Thursday Weariness

 I am weary this morning, but in a good way--in several good ways:

--I've gotten to hear a lot of good singing/music and even done some singing myself.

--I've seen a lot of folks:  old friends, family members, people I recognize from past years.  I've had lots of conversation.

--The work still needs to be done:  grading, sermon writing, thinking about papers due in a few weeks.

--I've done more sketching than usual.

--We've started every morning with a vigorous walk.

--Each day since Sunday has contained one worship service, and usually 2.  And they are so well done.

--There's been Bible study:  villains in the Bible (the serpent, the Pharoah, David, and today, the Crowd).

--We've had good food.  Much of it was pre-prepped, but it still needs to come out of the refrigerator and go back in.

--I am thankful for the dishwasher, which we've used twice a day most days.

I am thankful for this time out of time, this time that reminds me that there's more to life than maintenance of body and of structures.

Snow Days and School Days and Anxiety

This morning, I'm feeling oddly anxious.  I have much less reason to feel anxious this week than last.  The ice storm wasn't as bad as we feared it might be.  I had been worried that the seminary class that I'm taking starts Thursday, and I haven't gotten a Zoom link or seen a course shell uploaded in Canvas--this morning, it's there.  We have power, internet, and water, and I have another remote learning day today, so I don't have to worry about the roads.  My spouse had jury duty today--also cancelled.

So why the anxiety?

I've been trying to get to the bottom of my anxiety, trying to understand.  I'm sure part of my anxiety stems from my schedule ramping back up again--so, even though this week includes some extra time at home, most weeks won't be like this.  I've also been feeling anxiety about taking another seminary class with worries about all that could go wrong trying to take root in my brain.  What if the Zoom link doesn't work?  What if the class requires too much of me?  What if this class is the one that breaks me?

I do have to laugh at myself.  I've been taking online classes for 5 years, and I've never run into problems I couldn't solve.  I explored the course shell, and the assignments look manageable.  I have the textbooks.  And then there's the larger situation:  I'm not a 25 year old, just starting out on my life's journey.  I have a full-time job that doesn't depend on this seminary class.

My anxiety might also be sadness masquerading as anxiety.  Why am I sad?  Well, I've enjoyed these snow days, even as I felt anxious about all the ice that might fall.  I'm sad to see this snow vacation come to an end, sad even as I have at least one more day to enjoy.

Let me make a list of some moments that I don't want to slip away:

--I've enjoyed the cooking we've done,  from the seafood stew on Saturday to last night's homemade pizza made in cast iron pans.  I've baked bread, both an oatmeal bread on Saturday and a pumpkin bread this morning.

--We watched Sinners on Saturday--what an amazing movie!  If it hadn't gotten so much Oscar buzz, I might have skipped it, thinking it would be too gory a horror movie.  Thankfully, the gory parts weren't too gross, and the horror bits weren't haunting.

--I've done a lot of sewing and sorting of fabric.  I decided that I was ready for a change from the Christmas fabrics that I had been using, so yesterday I made the shift back to the same type of project, sewing log cabin patchwork out of scraps, but using a wider variety of fabrics.

--Yesterday I took an unintended nap.  I had laid down in the late morning to watch the glitter snow that developed in the morning but was only visible when seen through sunshine.  The trees gleamed through their ice glaze.  Next thing I knew, I was waking up from a deep kind of nap.

Trying to Have No Fear

Last night I had dinner with some retreat friends who are in town for the Crafts for Christmas retreat which begins later today--two retreats in two weeks!  I am the luckiest woman, and this situation would not be possible if I still lived in South Florida.

Lest you think we talk about nothing but God and spirituality, our talk was primarily of politics and all the ways that people in charge of various governments are going off the rails and our fear of being dragged off the rails with them.  I'm not just talking about our US government; one of our group keeps track of events in Gaza in ways that I can't follow.

Of course, I'm beginning to feel the same way about most geopolitical trends--I can't possibly keep up or follow the course of events.  And in part, it's because all of it makes me feel any number of negative ways:  anxious, sad, depressed, worried.  

So this morning is a good time to remind myself of a verse from a  Gospel reading from several weeks ago, Luke 12, verse 32:  "Have no fear, little flock."

I made this sketch, which continues to delight me:

It's a good reminder.  We've had hard times before and will again.  God is with us through it all.

Juneteenth and All that Holds Us in Shackles

Today we celebrate our newest federal holiday:  Juneteenth.  Of course, many populations have been celebrating Juneteenth since the news of freedom first came to the last enslaved people in Texas in 1865.  This is the first year that I've been in a workplace that recognized the holiday.  In 2021, I was working for a small school that was very stingy with holidays, so we didn't have that holiday or MLK day or Presidents Day.

In 2022, I was no longer working for that school.  I was driving back across several states, coming back to Florida from the onground intensive at Southern Seminary.  I was already a certified spiritual director through their program, but I went back to take advantage of the education, to have a reunion with my small group, and to see a friend graduate from the program.  Two weeks later I would turn around to drive back up to Arden to buy the house that I'm writing in this morning.  So far, I have never regretted that purchase, which is not usual for me when it comes to housing or moves or jobs.

