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Thursday, April 27, 2006
Dennis is outside the office today, trying to blast away the slippery moss that grows on the brick walkway. He used some WMDs (Weapons of Moss Destruction) on it earlier this week to loosen the moss, and now he has a big rented power washer and is working away on it. He's splattered with mud and debris from head to toe. Work has really been kicking his ass this week. On Tuesday he was up on the roof trying to figure out what was causing the gutters to overflow. That would be...paper airplanes and empty water bottles. In case you were wondering.
My week has been less intense, although I'm still struggling because of the pregnancy suckness.
Mostly what this week makes me realize is how much we both miss TheRev.
I think what's been missing since the beginning of the year is a sense that what we're doing is a holy and good choice. TheRev always made Dennis feel like choosing to take on the job of keeping St. Ned's clean and in order was a good thing, and he showed respect for and interest in Dennis' real work, which is the writing.
That's certainly not something that was unique to Dennis; TheRev also knew all about the people who made his damn burrito every day at Taco Bell, and treated them with the same kind of dignity. Dennis also has a lot of that in him; I don't so much, but I'm really trying to cultivate it in myself. It's one of the top things I want to pass on to our child, that every person has worth and an inner life and no one is fully defined by their role in society (to sum it up - hey, don't be an asshole). The world needs more people like that.
Likewise, my work always seemed like it mattered because it was a form of service to the community, and even if I could be replaced by a somewhat tame monkey sometimes, I still felt like I was offering an appropriate response to God's calling, and using my gifts to serve the kingdom. Lately I'm just slogging through, and it seems like very little that I do actually furthers God's work in any way.
It's just amazing how much different the job feels without that sort of foundation. We're both much more grumbly and quick to feel put-upon or slighted, and boy doesn't that just make us happy little beacons of Christ's love.
So I need to find my way back to that place of believing that what I do springs out of something deeper. Because right now I'm not doing anyone much good.
Also, I'm constantly being smacked by pregnancy hormones and might be feeling a bit overly...something.
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Saturday, April 22, 2006
I apologize for being much more active on the baby blog right now. I'm just not doing much besides gestating at the moment.
Since one of the things I am managing to do while sprawling on the sofa is screwing around on the internet, I give you random entertaining links:
stupid.com I love stupid.com. Perhaps you do, also, but have forgotten. Not that HamZilla needs to exist, but since it does, I respect it.
Via stupid, I got to the museum of Air Sickness Bags. Not surprisingly, Virgin has cool bags. I have an unused KLM bag from our flight home from Amsterdam; I was going to turn it into something creative.
Easter Turdurken, which you could probably make now for 75% off.
And the cutest board book ever, First Book of Sushi. Because you know I want sushi now that I can't have it.
Remember, Mother's Day is coming and mom loves a handmade gift. Maybe start with Subversive Cross Stitch. Mom will cry when she sees her lovely gift...but for a very different reason. (Bonus points to anyone who recognizes the mst3k reference there. I'm such a dork.)
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Sunday, April 16, 2006
The Archbishop of Canterbury's Sermon for Easter Day
For the Church does not exist just to transmit a message across the centuries through a duly constituted hierarchy that arbitrarily lays down what people must believe; it exists so that people in this and every century may encounter Jesus of Nazareth as a living contemporary. This sacrament of Holy Communion that we gather to perform here is not the memorial of a dead leader, conducted by one of his duly authorised successors who controls access to his legacy; it is an event where we are invited to meet the living Jesus as surely as did his disciples on the first Easter Day. And the Bible is not the authorised code of a society managed by priests and preachers for their private purposes, but the set of human words through which the call of God is still uniquely immediate to human beings today, human words with divine energy behind them. Easter should be the moment to recover each year that sense of being contemporary with God's action in Jesus. Everything the church does - celebrating Holy Communion, reading the Bible, ordaining priests or archbishops - is meant to be in the service of this contemporary encounter. It all ought to be transparent to Jesus, not holding back or veiling his presence.
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Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Welcome to Holy Week. Forgot to say that Sunday.
I haven't had the world's most quiet, introspective Lent as it turns out; Nathan being born and then our Amsterdam trip and the being knocked up thing have conspired against that.
I'm trying to accept the fact that I'm probably going to have to miss the Easter Vigil, which is only my favorite service of the whole year. But it starts at 8:00 p.m., and preggo chicks who are out cold on the sofa every night by 8:30 p.m. don't get to go to long church services and handle live flames. This is not the year to burn St. Ned's down.
I think the big thing that I've absorbed during Lent this year is a stronger than ever sense of providence; consider the lillies of the field, etc. We are going to be ok, and all my worrying doesn't actually affect that either way, so I could, you know, skip it. Letting go of (most of) the last little bits of money anxiety has been remarkably freeing.
Through a combination of operating online banking while exhausted and just plain bad math, I significantly overpaid our tithe to St. Ned's this month, enough to put us into pretty tight finances. I decided to let it ride, just to see what would happen; I mean, I am feeling extra grateful this month so maybe an extra sacrifice isn't a bad thing. And so far everything has been fine or slightly better than fine, and I haven't been worried at all or wanted for anything. We really just don't need very much. I don't know why that has to keep bonking me upside the head, but it does, and I'm amazed by it every time.
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Sunday, April 09, 2006
Ok, I'm a bad bad blogger. I said I would be back when my body knew what day it was, and actually, I'm surprised by some of the stuff my body knows now.
Mostly it knows that it's got a BABY in there, which means I've pretty much been napping since we got back. Seriously. The thing is the size of a sesame seed and has webbed toes, and it already rules my body.
We've got another blog going now - I give you Going Parental. I'm not abandoning this one, I'm just going to do all the baby-related blah blah blah there so that folks can avoid it if they don't want to hear it.
We're incredibly excited, though, and haven't been able to resist blabbing about it to, oh, everyone.
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We watch a lot of TV shows with dialogue like, "the sheets tested positive for bodily fluids." These sheets were fresh out of the dryer and tested positive for GRACIE:
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