LutheranChik's "L" Word Diary

S*it Lutherans Say

2012-01-13T21:05:00.000-08:00

A quick update on what's going on in my life right now: Our Annus Horribilis (look it up -- it's not naughty) continued through the holidays, with Fellow Traveler having problems maintaining a healthy potassium level and me getting food poisoning from -- and I'm ashamed to say this -- mall food-court sushi that, in a random moment of insanity, looked like something I wanted to have for lunch while we got in some last-minute Christmas gift shopping.

Despite this, were able to celebrate a scaled-back Christmas, battered but unbroken...and then at the cusp of the new year we received devastating news from both sets of kids: Our son-in-law is in ICU as I write, after worrisome month or so of feeling increasingly weak and unwell, and eventually winding up on an ambulance ride to the ER and then in an induced coma while staff worked to keep him alive while trying to understand what was happening to him. Thanks to his wonderful team of healthcare professionals he's making some small but very encouraging increments of progress in overcoming this medical crisis, but he's still in critical condition, and Son #1 and our in-laws are pretty much living at the hospital for the time being while Son-in-Law grows stronger.

Meanwhile, across the continent Son #2, up in the California mountains on an extended-family vacation, was in a sledding accident -- the plastic sled he and his small nephew were on hit a rut and began careening out of control, and while trying to shield the boy and stop the sled #2's leg got caught underneath somehow -- and he wound up getting airlifted off the slope with three compound fractures needing complicated and expensive surgery to fix. For a young family with a small child, trying to establish themselves in a new place, this is a very hard burden to bear.

Both sets of children had, in the past couple of years, been enjoying the kind of thirtysomething personal and professional milestones that we all hope for in the next generation, and as elders we'd been kind of relaxing into the idea that The Kids Are Alright...and then all this happened; one frightening phone call after the other.

At first it felt as if the Universe were engaging in a kind of cosmic mob hit directed at our family...but then I kept getting Facebook updates from friends all experiencing grief and loss and anxiety and frustration, all seemingly concentrated in this past month. I thought back to that famous first line of Scott Peck's The Road Less Traveled: "Life is difficult." Tell me about it.

All of which is really less of a kvetch (although not entirely kvetch-free) than a necessary prelude to what is really bugging me at this moment:

I was reading a Lutheran website the other day. Now, as someone who's been active online for a pretty long time I understand that the Internet has created, for all intents and purposes, a kind of transcontinental, 24/7 bar where anyone with an online connection can swagger in, grab a barstool and, inhibitions loosened by anonymity, proceed to share multitudinous Deep Thoughts with the rest of humanity. I also know from experience that most of these Deep Thoughts, including my own, are crap. And yet I am regularly lured into pulling on my mental Sorels and wading into this crap...especially into the Religion corner of the virtual bar, where the crap tends to be particularly deep and odiferous. I don't know why I do this to myself; probably for the same reasons that I spend precious hours of my life on earth toggling the TV remote between "Celebrity Rehab" and "Swamp People."

But anyway, I'm browsing through the various conversations on this website, and I start reading a conversation about the wrath of God. Hmmm, I think; there's a topic that doesn't have a lot of traction in mainline Christianity these days. So I start digging deeper into the verbal back-and-forth between the participants.

Now, most of what is being said is pretty reasonable: That we human beings do a lot of stuff to one another that makes God angry; that these days it's unfashionable to think about how angry we make God; that we need to start taking God's anger more seriously as a faith community so that people can in turn take God's grace more seriously. See, I grew up in an LCMS congregation where the Law was drilled into the congregation like a jackhammer hitting concrete every single week -- where one pastor, in fact, once noted in a sermon that he disliked seeing worshippers smiling in church because it was an indication to him that they weren't sufficiently sorry for their sins. So I have been inured to a fair amount of Wrath O' God rhetoric. And, frankly, I agree with it to a point; not to the point of "Don't smile in church, you miserable sinners"; but when I read the daily news' nonstop litany of human violence and inanity and apathy and injustice...and when I get real about my own lamentable failures in loving God and the people around me...I have no doubt at all that God is angered by all of it. I also realize that actions have consequences; I get the concept behind "temporal punishment," even if I wouldn't normally use that phrase. And I understand that, in the Lutheran way of thinking about the saving grace and mercy of God, there needs to be a Law/Gospel dialectic; first you have to understand you have a problem, as the 12-Step folks say.

So I'm reading along, thinking, "Yeah...yeah...I get this." But all of a sudden this one Lutheran guy starts talking about God killing sinners; I think the actual words were, "God kills sinners every day." He also notes that we should all be on our knees every day that we escape being killed by God.

That is when my brain explodes. This is when I start thinking of Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List, portraying the infamous SS officer Amon Goeth, casually picking off concentration camp prisoners as morning target practice. Seriously, dude? That's God to you? "Hmmm...which pathetic bastards do I take out today?"

I wonder what Lutheran Barstool Guy would think of my family situation, and that of our friends dealing with their own suffering and sorrow. My God...maybe this guy is a pastor, Maybe this is what he says to people who come to him for help. Maybe this is the speech he'd give me, sitting there in his study with my guts in a grocery bag, blubbering out my tales of woe.

I hestitate. Maybe I'm not giving Lutheran Barstool Guy the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he has a much more nuanced theology, one that would actually be be much like my own, that he simply has trouble articulating without resorting to a kind of obsolete religious shorthand. Maybe he just needs to learn to talk like a person -- talk like a bright 21st century person to other bright 21st century people.

Then I conclude: Yeah, right. What a lousy jerk. Go jump in a lake. [40's-era movie euphemisms for my actual thoughts directed toward this individual.]

Especially when I am in the midst of real-life drama, I have a tendency to take virtual drama like this and just gnaw on it like a bone. And then it's 2 am and I can't turn off the problem-solving switch in my brain, and in between trying to mentally fix all the various hurts of my loved ones I'm also trying to take some swings at Lutheran Barstool Guy.

First of all: It's about grace, stupid. Yes, you need the Law; but Law without Gospel is like an ER doctor looking down at some mangled human being on a gurney, smugly noting, "Yeah, you're pretty messed up -- what'd you do to yourself?" and then walking away. Even in my dour Pietist childhood church, the pastors (including the Rev. Smiley, cited above) always eventually got around to grace.

Secondly -- I know I'm preaching to the choir for the most part here, but I also know I may get some frowny-faced combox responses to this from more conservative readers, and I don't care -- I'm calling bullshit on the idea that physical death is "punishment for sin," just because it's illogical. Life on earth is predicated upon cycles of life and death. The idea that, once upon a time everything alive in this finite world remained alive forever -- while being commanded to "Be fruitful and multiply," no less -- is just not possible. (Buy a fishtank and a bag of guppies, if you need some empircal evidence for what I'm saying.) And that's the sort of thinking that leads to making stuff up in order to make the Bible, or one's pet theological theories, come out right -- arguing that, pre-Fall, carnivores were grass-chomping vegetarians is just one ludicrous idea I've heard floated in an effort to defend the honor of a literal curse of God upon creation, and Paul's "The wages of sin is death." And once you decide to go down this path, you'll find yourself being backed into a variety of theological cul-de-sacs: For instance, if the wages of sin is death, are people who die in especially painful or prolonged ways worse sinners than someone who passes away quietly in her sleep? How does that theory square with the Christian view of martyrdom as a good thing? What did the rest of sentient creation ever do to God to bring this "curse of death" down on them as well, or are they just collateral damage? There are certainly ways to understand truth in Paul's statement without understanding it in the alarmingly wooden way of Lutheran Barstool Guy. Augustine once cautioned his colleagues about making ignorant, illogical statements about Christianity that would lead the pagan intelligentsia to assume Christians were all, roughly paraphrasing, yahoos who just fell off the turnip truck. Depending on your attitude toward Augustine, you may be thinking, "Physician, heal thyself" -- but the guy had a point.

Theodicy -- trying to figure out why God does or doesn't do what God does or doesn't do -- is always dangerous territory. Personally, my preferred approach to such stuff is a three-word sentence that I first heard from a clergyperson as a college student in a campus parish one Sunday morning: I don't know, said the pastor, as he described his struggle to understand some enigmatic comment of Jesus' in the Gospel lesson. I don't know what he meant. I had never heard this statement uttered from a pulpit before; I was so stunned, and impressed, that I think I even noted it in my journal that evening. What a liberating idea; that one didn't have to know what every utterance in the Bible was intended by its authors to convey; that one didn't have to know the why of why God seems to be "large and in charge" in some situations and AWOL in others. I am fine with I don't know as a way to process my family's recent concentration of misfortune and other calamity in the world. To me it beats turning God into a pathologically capricious judge and executioner whose message to the world, in the words of a friend of mine describing the cognitive dissonance in fundamentalist thinking, is I just love you so much that I have to kill you for being so bad.

And -- one more thing, Lutheran Barstool Guy. One thing I do know is that God has a strange way of showing up -- as a healer, not a hater -- in the very circumstances that you seem to interpret as God's righteous wrath directed toward the sinful. This past week, for instance, I have experienced God showing up in a rather remarkable way in the midst of our son's and son-in-law's friends and colleagues, and FT and my friends, and people none of us even know who've heard about our son-in-law and want to help. Every night at 9 pm they stop and pray for our son-in-law and family. They've set up an online store to help raise funds for medical expenses. They've kept Son #1 and our in-laws fed and cheered through this thing. Every evening I read their messages on a special Facebook page they've created for our son-in-law, and I am moved to tears by the grace and generosity I find. (Anyone out there interested in joining this team of supporters, let me know and we'll talk elsewhere.)

Maybe, Lutheran Barstool Guy, if you actually got off your online barstool and out of your theology books long enough to engage with the real world in a compassionate way you'd start to realize that God looks less like a cosmic Amon Goeth working on his divine Final Solution and more like...well...Jesus. What a concept.

Losing My Religion; and What Does Community Mean?

2011-11-12T08:29:00.000-08:00

Maybe not losing. Maybe changing. But changing usually involves losing.

Of all the things my recent medical emergency has done to me, enhancing my piety is not one of them.

I'll tell you the truth: One of the most unnerving aspects of waking up in an ICU, having no idea why I am there, is the realization that my checking out could have been permanent. And then that would have been the end of it. There was no white light at the end of a tunnel; no angels; no comforting retinue of departed loved ones there to greet me on the other side. Just...nothing.

Nor was my medical counsel all that helpful; because no one -- not the ER docs or the neurologist or my doctor -- is exactly sure why light anesthesia that I've had before with no ill effect would suddenly rebound in my system. Was it a function of sleep apnea? Something wrong with my liver? No conclusive "why" has shown up in any tests. This thing happened to me, and no one knows why, and no one knows if it will happen again or why it might.

For a full week after I got home, I was afraid to go to sleep each night because I wasn'the t sure I'd wake up again. I was well on my way to zombiehood before my body finally cried "Uncle" and I surrendered to an 8-hour rest.

So let the record reflect: I'm not going gently into that good night.

There was that. And then -- I don't know how I can describe my feelings without sounding like a diva and a whiner, but...the response of my local faith community (as opposed to the rest of you all) other than our pastor, who showed up to help Fellow Traveler the night I went into seizure, was...well, kind of a whole lotta nothin'.

I got, I think, a total of three get-well cards from church folks -- one from The Ladies, our back bench of elders who are always good eggs about sending people cards -- but for a church where every Sunday we have letters read from strangers thanking us for the showers of cards they've received from our congregation...I couldn't help feeling as insecure as my five-year-old self in kindergarten: "No one likes me." The only fellow church members I heard from on an ongoing basis during my convalesence were people asking me to do things and then wondering why those things weren't forthcoming. I tried so hard to explain to them how unwell I still felt; truly, for more than a month after my hospitalization I was having problems with my vision, with fatigue, with short-term memory, with the general feeling that a dull dark cloud had settled over my cognitive function. But all I heard was, "Why isn't the church calendar online?" "When are you going to update the website?" "Can you______?" "Can you_____?" And this is what Fellow Traveler -- who in addition to taking care of me 24/7 was also battling walking pneumonia -- was hearing as well. It was incredibly frustrating not only not to be heard, but not to be cared about other than as the means to an end.

But, thinking about it....we really don't have a lot in common with a lot of people at church. We really don't. A lot of them are part of a hard-living, hard-partying, country-music blaring, oppositional-behavior-embracing local culture that we don't find charming or fun or something we want to join. We can count on the fingers of one hand households that we're on dropping-in-on-friendly terms with, and maybe another hand of households we'd consider first-name-basis acquaintances. So why should we expect anything from the others? (The other day our pastor was asking me -- I guess I'm the resident social media expert -- about some cat-fighty Facebook drama with individuals at church who weren't getting along, and I had to admit that I didn't know who the hell he was talking about.)

I know that the mainline-denominational party line is to emphasize that we're part of a community, not all off having our own me-and-Jesus experiences in a corner somewhere. But, seriously folks -- real community is a rare commodity, and I think in an effort to reject me-and-Jesus-under-a-blanket-with-a-flashlight quietism we tend to oversell both how much of it exists in our churches and how church community informs our own faith.

And I also wonder how much community we want, deep down. I've observed Evangelical acquaintances where "community" has morphed into a near-cultish insularity and group control that includes "shepherding," tattling, peer shaming and a lot of other crap that most of us in Mainlineland wouldn't tolerate. When I think of FT's and my circle of friends and aquaintances -- we tend to like to spread our social capital wide instead of depending on one sector to provide the bulk of our emotional and social support.

Long story short: We're stepping back from a lot of our involvement in church, including the compulsion to provide warm-body ballast at random church activities and to be volunteers of last resort. We're tired, and we're just not feeling it. I've been doing my assisting gig on schedule, but when the alb comes off I leave. And while my inner nag is telling me that I should feel guilty about all this, what I think is the healthier part of myself is telling me that this is something we need to do for our own health.

A Very Bad Wizard

2011-10-20T13:29:00.000-07:00

I think you are a very bad man," said Dorothy.
"Oh, no, my dear; I'm really a very good man, but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit." -- The Wizard of Oz

Our pastor cited this quote on Sunday -- I wish I could tell you that I could connect the dots between this and the Gospel lesson the way that he did, but four days later I'm not quite able to manage that.

What I can tell you is that I certainly know what it's like to be a very bad wizard.

There's the thing with our pond fish. This spring, after the pond thawed, there appeared to be no fish left at all -- just some winter-killed minnows floating on the water. There were no sign of the bluegills we'd put in the pond the year before. So in a burst of aquacultural enthusiasm I added a little bag of feeder goldfish for some color. As spring progressed into summer, everything seemed hunky-dory. But suddenly it seemed as if there were more fish in the poind that what we'd planted -- goldfish and bluegills. There wasn't time for them to reproduce. So apparently some fish had survived the winter, and were now competing for resources with the newcomers. I usually don't root for the great blue herons that regularly visit our back yard, but now I was practically flagging them down for an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet.

And then there's the thing with the honeybees. Our bees are still alive; they've been on our flowers and vegetable plants and wild plants all summer and fall. It's been fun to see them in the morning, working the annual bed, the herbs and wildflowers; "Hi, girls," I'd say. But because of the unskilled-noob way we installed the packages, we can't open the hives without hopelessly disrupting the colonies, and now it's too late in the season to mess with them; they're no longer able to create the wax to repair their homes. So now they're stuck in their original hive body and the roof area where they decided to establish themselves (honeybees actually don't like the frames that beekeepers use in hives, and if left to their own druthers prefer to hang their own elongaged ellipses of comb from any handy upper support). If they had taken to their frames, we would be able to add a top feeder to their hive body and supplement their own stores of honey this winter; but as it is they're pretty much on their own. Every other day I've been feeding them with jar feeders, with increasingly thick formulations of simple syrup, some of which they'll eat and some of which they'll store; but when it gets too cold to continue that, they're going to be on their own. I recently related our dilemma to some crusty old downstate beekeeper who came into the antique mall one day, and I saw the look in his eye when he said, "You might have a problem keepin' them bees alive."

Now, keep in mind that people who raise semi-wild animals for a living learn to roll with the punches of nature and circumstance and human error. The bee guy who came into our store -- a guy who's been doing this for decades -- confided to me that last winter he'd lost almost half his hives; some to the colony collapse disorder that's devastated American beekeepers in recent years, but some just to chance. He told me that despite disappointments like this, there's no place he'd rather be on a given day than out working with his hives.

I want to get to a place like this, instead of where I am now, secondguessing my attempts to play God, or at least wizard, with sentient beings. I mean, I don't take my garden personally; when crops fail, as they sometimes do, I'm able to step back, analyze what went wrong and move on. This summer the weather necessitated a late planting of almost everything, which meant that my experimental teepee of yard-long beans didn't amount to -- well, to a hill of beans. I think I picked a half dozen. I didn't go into a depression. I didn't berate myself for wasting the lives of helpless beans that don't really belong in Zone 5. I shrugged and thought, "Next year I'm growing those up a trellis alongside the sunny side of the garage."

At some point this fall I hope to pass by the pond, salute our fish and say, "I'm glad I saved you from life in a pet-shop tub and fish-farm pool. I'm glad I was able to give you all six months of freedom in the wild; and I'm glad you gave us the pleasure of watching you live your lives. I hope I see you again come spring thaw; but if I don't, thank you." And on the way back to the house I'd like to be able to stop at our two beehives and say, "Thanks, girls, for pollinating our vegetables and flowers this year. Thanks for teaching us a lot. I may see you again around April or I may not; but you've made our yard and our neighborhood a better place. And whether we're out with our hive tools doing some renovations on your house next spring, or making room for a whole new colony -- know that what you did here this year was important; important to us and important to a lot of the other living things around us."

That would, I think, make me a better wizard than the one I am now.

To Sleep -- Perchance to Dream

2011-10-15T17:49:00.000-07:00

Let me tell you about my night at the sleep center.

This was one freaky-deaky experience.

Since sleep apnea can be a contributing factor to anesthesia going awry in some patients, and since I exhibit some symptoms of apnea, my doctor arranged for me to undergo a sleep study. My appointment was scheduled for 9:30 pm, at a sleep center in the same city as my doctor. Fellow Traveler and I, already angsted up by late-night driving through deer-intensive countryside, arrived at the given address to find ourselves in the parking lot of a rather conventional professional building housing everything from insurance agents to electrolysis practitioners. The building was mostly dark; but when we buzzed the intercom a light came on in the hallway, and when we identified ourselves we were directed by intercom down a winding stairs to the ground floor.

About 5 seconds into this descent I had the sudden urge to run, run like the wind back to the Jeep -- it seemed like the setup for a local film student's horror movie ("This 'sleep clinc's' patients are just dying to get out!") -- but when we finally reached the bottom of the stairs we found a mild-mannered technician who introduced herself and led me into my room -- which, other than lacking windows, could have been in any decent business-traveler motel; roomy bed with a pleasant duvet in restful colors, wardrobe, flat-screen TV. My angst level ratcheted down a few notches.

I had a few minutes alone to get into my jammies, and then the tech reappeared and we got down to business -- a business involving a myriad of leads and electrodes which the apologetic young woman glued and wove on my face, into my hair and down my shirt and legs. A shock of wire led down from my head like a horse's mane, gradually merging into a lighted panel on the bedstand. The tech snapped a pair of belts around my torso, over other wires, and pulled another band around my head. I then had a breathing tube added to the mix. If I'd been in a more jovial mood I might have feigned The Robot, but that frisson of anxiety I'd felt at the top of the stairwell shivered through me again; especially after I got a good look at the closed-circuit camera aimed at me, that would be recording my movements all night.

FT and I said our goodbyes, and then the tech left. "You can watch TV until you're ready to go to sleep," she explained. "When you turn out the light you'll hear my voice on the intercom, and I'll have you do a few exercises for me to make sure that everything is attached correctly."

So that's what I did; watched part of a depressing Tigers-Rangers game, decided I didn't want to see it through to the end, clicked off the television and turned off the light. And, on cue, the tech came on over the intercom, giving me instructions like "Move your eyes from left to right, and then repeat," and "Flex your right leg," and "Count slowly from one to five."

Then -- darkness; mostly, except for the flashing lights next to the bed and the camera and sensor pointed at the bed. And I lay there, feeling all the hardware attached to me, unable to get comfortable and afraid to move too much lest I mess up the wiring, and feeling very sorry for myself. This has got to be the most miserable, most expensive sleepover ever, I thought glumly.

I'd like to tell you that at some point I relaxed and fell into a lovely sleep; but I didn't. I tossed and turned -- on at least two occasions forcing the tech to come in and reattach the leg wiring -- self-conscious in the knowledge that every movement, every breath, was being monitored and evaluated. I finally did drift off to sleep, a few times, enough to engage in some very bizarre dreams with complicated storylines...and then a voice came over the intercom again: "Good morning! It's time to get up!" It was 6:00 am.

I was surprised to find FT already back at the office; she'd only gotten a couple of hours' sleep at home before packing the dogs in the Jeep and returning. After being slowly, methodically detached from my wiring I shuffled off to the bathroom down the hall -- unlike the nicely composed sleep lab, this room had obviously begun life as a janitorial area, with a walk-in shower and foofier faucet fixtures added but the deep utility sink retained; and to add to the thrown-together ambience, I couldn't get the warm water going in the shower, and emerged cold and cranky.) We said our goodbyes, then made our way across town to one of the few local diners open at 6:30 before finally heading home -- where we both promptly crawled into bed and fell asleep for the better part of the day.

The tech had told me that a surprising percentage of the population suffers from sleep apnea; that it's most commonly obstructive apnea aggravated by things like weight, poor sleeping posture and adult tonsil issues but can also have its roots in a neurological problem, the brain periodically failing to send the proper "breathe" message. Fixes may include everything from diet and exercise to tonsillectomy to a C-PAP machine that helps maintain constant airflow at night. The tech also told me that she loves her job, and that, unlike my night there, the clinic is usually booked up with two patients per evening. I would be horrible at any shift work, but I have a hard time imagining myself sitting in a room all night watching strangers writhe around in bed (although I suspect some of their nighttime dream conversations provide a good laugh for the staff).

Geez. I remember back in the day when old folks just seemed more snorey, and no one questioned that. Now I have become a snorey old folk myself -- one who might have to spend more nights attached to a machine. During asthma season FT often needs to give herself breathing treatments, and I have visions of us in the evening, hooked up to our respective breathing apparati, in a scene that's not nearly as appealing to the two-rocking-chairs-on-the-porch-in-the-sunset scenario I'd prefer.

Oh, well -- it was quite a night, anyway. And I'll get my results next week.

Happy to Be On This Side of the Grass

2011-10-08T09:59:00.000-07:00

Hey -- guess what? I'm still here.

That was not a given back at the end of September. I'd gone in for a routine colonoscopy -- in fact my first, baseline one recommended for we 50-year-olds. I was lightly anesthetized with Versed and Demerol, a mixture I'd been given before for oral surgery, with no ill effects.

I remember waking up woozy and uncoordinated and having to ride a wheelchair to our car. I remember eating a late lunch on our patio. I remember walking inside and lying down on the sofa. At some later point I moved to the bedroom.

Then, apparently I experienced what they call a rebound effect from the anesthesia; instead of passing out of my body the way it's supposed to, it somehow re-anesthetized me, to the point of seizure and respiratory failure. Fellow Traveler, who'd been checking on me every quarter hour, stepped into the bedroom to find me on the floor, face bloody, writhing and trying to cry for help. Yup; I almost bought the farm that night, while the local first responders and ER staff worked on me.

I'm not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that, during this medical crisis, I didn't see Jesus or my dead relatives; I wasn't encouraged to walk toward the light; I just woke up in ICU, stuck with tubes and sensors, being coaxed into eating a really bad omelet.

I came home for a week of marginal functionality -- I was on bedrest, which wasn't difficult for me because my head felt as if it were stuffed with a heavy bolt of wool, and I was having a hard time with eyestrain and sudden changes in light and dark. I also discovered that, during my seizure, I'd broken a molar, my notorious "weather tooth." But my biggest problem was fear: fear of going to sleep and not waking up; fear of sleeping alone.

Then, just as the fog was starting to lift and I was tentatively puttering around the house in gentle activity -- I came down with a bad upper respiratory infection, one that knocked me back into bed for another week.

All of which is to say, it's been an interesting couple of weeks. And I'm on a fairly short leash for the next six weeks. Oh -- and Michigan law mandates that, since I seizured, I can't drive for six months. (How advantageous that most of my six months will be during the time of year that I hate driving the most.)

