My Day

Got up and did a little work on a paper. It's a make-up for the midterm I simply could not prepare for two weeks ago.

Went to see the senior pastor at my field ed church. He says I seem a good deal "lighter" than I have for the past few weeks. Hmmm. Quiet Husband in and out of hospital, high school girl's funeral, father-in-law's funeral, ords, and now a friend is dying. I wonder what "lighter" looks like.

Ran some errands. Stopped to see the friend and his daughters, one of whom is one of the Lovely Daughter's BFFs since first grade. She has been coming home from DC every week-end and this time is staying into the week. The other daughter has been home from New Haven for two weeks. Life is complicated over there.

I liked it better when the girls were all little Montessori kids.

I need to pack and drive to seminary and finish that paper. I need to read several particularly depressing Calvin chapters. I need to think about Sunday's sermon.

I am having more of a reality than a denial day. Sucks.

I love what Karen said in the comments about needing to switch the channel back to denial after short periods of reality. I think I need to kick the damn set across the room.

Time Management

Thanks to everyone who left kind words the past few days. You would know how unwarranted they are if you had been with me on Thursday night when a friend and I decided to go and pray with the Benedictine monks. I am too embarrassed to relate the story; let's just say that sometimes I have no business going out in public. Especially when "in public" means "in silence."

My friend said afterward, "You have to remember that the very last thing that Brother M. said as we left was, "I hope you'll come back.' "

Truthfully, I'm not sure how far one can push Benedictine hospitality.

My schedule has been very tight the past several weeks. It was tight before The Quiet Husband ended up in the hospital over New Year's, before his father went into a dramatic decline and died, before I was asked to accompany someone to a funeral home for an initial visit today, before I was asked to preach next Sunday. I am trying to do all the work I did not do during the final push toward ords and suddenly there are several other things on my plate that weren't there a few days ago.

All of which is to say I think I am coming to terms with something about ministry and time management. There will always be things on my plate that weren't there a minute ago. "Things" migrate fast. I realize that I have to plan my days with huge chunks of time open for the unanticipated. If they don't fill up, then I have space for extra reading and study and housework and whatever, but if they do -- well, I knew that was going to happen.

This kind of non-schedule was a feature of my life when I practiced family law, but there were definitive seasons of inconvenience. Right before school starts and Christmas vacation: divorced and divorcing parents have a tendency to create the most impossible situations for their families and their attorneys. Children have a way of not being delivered to the destinations to which pieces of paper known as court orders say they will be delivered, and total havoc ensues.

It seems that in ministry this goes on 24/7. I'm getting it.

I think this is why I need the quiet of the monastery. It's also why I behave badly ~ inadvertently, of course, but badly nevertheless ~ when I get there.

Maybe I need to go back to the practice of law, where loud noises and expletives are, um, expected.

Friday Five

It's been months since I've played a Friday Five, but hey: why not today?

Jan writes:

In EFM this week, our question was, "If you were a color, what would you be?" So that's where this Friday Five comes from, at least its jumping off place.

1. If you were a color, what would you be?

Crayola Blue Green, the color of oceans and northern forests.

2. If you were a flower (or plant), what would you be?

A cactus: well-defended and prickly on the outside, hopeful for life on the inside.

3. If you were an animal, what kind would you be?

A cheetah: languid, elegant, and fast. Or maybe a porcupine: see number 2.

4. If you were a shoe, what type would you be?

A pair of Tevas: think beach and hiking trail.

5. If you were a typeface, which font would you be?

Mistral. It just looks like me.

Not Just About Me

In Haiti, I figure, there are lots of people who need to talk about loss.

Lots of grieving people.

I can't go there to listen, but I wish I could.

This is the first time I've felt that way in sixteen-plus months.

That's something, I think.

Just Confirming....

that I say exceptionally stupid and hurtful things, too.

New Year's Resolution:

Think very carefully before opening mouth or hitting reply, remembering that others are coming from different places and perspectives and will not necessarily hear/read what you say as you intended/hoped.

