Brunch and Church

Our church has shifted to online church until Lent, so yesterday we took advantage of the flexibility and went to brunch with friends.  Through the years, I have read many an article that tries to explain that brunch is church in its own unique way.  Every time I go to brunch, I think about how brunch is nothing like church at all--while at the same time, wishing that church could adopt some of the aspects of brunch.

Yesterday we went to brunch beside the ocean, the very busy Ft. Lauderdale beach scene.  It was an outdoor place, but under awnings and umbrellas, so we were somewhat protected from the heat.  There was lots of traffic zooming by, often with revving motors.  In some ways, the view was beautiful, if one looked beyond the crowded sidewalks, the crowded streets, the crowded beach.

It was not a view that reminds me of God, that takes me to a theological or spiritual place.  It was a view that made me weary:  all those people, most of them from somewhere else.  

The main thing that separates church from brunch is the cost.  Most of the people who go to my church would be unlikely to be comfortable affording the brunch that we went to yesterday:  $50 a person.  In some ways, given today's price of a dinner out, it was a decent deal:  all we could eat, and bottomless mimosas, bloody Marys, and margaritas.  But it's a price that excludes many people.

Because our table was near the entrance, I watched people who hadn't thought ahead to make a reservation turned away.  In all my decades at church, no one has ever been turned away.

I do wish that church could follow the lead of brunch in offering a good meal.  I've been part of church services that experimented with a good meal, but churches I've been part of seem very attached to traditional church, in pews, in a sanctuary.

I am glad to have the opportunity to go to brunch every so often.  I read articles about how the nation loves Sunday brunch and would never give it up to go to church.  Every so often, when I am in church, I wish I could go to brunch.  It's good to go to brunch occasionally to remember the disadvantages of brunch:  the crowds, the price, the loud music that prevents good conversation.

Purchases and Severances

I contemplated several purchases during my lunch hour on Thursday, just hours before I was laid off.  I did not make one big purchase:  my sister and I had talked about meeting at my mom and dad's for her birthday in March, but because I have so little vacation time, I would have had to fly on peak days, and it just didn't seem worth the $400+ that the airline ticket would cost.  Plus, I was thinking about what would happen if I got sick because of being exposed to so many people while flying--I do have (did have) sick days, but would I have enough?  I was leaning towards telling my sister that I couldn't do it, but I thought I would wait another week or two; maybe there would be a mid-February sale.

Usually my splurges are much simpler things.  Just days before I was laid off, I ordered more tea.  I buy from Harney and Sons, and because I drink so much tea at work, I buy the bags of 50 tea sachets.  I have the tins lined up on a shelf, and I fill the tins from the bags.  When I order the economy size of teas I know I like, I often also buy a tin of a tea that sounds interesting.  Occasionally, I find a new favorite this way.

That tea arrived at my residence on the day I was laid off.  I guess I could return it.  In the past, I have tended not to drink tea throughout the day when I am at home.  But I have usually only been at home on the week-ends.  I've decided to keep it.  It won't go bad, after all.  And it's quality tea, so it will retain its flavor.  And who knows?  Maybe I'll continue to drink tea on week days when I'm at home.

Above is a picture of the fabric that I bought just hours before being laid off.  I had done an internet search for the amazing fabric store, Sunshine Fabrics, that used to be in Broward county.  I found a phone number and called, expecting to hear that the number had been disconnected.

Instead, a woman answered the phone, and I explained that I was looking for Sunshine Fabrics.  She said that the store was online now.   I asked if she still sold fabrics, and she said yes.

I have never bought fabric online before.  I don't trust the photos, and I want to feel the material.  But since I was familiar with the store, I was willing to take the risk.  

The fabric is even more beautiful than the pictures promised.  Hurrah.  And I was able to get the ends of some bolts, which means I paid $5 a yard for fabric that had been $15 a yard.  If you're in the market for gorgeous fabric, go here.

I can't return the fabric, but even if I could, I wouldn't want to.  I'm going to add it to the fabric that I bought in January and I'm going to make a quilt in this time of transition.

I have time now, and I've saved up money--I can go to Quilt Camp in April and to the Create in Me retreat.

And yesterday, I bought a plane ticket to go celebrate my mom's birthday.  Because I no longer have to schedule around work, I could get a round trip ticket for hundreds of dollars less than the ones I decided not to buy, hours before I was laid off.