But as FT's uncle used to say, any day on this side of the grass is a good day. Right now FT is at the antique store where we keep a booth; I'm taking a break from some very low-key laundering and dusting, watching the honeybees on our new mums and asters. My head and eyes are still "heavy," but they're getting better.

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Blogger

2011-06-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

As I suspect other bloggers do as well, I struggle with juggling my desire to blog here with the rest of my life responsibilities.

When we have friction at our house, it's very often the result of the perception that I'm spending too much time online. Again, that's probably not a unique thing for anyone who's reading a blog.

My problem is that it is very, very hard for me to sit down and write anything of substance in a focused way for short measures of time. Well, I take that back; that used to be what I did for a living, writing promotional material for a local governmental-services office. Hack writing under a deadline is like taking a trip around the block for groceries; you're on autopilot, basically, at least after you've gotten into your professional groove, and you frankly don't exert all that much cerebral effort dutifully churning out press releases and PSAs.

To me blogging is different. It's about endurance and attention, not sudden brilliant bursts of insight. First of all, even under a pseudonym, you're putting yourself out there when you own a blog. You want what you say to matter -- because otherwise it's just an exercise in narcissistic time-wastery. And you also don't want what you say to sound like crap; you want to craft your thoughts, not simply disgorge them as they pop into your head. And, for me, even with a life filled with abundant raw material for any number of literary projects, it's difficult to sit and stare at a blank screen and come up with posts ex nihilo. I usually have to prime the pump by reading the newspaper or reading other people's blogs or keeping up with online conversations on the two discussion groups I hang out at. Somehow all of that, along with the rest of the day, spins together and, on occasion, provides me with an observation or insight that I'll find blogworthy.

So for me blogging takes time and focused attention. It's probably something I should do at the crack of dawn when I'm alone, undistracted and not distracting anyone else (except maybe Mollie the cat). I suppose I'm Exhibit A for Virginia Woolf's campaign to have female writers claim a "room of one's own"....although considering what happened to Virginia Woolf I'm not sure she's the best advertisement for that proposition.

But I really want to write more. Sometimes I feel as I've been given a gift, something that makes me me, that I'm not valuing the way that I should; and that if I don't continue to exercise this gift, it will begin to fade away, and part of me with it.

Our Excellent Adventure in Chi-Town, With Random Field Notes

2011-06-23T14:39:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have been following our struggle to have Fellow Traveler's RA-related jaw pain relieved will be as pleased to hear this news as I am to share it: The VA located an oral surgeon for us who has facility in arthroscopic surgery -- not all that common in that particular field -- who says he can do an arthroscopic procedure that's much less invasive and risky than the condylectomy we'd been envisioning; it's an outpatient procedure done under general anesthesia in about an hour or less, and avoids jaw wiring.

It so happens that this surgeon is located in Chicago, which meant an unexpected road trip for us earlier this week. And at first we were pretty angry about it, because Fellow Traveler had worked hard to arrange for out-of-system surgery in our area, with a well-regarded oral surgeon who has a good track record for condylectomies. At the last minute the VA backed away from that plan and insisted that the surgery be performed in-system, throwing a monkey wrench into our scenario of a 30-minute drive to our regional hospital.

Our response? "As long as we have to drive 5 frigging hours across two states for a frigging consult in frigging Chicago, we're going to milk this for all the entertainment value it's worth." So we took our sweet time driving through Michigan, staying off the freeway for much of the journey and stopping to antique in Saugatuck, and then lodged overnight in Porter, Indiana, in Dunes country, at a really swell little hotel called the Spring House Inn. (More about that later.)

Here are some of my very random observations along the way:

Weirdest Michigan Bible Belt sign: "New Testament Taxidermy." What does that even mean?

GPS: We loves us our GPS, even though Priscilla (that is her name) occasionally falls asleep at the wheel, so to speak, making us miss exits or sending us down the wrong two-lane road. Because I am not the big-city driver in the family, I am designated navigator, keeping FT informed of upcoming turns and such before Priscilla weighs in.

On being a non-confident/incompetent driver on long trips: I don't do big-city driving; straight up. It's not just out of being unaccustomed to multilane expressways with tiny entrance and exit ramps: I think that I have some sort of neural processing deficit (and I'm not being funny here) that prevents me from organizing in a meaningful way the sensory information bombarding me in city driving -- what other people seem to be able to sort out in a kind of logical, linear fashion on the road just hits me all at once in a terrifying manner; a random merge is like a head-exploding nightmare to me. Which means that I probably should not be driving a large metal missile going at 70 miles per hour in the midst of a lot of other missiles with human beings in them.

I've given up the idea that I can somehow overcome this problem, as have my loved ones. But I still feel like an epic failure as a competent adult. I try to compensate by driving the non-city, blue-highways portions of our trips while FT naps, so I can feel like I'm contributing. The GPS is really helpful here, by the way, because it has a handy "avoid freeways" option. On this trip, we had a really pleasant meander through much of western Michigan, and we really didn't notice much of a difference in time.

Porter, Indiana: In researching our trip online we found a hotel, the Spring House Inn in Porter, an hour outside Chicago, that looked like a good, inexpensive place to spend the night. Because it's near the Indiana Dunes, I guess I was expecting the town to be like the picturesque duneside towns of northern Michigan. So coming off the freeway exit and finding ourselves in a messy, down-at-the-heels tangle of fireworks factories and truck stops and train tracks was something of a disappointment...as was the almost nonexistent promotion of the nearby Indiana Dunes. (Not to offend any readers from Indiana, but -- what is up with that?) And when we came upon our sight-unseen-booked hotel and saw weed-infested parking lots and an empty auxiliary banquet hall with a FOR SALE sign at the roadside, my heart sank.

The good news is that the Spring House Inn is a little gem that just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's tucked into the edge of a verdant woodland that brings to mind Hoosier author/conservationist Gene Stratton Porter's A Girl of the Limberlost. The interior is clean and cozy and hints at former glory as a popular local honeymoon destination. Our handicap-accessible first-floor room was spacious, with a huge bathroom. The staff is friendly and helpful. And the rates are amazingly reasonable. If you like rooting for the underdog, and have an affinity for Fawlty-Towers-style boutique lodging, then this is a great place to stay, especially if you want/need access to Chicago but prefer to make hotel arrangements outside the city. We've already booked a room there for the operation-week trip.

Interestingly, we never did find the Dunes. (Again -- what is up with that? Maybe you need to hire the "Pure Michigan" ad campaign people or something.) Nor did we ever find a real downtown Porter. But we did find a great barbecue joint, Wagner's, around the block.

The Jesse Brown VAMC: I'm not sure what we were expecting when we arrived, but we were happily surprised at the courtesy and service we received here -- especially when the staff found out we'd traveled all the way from mid-Michigan. We also love FT's young doctor, who's done dozens of the surgeries that he is recommending for FT -- even though I'm sure I have shoes older than he is. We were able to get not only our consult but all our pre-op labwork and X-rays done, with time left over to enjoy real Chicago hot dogs and a boat ride at Navy Pier. By about 4 pm, though, we'd had enough of Chi-town for one day and were glad to beat the evening rush hour out of the city back to Porter.

Chicago: If we hadn't have been so roadweary and preoccupied with medical matters we might have spent more time investigating downtown. And the area surrounding the VA was definitely not a place for disoriented Prius-driving out-of-towners, GPS or no. We liked Navy Pier, though.

Southern Michigan wine: Just to show my Hoosier readers that I'm an equal-opportunity kvetch -- we were decidedly unimpressed with the (admittedly small) sampling of southern Michigan wines we tasted en route. The vineyards are very pretty and tourist-savvy to be sure, but the products, especially the red wines, are just not in the same league as northwest Michigan's wines. We wound up buying a bottle of white demi-sec from one place, but more out of mercy than excitement.

Well...that's what we've been doing on our summer vacation, so far.

Now the Silence, Now the...Silence...

2011-06-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

The padre and I were talking the other day about an interesting dynamic of our church: the almost total lack of feedback we receive from parishoners about anything -- anything.

Our education committee had met earlier in the week, members all dispirited because every attempt they've made to interest young families in our new religious education schedule seems to fail. And they don't know why, because no one will talk to them. Attempts to elicit positive, proactive information from this demographic -- What is it that you do want for your children's religious education? -- are met with silence, or "Dunno."

Our pastor had to tell the group, Welcome to my world.

I certainly experience this as person-in-charge of our church's online properties. I can't tell you how often I've tried to, say, incorporate lighthearted quizzes on our church Facebook page, or cajole readers into submitting questions for our Wednesday Whys feature -- and get no response at all. Whenever anyone comments on our church blog, it's a friend of Hope from outside our congregation.

And yet we have a healthily growing congregation; we've been holding new-member classes now just about every other month. People seem to like us, and keep coming back.

So why won't these people talk to us?

I don't know. Does anyone else have this dynamic in their congregation, or is it just us?

Friday Five: Stairway To...?

2011-06-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

My goodness...it's been so long since I've participated in a Friday Five that I've practically forgotten how. But here goes.

From Friday's RevGalBlogPals "Friday Five":

I am currently reading a book entitled Stairway of Surprise: Six Steps to a Creative Life by Michael Lipson. His premise is a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "I shall mount to paradise by the stairway of surprise." Lipson's book is about practicing or developing six inner functions--thinking, doing, feeling, loving, opening, and thanking.

So these categories of attention are a jumping off point for today's Friday Five:

Pick five of the six actions and write about how you are practicing them today or recently. For a bonus, write about the sixth one you originally didn't choose!

What or how are you

1. thinking?

2. doing?

3. feeling?

4. loving?

5. opening?

6. thanking?

Thinking: Right at this moment I am thinking about our new-ish bees (currently dancing in the sunshine -- a rare commodity this week, a state of affairs that makes bees depressed and moody), and how we are going to remove them from the roofs of their respective hives, where they've taken up residence despite our best attempts to install them the right way, and into the lower hive body, which is where they're supposed to be living.

I got on an online bee forum, and a couple of kindly souls there told me that we will have to cut the bees' natural comb from the roof, and wire it onto empty hive frames. These will go in the bottom box, where we want the bees to live. Then we have to sugar-water spray the frames filled with our beeswax foundation -- if you've ever seen a picture of beekeepers in action, those are the flat things they lift up out of the hives -- and place them around and above the removed comb. Then we have to replace the top board of the hive -- it's a flat board with an oblong hole in the middle that our bees used as an entrance to their attic abode -- and cover the hole with mesh screen so that they can't repeat their shenanigans. Then we replace the roof -- which presumably by this time won't have thousands of angry bees stomping all over it.

This sounds like a lot of engineering, as well as crisis managment, at least for insects. I still can't quite get my head around the honeycomb wiring part of this dilemma, and wish we had a hands-on Bee Whisperer nearby to help us finesse this.

Doing: At the moment I am sitting in the wreckage of our living room with the dogs. Long story short, we've had a busy week with multiple interruptions and, yesterday, a bit of a short-term medical crisis for Fellow Traveler, so we've done no housework in days and days -- and I'm wondering where to even begin; especially since we're leaving for Chicago on Sunday for a consult the next day with an oral surgeon at the VA's shiny new state-of-the-art dental center at the Jesse Brown VAMC. (This saga deserves a blog post all its own, so I'll fill in the blanks later.) In about 10 minutes I hope to be doing picking up and dusting, at least, in this room.

Feeling: After our very long and trying day yesterday (another story all its own) I have to admit that I don't feel much of anything. I feel a little spatially disoriented; I was driving around Midland today running errands, and despite my having been to these places dozens of times I had to check myself several times to keep from missing turns along the route. My brain just feels tired...like a worn-out rubber band. My eyes are tired. I'm just...tired.

Loving: If you're expecting something profound or romantic, I fear you'll be disappointed. Because at this moment I am loving the thought of the Zingerman's Pimento Cheese I procured on my Midland errand run earlier. And I am loving the sound of our dog Bear -- our legacy from FT's departed aunt -- snoring contentedly on the rug. She is an epic snorer -- something that, sadly, also runs in the human side of this family. And right next to me on the sofa is Chica -- Chica Bonica, Chica Unique-a, sometimes Chica Sneaka or even Chica Freaka -- also chillaxing. We are so pleased that these two little dogs, with such different personalities, have become fast friends. We call Chica the Monkey Dog because she is so active and agile and busy. Bear, by contrast, is a short, stout, no-nonsense old girl. But Chica treats Bear with the affection and deference of a beloved auntie, and every so often Bear dispenses with dignity and initiates rough-and-tumble play with Chica -- this from the obese shi-tzu whose belly literally touched the floor when we brought her home, who did little more than sleep and eat.
Opening: What am I opening? Hmmm. In a short while I'll be opening the Jeep and removing a new barrel charcoal grill we bought last week (of course it was on sale), that the big-box-store people assembled for us. It's supercute; we didn't want some hulking big iron monster taking over our patio, so we got the junior version of a popular model. It has a side and front shelf area, which I like, and it's a little bit larger than the tabletop barrel grill that we've been using for the past couple of years.

Thanking: I'm thanking God that FT is okay after a scary episode of her not being able to breathe. This happens almost every summer; summer colds go around, FT gets one, it turns into bronchitis and that aggravates her asthma. Thank God for Z-Packs and nebulizers too. And for the controlled anger I summoned up yesterday after we were ushered into to an exam room at the Saginaw VA and just left there for over two hours, FT hooked to an oxygen tank and pulse oximeter but not checked on at all -- "Oh, someone will be coming to see you shortly" -- until I got irritated enough to find an RN and demand some attention for a patient who was having trouble breathing, for God's sake, don't-you-even-read-your-own-triage-protocol-there-on-the-wall. And thank God for the nice evening-shift ER doctor who was not only helpful and courteous to us, but who kicked some fannies and took names (literally) when he found out how long we'd been left waiting.

Finally, speaking of stairs and creativity: Enjoy this video of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson:

The Sermonator

2011-04-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

Things that I, lay minister, have found out about sermons over the past year:

First of all: Give me the more unfamiliar, unlovely texts; the ones that no one remembers from Sunday School. For some reason I find them more intellectually engaging and actually easier to tackle with the congregation than the ones that come with a lot of preconceived assumptions and sentimental baggage. My idea of preaching hell is doing so on Christmas, Easter or the Sunday we tackle the Beatitudes. I'm just weird that way. Good thing I'm a layperson.

I've also found that there's something about small worship gatherings that throws me off-kilter. You'd think it would be just the opposite; that an intimate group of familiar faces would set me at ease. No. To me, behind the pulpit those Advent or Lenten evenings, it's like doing standup at closing time in an unpopular bar. I feel like I'm dying up there.

And then there's The Sermonator. This is my affectionate name for someone in our congregation who has taken it upon herself to become my personal trainer for preaching. Now, you have to understand that, being the very anal-retentive, self-critical soul I am, I start mentally dope-slapping myself for my homiletical inadequacies the moment I step out of the pulpit. I need, and appreciate, having some knowledgeable, objective other give me honest feedback, positive and negative -- even when the latter feels like a final rapier-stab to the heart after my post-sermon self-recrimination sesson; because at least it's coming from somewhere other than my own head.

But The Sermonator does not fall into the category of respected reality-checker. Imagine instead the love child of Ethel Merman and Cheers' Cliff Claven, and you'll get some idea of her m.o. The Sermonator is someone who, after a Sunday where I was feeling ill and ran through the sermon a bit breathlessly just because I needed to sit down as soon as possible, collared me in the fellowship area after the service and told me, loudly, "YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE SO NERVOUS! WE'RE ALL FRIENDS HERE! JUST PRETEND WE'RE ALL SITTING HERE NAKED! I'M SURE YOU'LL DO BETTER NEXT TIME!"

Thank you. Thank you so much.

The other week I did a fill-in Lenten service for our pastor -- one of those dreaded small-group homilies; my discomfort compounded by the gravitas and majesty of the text, Hebrews 12:1-2: Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Oy. I spent all day writing the homily; thought it was crap; gave it anyway.

Afterward one of my respected reviewers described my message as "interesting," an adjective that felt like a baseball bat to the solar plexus. I said a few goodbyes and fled to my car...only to notice The Sermonator hot at my heels.

"I JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU," she declared, "THAT I THINK YOU'RE DOING A LOT BETTER!"

At this point I felt a weight descending upon each shoulder -- my good and bad angels had chosen this moment to manifest.

My good angel was in the guise of a pleasant Southern matron sipping a sweet tea.

"Well, bless her heart," exclaimed the good angel. "That gal is doin' the best she can, just like you."

My bad angel bore a distinct resemblance to Chelsea Handler. In one hand she held a pitchfork; in the other, a large vodka martini.

"SHUT UP!" screamed the bad angel. "SHUT UP! SHUT THE *&#@ UP!"

I decided I'd better pay more attention to the good angel. But I poured myself a big ol' glass of merlot -- we're out of vodka -- when I got home.

Friday Five: They Say It's Your Birthday

2011-04-15T19:02:00.000-07:00

This week's RevGalBlogPal Friday Five asks us our opinions about birthdays:

1. What are your feelings about celebrating birthdays, especially your own?
I enjoy celebrating other people's birthdays far more than I do my own -- not just because I'm getting older, but because my family just didn't "do" birthdays well. Which brings us to...

2. Do you have any family traditions about birthdays?
Birthdays in my family tended to be more like the Costanza family's Festivus day -- Airing of Grievances and other assorted drama. I escaped this kind of thing on my birthday only because my birthday is the day after Christmas, and as such it was usually subsumed into that celebration; I mean, when your competition is Baby Jesus, you can't win when it comes to birthdays. When I was small my aunt M would take pity on me and throw a birthday party for me in June; but it just wasn't the same.

3. Is it easy to remember friends' and family members' birthdays? If so, how do you do it?
It's extremely difficult for me to remember people's birthdays, I think because I've never made a big deal about my own. I find Facebook to be very helpful in reminding me about birthdays; also those online card companies that, if you're a member, send you reminders about loved ones' birthdays several days ahead of time. This question, by the way, is inspiring me to add a "birthdays" sheet to our household Three-Ring Binder of Useful Facts, especially since Fellow Traveler also has trouble remembering birthdays.

4. What was one of your favorite birthdays? (or your unhappiest?)
My unhappiest birthday was when I was about five, sick in bed with pneumonia; definitely not fun. One of my favorite birthdays was a few years ago when Fellow Traveler treated me to a romantic bed-and-breakfast getaway up north on the Leelanau Peninsula. As luck would have it, an unseasonable warm snap hit the area when we arrived; imagine green grass, rain and peasoup fog in northern Michigan in late December. Then, just as suddenly, the temperature plunged again, bringing with it a combination ice storm and blizzard; this made for a rather cozy evening trapped at our B&B, drinking wine and playing Scrabble as the wind howled and ice pellets slammed into the windows outside...driving home the next morning, not so much. But in retrospect it was a pretty swell time overall.

5. Post anything else you want to share about birthdays, including favorite foods, songs, and/or pictures.
During the aforementioned birthday trip to the Leelanau, we visited a lovely rustic Italian restaurant called Trattoria Funistrada. Finding it involved navigating up and down curving, hilly back roads at night in fog thick enough to cut with scissors. By the time we crept into Burdickville, the little Glen Lake neighborhood where the restaurant is located, FT and I were both literally aching from the angst of stressed driving; so how wonderful to walk in and find a warm, friendly place that seemed to have been dropped into this unlikely landscape directly from rural Italy. We had a great meal there; conversed with the people sitting all around us because it's that kind of restaurant; had a lovely time. For some reason Funistrada's website seems to be down, but you can read some reviews (including mine) here.

Potlucks: The Original Food Rave

2011-04-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

Today someone sent me a link to a story in the New York Times describing the phenomenon of "food raves" -- ephemerous underground restaurants, patronized via word-of-mouth, that give up-and-coming young chefs a chance to build a customer base without having to deal with the sometimes considerable licensing fees and bureaucratic hassles involved in the currently trendy pursuit of running a food cart.

My first thought, upon reading the article, was, " Good for them." My second was, "I wish we had food raves in our area." And then it occurred to me: What's another example of cooks showing off their signature dishes to a large crowd in a semi-spontaneous way?

Church potlucks.

Whoddathunk we were on the cutting edge of foodie culture?

Potlucks, at least in my state, have had to go increasingly underground because of onerous health department rules regarding advertising meals to the public; basically, if the food isn't made on premises according to state regulations, by people certified to handle food for public consumption, you can't advertise the meal outside your organization. Bulletin or newsletter blurbs are okay, for now; but mention a potluck on your church signboard or newspaper blurb and you're likely to get a frowny-faced visit from a local health department inspector. A couple of years ago our church ran press releases about our midweek Lenten worship that happened to mention a pre-service potluck, and we were promptly spanked by the Powers That Be. You can bet that schooled us.

People who know me are well aware of my liberal credentials. But these are cases where I feel real sympathy with my conservative neighbors who deeply resent this kind of nanny-ish state intrusion into what is simply a group of friends and neighbors coming together for a meal. Especially when we all know supermarkets with perpetually sepulchral-smelling meat counters filled with irridescent steaks and gray chicken, or restaurants where we would no more order the egg salad sandwich than directly inject the salmonella into our veins, it seems inefficient, as well as petty, for local bureaucrats to make church kitchens -- at least in my lifetime experience a bastion of proud, obsessively hygienic church ladies who've never seen a church surface they didn't want to scrub with Comet, Pine-Sol or Murphy's Oil Soap, who'd likely commit hara-kiri with the ubiquitous church-kitchen electric knife if they ever inadvertently gave someone food poisoning -- a front line of their war against food contamination.

I've worked in the public sector, engaging in what we believed was improving quality of life for citizens, catching that crusading spirit, and I truly understand how easy it is for health inspectors to see the world as one big, roiling cauldron of pathogens that they have been tasked with controlling at all costs. But -- I mean -- come on. For some reason I trust that Mrs. Tannenbaum's locally famous bratwurst potato salad isn't going to kill me. Not that I know a Mrs. Tannenbaum who makes bratwurst potato salad. Or that, if there were a Mrs. Tannenbaum, she would bring bratwurst potato salad to a potluck. Or that I know of any potlucks, anywhere, held by anyone. I'm just saying.

Gathering the Crumbs

2011-04-14T07:39:00.000-07:00

I have an appointment in the Nearest College Town this afternoon, after which I'm going to go grocery shopping.

What will I find today? Maybe a bag of interesting organic granola. Maybe a can of white clam sauce, or packet of mole'. Maybe some spendy pet food for the fur-chilluns. And of course I can't forget a couple of pounds of good coffee.

I'm not going to a big-box supermarket. I'm not going to our food coop, or to a specialty-foods boutique.

I'm actually heading about a half-mile down a dirt road, next county over, to an Amish-run discount foods store.

We started shopping here maybe a year ago; we'd heard that it sold mostly outdated supermarket rejects, which didn't interest us, but finally one day we stopped in out of curiosity. What we found was a clean and tidy little store that carried, yes, a lot of old grocery items (signs around the store alert shoppers to this) -- but also a lot of perfectly good merchandise, including fresh cheeses and cured meats. Interestingly, much of the items in stock are organics -- the same brands carried by the food coop. Ethnic specialty foods are also plentiful -- and, again, not all past their sell-by date. The store sells bulk brand-name laundry detergent and fabric softener too -- just bring in an old bottle. Prices are all drastically reduced.

So if you can picture grocery-shopping America as a big aquarium, merchandisers sprinkle their wares on top of the water...what doesn't get picked off their keeps falling down, down, down, until it hits stores like this, in the hinterlands.

For us it's a challenge to find bargains here. I make sure to bring my reading glasses so I can discern the tiny date information on boxes, bottles and jars, and we both spend lots of time inspecting the goods. We've gotten some incredible deals; a couple of weeks ago, for instance, we scored on specialty organic dog and cat food, both well within their sell-by dates, for half off the list price. The store's havarti cheese is considerably less than it is at the nearest supermarket. Awhile ago we hit the store on coffee delivery day, apparently, and were able to buy several pounds of decaf "boutique" coffee, again at half off the normal price.

Shopping in such a venue requires patience, attention to detail and the flexibility to accept that whatever delicacy one finds on the shelf on a given day is a gift; to take it and enjoy it and not expect it to be there again. (I think there's a lesson in there somewhere.)