Remember:

The world is not waiting with breathless anticipation for your next contribution.

Happy New Year, All.

(I know. Even that one isn't safe. My motives are reasonably pure, however. So if you think that the possibility of a happy year ahead is a slim one: Yeah. I get it.)

Little Retreat - 1

The next two weeks are full, and that's assuming that no one around here gets the flu:

Two papers to finish and a mammoth final exam to prepare for ~

Some unbloggable medical challenges ~

A dear friend's wedding ~

Trying to figure out what to do about the holidays this year, holidays which it would be my preference to ignore (and the first one is only a couple of weeks away!) ~

Yeah, that's enough for a couple of weeks.

One of the little things I have to do is send in my deposit for an 8-day summer retreat here. After last year's debacle, I am equal parts anticipation and apprehension. I'm going to start small by taking a couple of days of silence for myself at the local retreat house when we have spring break in March to see how I manage.

Anyway, I am thinking about retreats and silence and attentiveness and mindfulness and all those good things, all in the context of the weeks ahead. So I think for the next while I'll try to find something on which to focus each day and post it here. And by then . . . it'll be time to move over to the Advent blog.

I think I'll go ahead and start right now by posting a St. Augustine (the place, not the man) reminder that there are worlds and creatures beyond the ones which consume our ordinary and frenzied lives:

Medical Report

Toe much better. Not much sleep last night due to constant pain, but I realized an hour or so ago that it's almost gone. The pain, not the toe.

Antibiotics making me very drowsy. Not good as final papers and exams and course of drugs cover the same next 10 days. If it were raining right now I would crawl right back into bed and go to sleep.

OWIEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I got my toe fixed.

I feel like a pioneer woman who took a hatchet to her foot.

The doctor was really nice and very efficient and when she was in school she lived a couple of blocks from my home.

But I don't think this qualifies as "it might throb a little when the anesthetic wears off."

I'll spare you a google-image photo.

Monday, Monday

~ Started writing a blog post and did nothing else that I had planned to do early this morning.

~ Had a three-hour lunch with the associate pastor at my field ed church; very informative and not at all optimistic about call possibilities in my Presbytery.

~ Went for a walk in the cemetery; discovered that the holes are dug for our memorial bench; had a long phone conversation with a friend about a possible memorial scholarship at the kids' Montessori school; took some photos.

~ Went to a church where I sometimes sit to pray; on the way in, ran into a Jesuit I know who told me about his sister's having lost a 19-year-old son to a car accident many years ago; went inside and sat there and cried.

~ Stopped at the grocery on the way home to pick up a couple of necessities, including a pumpkin.

~ The Lovely Daughter made us stir-fry for dinner; it was very, very good.

~ Packed up for tomorrow's drive; going to try to upload some pictures. Maybe one or two will show up here.

Toes 'n Things

The really big and most important news in my life is that I have what I guess is an ingrown toenail. It is excruciating. And yes, I am going to a doctor, in Seminary City because I have more more potential free time there than I do at home, but the appointment is still 10 days away. Lots of soaking and Neosporin.

In my googling around to figure out my pathetic state and what to do about it, I found a youtube ~ a young (I presume) woman's video of her messed-up toe with her voiceover saying "Look at my toe -- owie, owie ~ it's so sore ~ owie, owie." Just how I feel! She comments that she can't believe it's her most viewed video. Misery loves company, I guess.

Toe nothwithstanding, The Lovely Daughter's Americorps colleagues came for breakfast this morning en route to Children's Hospital Down The Hill where they are hosting a Halloween party. They are all doing college counseling in Big City's Less Than Stellar School System and today's is a required service project but, required or not, they are a terrific group of young people. They left here after pancakes et al. as Peter Pan and Tinkerbell, a vampire, a fairy princess, a witch, Harry and Hermione, and I guess a couple of characters I can't remember.