The Last Day of Work, the First Day of Unemployment

Yesterday was a very strange day, but strange in different ways than almost every other work day that came before it.  For one thing, it wasn't a work day, although I did drive to the office at the same time as usual.  But I was dressed so very differently:  I kept my workout tights on, with a pair of long shorts over it, and my running shoes.  For a shirt, I asked my spouse, "Do you think the Harriet Tubman or the I Chose Wesley shirt?"  I went with Harriet Tubman, in part because of what's printed on the back:

Keep Going

If you are tired, keep going;

If you are scared, keep going;

If you are hungry, keep going;

If you want to taste freedom, keep going.

Did Harriet Tubman really say that?  I have no idea.  Did anyone notice what my T-shirt said?  I have no idea, but I liked knowing.

First I had to unload the car; when I got home Thursday night, I had to get set up for my seminary class and then go to class, and after class, it was too late.  I unloaded the car, and my spouse and I headed to campus in separate cars.

We packed up one car, and he headed back to the condo we're renting.  I packed up the rest of my office and put the boxes in the car.  It was strange, and I realized I've never packed an office in these circumstances.  Usually I've been leaving because of my own choice, so I felt it was important to leave things in order for those who came after me.  In my last job, I even went so far as to digitize the departmental files for the person who came after me.

With this severance, I wasn't able to access my electronic files, so even if I wanted to be helpful that way, I couldn't be.  I took my personal items out of desk drawers and file cabinets, but whoever comes after me still has a lot of cleaning to do.  Some of those files and piles of paper were there when I joined the college in 2016.  And now the filing cabinet of doom will be someone else's task.  

I left all sorts of holiday decorations that I don't want.  I left books.  I left box after box of masks, gloves, and other supplies.  In the past year, I got several microgrants from Thrivent to buy food for students, and I left that too.

I put the last 5 boxes of stuff in my car, left the office keys and fob on the desk, and drove away.  I got home, unloaded the car, and drove to Total Wine to stock up.  The traffic was terrible, and I reflected that now I can run errands at whatever time is most convenient for me.

That's the strangest part of this severance.  When I was laid off in 2012, it was because of a restructuring, and I had a good chance at securing a similar position in the new structure.  So I kept going to work, doing my best, so that I would be chosen (and I was chosen, much to my relief).  When I left my job in 1998, it was to move to South Florida, and I had the summer to decide if we would stay or if we would go back to South Carolina to my job there--it was a teaching job where I could take summers off, which I did, so I immediately started working on finding permanent work.

In my current situation, I spent much of 2021 thinking I would lose my job, so I/we made decisions to get ourselves into position to weather that storm.  And when it looked like I wouldn't lose the job, we had already put processes into place--we had rented the condo, put a lot of money down, and decided to sell the house.  We decided to continue with our plan to sell the house because of the burning hot real estate market down here; if one sees one's house as an investment and one lives at the coast, one must sell when it's time.  It was time.

I spent much of the day realizing that I don't have to go to work on Monday.  I will still have online classes to teach and seminary work to do--but not having to be in an office for 45-55 hours a week will free up so much time.  And I won't be commuting twenty minutes to half an hour each way.  And I don't have to be desperate to find another full-time job; my plan is to go to seminary in the fall and live in campus housing.

I have never left a job and had that kind of time open up.  Yesterday, I thought of all the ways I could start to fill that time, and I instantly thought/prayed, let me not screw this up.

Yes, let me not screw this up.

Play List for Job Loss: Higher Ed Bad Boyfriend Strikes Again

In some ways, yesterday at work was a normal day, the new normal, where there's construction noise and whimpering animals and people who show up with no notice asking to be let into the server room.  During my lunch break internet ramblings, I found the web site of a woman who used to operate the most amazing fabric store for quilters in all of Broward county, and I ordered some fabric to go with the fabric I bought in January. I'm starting to formulate a vision for my next quilt!  I have dreams of quilt camp.

After lunch, at 2:00, I was on a video call interviewing a candidate for Director of Career Services when our HR person sent a chat through Teams asking if I was available for a quick meeting at 2:45.  I replied "yes" and spent the next half hour wondering what was about to happen.  It occurred to me that I might be let go, but I thought it was more likely that I would get a heads up about someone else being let go.  I thought it was even more likely that I might get an innocuous question.

Nope.  I was let go.   I got off the call, packed a few boxes, then it was on to home and my seminary class that I'm taking on Thursday nights: "Speaking of God in a Secular Age." It was surreal to be taking a class that discussed Catholic and Protestant ideas of grace when one has just been laid off.