It's also quite a circus of characters, and of character itself. About half the clientele seem to be people like us -- savvy middle-class shoppers hunting for a bargain while enjoying a jaunt into the countryside. The other half are people who look as if they need every penny they can save; for whom this store isn't just a rural novelty but a real godsend. It's also interesting to note shoppers' comfort levels in engaging with the young Amish women who staff the store -- some are polite and friendly; others seem afraid or resentful. We sometimes catch a whiff of xenophobia; frowning shoppers mumbling to one another about how they're somehow being taken advantage of. We sometimes wonder what those Amish girls think of the lot of us English -- our relative loudness and assertiveness and occasional public crudeness; behaviors which, by the way, aren't exclusive to poorer shoppers. Especially when other customers in the store are being jerks, FT and I feel a certain responsibility to be especially courteous and friendly to the staff; even if they think we're weird, at least we're nicely weird.

Wonder what I'll find today?

Shop Talk

2011-04-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

What I did during my blogging vacation: Among other things, got all entrepreneurial and stuff. Really.

Our slow process of cleaning up and clearing up our home and adjacent buildings made us realize that we really needed to do something with the collection of estate-sale items that Fellow Traveler has collected over the years. We've never had much good luck selling stuff on eBay or Etsy. When we tried selling a few vintage items at our last garage sale, we discovered that the local folks are just too poor to care; they were interested in my old beaten-up college-era casseroles and silverware, not the items of value to collectors. Meanwhile, some of our favorite television programs -- the pawning/antiquing/picking genre -- was making us want to visit some estate sales and "junque" emporia. We just need to find the right people, we thought.

One weekend we decided to wander into the local antique mall. This was once a department store, the pricier one in town, back when I was a kid. It had three stories, which was pretty impressive for our little town. My frugal parents hardly ever went there unless Mom needed some special dress or Dad ventured into the sporting-goods section for hunting gear. Anyway, when it, like most small-town department stores, went out of business, the owner turned the building into an antique store, renting out booths to collectors.

I can't recall why we went inside -- I think just to see if we could find some deals; FT has an interest in antique marbles and toys, while I collect hen-on-nest covered dishes. But as we wandered from booth to booth, we noticed an empty corner. "The stuff in our garage would fit in there," murmured FT. We looked at one another. "I wonder what the rent is."

As luck would have it, Skip the store owner -- a rather dapper and genial 80-something -- happened to be in the store that day. We asked him about the rent. We found out that it wasn't very much -- and that we could reduce it substantially by working in the store instead of simply selling our wares there. We also got the impression that he thought FT and I were interesting, knowledgeable and responsible -- perhaps even likeable.

That next Friday we moved in.

It's been about a month now. And while at the time I felt somewhat equivocal about taking on another life responsibility -- I find I really enjoy it. I love opening the store in the morning; wandering up and down the stairs switching on an insane assortment of light switches; putting the sandwich board out on the sidewalk and hearing the zap of the neon "Open" sign as I plug it in.

I also enjoy being in the midst of good-quality antiques and collectibles from a time when craftsmanship was valued. Skip runs a rather tight ship when it comes to vendors' displays; the place is neat and tidy, not like an episode of Hoarders, and contemporary garage-sale flotsam-jetsam is kept to a minimum.

And I enjoy dealing with the public. (This is one reason that I was content to slum in a bookstore far longer than I should have been after my university education.) It's fun for me to talk to visitors from other communities and promote our area -- the other day I wound up drawing an "Amishing" map for one downstate couple looking for a reason to drive out in the country. And you just never know who is going to walk through the door and what they want. One day it was men's old shaving razors -- we sold three of them to different people. (I later read in the New York Times Style section that personal "mantiques" of the 30's-60's are a trending thing among decorators and collectors.) One day a woman was ecstatic to find a googly-eyed coconut monkey for her backyard tiki hut. We sold our amberina pattern glass canoe to a fellow for whom this one thing had become a magnificent obsession; he already had 30 of them, he said; he wasn't interested in collecting anything else; he just liked glass canoes.

This is, contrary to what you see on TV, not a way to make a living. This past month we paid our booth rent with enough left over for a pizza, and that's it. But it's fun. It's exercising some of my marketable-skill muscles after a long holiday. It's also reawakened the collecting urge in me; I'm thinking of maybe upgrading my rather pedestrian assortment of hens-on-nests to include one of the really choice Atterbury glass-eyed chickens, or pursuing an interest in collecting/trading in young women's books of the fin-de-siecle and 'teens -- those brave, smart and subtly feminist heroines of books like Polly Goes To College and the old Campfire Girls series.

It beats sitting on the sofa watching American Pickers, anyway.

What the Health

2011-04-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

So anyway...

In my last post I had mentioned Fellow Traveler's latest health issues.

As long-time friends will recall, we have been patiently waiting for FT to get an all-clear from the VA for out-of-system surgery for her jaw, to replace her RA-ravaged cartilage and ease her pain. We had cleared one of the final hurdles in this long (two years, actually) process, when -- the day we returned home from a beekeepers' conference in East Lansing -- she woke up with a stabbing pain in her chest whenever she took a breath. Was it bronchitis? Pneumonia? A heart problem?

We wound up at VA Urgent Care for most of the day; I fretted in the waiting room while FT was poked, prodded, monitored and scanned. Initial diagnosis? Pleurisy; a very painful inflammation of the lining of the lungs. They pumped FT with antibiotics and sent her home with orders to rest and an appointment for some additional cardiac testing just to rule out any heart-related problem.

A few days later we got a call. The doctor reviewing FT's scans didn't like the looks of something on one lung, and was scheduling a follow-up CT scan in June.

This sent me into an internal panic, even as I was keeping up a brave face for FT. FT has never smoked, but her deceased former partner was a chain smoker; had breathing secondhand smoke for years taken a dangerous toll? Had years of asthma done likewise? Had a blood clot in the lung from back in FT's childbearing years left scarring?

While we were processing this news, trying to put a positive spin on it ("They said come back in June...not 'We want to see you next week'...") , FT took her stress test. It wasn't pleasant, but not as frightening as she'd anticipated after reading the scary procedural preparation sheet. She had an echocardiogram. A couple of days passed. Then we got another call: There seemed to be a diminished blood flow to part of FT's heart, according to the stress test results; could she come in for a cardiac consult?

More panic. It was a very quiet, pensive drive back to the VA.

But FT's other test results didn't seem to confirm that there was a problem with her heart. She has a normal EKG; her echocardiogram seemed fine. The cardiology person all but ruled out a heart issue; scheduled another stress test with a different dye medium just to make sure, but told FT, "If you can make the pain happen by pressing on your chest, it's not heart disease." She even suggested that FT's arthritis might be inflaming her sternum and rib joints. But she wrote FT a referral to a pulmonolgist to further explore the possibility that the pain is lung-related.

If this sounds like a breathless, cursory review of our last month...well, it is. My anxiety response has pretty much burned out at this point. And we're taking things day by day: If FT wakes up with less pain, it's a good day; if the VA doesn't call, it's a good day.

And, ironically, as all this was happening -- FT got her formal, written clearance from the VA for her out-of-system jaw surgery.

I'm trying so hard to work up the intellectual gumption to return to blogging on a regular basis. But if I don't, you'll know why.

My Future Flower Bed?

2011-04-02T17:59:00.000-07:00

I'm too tired right now to write that catch-up post I talked about last night...but I want to commit to posting every single day, so in that spirit I present to you a handy video about starting a new garden bed. I'm seriously considering trying the "lasagna" method for the annual bed I want to start next to our front garage.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid702217133001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAEBQ1X8~,4LcKJKyjVWFA5YuyjNPXYzRLy0uw4H-T&bclid=773439037001&bctid=1521609018

Friday FIve: "Good Things" Quick Picks

2011-04-01T19:14:00.000-07:00

This week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five asks us for a "quick pick of five good things in our lives.

This challenge came at a good time for me, because lately we've been having to focus, not on good things, but worrisome health things. I'll write more about this tomorrow, when I catch you up on what's been happening in my life since my blog hiatus. Anyway...it's good to remember good things. So here goes:

1. Our family extracurricular activities. Our footloose-and-fancy-free schedule has gotten a bit more structured these days, as we've taken on two very different tasks. Since our church secretary cut drastically back on her schedule due to health issues, I've been working at church one day a week as unpaid secretary/newsletter editor. There are four of us, each with a slightly different set of daily tasks. I've enjoyed this pretty much (although I did have to put my foot down about our church's heretofore que-sera-sera approach to its newsletter, and institute due dates for content).

Meanwhile, we were visiting the local antique mall about a month ago when we noticed a little empty corner booth. Fellow Traveler said, "That would be a great place to sell our stuff." (Said stuff being her formidible collection of estate sale goodies.) This is a nice, tidy venue, with real antiques and collectibles. We asked the owner about rent, and we discovered that, as long as we volunteer to work in the store one day a week, we can rent booth space quite inexpensively. The owner, after quizzing us a bit and finding out that we know a little bit about antiques and collectibles and have experience in "people" occupations, made us an offer and we said, "Sure!" About 15 minutes later, as we drove away, we turned to one another and murmured, "What did we just do?" But this has been a pleasant little pastime once a week. We meet lots of interesting people, get along well with the landlord, are learning more about the business -- and we sold a couple of our things.

2. Bear. Our adoptee dog -- Fellow Traveler's aunt's-and-uncle's dog, who was about to be put down after the aunt died and the uncle wound up in the hospital -- is a real joy. And this is an especially good thing for me because I frankly had not been completely sold on the idea of another dog. I wouldn't have let the cousins-in-law kill Bear; but I'd envisioned fostering her for a few weeks until we found some suitable adoptive family. What happened after we brought her home, though, was remarkable: After a week of getting to know Chica and Mollie and learning the rhythms of our home, and after regular daily exercise and a balanced diet, this largely inert, morbidly obese lump of a dog started responding to us; her sweet personality began to emerge; and she started moving on her own -- running, even. Now I have to huff and puff a little to keep up with her some days as she gathers the courage to explore our woods. Chica, for her part, after about a day of poutery, has become a good pal to her new, older friend.

3. My tomatoes. The photo to the left is not actually a photo of my tomatoes; but my little tomato seedlings are starting to look like that photo. I have mixed cherry tomatoes; mixed heirloom standard-size tomatoes; currant tomatoes; "Black Trifele" and "Black Zebra" tomatoes; and a few six-year-old seeds that I stuck in a couple of peat pots just to see what would happen, that successfully germinated.

4. Our beekeeping experiment. We don't have our bees yet -- but we do have our hives, our bee suits, our tools and various and sundry other beekeeping things. We recently attended a beekeeping conference at Michigan State University, my alma mater -- I thought Wolverine fan Fellow Traveler would spontaneously combust upon setting foot on campus, but she was a good sport all weekend, venturing as far as the Student Union for a taste of the MSU dairy's famous ice cream -- so we're also fairly knowledgeable, at least we think, about what to do when the bees get here at the end of the month. Maybe.

5. Our recent visit with Miss Ruby. We were surprised and delighted to get an e-mail from Daughter-in-Law telling us that she was coming to Michigan with Ruby to visit her mom, various relatives and her best friend from medical school. Since The Kids believe that we live in Terra Incognita, and since DiL's other visits were all in the southern part of the state, we traveled to the Ypsilanti/Ann Arbor area, both Fellow Traveler's and DiL's former home base, to spend the day with Ruby, stay overnight and then lead SiL to her aunt-in-law's home in Bay City. So we got to play with the grandbaby the better part of two days. Ruby is growing so fast -- she literally grew out of one pair of shoes the morning after we arrived at Other Grandma's house -- and she is not only on her feet but constantly on the move. She's also an enthusiastic talker, even though her active vocabulary right now is rather limited: "Mama";"Dada"; "No"; "Amma" (which we discovered means any convenient, attentive gray-haired lady). Her favorite word, out of all those, is "No" -- delivered without anger or petulance, mind you; just a matter-of-fact statement of opinion. She's a little pistol, is Ruby. And we're glad we got to see her.

Friday Five: "It's Only Words" Edition

2011-02-18T16:30:00.000-08:00

From the RevGalBlogPals website today:

There is a dramatic and surprising venue for Spiritual Formation/Sunday School classes at my church: Each week a different person teaches about a "word" that expresses his/her passion or interest. The first week someone spoke about "hospitality" with abundant treats on her mother and grandmother's china arrayed on tables. Other words have been "connectivity," "Trinity," "money," and "dreams." No one knows which person will be teaching until the class convenes. I am teaching this Sunday and plan to talk about "stirrings."

For this Friday Five, please list five words that identify your passions, spirituality, and/or life. Describe as much or as little as you wish.

First of all -- this is s pretty cool idea for a small group.

Now -- on to my Friday Five! These are, by the way, in no particular order.

Curiosity. I want to know stuff; that's one of the defining characteristics of who I am. This has, in my life, sometimes gotten me into trouble ("Hmmm....what's going to happen if I stick this loose plug into the light socket?")...but usually it's a quality that's stood me in good stead.

Faith. Even if it's very weak...even if some days I can't even precisely define what my faith is in. When I tried living without faith, it didn't work out so well.

Persistence. As Fellow Traveler can tell you, I tend to hang onto projects -- or problems -- for dear life, until I get the outcome I want.

Quiet. I've heard, "You're so quiet," my entire life. And sometimes I perceive that as a criticism, not simply an observation. Fact of the matter is, when I feel like talking, I can talk your ear off. (Ask my friends.) But in social situations I do prefer to take things in, to listen, to formulate my responses carefully. And I cherish quiet moments in a life that's often a swirl of activity and data.

Growth. I enjoy growing things...and I enjoy growing myself; learning new skills, developing insight; moving forward into the next thing. I'm not sure if this is a virtue or the opposite of the contentment that's the goal of a monastic life, but -- I prefer it to the opposite.

In the Joint

2011-01-18T19:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Fellow Traveler had her long-awaited consult with a non-VA oral/maxillofacial surgeon regarding her arthritis-ravaged jaw.

It was one of those mornings that just begged for a do-over. I had intended to accompany FT to this important appointment, but a relatively mild cold I've tolerated for the past week suddenly exploded in intensity, and I woke up with a raging fever and sore throat; there was no way I could go along. Then, about five minutes into FT's journey through town and toward the freeway our normally reliable Jeep began stalling whenever she slowed the car to a stop, so she was forced to turn around and carefully drive back home to switch vehicles.

I didn't see her for several hours. Part of the plan that day was for her to come home by way of our church and help train a new volunteer on our database system; then she was going to stay for a council meeting in the evening. But a snowstorm began to build in the afternoon, and FT finally decided that it was unwise to try and navigate through the bad weather in the Prius.

By this time I was not only sick but anxious because of the increasingly bad roads, so I was relieved to see the Prius turn into our driveway. And I'd only gotten a short-form version of how the consult went over the phone, so I was eager to hear the details of the exam.

Here's the story: The good news is that the surgeon is recommending a less invasive, less dangerous operation than what was originally described to us; rather than attempting to replace the joint, he is going to realign the joint to reduce the bone-on-bone discomfort. More good news is that, while not a common surgery, this surgeon has done it enough times to be fairly confident that it will relieve FT's pain for an extended period of time.

The bad news? The benefits of the surgery won't last forever. Preparation for the surgery involves several weeks' use of a new quartet of medicines, including steroids -- something FT hates and has resisted taking in the past because of prior bad experiences -- a bite splint and a host of lifestyle restrictions. Post-surgery FT will have to have her jaws wired for six weeks. And if for some reason this surgery is not successful, the alternative -- a scary procedure -- only has a 20 percent success rate, and a high degree of danger.

FT came home exhausted, jaw pounding in pain, from her two-hour exam -- and from trying to process all the information that the surgeon had given her. I was still feverish and miserable but also trying very hard to understand exactly what this proposed surgery will entail, both in terms of the procedure itself and the necessary aftercare.

It made for a pensive evening.

FT has had so many surgeries for her RA-eaten joints that we jokingly refer to her as the Bionic Woman. Her degree of pain makes her so miserable on any given day -- her jaw swells noticeably, making it difficult for her to speak clearly -- that saying yes to something that may end that pain for at least several years, is not that difficult a decision to make.

But I worry. And I feel bad that FT -- who's already had so many joint replacements that we jokingly refer to her as the Bionic Woman -- has to go under the knife yet again. I know our life together has been blessed immeasurably these past going on five years...but there's always an undercurrent of sadness for the pain she's suffered and anxiety over the future. If this is, as Luther saw our life partnerships, a school for character, then we must be in graduate school.

A Post-Holiday Friday Five

2011-01-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

Today is Tree-Untrimming/House Undecorating Day -- not one of LC's favorite tasks, but something that must be done. It's also the day that I, like my mom, write up a short review of our Christmas, pop it in a little envelope and add it to the box where I keep our creche. So it's rather appropriate that this week's RevGalBlogPals' Friday Five asks us to review the past holiday season -- the good, the bad, perhaps the ugly, although I hope not.

1) What food item was one of your favorites this year - a definite keeper?
It hurts for this scratch-cooking foodie to say this, but...it was really, really nice to enjoy a Honeybaked half-ham, handily delivered to the door, this year. (I made roasted acorn squash and Brussels sprouts, and a heap of mashed potatoes.) We'd sent a full ham dinner to one set of relatives for Christmas, got a handsome discount because of that, and decided to use the savings on ourselves. We can definitely get used to this new tradition. But we've now both had enough ham, Honeybaked or otherwise, to last us until next Christmas.

Oh -- and, after the panic about finding my old family recipes, I did discover a new and improved sour cream sugar cookie recipe. That one's a keeper.

2) Was there a meal or party or a gathering that stands out in your mind from this most recent holiday season?
Christmas Eve morning saw us at the bedside of a dying friend and neighbor; not really the gathering I'd expected or hoped to have on that day, but it was what it was; and if our presence gave our friend extra comfort in her passage into life eternal, then God bless that day.

One of the nicest gatherings was, ironically, just one day after. You see, we had planned to have our hamfest on Christmas Day -- an intimate, even romantic meal, just the two of us. That was before FT's 90-year-old uncle called us up to invite us to their house for Christmas. Uncle was an avid fisherman back in the day, and we'd sent him and FT's aunt some salmon filets for Christmas. "We don't know how to cook these," he told us. "You two will have to come and do it for us." Which of course was just a ruse to have us come and visit them. Their own children, for various reasons, maintain minimal contact with them, so FT and I are their defacto family; we'd helped them put their Christmas decorations up around Thanksgiving, mainly to keep Auntie off the ladder, and had made them dinner that day as well. So that is where we spent Christmas Day -- squeezed around the generally unused dining room table in their tiny dining room, eating a rather simple meal; but enjoying it very much. (I did learn, however, that while Finns love beets, they do not love pickled beets; a note for next year.)

3) Were you involved in a jaw-dropper gift? Were you the giver or recipient or an on-looker?
Well, I"m pleased to say that I was a giver, a co-giver and a recipient. I was co-giver of Bananas, a humongous, ginormous stuffed gorilla we gave Miss Ruby for her birthday. We had feared that this was more an exercise in wretched excess on the part of Grandmas than a gift that Ruby would actually like -- we were even afraid that the huge ape would frighten her -- but Ruby loooooves Bananas. And her parents have taken to dressing Bananas in various themed clothing from week to week (fellow half-century fossils might remember the store mannequin in the Monkees' old TV show that was used similarly). So we're very happy Bananas made such a hit with the whole family. (And we'll just mention that, power shoppers that we are when it comes to our grandchild, we bought Bananas at a 70-percent-off store-closing discount.)

I was the jaw-dropped recipient of a Kindle, as I've mentioned elsewhere on this blog.

And I think I managed to jaw-drop my dear partner with her deluxe beginning beekeeping kit. This gift had started out as a meager purchase of a few essential beekeeping tools, as a kind of teaser/encouragement until FT could get some advice on what sort of hive and clothing to purchase. But it growed. And now all FT has to do is paint her hive (she's thinking maize and blue) and, this spring, fill it with bees. (This weekend we're going to visit with our cider-making/beekeeping friend Wally for some expert advice in this endeavor.)

4) Was there at least one moment where you experienced true worship?
I assisted for the first time on Christmas Eve -- I've never had that experience, of assisting when the church is packed to the rafters, and it was very meaningful to me; particularly assisting with distribution, being able to place the Body of Christ in so many hands, look into so many eyes and say, "...for you." I think that was the high point of my Advent/Christmas worship experience.

That and -- as unexpected and sad as the day was -- being able to pray with our dying friend just moments before she passed on. When I did this, all my existential doubts and sadness and discomfort and other distractions swirling about in my head made way for a kind of calm certainty that I was merely a vessel for a Mystery far bigger and more profound than my puny presence, and that the Church of all ages and places was with me as I made the sign of the cross on my friend's forehead, and prayed, and read the 23rd Psalm to her. After she passed, I again found myself feeling rather awkward and incompetent as the hospice professionals took over and I tried making awkward conversation with our friend's partner and other visitors. But for a brief time I was in a special kind of sacred space.

5) What is at least one thing you want to make sure you do next year?
After my mindblowing three-day cookie-baking marathon -- next week I want to make sure that I start this project far earlier in the month. I know growing up that my mom would very often begin the weekend after Thanksgiving, and freeze the cookies until the holidays. I will also make a comprehensive list of what I need -- not only the ingredients themselves, but how much of them. And I will make the time to include my honey drop cookie recipe, another old favorite that didn't make the cut this year just because I was too tired.

BONUS: What is something you absolutely must remember to do differently... or not at all!
My attempt at incorporating a water feature into our Advent wreath was indeed beautiful and evocative -- but not very practical. Among other things, it takes a tremendous number of floating candles; the water needs to be changed regularly; and the bowl is subject to smudges and water marks. I made it; I'm glad; next year it will be different. We are thinking about going back to one real Christmas tree in the house. We miss a real tree. And -- no attempt to create an Advent blog or special Advent feature on this blog this year; not unless I get really bored and/or inspired somewhere in the middle of the Pentecost season and write it all up in advance. My relationship to Advent devotionals is much like Charlie Brown's relationship to Lucy's football -- so very tempting to undertake, but I just know it's not going to end well.

Recipe Interlude: Sour Cream Cut-Out Cookies

2011-01-05T17:37:00.000-08:00

When we got back from our California trip, my window of opportunity for cookie-baking had been narrowed considerably -- especially considering that our cookies were mostly for export out of state.

So I steeled myself for about three days of nonstop cookie baking. I went to find my tried-and-true recipes, in my mom's old cookbooks.

I couldn't find the books.

The old, tattered Betty Crocker cookie book -- not in the bookcase. Ditto the old Br'er Rabbit Molasses book. The stained spiral-bound Lutheran ladies' cookbook -- not in the bookcase.

I went to the garage office, where I still have a few boxes from our house consolidation, and tore through them looking for any old cookbooks. No luck. I came back inside and looked behind the other books in the bookcase, thinking I may have squirreled these unlovely but useful books somewhere out of public eye. Nope.

Argh.

Then I vaguely remembered having a fish-or-cut-bait moment, as we cleaned out our garage that spring after I sold my house, looking at a box of battered old books and loose recipes and making an executive decision to let it all go.

This was probably a smart decision at the time. Yet now I felt sad; another connection to my mom and my roots lost. I remember my mother telling me about writing for all sorts of free cookbooks from food companies when she was a newlywed. I remembered her own handwritten recipes in a falling-apart ring binder. All gone now, I sighed.

Until I snapped out of it and reminded myself that the recipes are not lost forever. And my particular family cookie menu has found a new generation of appreciative eaters in our kids.

So I got online. I found the Betty Crocker mother lode of cookie recipes. I did general searches on other recipes. And I did it; I replicated the standard LutheranChik Family Christmas cookie plate.

Not only that -- I actually found a better sugar cookie recipe than the one I had. (Sorry, Lutheran church ladies.) The recipe I'm about to share with you makes very soft, lovely, delicate cut-out cookies. And of course they're not just for Christmas. Think about making these, say, for a sweetie on Valentine's Day, cut into hearts and iced and sprinkled with glistening sugar:

Sour Cream Cut-Out Cookies

1 C. butter 1 C. sugar 3/4 C. sour cream (light sour cream works okay but nonfat sour cream does not) 1 egg 2 tsp. baking powder 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 1 tsp. nutmeg 4 1/2 C. flour

Cream together butter and sugar. Add the sour cream, egg and the vanilla; mix well. Stir in baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Gradually add flour until dough is too difficult to stir. Mix the rest by hand. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll out to 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick. Cut into desired shapes with your favorite cookie cutters. Space cookies about 1 1/2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 6-8 minutes in a preheated 350-degree oven or until lightly browned at the edges. Cool completely on wire racks. Decorate as desired.

These tend to dry out quickly, so enjoy them within a few days of baking them. They can also be made ahead of time and frozen,un-iced, then thawed and decorated right before serving/giving them.