Or maybe it is becoming usual.  I don't have regrets about the spiritual direction certificate or my MDiv.  My main regret about my job at SMC is that I didn't have it sooner.  I love this house in a way that I haven't loved any other house.  Maybe my lack of regret is a pleasant part of being in late midlife.

I am tempted to tie these ideas back to Juneteenth, but I don't want to trivialize the holiday or the history.  While regret can enslave us, it's a very different enslavement than other forces and humans that enslave.

What are the forces enslaving so many of us? We think of iron shackles, but there are other societal constructs that hold so many back: debt, geopolitical forces, violence, educational systems. If we compare these issues to slave times and the Jim Crow era, perhaps we'll create a generation of thinkers that are set free.

And once free, perhaps they will figure out ways not only to free others, but to make sure that others aren't enslaved, either metaphorically or literally.

So on this Juneteenth, let us think about the captives who need our help to be set free. Let us also think about all the captivity narratives that hold us enslaved. Let us embrace liberation narratives. Let us envision what life would look like if all were truly free.

A Week of Interviews and Contracts

It has been a whirlwind week, and I'm not talking about the "will he or won't he" tariff chaos.  It's been a week where I have multiple seminary assignments due--from here on out, they will be more spread out.  I do think that if I was smart, I would go ahead and get the final projects done, and maybe I will.

I had an interview this week.  On Tuesday, I interviewed to be part of the Summer 2025 cohort of the CPE program at the Asheville VA Hospital.  I wasn't sure what to expect--after all, it's not like a job interview, where people are trying to determine if they want me to be part of their lives for what could be a long time.  

My mom sent me this e-mail, which I thought was charming in so many ways:  "Hope all goes well. You are a dynamite young lady who can ace this interview. Keep us posted! Mom."  It's been a long time since anyone called me a dynamite young lady--I certainly don't feel young anymore.

The interview went well, I thought.  It was the kind of interview where I could tell that the three people on the interview team had read my extensive application materials and thought about them and come up with incisive questions.  I answered them honestly.  The interview lasted 45 minutes, so there could have been plenty of places where I stumbled.

For example, they asked me what I hoped to learn outside of skills, what kind of self development did I hope to experience, and I said that I wanted to learn more about how to be present to people with problems that aren't fixable. I felt like it was a good answer, but they might have found it problematic.

Happily, they must have found more about me to like than reject.  Yesterday, the day after the interview, I sent a thank you e-mail, and I got a reply offering me a spot.  I wrote back to say yes.  

You might be asking why I am doing CPE this summer--aren't I graduating?  Yes, I am on schedule to graduate with my MDiv degree, but I still have requirements to complete before I am eligible for ordination.  One of them is CPE, a kind of chaplaincy training.

I also got my teaching contract for next year, signed it, and made some inquiries about health insurance.  Happily, our health insurance continues through the summer, even though technically I'm between contracts for a few months.  It is so nice to be at a place where I'm treated well.

Here it is Thursday, and it feels like I should be done with my tasks for the week.  But I still have two papers due today to finish, and seminary class tonight,  along with teaching tasks--and it's time to start thinking about my sermon for Sunday.

Well, let me get to it.  The weather seems iffy, so I'll get a walk in.

Nuggets of Inspiration from Facebook Posts: C. S. Lewis on Saints and Theologian Ruben Alves on Hope

Every day I worry that I waste too much time zipping around to Internet sites, and I always feel I spend too much time on social media.  But each day, I get a bit of inspiration, a bit of uplift that keeps me hopeful that it's not a complete waste of time.  I've pasted some samples below.

And it's also worth remembering that I've always wasted some time:  trashy books, afternoon talk shows like Oprah, gossiping with colleagues.  It's good to remember that they weren't all complete wastes of time.  And it's probably unrealistic to expect myself to be productive every waking hour.

A Facebook friend who is a female pastor made this post:

As I drove to my last radiation treatment this morning and listened to the news about the escalation of the war in Ukraine and Russia, I remembered C.S. Lewis words, “How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints." And here, I don't think he's talking about the saints with a capital S, but those who persist in the small, everyday acts of courage, hope, and kindness. These are the things that make for peace and that will, in the end, erase every memory of the great unoriginal tyrants.

A Facebook friend who is a female pastor made this post (completely unrelated to the above quote):

An Advent thought from Brazilian theologian Ruben Alves: “Hope is that presentiment that the imagination is more real, and reality less real, than we had thought. It is the sensation that the last word does not belong to the brutality of facts with their oppression and repression. It is the suspicion that reality is far more complex than realism would have us believe, that the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the present, and that miraculously and surprisingly, life is readying the creative event that will open the way to freedom and resurrection.”

Friday Fragments: Quilt Projects, Camp Projects, Home Projects

This morning, I've done my work out of order.  I've been doing grading, and now I can't remember ever having had anything worth blogging about.  Let me put down some assorted thoughts:

--At the end of spring Quilt Camp, I put together smaller pieces of fabric by size.  I had a vision of putting together a quilt of random pieces.  It's not exactly worked out that way, but I'm pleased with how it's going:

--I love having a small project to work on in the evening, but it's quickly becoming a large project.