It occurs to me that this is not the first time I have experienced a lay off (see this blog post for more details about the last time I was let go from an administrator job).  And like last time, this time was not entirely unexpected.  After all, I spent much of 2021 expecting that the campus would close, and my job would vanish.

But then the campus didn't close, and in fact, the new owners announced expansion plans.  Construction is underway.  Some part of me still expected to be laid off at some point--but it's strange when it actually happens.

On Tuesday, in fact, we had begun to think about plans that might be possible if my job lasted as long as the lease on the condo, until August of 2023.  Even as my spouse was running figures, some part of my heart urged caution.

I have begun to think of Higher Ed as a bad boyfriend, who breaks one's heart again and again, and apologizes profusely and each time, one thinks it might be different. Not an abusive boyfriend, in that one's face isn't broken and it's not bad enough that one knows to run away. There's potential--one wants it all to be different. But the Higher Education bad boyfriend breaks one's heart in so many ways.

Let me hasten to say that I feel fortunate in so many ways.  Since we spent much of 2021 thinking I would lose my job, we made alternate plans.  I am so grateful to Feb. 2021 Kristin who went ahead and applied for seminary and candidacy.  I am so grateful that we have sold the house.  I am so grateful that I have a vision of an alternate future.

While I will miss many of my colleagues, I am also grateful that someone else will have the task of leading the campus through the accreditation visit in 2 months.  I was not looking forward to many of the changes that were barreling towards us.

I will return to the campus today for a final time to box up books and load up the car.  When the HR person asked if I had any questions, I thought, I have so many questions.  But the one I asked was "I have more personal stuff in my office than I can get home today in my little car.  How do you want me to handle that?"

This morning, after a night of restless sleep, I woke up with a Meat Loaf lyric in my head:  "I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you." Thanks Higher Ed Bad Boyfriend! Now listening to Jimmy Buffett's "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On." That man doesn't get enough credit for his skillful lyrics.

This morning's complete play list, minus Meat Loaf:

"Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" by Jimmy Buffett

"Further on Up the Road" by Bruce Springsteen

"I Shall Be Released" by the Band

"The Wanderer" by Johnny Cash and U2

"Midnight Rider" by the Allman Brothers

"After the Gold Rush" by Neil Young

"Surrender" by U2

"Straight Lines" by Suzanne Vega

"Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, February 6, 2022:

First Reading: Isaiah 6:1-8 [9-13]

Psalm: Psalm 138

Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:1-11

Gospel: Luke 5:1-11


Today's Gospel is one we must have heard a gabillion times, if we've been going to church for any amount of time at all. As the Gospel becomes familiar, perhaps the rich symbolic language loses some of its power. The symbol of the fisherman is one we find across church cultures; the mission of fishing for people, too, is one that most faiths hold in common.

Let's look at the Gospel again, to see what we might have missed.  I'm struck by the fact that Jesus comes to call Simon Peter and his friends and family during their work time. Christ, too, is on the job. The familiarity of this Gospel makes me forget that first verse, that tells us Jesus is preaching when he slips into the boats. I wonder what the crowds who came to hear the word of God made of that?

Jesus slips into the boat of weary fisherman who have had an unsuccessful night. What convinces Christ that these men are the cornerstone of his work on this planet?

If you were setting up your new ministry--or any other kind of venture--would you choose the men that Jesus chose?

In hindsight, it's easy to say "Of course." But take a minute and consider the story for today.

We see fisherman, and unsuccessful fisherman. In the Palestine of Christ's time, these men wouldn't have been at the bottom of the social ladder, but they'd have been close, viewed as solidly working class or lower. It's hard, heavy work to do this kind of fishing--and dirty work, as there are fish and nets to clean.

These are not men who own land, the kind of men that would have had status. These are not men who have been trained by religious authorities, as we might have expected Jesus to choose for his ministry.

Jesus chooses regular, ordinary people. These are not men with gifts of oratory, not first. These are not the best and the brightest, at least not at first. But Jesus chooses them.

In the previous chapter, Jesus has healed Simon's mother-in-law. These are not young, single men, fishing on a boat to pay for college. Just like so many of us, these men had families and work and lots to accomplish in a day.  But they've also seen Jesus in action, healing one of their own family members.  And then, they get to experience their own miracle:  full nets, from a sea that didn't yield fish before.