LC's Semi-Random Bible Verse of the Week

2011-01-03T08:37:00.000-08:00

God shall crush the heads of his enemies,

and the hairy scalp of those who go on still in their wickedness. -- Psalm 68:21

This verse jumped out at me as I was reading the appointed Psalm for today's BCP Morning Prayer. I know this is no laughing matter from a theological standpoint -- there's a reason why not every verse of every Psalm makes it into the Sunday lectionary -- but you've got to love the Psalmist going all WWE on his enemies here.

I'm not sure I'm up to praying for the crushing of my enemies' hairy scalps. Public embarrassment, maybe; but not breaking their heads. Maybe that's a 21st century developed world thing.

Honeybees and Do-Bees

2011-01-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

We have a beehive in our living room right now.

It's kind of cute. It was marketed as an "English garden hive," as opposed to the workaday boxes one sees in commercial beeyards; it is somewhat smaller than a standard hive, with a peaked roof and copper flashing, and looks like something Peter Rabbit might have hopped past on his way to the carrot patch.

With this hive came an assortment of beekeeper gear: a hat-and-veil combo; gloves with arm gaiters; a smoker; a hive tool; an instructional DVD.

I, the Christmas elf who produced this hive and kit, had gently quizzed FT earlier in the year about her sincerity in taking up beekeeping. Are you sure? Are you sure this isn't like the dark-of-night, REM-sleep-fueled conversation you had with me several months ago when you suggested to me that an urban chicken coop might be a fun backyard project, and then the next day when I recalled that comment over breakfast you stared at me in horror: "I told you what?!..." No, FT insisted repeatedly; this isn't like the phantom egg farm; this is for real; I want to be a beekeeper.

Which is actually pretty exciting. Although we have to get cracking on ordering that most important element of the equation, namely the bees, a task that I understand needs to be done right about now for an April shipment, due to high demand and short supply. I'm anxious that this timeline is somehow going to conflict with FT's jaw surgery -- what if the bees come when she's recuperating, whacked out on painkillers and not ready to participate in the task of introducing the bees to their new digs in our back yard?

I want this to be FT's project, not mine; but I'm hoping she reconnects with our new friend Wally from a surburban apple orchard and bee yard on the outskirts of Bay City, a delightful older gentleman who, once he heard about FT's interest in bees, was ready to take her under his wing (so to speak) and share his expertise. Wally can give us the 411 about procuring our bees. I also bought FT a year's membership in the state beekeepers' association, so maybe we can find some encouragement and assistance a little closer to home as well.

So there's that, happening at our house right now.

In the meantime, we are becoming bees ourselves: do-bees at church, doing things -- generally things involving computers -- that other people can't or don't want to do. Today, for example, while I'm staying at home nursing a bad head cold, the somewhat well-er FT is at church, helping the Finance Committee switch its data over to a new computerized data management system. For my part, I'm entering data for the quarter into our online event and scheduling calendar. I sometimes feel guilty about dragging my non-Lutheran-from-home partner into the inner workings of our church; but she enjoys solving computer problems -- and, as a relative newcomer, she a certain amount of freedom to express herself and get things done that someone enmeshed in the complicated interpersonal relationships and histories of our congregation probably doesn't. One of our perpetual organizational problems is a reluctance on people's parts -- in part I think a function of our congregational demographics and local culture -- to own and execute final decisions; I remember a short-lived stint on the Evangelism Committee where a mind-numbing, hour-long handwringing session involving the purchase of customized church coffee mugs -- "I don't know what to do next...do you know what to do next?" -- was enough to make me hand in my resignation in frustration; "I am not going to waste any more hours of my life discussing how to get a picture on a coffee cup and calling that evangelism," I told the pastor. FT, by contrast, doesn't have a problem with just doing something that needs to be done, committee be jiggered, and explaining it later...in the words of another military gal, the late Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, it's easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission.

I myself have made the commitment to volunteer in the church building one day a week. Our pastor is transitioning into a new house away from the parsonage, our longsuffering volunteer secretary is wanting and needing a break, and so a few of us are going to rotate days in the office, answering the phone and being available for any walk-in assistance. I have plenty of my own church-related tasks to keep me busy on my office day, so it gives me an opportunity to work on those without succumbing to the temptations of the home ~~sofa~~ office.

All of which is to say...things are buzzing around here. In a good way.

The Rekindling of Desire

2011-01-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

Let me introduce you to my favorite holiday toy:

Yes, it's true; I have succumbed to the electronic lure of the Kindle.

I've been a Kindle skeptic for a long time. There's the creepy Big Brother thing about dependency upon one company for e-books (a company that is constantly collecting personal information about customers and that has in the past deleted customer purchases, with a refund but with no cogent explanation); there's the angst about increasing the digital and informational divide even further between the technology haves and have-nots (most of the people in my church, for instance, regardless of age, have no access to the Internet or even a decent personal computer). There's the issue of longevity -- what happens to my books if I break my Kindle, or if Amazon ever decides to change its technology? And there's the issue of tactile pleasure -- sometimes there's just nothing like turning the pages of a book.

Yeah; I know. But my new Kindle is just...so...cool.

I mean -- I've already downloaded a couple dozen freebies; everything from the Iliad to The Voyage of the Beagle to a short tome on Amish gardening tips. My Kindle is wi-fi enabled, so I just book-shop right on it, 24/7, click the "buy" button (even for the freebies) and -- ka-ching! -- my book is suddenly there, ready to read. Wow.

For the past several years I've listed "reading more" as a New Year's resolution; and for the past several years that hasn't really happened. But now I find that I've already made it through one of my e-books (and learned that baking soda is a cheap and easy amendment to acid garden soil). And I'm headed for one of the Great Books now...perhaps the Epic of Gilgamesh, or the Analects.

Ooh -- shiny.

A "Looking Backward, Moving Forward" Friday Five

2010-12-31T07:15:00.000-08:00

This week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five asks us to name some blessings we've received in the past year while also expressing some hopes for the year to come. I can do that. So here they are.

Blessing #1: Miss Ruby. While technically she's a blessing from 2009 -- this has been the year to watch her grow from a tiny babe in arms, all potential, to a very smart, active little girl with a unique -- and dare I say big -- personality. One of her little cousins recently confided to Son #2, "I just don't know what we'd do without our Ruby."

Blessing #2: Chica. It still hurts to think about Gertie and the day she died -- I honestly feel a brief resurgence of sweaty-palm panic whenever I pass the spot on the highway where the accident happened. We truly did not think we'd ever have another dog. But Chica, our little Heinz 57 mutt from the pound, has turned out to be a wonderful companion, with a personality all her own -- alternately sweet and spicy, as befitting her name. Mollie the cat, a veteran of many dogs over the years, still isn't quite sure what to make of this one. But we love her lots.

Blessing #3: The Stutzman Family. This year we got to know a local Amish woman, Mary, a widow with six children still at home, who sells baskets and soap in her backyard shop and in local Amish stores. Over the past year we've gone from casual visitors to her store to "Sit down and have some coffee" friends; which to me is a gift. And we've also grown to love Mary's kids, who are just a joy to be around -- who are polite and respectful to adults, and kind and helpful to one another, while maintaining free spirits and an impish sense of fun. I wish that some of our neighbors who think of the Amish in stereotypes -- usually negative -- could have the experiences we do with this family.

Blessing #4: A New Doctor. It took me several months of Internet research -- but I finally found a primary care physician within reasonable driving distance who has an interest in integrative medicine and who treats me like a human being rather than a set of billable procedures to be squeezed in between pharmaceutical reps. Not that I am bitter or anything.

Blessing #5: Fellow Traveler. Yes, I am being sappy and cornball and obvious here...but especially this year, after observing and experiencing some major interpersonal pathology in other people's relationships, I am more than ever grateful to be traveling on the same life path with my Fellow Traveler.

Bonus Blessing: Our Wii Fit. Yes, I'm serious. Even though I haven't been on it for a month due to travel and Christmas preparation and the fact that our heavily laden Christmas tree is too close to the television for me to be bouncing around on the board. This is one of the only exercise regimens I've ever been able to stay on for an extended period of time. When the tree goes down...the Wii comes back on.

On to wishes for the new year:

Wish #1: Fellow Traveler's rheumatoid-arthritis-related TMJ became so bad this past year that something had to be done...so now, after a long and often frustrating diagnostic process through the VA system, she's been cleared for outsourced surgery. We identified some oral surgeons in our general area of the state who seem to have expertise in jaw issues and are getting a consult from them. My wish is that this surgery -- which may wind up being anything from trying to create an artificial cushion in the RA-ravaged joint space to a titanium joint replacement, any option involving some delicate surgical work -- be a success so that FT can be free of the intense daily pain she suffers.

Wish #2: Now that I have a doctor who suits me, it's time to deal with my health insurance. I have been arguing with Blue Cross for months now about whether or not I'm an actual subscriber (this despite my producing bank records of my ongoing automatic premium payments, and their regular delivery of the company magazine); the company changed my card number without my knowledge, and now refuses to send me a new card. I've been paying my medical costs out of pocket, then forwarding the bills to my insurance agent -- so far with no response from Blue Cross. In the last month I've had not one but two suggestions (one generated by a random discussion between two retirees we overheard in a restaurant when we were in California) that another Large Health Insurance Company is much easier to work with. So -- even though I grew up in a family atmosphere where Blue Cross was only a few pegs lower than God on a scale of life necessity and trustworthiness -- it may be time to make a change.

Wish #3: This is a perpetual wish on my part, but...I'd like to improve the organization of our household, my personal items and, perhaps most importantly of all, my time. We've actually made strides in this area in the past year; but sometimes I am still overwhelmed by "stuff" and by a kind of randomness (often enabled by yours truly) that feels like chaos. I really want to find that golden mean between Stepford Wife and Hoarders.

Wish #4: Having begun a successful transition from straggly shrubbery to perennials around our gazebo, I wish to keep that horticultural success going with a new and improved herb garden (thwarted last year by issues with our plumbing that necessitated digging up what used to be my herb bed) and a new flower garden along our front garage. This last project was actually suggested by the non-gardening FT, out of the blue: "Why don't we dig a strip along the side of the garage and plant flowers there?" Who am I to argue with this? (FT's sudden interest in flowers may be a function of her desire to keep bees, which I affirmed on Christmas by giving her an entire bee hive -- sans bees -- and newbie beekeeper equipment.)

Wish #5: Another standing item on my New Year wish list: I want to learn something new this year. I'm not too choosy about what that is. Practical skills (like piecrust making, perhaps?) are always good; or I could really live in the leap and take on some intellectual task that's so far stymied me (calculus? euchre?).

Bonus Wish: This has been a wish of mine for some time -- also, frankly, something of a source of guilt and stress: I want to begin blogging regularly again. One of the reasons I stopped was because I felt that my blogging was beginning to direct my life, instead of my life informing my blogging; sort of like those reality TV shows where the reality has given way to scripts and mugging for the camera. I think I'm at a good place to begin again.

A Festive Friday Five

2010-12-03T20:41:00.000-08:00

This week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five focuses on the things that really make Christmas for us. Here's my list:

1. Our Advent wreath and calendar. Even though we're not always faithful in lighting the wreath candles, even though we sometimes have to play catchup for a few days with the calendar...we do find a lot of value in observing this season before Christmas in a real, tangible way. It feels pleasingly countercultural; it keeps Christmas, Inc. at bay at our house.

2. Trimming the tree. Or, in our case, trees, since we have two of them. I just love doing this. At our house we wait until just before Christmas Eve; we put on Christmas music, have some eggnog or Christmas tea, and make an event of it.

3. Baking cookies. We do this mostly for export...but it's still fun. And I still have to restrain myself from a repeat of the year in which I made 18 different kinds of cookies.

4. Anonymous gifting. We usually adopt a child or vulnerable adult from our community "giving tree." Oftentimes the requests are so modest that they're almost heartbreaking -- like the child whose card we took one year, who asked for food for her family. "Meet and exceed expectations" is our guideline for giving.

5. The Christmas Eve service. This year it will be more special because I will be assisting at it for the first time. We have an old-fashioned candlelight service with the Eucharist; we hear the Story once again; we sing familiar hymns. Afterward we come home and have a little pre-Christmas-day nosh of Christmas delectables, and exchange our gifts. Good times.

Bonus: What is one thing that really DOESN'T make your Christmas? Definitely the shopping and spending frenzy. We find gifts for our family all year long, so by the time the stores start bringing out the Christmas merchandise we've already finished buying presents, so we've effectively disconnected from most of the Christmas craziness. When I was working, the thing that used to get me the most were the obligatory (de facto, even when the bosses assure staff that they can opt out if they wish) workplace gift exchanges. My church's annual yard sale was enriched for many years by the cast-off candles and other assorted unwanted tschotchkes I'd have to drag home from Christmas parties. The best workplace Christmas gift exchanges I've ever participated in either involved white-elephant gifts or a very low cost ceiling -- say $5 -- that really challenged givers' creativity and knowledge of their giftee.

Blogging Advent

2010-11-28T20:13:00.000-08:00

Hey -- I've started a new Advent blog. Check it out here .

Friday Five: "American Pie" Edition

2010-11-26T10:20:00.000-08:00

I am simultaneously feeling holidayed out and amped up for a very busy Advent month that also includes a cross-country trip...so I was ready for a fun RevGalBlogPal Friday Five. And we have one: All About Pie.

1)Are pies an important part of a holiday meal?
Absolutely. My mother was the best pie baker ever, and we always had pie for holidays and other special occasions. These days we tend to rely on our friend Dan the Amish baker for our pies, but we still crave them on special days.

2) Men prefer pie; women prefer cake. Discuss.
I think whoever came up with this idea was not from the crust-intensive Upper Midwest where the women like their pie just fine, thank you. I'm fond of gingerbread, and Fellow Traveler and I both like white cake on the rare occasions when we eat cake...but that's about it.

3) Cherries--do they belong in a pie?
I think they're fine in other people's pies, yes.

4) Meringue--if you have to choose, is it best on lemon or chocolate?
Again, yes. On rhubarb cream pie too.

5) In a chicken pie, what are the most compatible vegetables? Anything you don't like to find in a chicken pie?
If you ask Fellow Traveler, who was OD'd on frozen pot pies in her childhood, she'd say that chicken pie was not compatible with eating, period. Me, I don't mind savory pies; but if I'm going to eat a pot pie, chicken or otherwise, I want the peas in it to be bright and firm, not gray and mealy. Bad peas can really ruin a dish.

Bonus: What is the most unusual pie you have ever eaten? That would have to be concord grape juice pie, one of the specialties of our local Amish community. While most cookbook recipes for grape pie require a messy process of cooking whole grapes, then running them through a food mill and cooking down the residual juice, our Amish friends tell us they use their own canned grape juice and make a kind of transparent custard with it. However they make it, I like it and want to make it some day.

Bonus bonus: What is the most unusual pie you haven't yet eaten? This Christmas, which we will be spending at home, I'd like to try my hand at making tortiere, the French Canadian spiced meat pie that's a tradition during the holidays. Fellow Traveler has hinted that, unlike pot pie, she might enjoy this very meaty, un-veggie-laden dish. I'm thinking of making little muffin-cup tortiere canapes; somethin' like that.

Friday Five: "Surprised by Joy" Edition

2010-11-19T19:27:00.000-08:00

This week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five has a Thanksgiving theme, with a twist: What are five unexpected blessings we can be thankful for?

This is an interesting question for me, because I tend not to be too fond of surprises. I can be wound a little tightly, and sometimes I need to slowly warm up to new experiences. But, sometimes, they're good things. Here are a few.

1. Fellow Traveler. Five years ago I certainly never envisioned myself living in domestic tranquility with the love of my life. This has been a very good surprise.

2. A granddaughter. Ruby was a surprise all around; and both the nine months of this pregnancy and the past year have been jam-packed with baby-related changes in our lives, including her parents' wedding and move across the country; including my first experience taking care of a tiny child.. In two weeks were on our way to SoCal to visit The Kids in their new home; my first trip out West. But it's all good.

3. Chica. Fast-forwarding to this summer: When Gertie died this summer, I was pretty certain that we wouldn't share our lives with another dog. So was Fellow Traveler. Who knew that, two months ago, we'd find a compelling photo of a cute little canine on Petfinder, resolve to save her from the animal-shelter gas chamber, and come home with one of the sweetest dogs we've ever had the privilege of knowing? Chica -- who at this very moment is sitting on the sofa with me, recuperating from her Special Lady-Dog Operation -- is a gem; cuddly, friendly to all, smart and well-behaved.

4. The joy of not working. I have to admit -- when we decided as a household that we could get by fine on one income, I couldn't help the feeling that I was doing something very, very bad, and that the Universe was about to punish me. Chalk that up to a combination of familial work ethic, coming of age at a time when having a serious career was a hallmark of being a liberated, self-empowered woman, and feeling guilt over our many friends and neighbors who find themselves under- or unemployed these days. Almost immediately I tried to justify this not working by studying for a new job instead; until I got real about my complete lack of interest in spending my days proofreading lines of HTML code. And then I foundered for awhile. It's only recently, maybe even in the past couple months, that I've been able to feel truly okay about a life that alternates domesticity with volunteerism. Will this be my status forever? Probably not. But when I engage the workplace again, it will be as someone whose work life is no longer based on fear and guilt and people-pleasing.

5. Living in mid-Michigan. Until recently I've always felt a dissatisfaction with living in this area; I always saw my future, and then our future, somewhere else -- the Leelanau area of northern Michigan, or perhaps even out East in Fellow Traveler's old stomping grounds. But in the last couple of years we've really planted some roots on this land in this place. While it's not obvious to a casual visitor, and frankly wasn't even obvious to me as a native -- there are real blessings in living here: the woods and waters and wildlife; the Amish community; the slower pace of life. We still travel; still enjoy exploring new places and going back to our favorite getaway areas; but we are thankful whenever, after such a trip, we find ourselves turning into our own driveway once again.

The Funniest Thing I've Read in a Long Time

2010-11-19T18:36:00.000-08:00

If you have ever lived with a dog, you will laugh out loud at this:
Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving.

A Snowed-In Friday Five

2010-11-12T06:32:00.000-08:00

As we enter the waning weeks of autumn, with the first "sticking snow" just over the horizon (and perhaps some readers are already experiencing a white landscape),the RevGalBlogPals Friday Five asks us to imagine our ideal snow day.

It feels odd responding to these questions during one of those misty Indian-summer November days when the temperature is expected to push 60 degrees -- I'm overlooking a lawn of green grass and an open pond -- but I know that in only a few weeks everything is going to change...

1. What is your favorite movie for watching when curled up under a wooly blanket?
Hard to say. I like classic movies; I like quirky movies. Probably, though, in the dead of winter, some northern European exploration of postmodern existential angst would not be my first choice of film. Or anything that an 18-year-old boy would watch. Or anything that a 5-year-old would watch. No; no movies that leave me wondering, "What in the hell was that?", or with the impulse to step in front of a train. No glorified video games/soft porn. No movies heavy on fart-and-belch humor, with protagonists who sound like the sort of smartass 10-year-old kids who need to be sent to military school in North Korea for a few years. Nah...how about some screwball Thirties romantic comedy, or Hitchcock thriller, or interesting indie film with a real plot and characters I wouldn't mind knowing in real life.

2. Likewise, what book?
I'd love to say I can happily curl up with a volume of Tillich or Luther's Works or the writings of the early Church...but actually on a snowy day what I really like to read are cookbooks -- big cookbooks with big, colorful pictures -- or gardening books with big, colorful pictures. It's true; deep, deep down I'm shallow.

3. What foods do you tend to cook/eat when it gets cold?
At our house we enjoy soup on cold days. I usually also get a jones for childhood comfort food -- pork roasts and mashed potatoes and fricaseed chicken. (Don't tell my doctor.) I like baking bread on frosty days. And toasted cheese sandwiches -- another excellent snowy-day choice, especially with the soup.

4. What do you like to do if you get a "snow day" (or if you don't get snow days, what if you did)?
At our house it's much like the answers to 1, 2 and 3...although Fellow Traveler will usually suggest venturing out sometime post-blizzard to survey the landscape: "Why have a Jeep if you don't use it?" (I've not yet driven the Prius in a blizzard, but suspect that it really isn't a vehicle of choice for this sort of adventure.)
5. Do you like winter sports or outdoor activities, or are you more likely to be inside playing a board game? Do you have a favorite (indoors or out)?
If it's sunny and pleasant post-snowstorm, we sometimes like to snowshoe. We now have a dog who, so far, as demonstrated that we can't trust her for even a second outside without a leash, so the snowshoeing might be a challenge this winter. Board-game-wise, we enjoy dominoes and Scrabble.

New Kid on the Block

2010-11-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

Yikes -- I just realized that I've been away from this blog for so long I've neglected to introduce what's left of my readership to a new member of our household.

Say hello to Chica!

After Gertie's accident we had pledged to never get another dog. Or at least to not get another dog for a long, long time. And for the first couple of months that seemed like a good idea. Even as we grieved for Gertie, we began to notice how much easier life was without a dog: bed-and-breakfast vacations without having to arrange for babysitting; no 2:00 a.m. potty runs outside; long-distance travel without the drama of having to manage a pooch's meals and bathroom breaks on the road.

Then one day we saw a lost dog, some sort of shaggy spaniel mix, on the busy highway running past our house. The dog, dragging a lead, shaking with fear, was trying to cross the road, dodging oncoming cars. I imagined a vehicle catching the lead on a tire. Fellow Traveler and I looked at one another in horror.

"I'm stopping," said FT. She pulled over.

But another vehicle, coming from the other direction, also stopped. The man who emerged from the pickup appeared to be an off-duty volunteer firefighter. He wove his way diagonally through the traffic and somehow managed to grab the stray's flapping lead. He quickly scooped up the frightened animal, wove through traffic again and placed the dog in the cab of his truck. We breathed a sigh of relief.

A few minutes later FT quietly admitted, "I could have taken that dog home. How about you?"

"Me too."

Several days later we caught one another scrolling down pages of dog photos on Petfinder.

Now it was only a matter of time.

A few mornings after this, I showed FT a photo of a dog at a dog pound in our area. FT returned to Petfinder to read about the dog. Then she said, "Hey -- look at the little brown dog at the same pound."

I'd missed this photo before. It showed a honey-colored beagle-sized dog with half-floppy ears, a cute little snubby nose and curly short tail. The information with the photo said that the dog was a female stray whose owner had never materialized, who had just come up for adoption.

"What do you think?"

"Let's call."

We did, and were advised to come quickly.

And that is how Chica wound up at our house.

It's always amazing to me how unique dogs' personalities are (something that people who keep their animals on chains in their backyard never learn); and Chica is no exception. From the moment we saw her in her cage, subdued but not in despair like the dogs next to her, alert and cautiously friendly as we approached, we knew she was going to be a different pet than Gertie.

For one thing -- this little girl used to have someone who cared about her and took good care of her. She's well socialized with people and other pets alike (more about that later). She's also been well fed. (And she has an obsession with finishing half-cups of coffee with cream -- we discovered this her first morning with us -- that leads us to suspect that this was a special treat for her in her former home.) She doesn't have an air of neediness or neurosis, like many rescue dogs. Her only vice we've found is her compulsion to run outside, and away, at the slightest opportunity; which may be why she wound up in a shelter in the first place.

Chica is a cuddler. She is a licker. She is a blanket burrower -- the only dog I've ever seen who wants to crawl completely under a blanket and stay there for an extended length of time. (Be careful where you sit in our house.) She makes silly little snuffly sounds when she's happy. She has an awesome four-foot vertical jump. She loves tummy tickles. She doesn't love car rides per se, but she does enjoy going places, especially places where she can meet interesting people and other animals. She eats nearly everything. She likes early bedtime, and gets a little peeved when forced to watch TV with the humans beyond about 9:30 pm.

Mollie the cat greeted the news of a new roommate with shock and two days of pouting; she would look at Chica, then look at us with frank reproach in her eyes: How could you two do this to me? By Day Three her attitude had mellowed to that of tired resignation: My God, I hate training the new ones. Now, a month and several well-aimed wallops of feline paw later, Mollie and Chica get along fairly well, although Chica -- who loves and is absolutely fascinated by Mollie -- still has a hard time restraining herself from trying to give Mollie full-face kisses. Mollie, for her part, has ended the hissing and spitting and bloodletting, and now maintains boundaries and discipline through clawless whacks, delivered with matter-of-fact impassivity. No; that is not appropriate behavior...WHACK...no; that is still not appropriate behavior...WHACK...

So what breed is Chica, exactly? We have decided that she is a chihuawhat -- part chihuahua, part who knows what.