--This morning, I woke up thinking that I should spend the next few weeks sewing together the Log Cabin squares that I spent much of 2023 assembling.  The picture below is from spring 2023:

Then I can have it ready to assemble and quilt at Quilt Camp in November.  Later today I'll put them on the bed to see how many I have.  I'm fairly sure I remember that I have enough for our queen size bed.

--We took the car in for an oil change yesterday, and came home not only with the oil changed, but also with bushings and a control arm for the steering and suspension.  We could have put off this repair for a few months, but when it fails, it will be "catastrophic," according to the mechanic.  Well, this is why we save money, I suppose.

--Today we go to pick up the last of the furniture that we bought a few weeks ago.  We went in to get a kitchen table, and we left with two new chairs--well, we left having ordered them in a fabric that we hope will complete the living room look.  I've been very pleased with the small kitchen table, which can be expanded when we have guests:

--Yesterday we ate a delicious meal at that table, with the window open, and gentle music playing.  We could hear the patter of rain, and it was so delightful, even as we were waiting for the summons to come back and get the car.

--Today is the last day of summer camp at Lutheridge.  I still have dreams of being a director of adult programming at a camp like Lutheridge.  I have memories of Lutheridge summers from years ago, where there was more programming for adults.  Could we ever go back to that?  There are lots of folks in work places where they can't get away for adult programming during the school year (like teachers).  It would be fun to offer Quilt Camp or Create in Me or Wild Women or any other number of programs in the summer.  From what I can tell, there is space for adults in terms of lodging in the summer.  In terms of program space, it would require some creative thinking.  I'm putting this idea here so that I remember it in the future.

--It seems like we just got started, having counselors arrive and then campers.  And now, it's done.  One more summer complete.

--We've had people at camp this week doing burly, lumberjack kind of things.  Some trees needed to be cut into pieces, like the one that fell down last week and took some power lines down with them.  One tree by the lake has been down for over a year, maybe even two or three.  Why cut it apart?

--I did get a poem idea, when I said that men with chainsaws have a different idea of forest management than I do.  I thought this might be an interesting idea to have Noah's wife contemplate.  Or maybe I'll do several approaches and see which one I like best.  Hmmm.

Saturday Snippets from the Last Week in July

What a week it has been!  Let me collect some snippets before it's time to go to the farmer's market to get some more of the wonderful tomatoes and peaches I got last week.

--It was Christmas in July week at camp, which meant Christmas decorations, Christmas music, Christmas cookies, but in small doses.  I will miss these small doses of holiday cheer.  But I also realize that before I know it, the Christmas in December season will be upon us.

--We delivered mail this week, which I've written about in earlier posts.  I was amazed at the amount of mail, and the mail delivery tasks took longer than I was expecting.  Yesterday I delivered the last few pieces of mail once the U.S. mail delivery finally got to us.  I told one of the Pioneer A counselors that I had a few pieces of mail, and some of the nearby campers lit up with hope.  It made me happy that they are still happy to get mail, and it made me wish I had more mail to give them.

--Every time we deliver mail, I wonder if we should get a golf cart of our own.  It seems to lift our spirits, zipping across camp.  Would that be worth the money?  Would the lift last?

--We have had so much rain here that trees have started falling over.  Not just one tree, but several trees on camp property have fallen down.  One fell into a power line, which kept part of Lutheridge in the dark for the better part of the evening and night, and the main entrance road into the upper part of camp is still closed.

--I am trying not to feel anxious about the trees in my own yard.

--It's been a week of wonderful baking.  Yesterday, I decided that I wanted a mug of Earl Gray tea with milk to go with my afternoon cookies.  And I made it, and it was wonderful.

--Last night, while the rest of the world watched the opening of the Summer Olympics, we finally watched Oppenheimer.  At first I thought I was bored, and now I want to watch it again to see what I missed.

--The movie took me back to the summer of 1985 or 86, when I read a lot about the development of the atomic bomb, in an attempt to try to understand how we got here.  Before I did that reading, I thought that the bomb was immoral, and that the U.S. shouldn't have created it.  After reading all those books, I realized that many countries were working on that achievement, and it could have been even worse.

--There are times when I feel sad about how much I don't read anymore, but I remind myself that I still immerse myself in topics, but I research differently now.

--I've been using my car as extra storage, and this week, I finally brought all my cloth in from the car.  My goodness, how have I gone from having no cloth in 2022 to having so much?  Part of me is delighted, and part of me wants to borrow one of the good sewing machines from the LWR quilt group at Lutheran Church of the Nativity and put some quilt tops together.

--One of the reasons that I have a slight desire to watch Oppenheimer again is that I was sewing something special for the Blessings of the Backpacks tomorrow, and I wasn't paying enough attention to the movie to make sense of which man in which suit was who and where we were in time in the movie.  I'll make a separate post on what I was sewing later, after giving them to the youth of the church.