I spent the rest of the morning at the local Jesuit retreat house with a woman I met when I co-led a retreat there last spring. Like me, she is without one of her adult children; in her case the mother of three of her young grandsons. We talked, not surprisingly, for two hours. There was a retreat going on at the center and we had planned a fall walk, but her hip and my toe (owie, owie) kept us inside and we found a tiny chapel in which to sit, undisturbed and undisturbing.

Nap time, I do believe.

Monday Musings

I'm at home today, since I have no classes until late morning tomorrow.

I took the car in for its 60,000 mile check-up. The mile walk home was VERY chilly.

I finishd the editing on a 5-page outline for a group project. Two of us are rather particular about our work and two are not. Would it be snarky of me to say that in a couple of years the two young men will have found calls to churches before they even graduate and the two middle-aged women may stil be looking? And that that division reflects the division of labor on our project?

To be fair, the young guys DO NOT HAVE ANY IDEA what they are overlooking. I suppose I was very much the same as a young lawyer, and I must have driven my older colleagues equally crazy.

I am going to take another stab at my paper on virtual life and bodily life. It's supposed to be 750 words and when I got it down to 800 on the sixth try I decided I could not allocate any more time to it. But now it's kind of a game, and also a way of procrastinating Hebrew. I was going to write something very personal about blogging, but I ended up with something far more academic and only the vaguest reference to my online life. A lot of what I do in seminary is connected to my personal and family tragedy, but it's not necessary that everything be.

I AM going to do some Hebrew eventually. And clean the kitchen and vacuum the first floor. I would clean my car but -- it's not here, too bad.

On the subject of blogging, I'm also watching the poll over at Desert Year. I am fascinated by the fact that at the moment, two-thirds of the respondents describe God has having been far way or absent at the time of their deepest loss. Obviously this is a completely inaccurate poll of only 36 people so far. But the question I have at the moment: does that percentage reflect something vaguely accurate about the experience of loss, or does it merely reflect that people are less likely to respond to a question when their experience has been positive and more likely when they have something negative to say?

And finally, since my paper argues that virtual communication can be as intimate, as superficial, or as a confusing combination of both as real life, let me close with a response to someone with whom I have a solely (so far) online frienship, one which I value tremendously. Quotidian Grace has written another protest against twittering in worship. From my now-academic paper, at least as it reads at the moment:

"The downside of technological communication emerges when we permit it to disrupt existing real-life relationships. It tempts us to forget that which embodied community reminds us: relationship requires engagement with others. Texting or twittering during church services or meetings raises serious issues of attentiveness. The immediacy of virtual interaction exacerbates impulsivity and discourages more measured and thoughtful communication. Bonhoeffer’s insistence upon the value of a community life paced by monastic tradition speaks to this concern. It is difficult to advance the “encounter [with] one another as bringers of the message of salvation” when we are engaged in constant expression of self."

So there.

My day.

Across Pretend Borders

I had an unexpected and wonderful exchange last night which caused me to take a look at my email inbox this morning.

I read a lot of religious blogs ~ no surprise there ~ a few of which are listed in my links. Many of them reflect occasional or, sometimes a lot of, defensiveness, hostility, and anger. Sometimes you know it's coming, because that's just who the writer is. Nothing he or she says could possibly induce you to view the faith reflected in his or her writing as something desirable or even worth exploring. Sometimes it's a surprise. There's a blog written by a woman of a somewhat different persuasion than mine whose writing I've enjoyed tremendously, but twice in the last week she's revealed another side in the form of biting remarks pertaining to my own perspective. (No, I've never linked to her blog.) I'll still read her, because I'm curious about her journey and hope it goes well, but the pleasure is gone.

As for myself, I'm thinking about abandoning my pseudonomynimity (too many syllables?), which has caused me to realize that sometimes I am a bit too uninhibited. Perhaps the name Gannet Girl enables me to believe that I can hide behind a multitude of sins. I do think that I may have written things that might on occasion hurt one or more of the individuals whose name pops up in my mailbox, so some culling is in order.