Friday Five: "It Is Well With My Soul" Edition

2010-11-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

This week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five touches on those little things in life that make us glad:

There are many perks in my life for which I give thanks and then there are some that make everything right in the world during the moment I am enjoying them. I'm wondering what a few of those things - five to be specific - are for you.

1. Morning coffee with my beloved: No matter how harried our day, we try to set aside a good chunk of early morning just to enjoy coffee and conversation with one another. This is also the place in the day where we tend to make household plans and discuss Deep Thoughts.

2. Sunday afternoon country drives. This has become a Sunday routine at our house; coming home from church, eating a light lunch, hopping back in the car and taking a leisurely excursion into Amish country. We enjoy the farmland and woods around us; and we also enjoy seeing our Amish neighbors in their Sunday best, taking part in their own Sunday worship and recreation.

3. Digging in the dirt. Even when it's in the context of digging up some very, very sad, stunted carrots (note to self -- add some sand to the carrot patch next year) or other less-than-successful garden projects, for me there's something about engaging with the earth that seems right and real.

4. Listening to some really good music.

5. Snowed-in days. I love those mornings when we wake up to several inches of new snow; the schools are closed; everything is white and still outside. It's a great day to wrap oneself up in an afghan, pour some hot tea and read a good book, or watch a classic movie. (This is an attitude readjustment from my life as a commuter, when such snow days were a cause of much angst.)

Friday Five: Comfort Food, Media Course

2010-10-29T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here in Michigan this week the weather turned for real. The leaves are for the most part off the trees; the autumn flowers are gone; we are officially now in furnace/afghan/comfort food weather. Which makes the RevGalBlogPal Friday Five challenge this week especially relevant:

Today's Friday Five is an opportunity for you to list five of your favorite go-to' movies/tv shows/books. You can use images, links, explanations or Netflix.

Comfort media, in other words.

I used to be one of those children who would read and re-read the same beloved book until the spine was broken and the pages were dogeared, or become so attached to a television show that when it was cancelled it felt as if my world had been turned upside down. Those days, I'm relieved to say, are over; although part of that "overness," I suspect, has less to do with my growing up and more to do with our increasingly fragmented attention in the wake of so many reading, viewing and listening choices. But there are still a few films and books and musical selections I turn to when I need the media equivalent of a warm, snuggly afghan:

1. Fried Green Tomatoes. One of the few chick flicks I enjoy and can watch over and over again. (How weird is it, though, to be reintroduced to Mary-Louise Parker in Weeds, a series I'm finding oddly addicting...pardon the pun.)
2. A Charlie Brown Christmas. Having seen what they're doing to the Charlie Brown franchise on ABC these days, I'm glad I have my own copy of the old and unimproved original.
3. Seed catalogs. These used to be a kind of visual Xanax for me in the dark of winter. Now, thanks to the miracle of the Internet, if I'm stressed out I can access them anytime, for a pleasant interlude of virtual garden planning.
4. Cookbooks.
5. James Taylor and Carol King. The early years, specifically. Destressing balm for the ears and psyche.

Friday Five: Got Connections?

2010-10-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

This week's RevGalBlogPals challenge asks us to examine our connections...so here goes:

1. Self: Who was your hero/heroine when you were about ten years old?
I have always taken a shine to heroic righters of wrongs: Robin Hood, Zorro, Sherlock Holmes. I also was moved by people who overcame obstacles -- disability, prejudice -- to become change agents in the world. Those were my heroes when I was that age.

2. Family: Who are you most like? Who is most like you?
I think dispositionally I borrow heavily from both parents. But the person most like me...I think my maternal grandmother, a lady I never got to know because she died when I was maybe two. She was very creative and bright; despite a rough start in life thanks to an evil stepmother right out of a Brothers Grimm story and a life of poverty and illness, she found joy and beauty in books, in music, in nature, in the domestic arts.

3. Friends: How do you stay in touch?
The much-maligned Facebook has been a real tool for me to find and keep in touch with old friends from various ages/stages in my life. A recent find was an old penpal I hadn't been in contact with in almost 30 years. Right now I'm trying to find friends from my "Cadillac years" (the Michigan city, not the automobile).

4. Neighborhood, community: What are ways you like to be involved?
Well, as frequent readers know, we get to know our neighbors by doing business with them. As two transplants from elsewhere, we don't have familial or social connections in our town, but we've gotten to know a lot of locals through hiring servicepeople or by patronizing farmstands and home-based businesses like our Amish friend Mary's basket and quilt shop.

5. Job/church: Do you see a need that will help in developing connections?
One of our weak areas at church is adult religious formation. I think that might someday provide a means for building relationships between people, but the trick is discerning what people need and want in terms of growing in discipleship. It's been our experience that floating new programs in a top-down way -- "We think people need X class, so here it is" -- is a sure way to fail. We've not yet discerned an organic desire for any kind of new group bubbling up within our congregation.

Bonus: Here is an interesting Pew study on social networking among older adults.

Wade in the Water...

2010-10-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

I know. I should probably write about why I've been scarce in the blogosphere, what I did on my summer vacation and other questions my remaining readership may have.

And I will. But first I want to talk about this other thing:

Water.

Water has been on my mind the past few weeks as we ponder how to best care for our backyard pond, an "inherited" feature of our property that we want to keep healthy for the living things that live in and around it.

This is a big spring-fed pond, almost as wide as our lawn and maybe 10 feet deep, not a little kidney-shaped plastic pool. We don't have aeration or other mechanical devices to keep the water oxygenated; we don't do chemicals; we're basically relying on Mother Nature to keep the pond's ecosystem going.

And it has for the most part. It is home to two slider turtles and a multitude of fish, planted comets from the pet store as well as an assortment of tiny wild fish that have just shown up (probably as a result of fish eggs migrating via wildfowl feet.)

But a population explosion of fish this summer has got us worried about winterizing the pond; making sure that we don't experience winterkill, a condition that happens when toxic gases from decomposing plants become trapped under ice and suffocate pond life. This happened to us a couple of years ago; we were horrifed, come spring thaw, to find dead frogs and fish bobbing in the water.

So I've been doing a lot of reading. I've been raking dead leaves and vegetative muck out of the water as I've been able. I've been moderating our fishes' snacks to lower the ammonia content of the water for winter. I've been asking around on gardening forums about creative, non-electricity-using ways to keep open spots in the pond during the winter.

Keeping water clean is hard work, even on our relatively small scale.

Millions of human beings around the world have no access to clean drinking water or safe sanitation. That's why I, like a lot of other bloggers today, are inviting you to think about the importance of clean water to the whole world (and, as our Native American friends would say, to all our relations on this planet), to learn more about this issue and to, if you're able, lend some support to programs that help make water and sanitation available. On the right side of my blog you'll see a widget for the United Nations' clean water initiative; it's likely that you'll also find information about clean-water initiatives on the websites of your church bodies' aid/development agencies and other faith-based organizations.

As many of us are reminded everytime we celebrate a baptism in our churches, water is a good gift of God. We should give thanks for ours...and we can help others to receive this gift.

Who's on the Banner Committee?...

2010-09-08T18:43:00.000-07:00

And here I thought that big-box churches had the edge on pop-culture fluency...

see more EpicFail

Friday Five: Riding the Storm Out

2010-09-03T18:43:00.000-07:00

In honor of the hurricane bearing down upon the Eastern Seaboard, the RevGalBlogPals offer a storm-themed Friday Five challenge this week:

1) What is the most common kind of storm in your neck of the woods?
Hmmm. That's tough to answer. I think I have to give the edge to summer thunderstorms, even though we've had some recent dry summers with nary a thunderboomer...I was just saying to Fellow Traveler the other day that this is the first summer in a long time when we've had some proper storms. Now, when I lived in northern Michigan, it seemed we had a blizzard once a week during the winter months -- blizzard as in can't-see-the-road, snow-up-to-the-axles blizzard. Not so much down here.

2) When was the last time you dealt with a significant power outage?
We have been pretty fortunate in this regard...I think last winter we had about a day and a half without power, but that's it. That's compared to the Great Ice Storm of 1970-something -- I was in high school at the time -- when a massive ice storm pounded the state for a couple of days, and we had no power for almost a week. Having an auxilliary wood stove in the basement made staying in the house tolerable...but I recall the joy of finally sinking into hot, soapy bathwater after a week of furtive teakettle-heated PTA hygiene in a refrigerator-cold bathroom.

3) Are you prepared for the next one?
One word: hotel.

4) What's the weather forecast where you are this weekend?
Ccccold for the first week of September (63 degrees F tomorrow); rain tomorrow, but sunny on Sunday and Monday.
5) How do you calm your personal storms?
For hurricane-level storms, the Jesus Prayer is one of my tried-and-true lifesavers; for less intense storms, chocolate or oaked chardonnay or some mindless television all work well.

Bonus: A little Lena Horne...

...a little Jim Morrison...

...and some REO:

Friday Five: Dorm, Eh, Vous?

2010-08-29T13:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it's Sunday, not Friday...we've had a somewhat busy week, you see, a SON's WEDDING AND ALL (20 years in the making, but it's a long story), so I'm running a little behind. Actually, this first post-wedding afternoon, Fellow Traveler has conked out in the bedroom of the cottage we're renting here in the Portage Lake area north of Ann Arbor, while I'm brewing some iced tea and getting caught up on the 'puter.

But this is all actually somewhat relevant to today's Friday Five. Because we've spent much of the past week running errands back and forth between here, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti -- homes, respectively, of the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University. The campuses there, as well as their surrounding cities, are gearing up for Welcome Week and the start of the fall semester; we found ourselves sharing the local highways with cars jam-packed and spilling over with back-to-school stuff, and even gave one befuddled parent in an Ann Arbor parking lot directions to campus while the flushed, freshman-y young woman beside her could barely contain her excitement. That did bring back memories of our own university days. (The photo above, by the way, is of Yakeley Hall, my home for three years at Michigan State.)

So, with that in mind, I commence to our Friday Five:

1) What was the hardest thing to leave behind when you went away to school for the first time?
Our new puppy. My parents' sweet little fuzzy-faced mutt had been killed by a car earlier in the summer; but despite their initial declaration that they were never having another dog ever again, by August they'd placed a classified in the local paper inquiring about "Benji-type" dogs. The day the paper came out they'd gotten a phone call from someone who said she'd rescued a cute terrier-mix puppy from a downstate freeway median but just couldn't keep her; might we be interested? My dad said sure; so the next day the family drove by and introduced us to a raggedy, rail-thin but flamboyant pup who leapt from the car, gave kisses to everyone within licking distance and proceeded to race around and around our house as if saying, "I like it here! I like it here!" So Mitzi became part of the family -- two weeks before I left for school. That was tough.

2) We live in the era of helicopter parents. How much fuss did your parents make when you first left home?
The concept of helicopter parents has certainly changed over the decades. When I was in school the deal was that, barring emergency, I would call home every Sunday evening to check in; I'd let the phone ring twice, then hang up, and the 'rents would call me back so I wouldn't have to pay for a long-distance call. This would wind up being maybe a 10-minute call if any of us were particularly chatty. My mother would write me every other week, and I in turn might manage a monthly written summary/unload of stuff too personal to communicate over the phone lines. And this was a rarity; most of my friends talked to their parents far less. How odd this seems now, in these days of families attached 24/7 to their cell phones and Facebook pages.

My parents -- neither of whom went to college -- did not make a great deal of fuss when they moved me into my first dorm room; it was a pretty businesslike transaction (despite my inner "YIPPEE!" ready to burst out). But many years later my mom told me that they were both traumatized by this event; that they cried all the way home.

3) Share a favorite memory of living with schoolmates, whether in a dorm or other shared housing.
Even though I loved being in college, I always felt the odd woman out on my particular dorm floor; a poor country kid surrounded by affluent suburbanites, daughters of auto-company execs and other professionals. I only knew of perhaps three other women on the floor with a similar background.

One night, after coming home late from a Lutheran campus ministry function (I was a church geek even then, although in those days church geekery tended to involve beer before, during or after said church function), I found one of the blue-collar women, a studious education major from a homeftown nearly as small as mine, sitting forlornly in the hallway; she'd forgotten her room key and was waiting for her roommate to return from the bar. The floor seemed otherwise empty; it was the weekend, after all, and most people were out partying. She had been out herself, and had evidently had a lot more to drink than I had with my Lootern buddies; enough to completely disable her self-censoring mechanism. And she was in the mood to talk. To me. About everything.

So I kept her company out in the hallway, as she proceeded to unload all the deliciously snarky observations about the rich girls around us that I shared deep down but had never been able to articulate to anyone before: the materialism and conspicuous consumption; the lack of real interest in academics and the life of the mind; the not-terribly-hidden bigotries against various minorities on campus and petty unkindnesses toward other students in general; the silliness of Greek life; the sense of entitlement that was often mind-boggling to those of us who didn't come from well-to-do or education-friendly families; the way the reality of their behavior conflicted with the fantasies we'd had about escaping our smallminded small towns for ivy-covered halls filled with big ideas and progressive thinkers. When I heard, "____ YOU, you BITCHES," come out of the mouth of this normally meek future schoolteacher, each word suspended in echo down the empty hall, I felt like a therapist helping someone through a catharsis...maybe even my own.

After that evening, whenever we met in the hallway or at some gathering we always seemed to give one another a special raised-eyebrow acknowledgement: We've got their number, sisterfriend.

4) What absolute necessity of college life in your day would seem hilariously out-of-date now?
Typewriters; typing paper; typewriter erasers; carbon paper; press-on type for graphics projects.

5) What innovation of today do you wish had been part of your life in college?
Laptop computers. Back in my college days, only the geekiest of the geeks over in the honors science dorm had access to personal computers -- and we're talking the Atari/first-iteration Apple kind. I remember taking an off-campus adult enrichment class on the Apple, being totally befuddled by the whole thing, and thinking, "What possible practical use will this ever be to me?"

Bonus question for those whose college days feel like a long time ago: Share a rule or regulation that will seem funny now. Did you really follow it then?
Co-ed dorms had become the norm at MSU by my time, so my own single-sex dorm, and the rules that governed male visitors, already seemed like a quaint novelty -- as did the Women's Lounge in the Student Union. I myself liked the restrictions; I didn't particularly care for running into other students' male sleepovers in the communal shower room, or the puerile types who tried crashing the Women's Lounge (which was very well-appointed, quiet and comfortable compared to the other common areas of the Union) to make a point about reverse discrimination or to pick up women or to leer at lesbians or whatever.

Self-Care, New and Alt.

2010-08-10T17:56:00.000-07:00

So here's what's happening in my ongoing campaign to get well-er with the help of a sympathetic holistic DO:

After running me through some labwork, Doc says that I have some issues with my adrenal glands -- specifically, my fight-or-flight hormones are going full-tilt boogie from the moment I get up in the morning until late at night, wreaking havoc with everything from my blood pressure to my insulin production to my lady issues. "The saber-toothed tiger is after you all day," she said. She told me that if I don't do something to change this state of affairs, I run a very good risk of developing diabetes.

First she changed my blood pressure medicine from a calcium-channel blocker that was making me lightheaded to the point of almost passing out in the mornings to a diuretic and a magnesium supplement. She prescribed me fish oil for blood pressure as well as cholesterol control. She directed me to an herbal supplement for evening out my blood sugar during the day, and another for adrenal health. And because my Vitamin D level was so alarmingly low, she told me to take that as well as maximize my intake through prudent sun exposure and dietary sources.

All of which sounds like a whole lot o' pills. But Doc wants to eventually get me to the point of not needing this stuff. Which brings us to the lifestyle-change section of this program.

Doc is not a fan of high-protein, low-carb diets because they tend to be hard on the kidneys. She is steering me toward the Mediterranean diet model -- big on fresh vegetables, fruits and legume; a moderate amount of whole, preferably minimally processed grains; healthy fats; a glass of wine on occasion; and quite modest helpings of meat, mostly fish or chicken.

She also, while happy that I'm doing a lot of gardening and other weight-bearing kinds of daily tasks, wants me to spend 30 minutes a day on aerobic activities like walking; and she wants me to do the aerobics in the early evening because of the way my metabolism works. This to me is counterintuitive; I prefer walking in the morning; and it's bumping our dinnertime ahead to the old farmer's suppertimes I grew up with. But I'm compromising by doing some easygoing handweight resistance exercise in the morning, between getting the coffee going and feeding Mollie. Doc also told me to schedule relaxation, in any way that works for me, into my day the way I'd schedule any other daily to-do.

I'm only maybe three weeks into this routine. But so far I've noticed that I'm sleeping better, while having more energy during the day. I'm no longer experiencing near-fainting spells. The walking is,among other things, improving my posture -- and giving me some quality quiet time in the pleasant subdivision behind our house. And both FT and I think my moods are on a more even keel.

Now, I know much of this advice is simple common sense. But it's helpful to have a doctor -- and a partner -- who are willing to be my accountability partners in this process.

Meals on Wheels

2010-08-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

Got a chicken in the pot today, stewing away with some vegetables, destined for a big pan of chicken and noodles to send over to our friend with lung cancer.

This is a sad story that seems to be getting sadder. Not necessarily the prognosis -- she doesn't yet know if her chemotherapy has been effective in battling her disease; I take her to get her first post-chemo MRI tomorrow. But I detect a certain loss of hope in our friend, who wasn't in good health even before her diagnosis; and part of that may be due to living in her household, with yappy, needy small dogs, a difficult elderly mother-in-law who spends all day motionless in a kitchen chair, smoking and grumping about the lack of "fun" in her life, and a mostly-absent partner who, at least to us, seems to be drawing back emotionally as well in a cutting-her-losses kind of way. I'm not going to judge; this may be denial or depression or fatigue or tough-girl bravado: "I can handle this." But it's obvious to two outsiders, let alone her partner.

Fellow Traveler and I tend to have boundary issues in the other direction. But we, along with a sympathetic neighbor, have been taking our friend to her medical appointments; and when we learned that the other partner was not even attempting to make meals, leaving the sick partner and Mama scrounging the kitchen for food on a catch-as-catch-can basis, we decided to commit to making two meals a week for the family -- an entree and either a side dish or fruit dessert, enough for an evening meal and leftovers for lunch. We've been making one scratch meal and one "semi-homemade" meal using various boxed food products as a base for an entree.

This work has meaning for me. I've been enjoying creating menus to take over there, and preparing the food. And on some level it seems like a kind of karmic do-over for the years when my mentally ill aunt was in a downward spiral, my mother was too anxious and enmeshed in 40-year-old sibling issues to respond to that in very effective ways, and I was so angry and unhappy with my life at the time that I -- like our sick friend's partner -- just disassociated myself from the whole thing until I was forced by circumstances to step in and be proactive on my aunt's behalf. And I also remember, in my grumpy 30's and early 40's, being consumed with that same inward-turned resentment expressed by our friend's mother-in-law, in the midst of my aunt's mental breakdown and my mother's increasing fragility and anxiety-paralysis: I'm not having any fun. When is it going to be my time to have fun? Ouch.

You can teach an old dog, I hope, new tricks; it's taken me almost 50 years to get compassion in a gut-level way, but I'm trying to get a handle on it, day by day.

A Memorable Friday Five

2010-08-07T17:57:00.000-07:00

This week's Friday Five is about memories. In honor of that theme, I'm illustrating my post with a photo of a Brownie camera, one of the memories of my childhood. My parents, who were not keen on picture-taking -- too expensive -- kept the Brownie in their bedroom, in the drawer of the headboard, next to my mom's jewelry box, and only brought it out for holidays and other special events. Closing my eyes now, I can even smell the musty, leathery smell of the camera. But I digress.

We were asked to share:

A treasured memory from childhood: Going to the grain elevator with my dad in the summertime, and getting a quarter to put in a rusty, battered old Coca-Cola machine that sat in a dusty corner. The elevator smelled of grain...molasses...mineral blocks. Sparrows chirped from the rafters. I would buy a bottle of Coca-Cola, and split it with my dad. It's never tasted the same since I was a little kid.

A teenage memory: Another farm-related memory: Making hay. It was a great summer job. I drove tractor while my dad stacked the hay bales. My father was very exacting about baling and wouldn't tolerate lost hay; I had to practice to aim the baler right down the middle of the windrows, and turn corners so that not one strand of loose hay escaped the baler -- or else I'd have to go back, after the field was baled, and pick up all the missed corners. Once I was sufficiently schooled in that task, though, I was happy to drive around and around, thinking my own thoughts, composing Great American Novels, observing the wildlife around me in the fields and surrounding pastures. I really think every teenager should have a job that involves some sort of manual proficiency, and a tangible work product.

A young adult memory: Other than my university years, I don't have a lot of happy young adult memories. After I graduated from college I couldn't find a job in my major, or indeed any kind of college-graduate-worthy job, and wound up working in a bookstore. If you have to slum, that's about the best slumming job there is. But I recall walking home from the food coop one day, and being overtaken by a wave of despair and hopelessness. I will never find a real job, I remember thinking. I am going to become one of those burned-out college town lifers who haunt the sidewalks and cafes decades after their university careers. It actually took me two more years to escape that fate.

A memory from this summer: We just made a good memory, this very weekend, by taking a spontaneous two-day stealth vaycay up to Suttons Bay for the Suttons Bay Art Fair. (This pleasant surprise was made possible by the Saginaw Chippewa tribe -- ironic considering my profound lack of interest in gambling. Earlier in the week FT had been called away from a stained glass project for The Kids by her sister, whose car had broken down -- in Frankenmuth, two hours away. No one else was available to help. FT reluctantly made the trip downstate, got her sister back home, headed north -- and stopped en route to discharge some frustration at a regional casino. Ten minutes into her grumpy arrival she hit a jackpot at a nickel machine. When she called me, she was so excited that she could barely make sense. FT's 10-minute flirtation with Lady Luck pretty much paid for our excursion. I'm not complaining.) We had a romantic evening meal at North Centennial Inn, a restored inn with a lovely wrap-around porch overlooking a shady perennial garden. The food was wonderful; the service was professional and discreet; the atmosphere was evocative of historic "lake country." It was a beautiful way to spend a cool summer evening.

A memory you hope to have. I would like to be able to, at the end of my days, genuinely say, Thank you for the gift of my life.

Bonus: And on that note, here's Dave Matthews singing a favorite Beatles song of mine:

Friday Five: ...And That's Why It's Good to Be Me

2010-07-30T17:29:00.000-07:00

On the RevGalBlogPals blog today, Kathrynzj writes:

This Friday Five will post while I'm at the beach which for me is more than a vacation destination, it is a trip home. I have found it quite easy to wax nostalgic about the places I used to live (well, except for one) and have begun to wonder what it is I like about the place I'm living now? For instance I sure do love the beach, but this picture was taken about 30 minutes away from my house - not too shabby!

And so I ask you to please name five things you like about where you are living now... and as your bonus - 1 thing you don't like.

Excellent -- we were just talking about this very thing during one of our evening countryside excursions. And it fits nicely into this Sunday's lessons too, which made me think about wanting what we have instead of having what we want.

Five things I like about where I'm living now:

1. Proximity to the countryside. We are literally five minutes away from some of the prettiest countryside in rural Michigan -- roads lined with tree tunnels dripping in wild grapevines, Amish farms and farmstands, winding brooks. It is a blessing to, most evenings during the light months, say, "Hey -- let's go for a ride."

2. Our yard. I love our spacious yard and the trees that circle it, providing a buffer between neighboring properties. Fellow Traveler and I both appreciate a certain amount of breathing room around our house, and we have it. We also appreciate neighbors who are close enough to provide very basic community -- our backyard neighbor, for instance, an ex-big-city-cop, keeps an eye on our home if we're gone, and as regular readers here know we more or less shared a dog with our neighbors to the west -- but distant enough both physically and socially to not be up in all our business, and vice versa.

2. Our patio. We have a patio with a gazebo providing (give or take various layers of outerwear, of course) three seasons of enjoyment. It's a great place to drink one's morning coffee or work on some portable household chore. And we are slowly replanting around it, so next year it will be even nicer.

3. Stonework. Our house, which dates back to the 70's, features some pretty cut stonework with real, not prefab, stones. That reminds me of the fieldstone farmhouse of my childhood.

4. Proximity to basic necessities. Even though there are definite drawbacks to living on a busy county highway on the outskirts of a town, it's also nice to know that if we need a grocery item or a pizza or gasoline it's all about three blocks down. So even though we feel "out in the country" we also feel connected to civilization. Sort of.

5. Interior decorating. Our interior is still a work in progress -- our family activities this past year put a temporary halt to our plans to paint and to embark on a re-do of our bedroom -- but I love the melding of our two households, and the eclectic look of our rooms -- antiques and Michigan-themed artwork and funky collectibles.