--Realizing that I was running out of time on my mini project kept me focused on sewing, and I didn't eat or drink much last night.  I slept so much better.

--Of course, it might have been because it was finally cool enough and dry enough to open the windows.  Beautiful weather overnight! 

--Lots of political twists and turns this past week:  Biden withdrawing, Kamala Harris becoming the next Democratic candidate, barring more surprises.  I want to note this history, while not getting bogged down in it.

And now it is time to get my shower and head to the farmer's market.  These seasonal treats won't be in season forever!

Saturday Scraps: June Winds Down

 It's been a whirlwind week, in some ways, a slow week in others.  Let me collect some scraps from the past week:

--I've completed some of the chores that come along with modern life.  I'm primarily thinking of the car registration, which requires a safety inspection.  I was able to get both cars inspected on Thursday afternoon, after I got annoyed with myself for wasting so much time during the day.

--I tell myself I've wasted time, but that's not true.  In any given day, there's a certain amount of mindless scrolling through social media and online newspapers.  But I don't waste as much time watching TV as I once did.

--This week, as we've watched TV of the mindless variety and TV of the well-written variety, I've gotten lots of sewing on my quilt done.

--I also went to quilt group on Wednesday.  I helped assemble two quilt tops; the Janome machine is a wonder.

--On Tuesday, I went to both our neighborhood happy hour at Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and my seminary class.  I'm looking forward to Mondays in August, where my neighborhood group will be exploring breweries in Mills River, and for most of the Mondays, I won't have a seminary class to attend.  On Tuesday, my time was tight, so I didn't drink, but it was good to see people and spend time together.

--Today is the two year anniversary of our purchase of this house.  I have no regrets.  It's been good to have a place to live that is paid for, even if it needs a lot of work.  It's a solid house, more solid than we knew when we bought it--a happy turn of events.  It's been a good investment.

--It's been interesting, living in a house in a residential community that's part of a church camp.  During 9 months of the year, it's fairly quiet, downright deserted.  During the summer, we don't hear noise from the camp at our house; the traffic noise from a major road nearby drowns out all other noise.  But my daily walk takes me through the camp, and it's a different experience during the summer, seeing groups of people doing camp things (swimming, walking to the dining hall, playing games in grassy areas).

--Despite the joys of summer, I'm yearning for autumn, even though autumn will be very busy with more teaching and more seminary classes to complete.  Let me continue to work on appreciating the present, even as I'm looking forward to seasons to come. 

Memorial Day 2024

Today is Memorial Day, and through the years, I've come to realize how many different things this holiday can mean to people.  I've met people who won't celebrate it because of its roots in memorializing the Civil War Union dead.  My dad was an Air Force officer in the Reserves until he retired, so Memorial Day was personal for him.  I don't think I know anyone who was killed while on active duty, but I do want to honor those who died.  Some people I've known seem to have no inkling that the holiday has anything to do with soldiers at all--for them, it's about getting a good deal on a holiday sale or opening up the vacation home or having a cook out.

I remember feeling desperate for Memorial Day, for a day off, but during my days of working as an administrator, I was always desperate for a day off, a day off that didn't require me to use up any of my paltry allotment of vacation time.  For the past several years, Memorial Day as a three day week-end was not top of my mind.

I also know that many people don't get to have time off.  All of our grocery stores are open today, for example.  When I taught in community colleges in South Carolina, we didn't have Memorial Day off.  Our nursing students needed every scrap of time in the summer, so that holiday had to be sacrificed so that we stayed in compliance.  Or maybe it was because of the Civil War; I got different explanations. In past years, I've used the day off to catch up on grading for my online classes.  This year, my summer classes don't start for a month, so I'm not teaching at all this holiday. 

This year, I'm thinking about past years, when war seemed far away.  Could we really be at a place where peace was the norm?

This year, that doesn't seem to be the case.  This year, I'm hoping for containment of threats, for dictators to be defeated.  When I say that, I'm thinking of Putin.  This year, of course, the war in the Middle East is the one that most people are contemplating, if they are contemplating war at all.  This year, I am willing to admit how much I do not know, while trying not to dread what may be coming in the next year or two.

But let me circle back to the intent of this holiday.  On this day which has become for so many of us just an excuse to have a barbecue, let us pause to reflect and remember. If we're safe right now, let us say a prayer of gratitude. Let us remember that we've still got lots of military people serving in dangerous places.

Let us remember how often the world zooms into war. Let us pray to be preserved from those horrors.

Here's a prayer I wrote for Memorial Day:

God of comfort, on this Memorial Day, we remember those souls whom we have lost to war. We pray for those who mourn. We pray for military members who have died and been forgotten. We pray for all those sites where human blood has soaked the soil. God of Peace, on this Memorial Day, please renew in us the determination to be peacemakers. On this Memorial Day, we offer a prayer of hope that military people across the world will find themselves with no warmaking jobs to do. We offer our pleading prayers that you would plant in our leaders the seeds that will sprout into saplings of peace.