My inbox for the last day or so? (And this is only one of the four. An older ones contains most of the ads and the emails from my long-lived moms' group, my seminary mail contains most things school-related, and a Gannet Girl account contains blog stuff.) In this one: A few inward/outward and Sojourners daily mailings, some of which I'll get to and some of which I won't. Several digests from Parents of Suicides, most of which I will delete because ~ too much. A Benedictine monk. Two Jesuit priests. Two Presbyterian pastors. A friend from church seeking to confirm a presentation. Two people connected to my spiritual direction program. A good friend about a book club selection. Several church friends about the upcoming year's adult education program. Dell, McAfee, and Borders. (The latter three always show up eventually.)

What does your inbox say about your life? I hope that mine reflects openness and curiosity on my part. It for sure reflects a host of different people with whom I am connected in all kinds of ways and who all represent the generosity and care extended to me over the past year. (OK, maybe not Dell and McAfee. But even they make it all possible.)

Middle of the Night Miscellaneous

~ One more quiz (tomorrow) and a final on Thursday and a full quarter of Hebrew will be behind me. I am SO grateful that one of my last summer CPE buddies who goes to a different seminary has shown up for this summer Hebrew here. We make an excellent study team.

~ The Lovely Daughter has a job interview tomorrow. Let's hope. As far as I can tell, approximately half of her friends are employed and half are not. Movement from the latter group into the former would be a good thing.

~ I have become addicted to The Secret Life of the American Teenager, which I can watch here but probably not at home. The tv switch from whatever to whatever has left us a one-tv family. No one seems interested enough in tv to do whatever needs to be done to change that situation. I suppose that if it interfered with my other addiction ~ early morning re-runs of The West Wing ~ I might drum up some motivation.

~ Michael Jackson's death has demonstrated to me that I am a complete moron when it comes to contemporary pop culture. What can I say? I think I just always thought that all his songs sound the same (which the Lovely Daughter says is true), so I never learned any of them. I was quite surprised when the Lovely Daughter filled me in on the Billie Jean lyrics. I did hear an interview on NPR to the effect that he was a dazzlingly innovative musician and performer. What do I know? Very little, apparently. Well, that's nothing new.

~ I can't think of a single interesting thing to convey. Silence is such a useful option sometimes!

Moments at the Hairdresser's

I pretty much hate going to salons. If I get my hair trimmed twice a year, I've really made an effort, and the thought of a manicure or pedicure makes my skin crawl. So when I say that I just went to a new place and had several inches of hair cut off, that represents a big deal for me.

The stylist asked me if I were going out tonight. I chuckled and said "No," going out not being something I do these days. But then, thinking that he might have plans, I said that I hoped that the dreary weather would clear up and asked if he were going anywhere.

He's going to the Gay Pride Parade, so he, too, hopes it clears up.

For the first time in the past two years, I found myself hoping I wouldn't be asked what I do. For the first time ever, I felt a strong desire to distance myself from a public role in connection with my faith, because I did not want the young man cutting my hair to associate me with anti-gay rhetoric or views.

As it turned out he did ask me, and then told me a little about his religious upbringing by his Catholic and Baptist parents, and so we had a bit of an interesting conversation.

I did discover, however, that there is one area of unbridgeable distance between us.

I asked him whether he had always wanted to do hair. "Oh, yes," he said. "My mother used to take me to the salon with her all the time, and I thought it was so wonderful and glittery and glamorous!"

Postlude:

The Lovely Daughter and a friend are headed out for the evening and tell us that they're going to Pride. I mention my morning conversation. "Half the groups in the Pride Parade are church groups," offers her friend.

In the Some Nerve Department

Just picked up a voice mail reminding me of my mammogram scheduled for tomorrow.

Please try to arrive a few minutes early.

If you are late, we may have to reschedule your appointment.

Anyone wanna lay claim to EVER having waited less than half an hour past the appointed time for a medical appointment?