One thing I do not like: We haven't had the time or energy to tackle renovating our main bathroom, which was originally decorated in a style I can only call WTF. Imagine a robin's-egg blue toilet; a cornflower blue tub-and-shower unit; a sink in the same shade but marbled; a kind of French provincial white vanity, all surrounded by tiles with a 70's-contemporary stylized flower print. When the robin's-egg toilet broke about a year ago and needed to be replaced, I cried -- with joy. I'm much more excited by repainting and decorating our bedroom; but I will not be sad when our bathroom also gets its eventual makeover.

Friday Five: Decisions, Decisions

2010-07-23T13:06:00.000-07:00

This week's Friday Five is all about one of my least favorite things in the world -- making decisions. But at least the originator of this quiz was kind enough to narrow them down to pairs:

1. Cake or Pie No contest here -- PIE. What's not to like about pie? You've got your rich, delicious crust; you've got any number of yummy, gooey fillings. Whereas cake is just...well...cake.

2) Train or Airplane In our part of the world we have no commuter trains. The closest we have are scenic-tour "color trains" that go up and down the state a few times during the autumn months. So if the goal is actually getting somewhere, I've got to go with the airplane. If, however, I lived somewhere with comfortable, affordable passenger rail service, I might choose the train just for the adventure of it, and the windowside sightseeing.

3) Mac or PC I've only had limited exposure to Mac use. My impression, after spending a couple of hours on a Mac once, was, "Hmmm...this is nice. When can I go back to my old computer?" Sorry, Mac fans.

4) Univocal or Equivocal I prefer the wiggle room of equivocal. Univocal is too Brave New World.

5) Peter or Paul Neither; try Mary (any of the major Marys of Scripture). Both Peter and Paul remind me of the sort of ranty, unpleasant sidewalk preachers I used to walk a half-mile around my university campus to stay away from. The Apostle John's okay too; I wouldn't walk a half-mile around John.

Our Green Scene

2010-07-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

After devoting yesterday to marinating in my sadness, I resolved to start getting on with the business of everyday life this morning.
And several of those tasks involved tending our various gardening projects around the yard.

One of our landscaping goals for this year has been to change up the area around our deck -- to pull out the old, straggly spirea shrubs and fill those spaces with perennials. This turned out to be much harder than I first thought; spirea have an extensive, insidious root system, and I wound up undergoing an unexpected regimen of strength training through several hours of chopping and twisting and yanking. (I'm not sure what benefit, if any, was gained from the concomitant cursing.) I left one tidied shrub on either side of the deck -- a case of turning a necessity into a virtue, because I simply couldn't dislodge one of them -- which actually turned out to make some design sense, because the shrubs form a logical boundary between the sunny and shady ends of the deck.

Now that that's been done, and a layer of new topsoil put down around the deck, the challenge has been to fill in the blanks. Fellow Traveler, who enjoys flowers and who actually came up with the idea of a perennial border but who is frankly not that interested in the particulars, gave me carte blanche in the selection and purchase of plants. I in turn have been restraining my horticultural exuberance and obtaining plants in a measured, prudent way, taking some time each week to visit the local fruit markets' rather neglected hodge-podges of small, cheap perennial starters or, if I'm feeling in need of inspiration, making a trip into the country to the nearest perennial nursery. This place is on an old farmstead, the business right in the backyard of the owners; despite this, it carries a staggering number of potted perennials displayed in thematic groupings all around the old farm outbuildings, and an entire field of hybrid daylilies that looks like a Monet painting when they're in full bloom.

I don't really have a picture in my head of what this is going to look like when it's all planted. With a few calculated exceptions, my plant purchases have been fairly random; the space around our deck encompasses all manner of light exposures, and requires both tall and short plants to fill, so there's lots of room for improvisation.

Today I planted some mixed sedums in the rocky bare space left by the demise of an absolutely ugly old potentilla that the previous owners used, not very successfully, to screen the area around the air conditioning unit. Sedums are great bee flowers, so if we follow through with that goal next year our little friends will have some needed nectar in the autumn. On the opposite side of the deck, in an equally troublesome, unattractive bare patch, are some lavender plants, a tricolor sage and a novelty pink, with soft gray needle-like leaves and odd, raggedy-fringed flowers in various shades of their namesake color -- all plants that can take heat and poor soil and that generally look pretty whether or not they're in bloom.

And then of course there's the vegetable garden. Thank heavens I raised the beds this spring. We've had so much rain this year that after each storm the walkways around the beds have been turned into canals, with ankle-high water; the garden would have been underwater several times this year if it had remained level with the lawn. But we were so busy in April and May, and the weather was so uncooperative at times, that things got planted about a week and a half later than I would have liked, and now our vegetables are a little behind the local curve. But they seem to be doing well; the lettuce is flourishing despite our naturally acidic soil, the seed-raised tomatoes are healthy and blooming, snap beans and cucurbits are loaded with blossoms, and the first planting of corn -- a new experiment this year -- is starting to sprout tassels. Today I planted a row of snap beans for a late crop -- admittedly pushing the envelope, but these are two-year-old seeds I wanted to use up, and by my calculation they can still yield -- and pulled a bucketful of crabgrass out of various beds. There is still much about gardening I need to learn -- I'm still trying to understand the trick of getting my radishes to make bulbous roots, and my maiden attempt at using black plastic mulch for the hot-weather veggies, while practically effective so far, looks like hell. And as I look at the modest rows of herbs, I can't help but think that I consistently underestimate how much we use these in the kitchen.

Gardening is good, cheap therapy, I've found.

Memento Mori

2010-07-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

Mortality has been on my mind a lot lately.

Not just because of Gertie. This has been going on for awhile now.

Maybe it's a function of middle age, when our bodies start letting us down in various ways (sometimes literally) -- I mean, when my doctor looked me in the eye and told me that she needed to lower my blood pressure because "I don't want you to die of a stroke," that got my attention. As did Fellow Traveler's recent confirmation that the ongoing, intense pain in her jaw that radiates into her ear and down her neck and often keeps her up at night is the result of rheumatoid arthritis eating away all the cartilage between the bone; that this problem isn't fixable by a bite guard; that there may be some serious surgery in her future.

And I'm sure part of it is also due to the sheer number of people we know, face to face and on the Internet, who are fighting life-threatening illnesses. One of FT's high school friends, whom we saw at her recent reunion, had a stroke about a week ago. Right now we personally know a half-dozen people diagnosed with particularly scary cancers, who are undergoing chemo and radiation.

And then there's random, accidental death, like Gertie's. It could have been any of us, in one of our vehicles, making the wrong decision at any second.

Cheery thoughts, I know. But it's been an uncheery day, mostly dark and rainy, and I spent most of it on the sofa, staring out the window.

I'd like to say that I have full confidence in Dame Julian's assertion that, in the end, "All will be well and all manner of thing will be well." But when death ceases to become an abstraction and feels more like a target on my own back and that of my loved ones...it's hard to hang on to a sense that there is any meaning or purpose or redemptive outcome in it. And, I'm sorry to say, the skeptical, deconstructionist Zeitgeist of the last two centuries has so eviscerated the Christian message of resurrection that it's ceased to become believeable for many people -- because there's little sincerity in its proclamation; more of what my pastor calls "anxiety management"; a comforting fairy story, a little nursery tune to whistle in the darkness of the vicissitudes of life.

And let's not even talk about the loss of an animal companion. Outside the circle of people who love and have been loved by animal companions, it's not taken seriously -- not by the Church, not by health professionals, not by employers, not even by family and friends who don't understand. I know a patronizing pat on the head when I feel it.

Fellow Traveler and I have, since Gertie's death, received many personal and heartfelt condolences by individuals. But as far as any practical help from "faith stuff" -- got nothin'. And as far as thoughts of what lies beyond our own mortality -- I don't hear a lot of there there in the Church these days. Not only don't we have the courage of our convictions these days, we don't even seem to have convictions, no matter how many times we recite the Creed or celebrate what we call "the foretaste of the feast to come."

I really do not want to be this gloomy, or to depress other people. But this is what I'm feeling, straight up. Hiding it behind a wan smile and fuzzy platitudes would be lying.

Gertie: Gone

2010-07-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

It happened in a blink of an eye.

We were in the Jeep, Gertie and I, driving home from a trip running errands. We had found ourselves behind an Amish cart at a corner, and I patiently waited there for the driver to pull onto the highway and gain some momentum so we weren't tailgating him. Gertie, who loved to bark at horses, was on full alert in the back seat.

"Gert -- now, behave yourself," I cautioned her as I pulled onto the pavement and began to pass the cart driver, who'd gone off onto the shoulder to give me room.

What happened next was -- well, I don't know. I heard barking, and clinking, and then when I looked back to shush Gertie, there was no dog in the back seat. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a dark shape limping into a bush in someone's lawn maybe 50 feet away, and the Amish driver stopped on the shoulder, staring in alarm.

Gertie had never, in her years with us, expressed any interest in jumping out of the window. But apparently this is what she did.

I stopped the Jeep, ran back toward the yard and scooped up Gertie in my arms; she was quiet -- too quiet -- and panting.

"I am so sorry," I said to the Amish man.

"Don't be sorry," he said. "It was my horse she didn't like. I hope she'll be okay. It looks like she might have broken her leg."

We were only about mile or so from home. I don't remember driving there, but I did. Fellow Traveler was in the garage, cleaning. She smiled when she saw me -- until she saw the look on my face.

"We need to go to the vet's right now," I burst out. "Something's happened to Gertie. She jumped out of the car."

Up to this point I'd been running on adrenalin, my mind a blank, but at that point I broke down.

Not Gertie. Not our baby. Not "our" dog.

FT quickly examined Gertie, who winced and whined a little, but mostly just lay there on the back seat. She'd begun to bleed.

"Here's what I want you to do," FT said. "I want you to go inside and get a damp towel. Then I want you to find the veterinary hospital phone number." I numbly nodded.

FT came in while I was still wringing out the towel. "I don't want you to go with me," she said. "There's probably going to be a lot of pain during the examination. You've seen and done enough right now."

I sat in the living room and listened to the Jeep speed down the driveway and to the next town over, where the closest veterinary clinic is. Across from me Mollie the cat slept, blissfully unaware of the drama playing out in our home. I started to sob.

A very short time later, I got a phone call. "We are at the vet's," FT murmured softly. "We're going to have to put Gertie to sleep. There's too much internal injury for her to get better." This veterinarian's office euthanizes all its animals at the end of the business day, so FT had the veterinarian call our local animal shelter, where we'd taken Katie and Cassie when they were dying, where the staff had been so kind and gentle; and they told FT to bring Gertie right over.

"Now, I can drive home first," began FT.

"No -- no," I cried. "Don't make her suffer any more."

Another half hour passed; and then FT pulled into the driveway.

"I'm so sorry," I sobbed when a red-faced, weeping FT came through the door. "I'm sorry you had to do the hard thing."

She shook her head. "No; you had the hardest part of the day."

And that's how it's been around here. We cry; we hold one another; we reminisce; we try to distract ourselves; we move to opposite chairs and just sit quietly with our own grief.

This morning we began picking up after Gertie for the last time: collecting the dog biscuits scattered throughout the house, bagging up her battered assortment of toys, cleaning her pawprints off the French doors. We're also trying to somehow convey to Mollie the cat, who keeps sniffing and staring out the windows and looking at us quizzically, that her best pal is not coming back.

I know that people who aren't pet people don't get this; don't get how we, whose circle of friends includes people fighting terrible cancers and other mind-numbing calamities, can be so seemingly dispassionate about those things but so uncontrollably distraught over the loss of a dog. And frankly, if animals aren't your thing, I'm not even going to bother to explain.

But for those of you who love your own animal companions: I don't have to explain this to you, because you know the hurt. Add to that the fact that Gertie was our first dog together, and our only dog for most of her life, and the circumstances of our rescuing her, and the circumstances of our losing her...this is a really, really tough one.

This ain't my first rodeo when it comes to the death of an animal. Growing up on a farm, death is a constant presence among the livestock. And I've lived through my share of dead dogs -- dogs who darted in front of cars in a final, fatal "ooh, shiny" moment; dogs in extremis whom my rifle-bearing great-uncle would take "out back" at the behest of my dad, never to be seen again; graying, cataract-and-arthritis-ridden dogs who simply gave up the ghost in their sleep after a long, full life. Right now I can't read any treacly homages to pets crossing the Rainbow Bridge...my belief system gives me no comfort, frankly, damn it...I just brood and weep and try to stop the images of those horrific moments and the self-punishing "What ifs" from circling around and around my head.

Gertie was the Best Dog Ever. That's what we would tell her every day, and it's what I'm saying now. She didn't deserve the way she entered into this world, and she didn't deserve the way she exited it. But in the time in between she added so much joy and humor and affection and companionship to our lives. Maybe that doesn't count anywhere but in our hearts and memories. But it counts to me. Gertie left the world, and our lives, a far better place for her having lived in it.

Rest in peace, good friend.

A Forgetful Friday Five

2010-07-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

Oh, wow...this Friday Five won't be pleasant...

a) What's the last thing you forgot?

Putting our environmentally friendly clothing shopping bags BACK IN OUR VEHICLES SO WE CAN ACTUALLY USE THEM.

e) How do you keep track of appointments?
I used to be able to do this in my head. I have now graduated to a write-on/wipe-off memo board on our refrigerator and, if I'm really more on top of things than usual, a memo to myself on my cell phone.

i) Do you keep a running grocery list?
We do, again on our special refrigerator board. Whether that list actually makes it into a store is another story.

o) When forced to improvise by circumstances, do you enjoy it or panic?
I used to panic; now I generally utter an un-church-ladylike word and punt.

u) What's a memory you hope you will never forget?
Interesting question. I've been doing a lot of reminiscing about my childhood lately, so I treasure some of the happier memories of those days. And the adventures of FT and me during our first year together, I never want to forget, particularly our fateful first meeting over Buffalo wings and iced tea.

Friday Five: Here's the Church...of My Dreams

2010-07-02T18:35:00.000-07:00

Bonhoeffer may have looked askance at "wish dreams" of a perfect Church...but I don't think it hurts to periodically think about what sort of Church we would all like to be part of. And that's this week's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five Challenge. I'll keep it short and sweet -- discuss if you wish:

I want to be part of a Church that...

1. pays as much attention to the spiritual formation of its people -- laypeople and clergy alike -- as it pays attention to doctrinal and social issues.

2. aims for depth as well as breadth, on a multiplicity of levels.

3. says what it means and means what it says.

4. inspires people outside the Church to say, "If I were a Christian, that's the kind of Christian I'd want to be"...and follow up on that.

5. has enough confidence in its beliefs, practices and mission to live into the future without fear -- without falling into desperate faddishness, without equivocating in order to avoid conflict, without drawing its wagons into a circle, without giving up.

6. has potlucks featuring food groups other than sausage, sauerkraut, whipped cream and Jello. (I know...blasphemy. I suppose now I have to turn in my membership card.)

Hangin' With the Amish

2010-06-29T08:33:00.000-07:00

With the growing season underway, we've been stepping up our Amishing around the neighborhood, buying onions and strawberries and other delicacies from their local roadside stands.

One day I decided to give back, just a little. I planted dozens of tomato seeds this winter, with seedling mortality in mind -- but all of them flourished, and I wound up with many more than what I needed. So when we went on our weekly round of the farms, we stopped at a couple of the visibly poorer farms and asked the ladies of the house if they'd mind taking our extra tomato plants.

The reaction was interesting. "What do you want for them?" both women immediately asked, frowning.

I explained our predicament. "We don't want anything," I said. "You're doing us a favor. And we're thanking you for all the good food we get here."

That broke the air of formality in both households, and we had some enjoyable discussions about tomato husbandry and farming in general. The women seemed a little surprised, and approving, that I'd started the plants from seed, and wanted to know if they were heirlooms or hybrids. (I always feel woefully incompetent in survival skills when I deal with the Amish, so it was frankly satisfying to show off my modestly green thumb.)

Afterward FT noted, "I wonder why we get more out of our relationships with our Amish neighbors than the 'English' ones."

We live in a community where people with life competency of any kind are in short supply -- long gone, thanks to Michigan's protracted economic doldrums -- so our 'English' neighbors tend to be, as our friends in social services say, lacking in coping mechanisms and a support network...fancy talk for My Big Fucked-Up Redneck Life. And, ironically, as gay folks, even though we know we'd not be accepted in Amish society, we also seem to have a common set of detractors and harassers -- fundamentalists and good ol' boys, both groups possessing a dangerous mixture of ignorance, inferiority complex, entitlement mentality and xenophobia. When we see a group of 20-somethings in a pickup truck trying to run an Amish buggy off the road, or read hysterical screeds by fundamentalist pastors bleating on about saving the Amish from the dangers and dysfunctions of their "cult," we nod and think, We get that too.

At the same time we hold no idealistic allusions about Amish society. We understand that their community is not immune from spousal and child abuse, addiction, out-of-control teenagers and the vagaries of an economy that affects even these most self-sufficient of people. We obviously have difference of opinion about everything from gender roles to the wise use of technology.And looking at the Amish through my Lutheran lenses, I might point out that, no matter how "called out" from the world Christians might presume to be, we're all still sinners, and no amount of good-works points is going to change that. Despite the grace I see in their actions, I don't always see a lot of grace in their theology.

But -- we still like 'em. We just do. And we love the kids, who -- unlike the sort of Stepford fundamentalist-homeschool kids I've encountered, or the jaded, prematurely "adulted" and technology-numbed children of the rest of the neighborhood -- actually act like kids; like the little boy who played hide-and-seek with us around his parents' roadside stand, or our furniture-maker friends' toddler daughter who, while we were talking bidness with Dad, was trying unsuccessfully to write on a bemused family dog with an ink pen, or the self-assured tweenage counter girl at the Amish bakery who, taking a marketing cue from McDonald's, always goes for an extra sell: "If you like that bread, maybe you'd like some cinnamon rolls too."

Our corner of Michigan may not be the hippest or the most scenic or the most historic. But our Amish community helps make it a better place to live.

Loving the Neighbors

2010-06-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

Fellow Traveler and I have friends, a lesbian couple in their sixties and seventies respectively, who live a few miles down the road from us; FT met them at a neighborhood Christmas party shortly after moving to this area. The two live in a household I'll call Dysfunction Junction, a remodeled trailer on the edge of a river.

How can I describe this couple? They remind me of characters in a 1950's lesbian pulp novel, all growed up but still dressing and acting according to the Sisterhood's script of those times; think tough girls in jeans with a pack of Camels rolled into their T-shirt sleeve. Each has a past that she seems extremely reluctant to talk about. One partner has numerous health problems and hasn't worked for years; the other, younger partner has worked for years at a physically as well as emotionally punishing nearly-minimum-wage job. They've also been caregivers to two live-in invalid parents, although they seem to have burned bridges with many of their other family members -- including their children.

The two dwell in a cloud of blue cigarette smoke, so much so that we literally can't visit their home for more than a few minutes at a time before FT is sent into an asthma attack.They operate in a state of perpetual personal and household disshevelment; on the margins in a multiplicity of ways. They cycle through doomed money-making schemes; financial crises; caregiving problems; health issues; simultaneously exploitative and exploited "friends" who come and go. We in turn lose track of them for months at a time; then they'll call asking for help of some kind, or wanting to borrow some tool or appliance from us (that is inevitably lost or broken) and we'll briefly get involved in their lives again...until, once more, their neediness begins to overwhelm us.

A few weeks ago, after months of not hearing from them, one of the partners appeared on our doorstep. This time it wasn't about borrowing a saw. She told us that the other partner had been diagnosed with a large, inoperable tumor in her lung, and was about to undergo chemotherapy. She sank down into our sofa and, blinking away tears, began unloading about her partner's illness; problems with her live-in parent; loss of an elderly friend; her overwhelming physical and emotional fatigue and worries about money.

So here we are again, trying to help this couple without becoming completely sucked into the vortex of their household trials. We said we could help take the sick partner to chemotherapy once or twice a week. Knowing how difficult it was for the well partner to make meals for the household -- the sick partner tended to be the family cook, but is now too weak to do that -- we decided we'd make food for them once a week; enough for a good meal and leftovers. FT, who has facility with computers, offered to help fix their computer so that the sick partner can maintain some contact with her family through e-mail.

Yesterday we dropped by to pick up the computer. The ill partner, who just finished her first round of chemotherapy, met us at the door, ashen-faced, surrounded by a pack of yapping toy dogs (the result of a failed let's-make-money-selling-puppies Grand Plan, plus a rescue dog, plus Mama's dog). She let us in, then pulled me aside amid the chaos of the dogs and the durch-und-unter of the tiny living space and the vacantly cheerful, nonverbal mother-in-law who spends the day just sitting at the kitchen table.

"I need some spiritual guidance," she said. "I've been trying to pray. I pray an act of contrition and and Our Father every night. And I've been doing some bargaining with God too. But...I'm just really scared right now."

I can't remember exactly how I responded to her; something about how every prayer is a good prayer and to just keep talking to God; some sort of unnerved, caught-off-guard church-geek gibberish. I also told her to call me if she just needed to talk or wanted me to come over.

It's a daunting thought, being asked to provide the closest thing to pastoral care that this lady is willing to accept.. I had my Moses/Peter moment: "Um, no, God, you really don't want me to do this job. Because deep, deep down I'm shallow; too shallow to walk the valley of the shadow with anyone. You want someone with spiritual chops; not me." But now that I've had a day to think and pray about it, I know that I am being called to carry Christ, somehow, into the life of this individual. How that happens...well, we'll see.

Affliction

2010-06-25T10:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight we're attending what's being called a retirement picnic for one of my fellow lay ministers -- an "excellent woman," as they say, in her seventies who was a pillar of our congregation decades before going through the Lay Ministry Training Program. A little (okay...a lot) opinionated and stubborn and set in her ways...but an invaluable part of the church family; a lady who can terrify you if you fail on some point of church protocol, but who prays every single day for each of the names on our lengthy church prayer list, and who helped hold our faith community together during dark days in the late '80's and early '90's when its viability as a congregation was questionable on a week-to-week basis.

Shortly after being commissioned, this lady was diagnosed with MS. In the years that have ensued, she has faced down this foe with the same mixture of faith and cussedness that's earned her the rank of matriarch in our church. When her legs grew unsteady she (with much grumbling) began using a footed cane, then a wheeled walker, on her Sundays as assisting minister. When she was having a bad day and coudn't count on enough strength to make it through an entire service, she reluctantly allowed others on the team to help. Meanwhile, she defied her adult children at every turn when it came to driving or working in her yard. "They think they're the boss of me," she'd confide to a sympathetic listener. "I'm just going to do what I want to do." And that's the attitude she's had toward her illness in general.

This past month, though, on a weekend when FT and I were out of town, we heard that our matriarch had taken a bad spill while assisting during the service, and had decided that enough was enough; she was bowing out of the lay ministry team.

This is an added sadness in a year when a double share of life-threatening illnesses have been dealt to our little congregation and community and wider circle of church friends. It's made me, particularly in these perimenopausal days, start thinking more about my own mortality, and priorities, and it's made me more impatient with the petty issues that junk up the life of the Church. When I hear someone going on about The Troubles in the ELCA or the color of the Communion wine or some line item in a church council meeting, I want to shake them and say, "There are people in our congregation who are fighting for their lives every single day -- and you want me to care about this? Are you ******* serious? What is the matter with you?" Although I suspect the matter is the same nervous whistling in the dark that keeps us all distracted from what's real and immediate and painful and scary.

So, anyway, we're toting two Amish pies to the picnic tonight, where we will thank our friend for her service and wish her well in the newest iteration of her ministry to our church.

Friday Five: It's Summertime!

2010-06-25T08:31:00.000-07:00

An easy, light and breezy RevGalBlogPals Friday Five this week -- name our five favorite things about summer.

1. The light. I covet the sunlight of summer all year long...waking up in the morning light only to discover that it's 6:00 a.m., then working and playing hard all day in anticipation of the sunset, only to realize that it's now bedtime.

2. The food. I'm sorry, but wintertime's styrofoam-flavored out-of-season vegetables imported from God knows where can never compare to a sun-ripened berry just off the vine, or a fresh cob of corn five minutes from stalk to steaming pot, or a juicy tomato pilfered from the garden at midday.

3. The out-of-doors. As pretty and as exhilarating as a winter day can be -- most of us can only take so much of it outside. Not so during the summer. (Especially for those of us with shady patios or porches.)