Eclipse Regrets

I now have eclipse regret.  Perhaps I should have gone on a quest for totality.  I knew we were going to be at 85% totality, and I thought that would be enough.  But now, seeing other people's pictures and reading about their experiences, I'm wondering if I should have made more of an effort.  After all, we won't have these opportunities often, at least not in driving distance.

I'm also feeling a tinge of sadness for other reasons.  I made this Facebook post yesterday afternoon:  "Strange to think about how much has changed since August 2017, the last time I viewed a solar eclipse. Back then, I wrote this conclusion to a blog post: 'Make plans now: August 12, 2045, my house will be on the path of full totality. If the rising seas haven't washed it away, you're all invited to my house. Full totality will be at 1:37 p.m.' That was my Florida house, now someone else's Florida house, and that post was just a few weeks before Hurricane Irma."

We stayed in that house for four more years, many of them years of trying to stay sane in the midst of home repairs from hurricane damage.  Sure, we were one of the lucky ones--our insurance paid for the repairs, with minimum struggle to get them to do it.  We thought it was going to be a struggle, with a need to send documentation about our contractor and to get said contractor to fill in reports periodically to get the funds released periodically--and then, out of the clear blue sky, the funds were released in one big check.

I spent the next four years expecting the insurance company to come and demand paperwork or demand their money back or somehow make my life more difficult.  Happily, they did not.

Thinking about 2017 makes me sad for all sorts of reasons.  Even though I didn't have the amount of leave accrued in my new job that would have let me go on a quest for totality, I was happy in that job at that moment.  We had just had a successful accreditation visit.  Our new president who was in charge of two campuses was still mostly at the Ft. Lauderdale campus, still mostly not concerned with my campus, the Hollywood campus.  It was all going to go badly in many different ways in the coming years, but if I had any sense of that fact, it was only a glimmer.

There's also some sadness because we spent that 2017 eclipse in and near the pool in our backyard; my sister and nephew were down for a visit, and we were having a marvelous time.  We still have a marvelous time together, but it's different now, in the normal ways that everything changes as we age.

I have spent time trying not to look back, but every so often, I'm stopped in my tracks.  Usually, I'm stopped for happiness.  If I could go back to 2017 Kristin and tell her how life has changed, she would be amazed:  a home in the mountains, almost done with an MDiv program, a part-time preaching position, and a teaching job at a small, liberal arts college.  That list represents lots of dreams coming true.  It also represents some severances:  something we don't always remember when we think about dreams coming true, that dreams coming true mean some dreams fade away.

It is time to get ready for that teaching job--off I go, soon, down the mountains to teach English at Spartanburg Methodist College.  I teach, while the bathroom install is happening here.  It will be good to be away.

Let me close with another Facebook post from yesterday:  "Today I looked at the sky and looked at the ground, hoping for interesting shadows during the eclipse. No interesting shadows, but I did realize for the first time that one of our spindly trees is a dogwood, one of my favorite trees."

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Quick Maundy Thursday Post

 Another Maundy Thursday, and I am writing later than I usually would.  I was finishing both my Maundy Thursday and Good Friday sermons, trying to connect the printer, getting ready to drive down the mountain to teach at Spartanburg Methodist College.

After I am done teaching, I will drive back up the mountain, stop at my Lutheridge house, and then my spouse and I will drive to Bristol, Tennessee, so that I can lead Maundy Thursday service at Faith Lutheran.  There have been many moments this morning when I wondered why I didn't just move my classes online.  Today will be more driving than many Maundy Thursdays in the past.

I am used to working my way through Holy Week, and I am glad that my seminary doesn't have classes--one of the benefits of a theological education, as opposed to other types of school I could be doing.

Still, my writing time today is short, so let me end with a good quote.  In her book An Altar in the World, Barbara Brown Taylor comments on the Last Supper: "With all the conceptual truths in the universe at his disposal, he [Jesus] did not give something to think about together when he was gone. Instead, he gave them concrete things to do--specific ways of being together in their bodies--that would go on teaching them what they needed to know when he was no longer around to teach them himself" (43).  Jesus gave us all "embodied sacraments of bread, wine, water, and feet" (44).

History Hinge in Gaza?

 Once again, I find myself wondering if we are at a hinge point in history.  And once again, I wonder if I left that sentence with no context, and if I came across that sentence years from now, if I would wonder what I had been referencing.

This morning, I'm thinking about the events in Israel over the week-end.  Most of the experts I've read say that these events are the most significant military events in Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur war.  The death tolls and the human rights abuses in the past few days seem significantly worse than any that have happened in this century in Israel and Gaza.

I also realize that my understanding (of this subject, these politics, this geography) is based on reading.  I haven't met or talked to any residents of either Israel or Gaza.  I haven't visited the Holy Land.  I am a Christian, but I don't have the same religious feelings about the Holy Land that many people of many religions do.  I do tend to think in larger geopolitical terms, but I also know that we often don't see the larger geopolitical picture when we're in the middle of events that are happening.

The more I read the more I can't figure out what world leaders should do.  If ever a situation deserves a word like "intractable," it's the situation in Gaza.  