Jesus calls, and they respond. Perhaps it's because of the nets that are so full to bursting that they almost sink the boats. Perhaps they realize that on their own, they have empty nets, while with Christ in the boat, they're successful in ways they didn't think they could be.

It's a potent metaphor. Christ wants to join you on the boat. Will you give him a place to teach the world? Christ wants you to try again, when you're convinced that only failure can come from casting down your nets again. Will you follow Christ? Will your nets be empty or full to bursting?

Cast down your nets. Cast them down again and again and again until you are a different kind of fish and a different kind of fisherperson.

Halfway Point of Winter

We are at the halfway point of winter--halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Today is Candlemas, where Christians celebrate the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, and pagans long ago celebrated the goddess Brigid (and the feast day of St. Brigid was yesterday), and some Wiccans today will be celebrating at Imbolc, or a variation of any number of pagan holidays. It's also Groundhog's Day. It's one of those times when we can almost perceive the shifting of the seasons. It's not spring yet, but it will be soon.

Candlemas is the feast day that speaks to me. Candlemas celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple. It's the last feast holiday that references Christmas. We could see it as the final festival of Christmas, even though most of us have had the decorations packed away since even before Epiphany.

This morning I'm thinking of Simeon, who held onto the promise of the Messiah throughout his very long life before he saw it fulfilled. He waits and he waits and he waits. But finally, at the end of his life, he does hold the Messiah, the light of the world, in his hands.

Simeon holds the baby Jesus. Imagine it: to hold the light of the world in your hands. In so many ways we still do. We carry the light of the world inside us. How can your body deliver light to the world?

Some churches and monasteries will bless the year's supply of candles. I love this tradition, although it's never been mine. Today would be a good day to light a candle and to think about our own lights. Are we dimly burning wicks? Take heart--the Bible promises that we can still be useful. Does our light burn pure and true? Take care to protect that flame.

The holidays of early February (Groundhog Day, Candlemas, St. Brigid's Day, Imbolc and Oimelc ) remind us that the light hasn't really left us. Spring will be here soon.

A Poem for the Feast Day of Saint Brigid

Today is the feast day of St. Brigid, one of the patron saints of Ireland.  She is one of the early Christians who stood at the intersection of Christianity, Druidism, and the other pagan religions of Ireland.  She is also one of those extraordinary women who did amazing things, despite the patriarchal culture in which she lived.

She founded founded some of the first Christian monasteries in Ireland, most famously the legendary one in Kildare.  She also founded a school of art that focuses on metal working and illumination.  The illustrated manuscript, the Book of Kildare, was created under her auspices.  Unfortunately, it's been lost since the Reformation, so we know it by its reputation only.

Monastic, administrator, artist--it's no wonder that her story calls to me from across the centuries.

I didn't really know much about Brigid until about 2011 or 2012, when I read several blog posts about her.  In 2013, I drove all the way to Mepkin Abbey on her feast day.  I thought about her life as I drove across cold landscapes.  I finally wrote a draft of the poem that appears below.

Years ago, I wrote this:  "I will try to imagine Saint Brigid through a more realistic lens.  I will write a poem where she tells me that she accomplished all sorts of things along the way, while all the time struggling to create her great illuminated work.  I will imagine something that she did that we know nothing of.  I will imagine that she will feel sad when she realizes that modern people don't even know of her great work, but instead of her institutions at Kildare and beyond.

I will think about a woman at midlife 1500 years from now, a woman who reads about my life.  What will amaze her?  How will she see the ways that I did, indeed, live an authentic life, even as I lost sight of that fact in the daily minutiae?  If she blogged about me, what would seem important enough to include?  How would she finish this sentence:  In the last half of her life, Berkey-Abbott accomplished ______________  ?"

I have yet to write about Brigid's lost work, but I did write the poem that imagines Brigid through a more realistic lens.  It was published in Adanna, and I'm happy to repost it here.  If you want additional background on Brigid, see this blog post.


The True Miracle of Saint Brigid


You know about the baskets
of butter, the buckets of beer,
the milk that flowed
to fill a lake.

You don’t know about the weeks
we prayed for the miracle
of multiplication but instead received
the discipline of division.

I managed the finances to keep us all fed.
By day, I rationed the food.
At night, I dreamed of a sculpture
manufactured of metal.

I didn’t have the metal
or the time, but in the minutes
had, I illuminated
any scrap of paper I could find.

Lost to the ashes:
The Book of Kildare, but also
my budget ledgers, flowers
and birds drawn around the numbers.