4. The evenings. One of our favorite things to do this time of year is head out on a mini road trip after supper -- just drive down country roads where the trees meet overhead, watch the farmers finishing up their haying for the day, enjoy the colors of sundown. Or we sit on the patio with some iced tea, or wine, and review the day.

5. The water. This is ironic coming from a non-swimmer -- but I love the water. I love still-fishing on the edge of a lake, listening to the waves wash up on the beach; I love rivers in the summer, with the lush riparian flora and an occasional flash of fish.

Bonus: Thing I don't like about summer: Apart from the bittersweetness of the solstice itself -- it all goes downhill from here, lightwise, until the end of December -- I never feel comfortable in summer clothing; it always feels too binding, even in khaki shorts and oversized T-shirts.

Another bonus: Best ad campaign ever: Every time I see a "Pure Michigan" travel ad on TV I want to drop everything and head up north to Crystal Lake or the Leelanau or Taquamenon Falls. I was delighted to see these running in New York when we stayed with The Kids. Please, out-of-staters -- we need hybrid vigor and skills here; consider relocating; or at least visit and spend some money:

Question Time

2010-06-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, in an effort to step up the content of our church blog, I began a series called "Worship Whys," where readers could submit questions about Lutheran worship.

Perhaps predictably, the first week no one responded until the last minute; and I suspect that was a mercy question from our pastor or a friend of mine. Our people are not communicators, and they also have a fear of standing out that may override the anonymity of blog comboxes.

Things picked up a bit in the weeks thereafter. We got some questions that sounded as if they were penned by unwilling young catechumens -- "Do you have to be confirmed?"...whinge a little as you read that aloud -- as well as a series of questions from someone who sounded like a lost Baptist who'd stumbled on our blog by mistake. Fellow Traveler, who is not a Lutheran by birth, also submitted a couple of very good questions.

I knew the feature had finally arrived, so to speak, this week, when a new questioner -- someone obviously a part of our congregation -- asked, "Why is apple [sic] juice a Communion option when it's supposed to be the Blood of Christ...and who the HELL picks out the hymns?" As FT notes, once you take the snark out of them, they're good questions. So I was happy to respond to them.

It's risky to begin an FAQ service in a church, for the same reason that it's risky to put up a suggestion box in a workplace: It's can become a vehicle for a lot of whiny passive aggression. On the other hand -- we might actually be teaching our people something. And there's not always the time or opportunity in the course of a church service to accomplish the same thing. So Worship Whys is staying on the schedule for the time being. And I'm actually looking forward to more cranky questions; because it means that people are reading the answers.

Wild Hares

2010-06-24T12:34:00.000-07:00

I am spending much of this beautiful, post-storm June day on the sofa staving off a headache that I fear is the precusor to whatever viral bug has stricken Fellow Traveler. I'm holding my nose and drinking Airborne (yes, I know, there's no proof it works; don't judge), and hoping that the heaviness behind my eyes doesn't begin a predictable chain reaction of sore throat, stuffy sinuses and fever.

I need badly to get outside and do things. Our last trees of the season arrived yesterday -- a pair of sourwoods and a Carolina silverbell -- plus a native autumn clematis vine, all of which need replanting somewhere in our increasingly crowded wood margin. And I'm behind on some of my succession planting plans, and in starting some perennial flowers for next year.

Amid this retrogressive two-step, though, I have developed a number of what Fellow Traveler calls wild hares...you know, those sudden new interests; those odd, persistent promptings to do some new thing.

I've always had a thing for magnificent obsessions. One year, as a child, it was learning shorthand from my mother's old high school textbook. (Not terribly successful.) Another year it was stamped embroidery and rick-rack lace. Then I become completely engrossed in poultry raising. As an adult, I went through The Year of Knitting and The Year of Self-Help Psychology and The Year of Two-Mile Walks and the Year of Making Cakes From Scratch.

Here are a two of my latest wild hares:

Going to the library. I used to be a library geek, even in our book-deprived community. I used to take out a half-dozen books at once and read them all in a weekend. (And then forget to return them; I hope the library board have invested my fines in some fund for a future expansion.) Then my mom died. Then I met Fellow Traveler. Then I got busy. And I forgot about reading books. Wow; I can't believe I just typed that; but I did. This summer, though, I want to read some books, just to read them. The other day we were talking about antiques, and I remember how my aunt used to find interesting old books in secondhand stores -- books that sold for a dime, or by the foot -- and read them. I'm interested in reading a couple of those -- jackets long gone, covers faded, signed in fountain pen on the inside by some long-gone owner. Maybe a travelogue, or a treatise on botany or beekeeping, or one of those progressive novels for girls featuring a plucky heroine defying convention by tenting with the Campfire Girls or going off to college. That and a book by a Michigan author. Traverse magazine's latest issue has a list of 30 beach reads by Michigan authors; that might be a starting point.

Mosaics. We spent many weekend afternoons last year learning how to work with stained glass. Fellow Traveler loves this. I love the look of it, and there are parts of the process (like grinding) that I enjoy and think I do fairly well...but I don't have FT's ambition to launch into a full-bodied, serious art project in this medium -- because frankly I don't think I'm good enough. If I'm going to fail, let me fail with some fairly small, low-investment objet d'art. But the other Sunday we took an afternoon trip to our stained glass instructor's shop for some supplies, and while we were there I found myself attracted to the mosaics in progress in her classroom; someone was in the process of covering a cement replica of the "Bird Girl" statue made famous on the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and I marveled at the tiny bits of stained glass the student was carefully placing on the statue. Then in a book I saw a mosaic patio table using bits of broken china and other colorful tiles, and a mosaic bird feeder made out of a basic $10 pine model covered in ceramic pieces and flat-backed marbles. I can do that, I thought. Not only can I do that, but I can do it using the rather large amount of scrap glass generated by other stained glass work.

I have strangled other wild hares. My interest in terraria, for instance, died a-borning, mostly because I realized we don't have adequate natural light in our home for most houseplants of any kind, and no spot in our living areas that would really do such a project justice. I also experienced a momentary interest in making cheese -- you know, like Martha Stewart telling us that homemade mozzarella is "quite easy and fun" -- but after coming to from that patio reverie I had to remind myself that, no, what I really like doing is eating artisanal cheese.

I haven't had any church-related wild hares of late...ironically, the more involved I am in lay ministry the less proactive and innovative I want to be. My pastor and a couple of other folks want me to lead Bible study Sunday mornings, and I've enjoyed the couple of times I've led Bible studies for our quilters' group during our pastor's recuperation from heart surgery; but my reaction to the sample Book of Faith Bible study we ordered was a big "Meh," and flashbacks to my mind-numbing experiences sitting in on Navigator Bible studies in my college dorm.

We'll see what becomes of the hares bouncing around in my brain this summer.

The Joy of Not Working

2010-06-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this on a cold, wet, sinus-swelling day here in mid-Michigan, after a quick walk outside to inspect the grounds (those last stubborn holly seedlings are still resisting greening out, but dum spiro, spero), and to quickly pop a four-pack of sweet williams into the new perennial bed before they became too sodden in their plastic container. Earlier this morning I wrote a review of Sunday's lessons, with questions for reflection, for our church blog. When I'm done with this post I might wander into the kitchen and clean up a straggle of evening dishes before they begin to multiply in worrisome ways.

It's a slow day, by both choice and circumstance. But as I sit here I am filled with gratitude for the opportunity to have a slow day, in a way I didn't have when I was working for a paycheck.

What would I have done on a day like this back in the old office -- a day where I didn't feel on my game either physically or mentally? Probably a lot of purposeful action with little work product actually being done, and some surreptitious Web-surfing and subsequent self-guilting in between.

So it's a blessing, even as I'm swallowing my Advil, to enjoy the freedom of a dark, dreary day where not a lot gets done, without the looming presence of multiple bosses and incoming assignments from other people.

That's one thing. And I'm also blessed to be able to (when weather finally permits) engage in some heavy, sweaty, grunt-inducing physical labor. Who needs a weight room when pounds of soil await moving outside? Who needs special flexibility exercises when there are seeds and seedlings that must be planted, and unruly growth that must be pruned? And it's labor that results in a tangible, seeable, living result; unlike years of PR pitchmanship on the sinking boat of increasingly irrelevant social services -- services that most of the intended recipients emphatically don't want.

So my days have a rhythm and a purpose even without a timeclock. I usually work on the church blog and its Facebook companion very early in the morning -- I'll occasionally work on drafts for other days of the week, but I haven't really gotten into multitasking here. Then FT and I have morning coffee and breakfast together and informally review the day ahead. Mondays, and sometimes another day each week, we go to church for a half day; FT works on church software issues while I check phone messages or work on my own church-related tasks. Oftentimes we pair our "church day" up with grocery shopping, since church brings us a few miles closer to Midland, or we go visit FT's elderly, infirm aunt and uncle, and help them with a few outdoor chores. We come home and do household and outdoor work. In the early evening we like to take a family "ride" around this or that neighborhood, a ritual that we tell ourselves if for the benefit of our easily bored dog but is really about spending quality time together. FT paid a profound personal price to earn the freedom of this kind of life; but we're so thankful that we can live it.

We never don't have anything to do. The other day we were wondering how we managed when I was working 40 hours a week. And we have some big projects looming ahead, most notably finishing up work on our garage office and really, truly getting started on working with our stained glass, instead of playing around at the edges of this pastime; and, next year, getting our honeybees.

I think about looking for a paying job again -- not this summer or even fall, because our schedule is too full to attempt a new job, but sometime. I worry, not about our current living expenses, but about the future, and also about keeping my skill set sharp. I'm frankly not sure I want a job, as they say, "commensurate with my education and experience"; that's the phrase that keeps getting me into situations where my job winds up eating my life. This old dog is willing to either learn a new trick or to keep busy in some non-status-laden, non-high-commitment position; a job I can truly leave behind when I go home. (Are there even any such things left -- status-laden, high-commitment jobs?)

But in the meantime I'm happy to "chop wood and carry water" in our own little world of work here.

Talking to Trees

2010-06-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow...grow." -- Talmud

I found myself doing just that bright and early this morning as I made a post-rainstorm inspection of our yard and the many seedlings I"ve been planting this spring.

This is part of what I call Project Bee Here Now: Enhancing the bee-sustainability of our property by planting species favored by honeybees for nectar and pollen. Yes, this is a long-haul project. (As we noted ruefully today, with the economy the way it is we may as well invest in the maintenance and aesthetics of our home, because people aren't exactly burning asphalt to relocate to our little burg.)

For the last two months I've scoured online nursery catalogs, extension-office tree-sale lists and other sources for inexpensive bee-friendly trees and shrubs. And I've purchased some: red osier dogwood; redbuds; basswood; ninebark; sumac; elderberry; buttonbush; highbush cranberry; winterberry, aka Michigan holly. Most of them have gone around the periphery of our yard or our backyard pond.

It's been very rewarding to watch the very unimpressive bare twigs of these seedlings suddenly sprout little green leaflets. But the holly -- a deciduous species, fairly common here in wetland areas and much beloved for its prolific orange-red berries in the wintertime -- has been a tough case.

I planted the hollies in a humus-y raised semicircular bed at the margin of our woods -- a neglected spot in the yard that until recently had been home to a few half-dead rhododendrons and a burgeoning colony of poison ivy. Those are gone now, after much effort, replaced by the hollies, a pair of pieris shrubs and some wildflowers; and for the past month I've been silently willing the leaves of the wispy holly twigs to emerge.

"Come on...grow," I'd wish each morning, staring disappointedly at the bare seedlings. "All the other seedlings are growing -- even the buttonbushes I stuck right in the pondwater. You're slacking off here. Grow. Please."

Then last week, after being awakened in the wee hours by our bored dog more interested in an outdoor romp than a morning constitutional, I trudged to the forlorn holly bed, expecting to be disappointed again and wondering what I might plant there instead. I focused my sleep-bleary eyes at a holly twig.

A tiny green leaf was protruding from the end.

"Yes!"

In the days to follow, four of the six seedlings have shown signs of life; green buds or full-blown leaves. I thought the last two twigs looked somehow bumpier today, but that might just be wishful thinking.

Con-Evos and the ELCA

2010-05-31T05:07:00.000-07:00

With the disclaimer that listening to a bunch of earnest, neo-Calvinist Intervarsity/Navigators-type men (they're always men) doing theology together is my idea of what hell's waiting room must be like...you can read what they think about ELCA Lutherans here and Internet Monk, specifically the comboxes attached to the series on problems with Evangelicalism (written by an Evangelical-to-ELCA fence-jumper) and the discussion of Lutheran baptismal theology (always good for a cagefight in them thar parts).

Actually, I think hell's waiting room would be more fun. Except maybe for the smelly BP executives dripping crude oil and dead fish over in the corner.

Trinity Sunday Mashup

2010-05-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

Generally speaking our Worship Committee does an outstanding job, with very limited resources, in planning our music and other worship elements from week to week.

Memorial Day weekend is always a conundrum, though, when patriotic glurge regularly collides with good theology; and this weekend Trinity Sunday made the mess even worse.

So we got "America the Beautiful" as a prelude, and -- argh -- "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" as a closing hymn.

I was assisting today, and after the last note of that hymn, when it was my turn to announce, "Go in peace and serve the Lord," I put a special emphasis on the word "Lord." I doubt anyone noticed, or if they did they probably attributed it to some sort of verbal tic; but it felt good.

Catching Up

2010-05-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

So it's finally taken a bout of procrastination -- in this case, putting off trying to write about John Calvin for our church blog's regular "Saints Alive!" feature -- to get me to post here again.

I hope you're having a pleasant Memorial Day weekend. We spent a spontaneous two-day mini-vaycay up in the Leelanau, on what we told ourselves was a reconnaissance mission for The Kids to price wine for their Michigan-themed wedding in August; we began our journey home just as the weekenders' cars started multiplying in the opposite lane, and laughed at our good fortune all the way south. When we got back home I did some gardening; we went on a ride in the country yesterday evening and treated ourselves to ice cream; today we're going to grill some steak.

(Yes, I know; all part of that big, scary Gay Agenda. If you don't watch out your spouse or significant other may ask you some late afternoon if you'd like to go out for a sundae and a spin around the scenic back roads of your county, and then maybe you'll find yourselves taking a long weekend away, and pretty soon civilization as we know it will crumble into ruin.)

Meanwhile, though, we had to do something very difficult.

Four months ago, at the behest of our pastor, we met a woman he had encountered in the course of his volunteer first responder work. She was in her early 40's; had no family or friends in the area or even in the state; had gotten here through an abusive relationship with the father of her small child and wound up in a shelter; was in a custody fight for the child and had a constellation of other personal problems. Our pastor thought that she might benefit from the influence of strong, independent women who could give her a glimpse of an alternative to the sort of dysfunctional situations she seemed to be falling into with regularity. Her stated plan was to leave Michigan for her home state as soon as she could legally do so with her child; it sounded as if she had family there to help her make a new start, and the shelter (one of the best in the state) was setting up a plan to get her temporary housing and other assistance in the other state as soon as she arrived.

Because both Fellow Traveler and I have a tendency to fuzzify boundaries when we hear sad stories and wind up being taken advantage of, we set up some initial ground rules for ourselves when engaging with this person: We weren't going to give her cash, ever. We weren't going to invite her into our home. We weren't going to run errands for her. We were simply going to be friendly voices on the phone, giving her encouragement; and because she'd asked, we were going to take her to church with us, even though it meant getting up an hour earlier and driving to another county to fetch her and take her back. We even figured that we would make Sundays into an outing and treat the woman and her child to lunch. We'd been given a timeline of about a month and a half for her legal status to be resolved, so we thought that was a reasonable commitment of time and resources. We also consulted with our council members and discretionary-fund committee and came up with the means to send the woman and her child back to their home state as soon as she was legally able to leave. Our quilting ladies gave the little family a quilt to take home with them.

But after an initial month of what we had felt was a positive experience, this happy scenario of do-gooder do-bees and soon-to-be-vindicated mother-in-distress began to unravel, for a number of reasons; without going into detail, while we had enough background into this person's history to know that the situation was complicated, we suspected that another backstory was going on, concurrent to our having gotten involved, that we were not a party to. Meanwhile, the ex-boyfriend's attorney had managed to delay hearing dates, so our short-term commitment was stretching ever farther into the future. This began taking a toll on us, our good will, even our health; we'd get home from our Sunday odyssey and promptly fall asleep, exhausted just by dealing with her multidimensional neediness. This past Sunday was particularly stressful and troubling.

The woman had an important hearing this week, so we were surprised when she didn't call us to tell us what happened. We suspected it was bad news; but when we got ahold of her, she told us she'd been awarded joint custody and had been given permission to go back home with the child; the outcome she had consistently told us she'd wanted more than anything else and that the shelter, as far as we knew, had also been planning on. But now she was waffling: "I have to make some decisions...I may not go there right away..."

At that point both Fellow Traveler and I had had enough. So we told her that we had taken her about as far as we could; that if she were going to be living where she was for an extended length of time she needed to find a church home in that community, and that the staff there -- who'd invited her to their churches in the past -- would be a good resource. We told her that we weren't planning on breaking contact with her, that we wanted to hear from her about how she was doing, that we wished her well, but that we simply couldn't maintain the weekly schedule of driving her back and forth. She didn't say much in response. And that's how we left it. We haven't heard from her since.

I am trying not to be disillusioned or bitter here, particularly because we'd been informed about much of the mess we were stepping into when we said that, yes, we'd keep track of this person. I also know that we were just two little part-time-volunteer church elves on the periphery of what is really a very commendable, comprehensive program for families in crisis, and that this person has an entire staff of trained people working and advocating for her, who are responsible for her much more than we ever were and who have the expertise and means to assist her and her child more than we ever could. But, that said...we're not going to do this type of favor anymore for people we don't know. If that makes us bad Christians, well...just add lack of hospitality to our Bad Behavior list.

We have a wonderful life; we have a summer busy with family responsibilities; and we have a commitment to one another, to help and support one another. We want to invest more time and energy in one another and our life together.

D-Day

2010-04-27T19:33:00.000-07:00

Well, in true "Be careful what you wish for" fashion, my new hands-on holistic doc called me 8 o'clock sharp this morning. The doctor is calling me? I thought. .When's the last time that happened? Oh; yeah; never.

The doctor was reviewing my recent blood work, she said, when she saw something surprising. "You seem to have a serious Vitamin D deficiency," she told me. "A normal lab score for Vitamin D is 70. Yours was 17."

Here I was, in the middle of delighted wonderment at finally finding a proactive healthcare provider, only to be confronted by this alarming news.

The human body can absorb a decent dose of Vitamin D through relatively short periods of time outside. Despite my geeky ways, I am outside a lot. I also eat a lot of vitamin-fortified foods and D-rich fatty fish as well. I didn't get it.

The doctor explained that Vitamin D deficiency can be caused by a variety of things, not just diet or sunlight exposure, and also noted that this problem can factor into several serious health problems, including cardiovascular health, metabolic illnesses, certain types of cancer and depression. She then prescribed me 10,000 IU's of over-the-counter Vitamin D per day; a number I later learned many doctors and nutritionists want to make a minimum daily dosage for everyone.

Well. Now I have a handle on at least one piece of my metabolic puzzle. For that I'm grateful. And I'm grateful to my doctor as well.

Spring Cleaning

2010-04-27T18:57:00.000-07:00

We're in the midst of spring cleaning around here. We had our friend the professional housecleaner do a thorough clean last week, and this week we are tackling the yard and garden ourselves. Today I even ventured into Molly the cat's room, formerly the junior spare bedroom/office, stripped the sheets on her bed and threw them in the wash for the first time in nearly a year. (Molly is the the messiest kitteh on the planet, on a par with Bill the Cat in Bloom County, so removing her bedclothes resulted in a cloud of particulate -- hair, crumbs of mulch from around the house, Lord knows what else.)

As you may have noticed, I'm doing some spring cleaning here as well: changing up the blog template, rebuilding my lists-o-links. I'm also rethinking what and how and when I want to post here. But for now I'm likin' the minimalism of the new format; it feels like a new beginning.

"Friday" Five: "Now Boarding" Edition

2010-04-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

While some of my RevGalBlogPals are headed for the annual Big Event, Fellow Traveler and I are planning a trip of our own later this spring, to help Daughter-in-Law celebrate her first Mother's Day...and of course to see Miss Ruby, who is growing into a real little corker. So this is a timely Friday Five.

1) Some fold, some roll and some simply fling into the bag. What's your technique for packing clothes?
Well, frankly, my favorite technique is letting Fellow Traveler do the packing. Between her military career and her other traveling experience, she has it down to an art. By contrast, I do not come from a traveling family -- we never stayed one night away from home during my entire growing-up, and even in my young adulthood I was either too poor or too cheap to travel on my own -- so I don't have the skills. FT, for instance, has the ability to roll clothes up into tiny, manageable bundles that are nonetheless ready-to-wear when unrolled. I cannot do that. So I don't. My contribution to the process is the reminder list: "Did we remember to pack __________? The _____________? How about your _____________?"

2) The tight regulations about carrying liquids on planes makes packing complicated. What might we find in your quart-size bag? Ever lose a liquid that was too big?
Our solution to the reg problem is to simply not pack liquids -- we just hit a drugstore upon arrival and buy an assortment of sample-size toiletries to last us our trip.

3) What's something you can't imagine leaving at home?
We're pretty devoted to our laptops, so they generally come with us...although when we stay at our favorite motel in the Leelanau, we give up Internet access other than our phones. (Red Lion Motor Inn, for anyone interested -- nice, clean old-school lodging that is neat and clean; more than reasonable; pet friendly; kitchenette units available; Traverse Bay beach access across the street, complimentary charcoal grill and bonfire privileges.)
4) Do you have a bag with wheels?
Oh, yes. I can't imagine schlepping non-wheeled bags around.

5) What's your favorite reading material for a non-driving trip (plane, train, bus, ship)?
Nothing too heavy (like my pastor's attempting to get through the Koran on one of his cross-Atlantic adventures). My favorites are murder mysteries a la Nevada Barr, or lifestyle/foodie magazines. The in-flight mags? They get my germophobic self going; I tend to leave those in the seat pocket.

Bon voyage to all the Big Event attendees! Have fun!

People Fatigue

2010-04-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

It's been an unquiet few weeks here in Lake Wobegon.

In the absence of our pastor, we lay ministers have been stepping up our duties, including taking on much of the chaplaincy tasks our pastor normally does himself. Our interim has made himself available for providing Communion and doing the more heavy-lifting assignments, but we're the ones who've been keeping him informed about what's going on with whom, and doing other hospital and shut-in visits.

So far I've done two of these, and found them to be meaningful, un-onerous work -- but probably only because I've had fairly easy visits, one with a family member during another's surgery and one with a member of the congregation I get along with fairly well, who's having some big medical problems right now. The other lay ministers are so much closer geographically to a lot of our regular shut-ins -- and in some cases are related to them -- that I've been a bit out of that loop, but am not complaining.

But meanwhile, Fellow Traveler and I have been ministering to individuals who lie outside the formal boundaries of our churches. One is a woman referred to us by our pastor, whom he met in the course of his first-responder work, prior to his bypass surgery. She is an abused partner engaged in a very nasty custody battle with her former significant other. She is getting excellent assistance in a safe place, but our pastor thought she might need some affirmation and advice from women. So we've been doing that; have been bringing her to church, taking her out for Sunday dinner, helping affirm her good choices and trying to keep up her good spirits -- all the while knowing that there are two sides to every story, and understanding that both parties in this relationship made choices that got them where they are now. FT and I go through alternating waves of satisfaction and exhaustion dealing with this lady; by the time we drop her off Sunday afternoon and head home, we're usually both completely spent for the rest of the day.

And then a high school friend of FT's with whom she reconnected on Facebook -- an individual who had a rough start in life, who went into the Army to escape his home and wound up a disabled veteran whose physical and emotional injuries have impaired his work life and relationships for decades -- tried to commit suicide; that despite FT working hard to get him his veterans' benefits (which he hadn't even filed for until recently) and get him connected to VA help for PTSD. We rushed to the hospital where they'd taken him -- a cross-country adventure across the state -- prayed with him and talked to his spouse. FT used a connection at the VA to get him transferred to a facility with expertise in PTSD, and went to bat for him when the hospital he was in tried to keep him there and charge his wife's insurance for the bill. (This family would never be able to pay the copays for several days in ICU.) We've been tracking our friend's progress this past week, and almost found ourselves on the road again when the VA facility released him without a way to get back home. (He was able to rent a car; and was empowered enough through his therapy to say, "You know, I really want to do this myself.")