But I'm old enough to remember other situations that seemed impossible to solve--until a solution happened.  So I will continue to pray and to hope:  for peace in our time, for a world that's less oppressive, for all that are victims of violence and situations where they have had no power.  It makes me sad that these types of prayers are never far from my lips.

Friends Old and New

 Last night, after my last meeting of the day, I decided to take a short walk across campus.  As I walked in the dusk, I wondered if I would get confused decades from now, when I'm an older woman.  Would I look back to this April night and think of myself as an undergrad?  Would I confuse my seminary campus (Wesley Theological Seminary in NW Washington, DC) with my undergraduate campus (Newberry College, in very rural Newberry, SC) in my confused older brain?

Probably not.  They are similar, but so different.  And I am similar, undergrad Kristin and seminarian Kristin, but so different.

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend from those undergrad days.  She went to UVa, but we saw each other regularly.  We met as Lutherans in the Lutheran Student Movement, as it was called then.  We were both from Northern Virginia, so we got together on school breaks.  I went to her ordination as she graduated from the Lutheran seminary in Philadelphia; she came to my wedding.

We've kept up with each other more sporadically since then, and I haven't seen her since 2004 when she was on vacation in South Florida.  I'm happy to say that it was easy to be together, in the ways that we used to be together, from the deep conversations to the ice cream that we enjoyed.  

I am so grateful for friendships like these.  When I was an undergrad, I always hoped that I would have friendships so deep that we could pick up right where we left off; undergraduate Kristin would be surprised that I would have friends I might not see in decades, but happy that we can still be friends, even without that face to face time.

At the end of the afternoon, I went to the last Wesley Student Council meeting of the academic year.  That had a surreal aspect.  It feels like we just started meeting, but here we are at the end.  I went to the first meeting in the spirit of undergraduate Kristin who decided to try every student group on campus, except sororities because they would cost too much.  Seminarian Kristin didn't have as many options as undergraduate Kristin, so off she went to that first student council meeting in September.  It's been good to be part of that group.

I feel like I just got here, just unloaded my last carload of stuff, fully expecting to be in this apartment for the next 2-3 years.  And now, here I am, about to load it all back in the car over the next several trips back to the North Carolina mountains.  It's been a good experience being here, although I am struck by how different my experience has been compared to my friend's experience at Philadelphia.

Her seminary in Philly had to merge with the one in Gettysburg to survive--a metaphor for the time we're in. 

Back Down the Mountain

Yesterday, at the end of the Create in Me retreat, instead of driving 12 hours back to Florida, I walked down the road to my house in the residential section of Lutheridge.  Today, however, I do have a long drive:  between 7-8 hours back to my seminary apartment.  However, I don't dread it.  Much of the scenery is much prettier than past year's drives.

It's nice, also, not to dread that return to "real life," that leaving of the mountain top experience.  The bulk of my "real life" is a dream come true:  being a seminary student.  The job that pays part of the bills, teaching college English classes online, isn't onerous.

Last year, I left the Create in Me retreat with my right arm in a cast, wrist broken within it, knowing I was going to need surgery.  I am also glad not to be facing that.

Let me do my last packing and head out.  I don't leave quite as early as I once did, but it will soon be time to go.

A Time, and a Psalm, for Lament

It's been a week of shocking violence.  There were 2 mass shootings in California, right on top of each other, to the point that when I read about the latter one, it took me a few sentences to process that I wasn't reading about the first one, that there had been a second shooting.

And then there was the release of the footage of what should have been a routine traffic stop in Memphis, the revved up violence of the police, the death of a young black man.  The footage was released yesterday, in the early evening, to give people time to get home ahead of expected demonstrations.

I'm not sure I understand why we need to release this kind of video evidence to a wide audience.  Save it for the court room and then release it if necessary.  There was talk of transparency, but who needs this kind of transparency?  I don't think the parents of the murdered man demanded its release.  Most of us in the community don't need to see it; if the police chief says it's the most sickening thing she's ever seen, I'm willing to take her word for it.

I understand the need for demonstrations, and I'm glad that the demonstrations that happened around the nation last night remained mostly peaceful, from the news coverage that I've seen.  I wasn't too worried about my personal safety, since my seminary apartment is far from where violence would erupt, if it erupted.

Last night, I wrote this Facebook post, which I want to preserve here:  "Somewhere in this seminary apartment building, I hear a baby crying, and a parent singing. On this night when we get another recording that shows us how we can be so brutal to each other, I am grateful for babies who cry and parents who soothe, and I sing my own prayers to a God who can transform all sorts of brokenness into beauty."

I had been thinking of a poem possibility before last night.  In the wee small hours of the morning earlier this week, I had awakened to the sound of someone singing.  Sounds travel in strange ways in this building, so I'm not sure who was singing or why.  I'm fairly sure it was a human singing, not a recording.

This morning, I turned my attention to my prayer book, as I do every morning.  I use Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours, which is rooted in the lectionary that comes to us from the ancient monastic tradition.  One of this morning's passages leapt out at me:  "The Lord executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed" (Psalm 103: 6).  

It's not the first time that a passage seemed chosen for our particular day and time, and I do realize that the beauty of the Psalms rests in the broad scope of them, everything from mourning/lament to joy to anger and all the emotions in between.  

