waiting.)

After service, Ellie thanked Ian (and us) for this Advent service -- as she doesn't think they'll make it tomorrow.
Thursday morning prayer starts back up again next week.
We talked about how doing daily morning prayer helps Christmas/Easter feel more special, because you've been preparing.

Ellie said Easter's early this year, that Ash Wednesday is like the first or second week of February.
I commented that Tiffany's last Sunday is February 14 and wouldn't it be appropriate if we began Lent right after.
Checking, I found that Google Calendar's "Christian Holidays" have: St. Valentine's Day (and US Holiday: Valentine's Day), Mardi Gras, Annunciation (March 25), Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter (also a US Holiday) ... but no Ash Wednesday (or Maundy Thursday -- which falls on US Holiday: April Fool's Day).  [I'm pleased that Passover runs through Holy Week -- Tuesday through Tuesday.]

I have now put FCS morning prayer on my Google calendar for the entirety of 2010.

And Molly's having Diesel office hours next Wednesday, so I can go ('cause I'm on vacation).

***

Dear Beloved Church,

Tonight at Rest and Bread, we celebrate love. Tonight we cast out fear so that love may enter our cosmos. Our service of prayer and communion begins at 6:30. Music for meditation at 6:15.

After, we'll decorate the sanctuary, to prepare a place for love.

We'll be glad to see you.

Love,
Laura Ruth

Keith's away, so Laura Ruth emailed me asking if I would help, which, of course.  Before service she thanked me for being so dependable, and having an open heart.  I said it's largely that I'm a control freak and I know that if I do it then it'll get done right -- "but I'll accept your more charitable interpretation O:-) "

We sang "Away in a Manger," and when Laura Ruth told me that before service, I said that I don't like that hymn but that if that's what she wanted to sing I would sing it.  She thanked me.

The Sacred Text was Luke 2:1-7.

Afterward, I ate lots of the leftover Communion and stayed and helped set up the sanctuary for Christmas Eve service.