Monday Meanderings 10 Minutes Max

Encounters today: met with a friend to talk and do lectio for a hour or so -- restorative. Met with my grief counselor -- not sure how to characterize that. Pretty much on my own since then, but Gregarious Son just came home from work.

Long walk all the way around both Little Lakes (3.5 miles?). I was moving pretty slowly by the end. The merganser pair is still there, and when they zoomed across the lake they looked magnificent. Remembering a swimming break on a Canadian canoe trip with the boys as a family of common mergs fished nearby. Remembering the loons. There might be a loon or two on the Little Lakes soon. There is a wonderful article in the new Christian Century about God and silence, and I took it with me and prayed through it on my walk.

Drafted my Homiletics assignment. It is a challenge to preach without energy, without . . . . Just without.

Paid a couple of bills. I wish I had a bill for something fun. I don't. Washed dishes, did laundry, dissed The Shack, started to get organized to drive back to school at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Lots of driving this week, as I have my spiritual direction class back here in the middle of everything else. I am imagining how unhappy our professor is; this past week-end the Catholic Diocese announced the closing of some 40-plus parishes and her vibrant, inventive, energetic parish is one of them. Their recently restored church is magnificent and may soon be empty.

That's it; off to the post office.

Three Things I Cannot Do

One should, from time to time, acknowledge her profound limitations.

There are three things I cannot do:

1. Cook.

2. Theology.

3. Embed a youtube video into a blog post.

I leave it to you to determine the order of importance.

Personally, I think it's clear that God had good reason to give us:

1. Restaurants

2. Philosophers and

3. College students.

Saturday Six Minutes of Stream of Consciousness

Hung out with some friends for breakfast this morning. In our tiny little group of five seated around the table: two deaths in the past year, a son's marriage in the past week, another son's job loss; we pretty much run the gamut. Spent a couple of hours in the late afternoon at an orientation for a week long retreat at which I will be a spiritual director. The Quiet Husband is mumbling to himself as he does the taxes. What with my being in seminary and the economy, we have taken a real hit in the past two years. Back to the retreat - the directors are Catholic, Presbyterian, and Baptist/Episcopalian. We had some great conversation. I did a lot of laundry today. I would rather have gone for a walk but I'm not sure it ever got above 20 degrees and I was NOT IN THE MOOD FOR THAT. Enough already. I finished an ethics paper this morning and sent it in and then found that after five days of nonstop work I just did not have another hour in me. I don't have much mental stamina anymore. That's it, six minutes: some good, some bad.

Wild Animal Souls

Purple quotes Parker Palmer:

The soul is like a wild animal.

If I had the energy, I would tag people. But I don't, so: tag youselves. What wild animal has your soul felt like for the past few days?

Thursday: A beaver. Lots of activity. Lots of resources and strengths to draw upon. A lttle frazzled by the end of the day.

Yesterday: An armadillo. Trundling along, glad for a shell. Like a character in a John Irving novel.

Today: Like a wolf, howling at the moon.

I think the armadillo is my favorite so far.

How about you?

Miscellaneous

The Lovely Daughter has the flu. She sounds miserable. Sometimes 2000 miles is a real distance.

I went down to Giant Famous Hospital this afternoon to have lunch with my summer CPE supervisor. I waited for her on the balcony overlooking a vast registration/waiting area and thought about the two populations of GFH. If you work there, there are always at least five things you could be doing during any minute of the day. If you are a patient or visitor, you wait. And wait and wait and wait.

Which reminds me: I am awaiting the results of medical testing done two weeks ago. I haven't taken the initiative to call because the labyrinthine phone system takes too long to navigate. It will take me less time to send a note, but I don't feel terribly motivated either way.

Tipper the Noble Dog had some medical work of her own down yesterday. Then the car had some medical work done. It was a very expensive day.

As I drove home this afternoon, I saw a bumper sticker that read: I'd rather be birding at Magee Marsh.

Yesh, so would I.