This verse bears repeating:   "The Lord executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed" (Psalm 103: 6).  

Back to School

Yesterday I got my hair professionally cut for the first time since 2020, cut and highlighted.  The hair stylist also blew it completely dry and straight, which is unusual for me.  I was surprised by how much lighter and bouncier my hair felt when we were done.

As with all activities that I once did pre-Covid but never resumed, it felt a bit odd to be back.  It was a morning appointment, so it wasn't as packed as it could have been.  There was plexiglass around the hair washing stations, which I hope they keep.  The woman next to me coughed, and it was nice not to worry about that.

While I waited for the highlights to sink into my hair, I read Celeste Ng's latest book.  Later, when I finished it, I made this Facebook post:  "If you need a novel that reminds you of the power of words and language, that convinces you that you do believe in the power of words and language, I highly recommend Celeste Ng's latest, "Our Missing Hearts"--it also will remind you of the power of love, the power of perseverance, the reasons why librarians may yet save us all, and how poetry can surprise us. And it's an interesting commentary on modern life, even as it reads like a dystopia, in the time honored tradition of Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler."

It is an amazing book.  I read it because my mom had checked it out from the library and saved it for me, knowing I would be here and could finish it.  I'm so glad I did.  One of the main characters is a poet, the kind of poet that most people are, having one slim volume of poems published by a very small press, not much in the way of sales--until it all blows up in so many unpredictable ways.

Today I head back to my seminary apartment, where I hope things have not blown up in ways either predictable or unpredictable.  I'm taking a heavy load of classes, so I will spend this whole semester continuing to hope that I can avoid things blowing up.  I want to take these classes while I have the opportunity.  Life has taught me that these chances won't always be here:  faculty leave, courses are scuttled for a variety of reasons, and my life as a student could change (will I live on campus or near by?  Will I have to forgo some classes so that I get requirements done?).

This week has been the one where courses are opening up in Blackboard, and I'm getting the first look at syllabi--I am so thrilled!  The course titles and book lists led me to believe I would be thrilled, and I'm happy that the syllabi continue with the promise.  Although Wesley Theological Seminary is back in session today, I don't have Wednesday classes.  I'll make my way back to my seminary apartment, put things away, get organized, and go for a walk or two.

It is a good life, although it does feel like a sabbatical from "real life," even as it also feels like a preparation time for a different "real life."  I know that I am a lucky woman.

Creative Days, Creative Ways

 My Covid test this morning is negative, so I'm heading down to Williamsburg to spend a long holiday week-end with my parents.  I don't have any symptoms, but with this new, more transmissible variant of Covid running wild across the planet, it seems wise to test.  I haven't been in contact with many people since returning from vacation and doing some grocery shopping, but since the Montgomery county library system has free rapid tests, there's no reason not to test.

I do wonder if we will ever get to a point where I don't feel this need to test, where I'm not aware of disease risks.  Of course, I was aware of disease risks even before this latest pandemic.  Between disease risks and the risks of violence that come with being female in a patriarchal society, I'm often deciding to stay in.

For the past few days, as I've decided to just stay put and do some quilt piecing, I've wondered if I'm really just lazy.  Yesterday there was a steady wind that just cut right through me, so I decided to abandon my plan of going to the MLK site in downtown DC, as it is an outdoor memorial.  I thought about a museum, but getting there requires a fair amount of walking on either end of the Metro ride.

Through the magic of technology, my spouse and I watched movies together, and I worked on quilt pieces of various sizes:

 

I'm going to keep creating these, as they delight me.  Eventually, I'll create a quilt out of them all, with long strips between the panels, much like this quilt:

displayed at October 2020 Quilt Camp at Lutheridge

At some point, I also need to get back to doing the actual quilting on my other quilt project.  Winter is a great time to have that weight draped over me, as I work on doing the quilting.

The nice thing about having projects of varying sizes is that one is more portable.  I stashed some of the smaller pieces in my backpack, with my tin that contains a set of small scissors and spools of thread.  

It's also nice to have a variety of projects that feed my creativity.  I began the day writing a poem, and in the middle of the day, I sent some poems out into the world.  Then I finished with stitching.  Ah--heaven!

So, it's not laziness keeping me home in these long, cold days of winter--it's the appeal of a creative day, in many creative ways, in my snug seminary apartment.

Winds of Metaphor, Winds of Change

I woke up in the middle of the night and realized the wind had picked up.  I puzzled about the meaning of this wind in a night where no storms or weather systems were predicted.  Because I am me, my brain went to instances of wind in the Bible, and how I find wind threatening, despite the teaching of the Bible.  Holy Spirit as wind?  Let's change that metaphor to make my hurricane scarred soul happy.

After an hour of not sleeping, I got up, as I often do when I can't sleep.  I discovered that although I thought I had canceled my website, it seems to have billed me for more months of service.  I went to the site, tried to cancel my account, and wrote some e-mails to be sure.  Will it be canceled?  Who knows.  At some point, the credit card company will take care of it, if I keep getting erroneously billed.

As the wind howled, I thought about all the ways I have tried to make my way as a writer in the world:  build a website, develop a presence on various social media sites, try to publish everywhere, try to have a series of readings/presentations, slog, slog, slog.  Because it was the middle of the night, I wondered if I could have done anything differently, even though I know the stats about sales and who is making a living from their writing (not very many people).

And if we're being honest, in many ways, I'm glad I'm not relying on any of my creative endeavors to pay the bills.  I am astonished at the ways that people hustle to try to sell their work, and I know all the ways that the various hustles would be hard for me.  And statistically, it's hard these days to sell enough work to pay the bills.  Lots of people out there competing for fewer readers.  I'm glad that I can write what I want to write without worrying about marketability.

Of course, I might have written more in the last decades, had my finances depended on it.

Now it is time to turn my attention to more mundane tasks:  the eating of porridge, the getting ready for church.  I bought oatmeal on sale yesterday:  2 pounds, 10 oz. of store brand oatmeal for $5.84, down from $8.84.  Yes, for oatmeal.  In the past, the most I have ever paid for that size container of oatmeal, for a name brand, was $3.50, when the store brand that cost $2.70 was sold out.

In some ways, that's still a cheap price for a product that will make many breakfasts.  I bought salmon for $8-ish a pound, which is the same price I've always paid for salmon.  There are many things that I don't understand about our current state of inflation.  Salmon should cost more than it does, while oatmeal should cost less--in terms of what it takes to produce the food, to transport the food, to pay the workers along the way.

There are many reasons why I'm glad I'm not relying on my creative output to pay the bills, and many reasons why I worry that my other options to pay the bills may be going the same direction.  But for now, let me not worry too much about geopolitical winds I can't control.  Let me eat my very pricy porridge and hope for the best.

Strange and Yet Familiar

What a strange week it has been in so many ways.  And yet, in some ways, the strangeness feels familiar.  Here I'm thinking the news of the FBI raid and classified documents hundreds of miles from where they should be stored, in the possession of Donald Trump in Florida--in some ways, it seems unprecedented, and in other ways, I shrug and say, "Of course it goes this way."  Traces of polio in the NY sewer system?  Of course it goes this way.

All yesterday, my brain returned to Salman Rushdie, who was attacked on Friday night by a man with a knife.  Yesterday morning, the news came that he was on a ventilator, and I dreaded where this story was headed.  But this morning, he's speaking.  Still, his injuries are so severe that in some ways, it seems shocking.  Yet in others, it seems like the logical outgrowth of the times we live in--and a fearsome road sign.  How does this trajectory end?  In armed civil war, as in the nineteenth century in so many countries?  Or with more of us taking more precautions of all kinds?

As I thought about Rushdie, about attacks on artists, my thoughts drifted to my own work.  While my mean inner voice sneered that I needn't worry, my rational brain thought about my work that would challenge those of a traditional Christian faith . . . or those with a traditional view of gender . . . or those with specific views of what should be taught in the classroom.  While most of us won't face the kind of severe threat that Rushdie has faced (hopefully we won't), we are none of us as safe as we might think we are.

I have been getting back to poetry writing, after a season of being mostly away--in part because of my broken wrist, in part because of moving.  Three weeks ago, these lines came to me as I thought about my spouse and myself and the ways that we have such different interests and how it can be hard for me to understand his approach and how he might be baffled at my midlife shift to seminary:

He's never seen a wall

he didn't dream of moving.

She rewrites every sacred text.

I thought these lines might make a good poem, and I tried.  That approach went nowhere in the first incarnation.  

But as I read updates and tweets and posts from the Churchwide Assembly* for the ELCA (which is the group of moderate, mainstream Lutherans which is one of my current worshipping preferences), my poem went a different direction and became something more interesting.  I had a glimpse of it and wrote this tweet:

"Wrestling with a poem that will include this line: 'She rewrites every sacred text.' It will include chickens and drying herbs and a churchwide meeting in a far away place. And some sort of art with fabric."

I am at the point with this poem where I am not sure if it is finished.  Does it have more to offer?  Should I just leave it alone?  It feels like I have more to say, but I'm not sure exactly what or how.  Once I might have been sure I would sort it out.  Now I am just as likely to wander away and never come back to this poem.  Is that O.K.?  Is some essential part of myself being lost?

Yesterday, I ordered books for seminary classes this fall, lots and lots of books.  I made this Facebook post:  "Just ordered all my books for Fall seminary classes and am now enjoying multiple freak outs: Can I really read all of these books in one term? Can I really do this work? Each book is inexpensive, but all of them together cost how much? And I know that the answer is that I am a strong, capable woman who can do this work and afford these books, but my inner freak out voice is not easily banished. Note to self for future terms: perhaps order the books one class at a time, instead of all at once."

Again, a process so strange, yet so familiar--I've successfully completed one year of seminary studies.  Why am I having anxiety now?  And yet the anxiety is familiar.  And perhaps that is why my brain returns to these patterns, so strange, yet so familiar.

*For more on what a Churchwide Assembly does, see this post on this theology blog.