I'm pretty much over any savior complex I may have nurtured under the surface. This is tough stuff; and, again, it has sapped much of the energy out of us. FT, who has her own PTSD to contend with, spent most of the day after the hospital drama in bed; I've been feeling unwell in ways that I've been trying to blame on my blood pressure medication but may have some psychosomatic component as well.

This is really hard work. And one of the hardest things is not stepping over boundaries; of remaining objective and dispassionate enough to not be completely overwhelemed by other households' tragedies and traumas. That's something they never taught us much about in lay ministry training, maybe because the goal of that particular program was more modest than the reality of what some of us are doing in our congregations.

We're having another "helping" day tomorrow...but we're having Family Movie Night tonight. Don't be surprised if we don't answer the phone or get on Facebook.

A Doctor in the House?

2010-04-10T05:34:00.000-07:00

Ever since the beginning of the year I've been trying to find a new primary care physician.

I have been uncomfortable with my current doctor for some time now, for a multiplicity of reasons -- hour waits (and that was back when I was working; I can't tell you how many times I had to call the office from the exam room and say I'd be delayed) followed by five-minute drive-by exams; perceived disinterest (as in asking me about medications I took and procedures I had a decade ago); difficulty understanding the doctor, partly because of her accent but largely because she seemed to be in a hurry to get out of the room; sullen office staff (I have found that the discernable craic, so to speak, of any office is often an indicator of the health of an organization). And, frankly, when I came out to her, in the context of a discussion involving birth control, I could tell that she was not comfortable at all.

Long story short: After my last six-month checkup I came home and said, "I'm done." So in the meantime I have been doing online research and querying friends about possible other doctors. And I decided to cast a wide net -- Fellow Traveler sometimes goes all the way to Saginaw for her medical exams, so I figured it was reasonable to drive up to an hour for a good doctor.

At first I thought I would stay within my current healthcare system, only because they run most of the hospitals in the area and have the largest number of affiliated physicians -- and they are aggressive marketers, so don't expect any collaboration or cross-referrals. But part of the uneasy feeling I've had with my doctor's office is something I've experienced in other offices within the same system; a certain soulless, bureaucratic herd-'em-through mentality that I'm sure comes from the top down. I know; it's 2010 in America, and who am I to think that I can replicate the kindly, personalized service of my childhood doctors' offices? But then I got angry. We spend a significant chunk of change each month for my insurance premiums, and I don't feel as if I'm getting much of a return on my investment. So why shouldn't I shop around?

So the other night I went through the "Find a Physician" page of a much smaller healthcare system centered about a 45-minute drive away, in the city where we coop-shop and where I get my monthly massages and spiritual direction. I found a couple of female DO's who seemed to be a good fit for a middle-aged female with middle-aged health issues. I did some poking around a few online physician rating websites to cross-reference their names and found nothing questionable or alarming. Then I came upon the actual website -- a self-entitled "un-fancy" one-page low-tech website -- of one of the doctors. She believes in whole-system doctoring, including nutritional counseling and osteopathic manipulation; she has some special professional credentialing in treating persons on the elastic-waist-pants side of young.

I liked it. I followed the e-mail link and sent her a note: Is she accepting new clients?

I have my first appointment with her Wednesday afternoon, when I'm pretty much going to lay it on the line for her that I've felt neglected and rejected and need a basic physical once-over, plus a review of my hypertension medication and some support/professional fanny-kicking to help me lose weight.

That, folks, is the result of a three-month struggle, some days ending in actual tears, to find enough information about area physicians to make an informed decision. What about the people who don't have time or money or facility with information technology? It's been a long, frustrating process to get to here.

"It's Who We Are; It's What We Do"

2010-04-09T13:07:00.000-07:00

Today on Facebook my friend Chris posted a link to this discussion on the Duke Divinity School's Call and Response blog about what, if any, practices are mandated by the Christian faith. Blogger Scott Benhase identifies the following as some baseline normative Christian practices with Scriptural and historical chops, that cross denominational and doctrinal lines:

Participating in the Eucharist on the Lord's Day
Offering hospitality
Forgiving sins against us
Testifying to the faith that is in us
Serving the poor

Of course we Lutherans' brains tend to short-circuit at the very thought of tying our Christianity in a conditional way to doing stuff. Because, we argue, it's not about earning points by doing stuff.

Here's the thing, though. What if the "doing stuff" is not about earning points at all, but rather inviting people in our faith communities into a series of basic intentional practices that will help them live into their baptismal promises? Is there a way we can articulate this that won't degenerate into a merit- or shame-based to-do list?

Discuss, please! What do you think of this list? What, if anything, would you add to it or subtract from it?

Photo by Bill Potter, Lutheran Church of Honolulu

Friday Five: "Open Road" Edition

2010-04-09T12:19:00.000-07:00

After three cross-state trips within ten days, this week's RevGalBlogPals' Friday Five rings home for me.

1. When was your last, or will be your next, out of town travel?
Our last trip was Tuesday -- we had to drop off my fender-bendered Prius (dented in the church parking lot on Good Friday) at the dealership where I bought it, up in Cadillac; and then we took off in the Jeep for a day trip to Leelanau County, replenishing the larder at Pleva's Meats and the Great Lakes Tea and Spice Company and enjoying the early-spring countryside -- forested hillsides filled with wild leeks and red-budded maples.

2. Long car trips: love or loathe?
If I'm a passenger, I don't mind them as long as we take bathroom/leg-stretch breaks. I tend not to like long trips if I am driving, unless we're talking anxiety-minimal blue highways up north. US-2 from the Bridge to the western UP, for instance -- that was enjoyable.

3. Do you prefer to be driver or passenger?
See above. Fortunately for me, Fellow Traveler enjoys driving, particularly urban driving; so our household deal is that I do the "up north" traveling while she does the downstate driving. We do admit, however, to both enjoying the "Driving Miss Daisy" option when we're down south visiting Son #1 and Son-in-Law.

4. If passenger, would you rather pass the time with handwork, conversing, reading, listening to music, or ???
I am an enthusiastic, cheerfully nosy rubbernecker. (Not always advisable while driving.) I can spend happy hours just staring out the window at the changing scenery. If there's no scenery to stare at, I enjoy listening to whatever is on the local NPR station, or listening to music or, if I'm a passenger, reading. (I'm also an inveterate collector of local fliers/magazines/newspapers.) I'm also a reader on airplanes.

5. Are you going, or have you ever gone, on a RevGals BE? Happiest memories of the former, and/or most anticipated pleasures of the latter?
I have not been...if I were to attend one, I think matching up faces and voices to blogs would be great fun.

6. Bonus: A favorite piece of roadtrip music.
FT likes to listen to oldies while driving, and I have been known to play a mean passenger-side air guitar to some of the music of my misspent youth. When I'm alone I tend to leave it on public radio. When we listen to our own music on the road we tend to run particular CDs into the ground. (We leave the iPod at home, partly because we have a dog who eats electronics when she's anxious and partly because we both have a tendency to forget stuff, especially little, easily overlookable stuff, when we travel.) On last summer's trip to the Upper Peninsula we listened to several rotations of Melissa Etheridge's best-of compilation, which included the following -- also a splendid air-guitar tune:

Bloggus Interruptus

2010-04-06T18:00:00.000-07:00

Just a note that I'm still here, still around, still intending on blogging...I've just gotten very busy in the last few weeks, with a multiplicity of things.

I just got back from a day-long trip up north that was simultaneously wonderful and exhausting. I'll have more to say (about many things) tomorrow.

Renewed, Refreshed Friday Five

2010-03-26T12:11:00.000-07:00

Our RevGalBlogPals Friday Five is easy-peasy this week: What are five things that we do to refresh/renew/redo this time of year that is simultaneously crazy-busy for us yet also full of so much potential?

1. Massage. I cannot say enough about the restorative qualities of my monthly one-hour massage at the Freaky-Deaky Hippie Alt.Healthcare Palace. When I'm safely draped, and the lights dim, the ambient music clicks on and the therapist gets out her toolkit of interesting little aromatherapy vials...o mama. When I emerge from the Palace an hour later I am ready to change my life forever, yessir...start that yoga and tai chi, vegetarianize my diet, walk two miles a day. Unfortunately, the Palace is in the same city as our favorite restaurant.

2. Growing plants. As I write, I am champing at the bit waiting for my new grow light, wanting to get my tomatoes in the starters.

3. Adventure-tripping. Sometimes when we feel like we're spinning our wheels we get in the car and just drive somewhere we haven't been before -- which may be across the state or just across the county. It's not about shopping or eating out or sightseeing in a goal-oriented way. It also helps to live with a dog who loves -- who lives -- to ride. She doesn't care where.

4. Music. I'm funny about music. I often forget to listen to it; then I'll hear a piece of music that really speaks to my soul or energizes me, and I think, "Why aren't I listening to more music?" We're a two-iPod, Sirius-accessible, Pandora-bookmarked household, so there's really no excuse other than distracting, buzzy busy-ness.

5. Learning something new. I get jonesed learning things; I figure that as long as the old dog can learn something new about anything, there's still hope.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

2010-03-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

Update on Our Little Parish: Our pastor, thanks be to God, came through surgery with flying colors, is recovering in the hospital and should be home sooner rather than later.

Meanwhile...I've been busy. (As may be evident by my sparsity of posts.) I spent Monday and Tuesday at church answering the phone and doing other tasks related to our pastor's absence, and filled in for him at our last Lenten service this week.

And yesterday I helped welcome our interim pastor to our humble church home. He is commuting from across the state two days a week to act as a pastoral resource, which is partly about doing stuff that we lay ministers aren't authorized to do and partly about, as I remarked only partly tongue-in-cheek, making sure that the inmates don't wind up running the asylum in the next six to eight weeks.

Actually, our interim is a long-time friend of our pastor who, I'm sure, has heard an earful about our congregation over the years. But there's always a first day on the job, and when he walked into the office yesterday morning -- into a scene that included two of our church matriarchs fussing with bulletins and Fellow Traveler installing a new phone system -- I detected the tentativeness of unknowing.

So I took him on a grand tour of the facilities. I shared important names and phone numbers with him. I gave him a heads-up on some of our seriously sick and afflicted. And, as noontime rolled around, Fellow Traveler and I invited him to lunch down the road at the local diner.

The little unincorporated community where our church has been on a downhill slide ever since the end of the timber era, but it still maintains a post office, two churches and a restaurant. The restaurant, as we informed our interim, is the place to meet everyone and learn everything about anything going on in the general area.

The diner is housed in an old false-front building from the village's short-lived glory days; one walks into a kind of lean-to, then opens the door into an atmosphere thick with the mingled aromas of cigarette smoke, brewing coffee and fried onions. I had thought that our presence would be the most newsworthy event of the moment; then I saw the perky, clipboard-bearing young Health Department inspector striding into the kitchen, followed by several pairs of customer eyes, and knew we'd probably only get second billing on this day.

We took our seats behind the booth of one of the church-bulletin ladies, who was having lunch with a crusty old parish patriarch and next-door neighbor to the church who holds court at the diner for much of the day. We exchanged pleasantries, then got to talking with our interim about the neighborhood.

As I was trying to play helpful co-hostess during the meal, though, I kept hearing loud snippets of conversation from the next booth:

"Well, someone had better tell the new preacher to turn off the goddamned lights in the church when he leaves! People keep leaving the goddamned lights on!"

"Shhhh...not so loud..."

"I had to call my boy the other night and get him to stop in and turn off the goddamned lights."

"Shhhh..."

A few minutes later I felt a poke in my shoulder. I turned around to find the old man waving a large, screwlike device in my face.

"Here. Take it. Where you think that came from?"

I didn't know. I fiddled with the interlocking parts.

"That's what the doctor took out of my hip the other week 'cause it was sticking outta me."

I dropped the screw on the table. I looked around for the Health Department inspector.

"Wow...that thing titanium?" inquired a nearby diner.

"Yup."

"That's expensive. Maybe you can sell it."

We proceeded to hear about the replacement procedure, in detail.

Then we proceeded to hear, also in detail, the deficiencies of the gentleman's visiting nurse in dressing his healing wound. Another diner contributed his thoughts on wound hygiene. Gangrene, pubic hair and scabbing all made a conversational appearance.

"That's enough," the old man's luncheon guest murmured.

"Too much information!" echoed the waitress.

After lunch, the interim said, "I really want to thank you two for introducing me to this place."

The thing is -- he was smiling. And I think he meant it.

Ministry Rubber: Meet Road

2010-03-12T12:50:00.000-08:00

My adventures in lay ministry are about to take a new and more intensive turn.

Our pastor is on the docket for open-heart surgery in less than two weeks. He had been experiencing fatigue and shortness of breath during his volunteer first-responder runs that were worrisome to him, more than something attributable to simply physical exertion or stress, so his doctor put him through some diagnostic tests...and found that he has a severely blocked artery needing a double bypass. This appears to have been a shock for all concerned.

So we've been given ten days to get a contingency plan together for how our church is going to run during the almost three months that we can reasonably expect our pastor to need for convalescence.

We had a meeting last night -- the pastor, the lay ministry team, the church council -- and we came up with a plan. What's good is that it's not going to rock the world of our congregation more than it has to be. After some pow-wowing with our synod, our pastor is going to invite his clergy colleague -- someone with expertise in interim ministry who's also comfortable working with lay ministers and who, through our pastor, is very much in tune to how things work in our parish -- to supervise and mentor us lay ministers for the months to come. We envision a weekly staff meeting. This pastor will also be available to do the sort of heavy-lifting pastoral duties that we are not authorized or trained to perform. But weekly worship and the everyday chaplaincy and visitation tasks of the parish, as well as the sort of drop-in/call-in support and referral work that goes on during the week, are all going to be our lay-ministry dog, Charlie Brown, as much as possible. We are also serving the secondary but important function of running interference for our pastor and his wife, who are already getting fatigue by the constant stream of well-wishers coming to the parsonage door, and who will really need their private, recuperative time after the surgery.

As you might recall, our pastor went on sabbatical last summer, an experience that gave us all a taste of how to "do church" in his absence. So we aren't deer-in-the-headlights here. In fact, after our meeting-of-the-whole, we lay ministers stayed afterward and hammered out a pretty comprehensive schedule for Sunday and Wednesday worship.

But it is a sobering situation, and a sobering responsibility. We hope we're up to it, and can invest the entire congregation in the process of keeping things going smoothly into the summer.

If you have a moment, send up a prayer for our pastor and his wife, and for our ministerial team.

Where Are the Musical Lutheran Chicks?

2010-03-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

There are murmurings around our church that Rachel Kurtz, one of the singers/songwriters on the Lutheran youth/campus ministry circuit, might be coming to our area this summer and stop by for a gig.

This would be great.

It's got me to thinking , though: Where are the rest of the women in Lutheran contemporary music?

Is it because contemporary Christian music is in general an unfriendly place for a non-Evangelical female Christian? Is it because male musicians have more appeal for high school and campus ministry types?

I don't have a theory. Just askin'.

Friday Five: "Religious" vs. "Spiritual" Smackdown

2010-03-12T10:08:00.000-08:00

Well, not quite. But this week's Friday Five , inspired by Diana Butler Bass' thoughts on this issue, asks us to list five things we would classify as "religious," and five as "spiritual."

I've never really gotten a lot of the negative animus toward the word "religion," or the idea that there is a strong demarcation between "religion" and "spirituality." Etymologically, the word "religion's" Latin roots have the connotation of restraint, tying back, reliance; which I think is unconsciously reflected in society's current negative reaction to the word vis-a-vis "spirituality" -- that religion artificially restrains our natural urge for spiritual meaning and connection.

But anyway...to comply with this week's challenge, I will attempt to tease out five things I would, if I had to, consign to separate "religion" and "spirituality" columns. It's not necessarily a value judgment, although in some cases I suppose it is; just sayin'.

Religion

1. Polity. How people who share a common faith organize themselves in terms of authority and function.

2. Church membership: Defining the boundaries of what makes someone part of, or not part of, a particular belief system or faith tradition within a belief system.

3. Creeds: Criteria of #2, as well as a response to threats to #1 or 2.

4. Church discipline: Not in terms of personal disciplines, or even the sort of mutual accountability that's part of a monastic community, but the general exercise of power by a religious group/leaders in that group to ensure conformity of behavior or punish members for perceived misbehavior.

5. Theology: The comprehenive system of belief and thought that holds a belief system together; the skeleton that gives form to the spiritual experience of a collective body of faith.

Spirituality

1. Spiritual experience: How we perceive the Divine in our lives and in the life of the world.

2. Prayer: Personal engagement with God , whether by oneself or as part of a group.

3. Spiritual discipline: The organized ways in which we both nourish and respond to the sense of the Divine in our lives: daily worship and prayer practice; meditation; devotional reading; almsgiving; and so on and so on.

4. Sacraments. Another intersection between the Divine and ourselves, through the agency of the simple stuff of everyday life: water, bread, wine.

5. Worship: How we create sacred space, as a faith community or as individuals, for God to move in, touch us, send us back out into the world.

I see a bit of overlap in some of these. Theology, for instance can be -- at least it is for me -- a means of engaging God in a personal way via my brain; spending quality time thinking about God.

And then there's a topic like evangelism -- something that my Good Do-Bee would say is a function of spirituality because at its best it's an outpouring of our own transformative experience with God, but that my cynical self says falls more into the category of religion because it usually degenerates into mere group dynamics -- trying to "win"; trying to get more members on the "team."

My guess is that my responses, as a church geek, look quite different than those of someone who isn't in the church. That would be an interesting study.

Garden Porn Revisited

2010-03-03T16:37:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again...the time when I sort through multitudinous garden catalogs and buy seeds for the veggie and herb gardens. I call it garden porn. And if you're a gardener too, you know what I mean -- all those tantalizing photos of bodacious vegetables and flowers and shrubs and trees and...ahem...that kind of thing.

I am already hooked up with the bulk of my vegetable seeds, thanks to last year's leftovers and FEDCO Seeds, a cooperative out of Maine. (For any interested readers -- they have a very short ordering deadline -- I believe March 15 -- so you'll have to get cracking if you want to buy seeds from them.) Now it's fill-in-the-blank time.

It is always a stressful thing for me to balance my love of variety and novelty with the limitations of time, space and climate.

What I am trying to do this year, as I did last year, is think hard about what vegetables are really better left to our Amish neighbors to grow -- Amish neighbors with expertise, lots of sunny acreage and lots of free labor. It's ridiculous, for instance, to grow butternut and Delicata squash in my partially shaded little plot when Mrs. Mast down the road grows pounds and pounds of exhibition-size, high quality squash. On the other hand...you're not going to see the lovely patisson squash above on any Amish roadside stand anytime soon. Worth the risk for some rockin' steamed baby squash to gently spoon next to our pasta some summer evening out on the patio? Maybe.

So my garden is going to be something of a curiosity shop of heirloom tomatoes, technicolor leaf lettuces, and lots of green beans -- one of the few great successes of last year's poor growing season, which we froze and have been enjoying all winter long. I'm planting leaf celery, another success story -- dried, it's very good in winter soups and stews, especially on those days when you go to the crisper for celery and realize it's all gone. I'm upping the herb crops, since we couldn't keep ourselves in herbs last year. And, as we seriously attempt to help the honeybees and native bees around here, I'm growing more annual flowers, which I like to randomly add to the vegetable garden to attract all manner of pollinators. (And they look great.)

On the live plant front, I'm getting excited by a couple of native-plant sales coming up in the next few weeks. Our local extension office offers inexpensive trees, shrubs and native flowers on a pre-order basis; and in a couple of months a regional nature center will be hosting a native plant sale involving, I believe, plants that have been rescued from building projects; you bet I want some of those.

Of course, part of this irrational exuberance is due to longer, brighter days and the promising drop of thawing snow slipping off the gazebo roof. Next week, for all I know, we'll have an eight-inch blizzard. But a girl can dream.

I Hate RA

2010-03-03T11:06:00.000-08:00

Rheumatoid arthritis, that is.

Fellow Traveler has it. Once upon a time, when she suffered from ulcerative colitis (the two disorders are interrelated), she was so debilitated from RA that she had to use a walker. She was shot up, and puffed up, on steroids to try and manage the pain. It took an ileostomy, and several joint replacements, to halt the progress of the disease and help her regain her mobility. She's more agile than I am these days.

But RA still lurks in her system. It will lay low for weeks at a time, then surface with a vengeance -- one day it may be in her fingers; a couple of weeks later it will hit her shoulder; a month later and she'll wake up with RA in her foot.

For the past few days FT has been in intense pain from RA in her jaw, which is so inflamed that it's swollen and hard; she looks like someone with the mumps, and describes the pain as something akin to a migraine crossed with a toothache. It's bad enough to keep her from talking, or eating solid food. It hurts enough to be fatiguing, to send her into sleep as a kind of natural anesthetic; as I type she's taking an afternoon nap with a microwaveable beanbag next to her aching head. (I'm trying to avoid the irony that this pain really began to flare up after our church's healing liturgy.)

It's a very helpless feeling to watch someone you love try to navigate with this type of affliction, and to wake up every morning wondering if it will be better, or worse, or migrate to some other joint.

FT's doctor has told her that surgery is an option, but a dangerous one because of the proximity of the jaw to the brain; and the operation obviously requires a very long recuperation. It also doesn't have a very encouraging success rate over the long term.

So we are trying to assemble the best toolkit we can of alternative options. FT has gotten out of the habit of wearing her mouthguard, which was molded by her dentist with her particular problem in mind and which she is supposed to use most of the day, not just at nighttime. So she has resolved to bite the bullet -- or the plastic -- and start wearing it again, day and night. I have also been doing some reading up on alt.med ways of managing RA, and she is open to some of the therapies that have so far passed the quack test in mainstream medical research; stuff like aromatherapeutic hot compresses, more omega-3 fish oils in our diet, more green tea and blackcurrant oil as a dietary supplement.

We are also going to work our way around medically credible diet recommendations that pose a problem for FT because of her ostomy, like the emphasis on fruits and vegetables in RA diets...fruit and vegetable juices, for instance, rather than the fruits and vegetables themselves. (I had previously found "anti-inflammatory" diet plans rather limiting, especially for someone who already has diet restrictions for other reasons, and was cheered to see that a lot of these diets are bunkum -- there is, for instance, no evidence of a connection between nightshade-family plants and increased RA symptomatology.)

One more speed bump on our road of life. But we are not going to give up on lifestyle-change solutions to this problem. We hate you, RA, and we are going to mess with you until you crawl back into dormancy.

Gertie's Boy Crush

2010-02-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

Meet Gertie's boy crush -- her human one, that is.

Yes, it's true: Our dog loves "Dog Whisperer" Cesar Millan.

As frequent fliers to this blog know, Fellow Traveler and I have an embarrassing penchant for questionably educational/redemptive "reality" programs like Intervention and Dr. Drew's Celebrity Rehab. ("It may be trash TV," I remarked to FT the other evening, "but at least it's quality trash TV.")

We also enjoy The Dog Whisperer, in which Milllan -- who has an almost eerie ability to communicate with dogs on a visceral, unsentimental level -- rescues misunderstood, misbehaving dogs from their well-meaning but chowderheaded humans and retrains the humans to better relate to their dog on a canine level. What's amazing to us is how interested Gertie -- a dog who is generally indifferent to television -- is in this show.

During the opening scenes of each case study, showcasing a particular dog's dysfunctional behavior, Gertie will walk right up to the screen, stare at the dog, then look back at us with an expression that borders on the incredulous: "Mamas...that dog is really messed up!" She then hops on the sofa to watch Cesar work with the dog and the rest of the household, her attention riveted on his every word and action. The other evening, when we watched one episode and then switched to the Olympics, Gertie actually sighed -- I wasn't sure if it was in relief that another human family finally started understanding their dog or irritation that we were interrupting her must-see TV.

When you think of it, The Dog Whisperer is very much like an Intervention for dogs. So I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed that Gertie has, in her own way, taken a shine to one of our favorite guilty television pleasures.

Friday Five: Olympic Edition

2010-02-26T16:25:00.000-08:00

My RevGalBlogPals Friday Five is rather late today because I'm having an issue with cutting-and-pasting, thanks to my wonky touchpad. (The victim, I fear, of too much mah-jong and Scrabble.) But I am slowly piecing together this week's questions.

1) Which of the Winter Olympic sports is your favorite to watch?
I really enjoy the freestyle skiing, downhill slaloms and snowboarding. Women's hockey was great fun this Olympics. And this year we got into curling in a big way. I used to be all about the figure skating, but the intrigues and scandals and vagaries of the scoring system have managed to dampen my enthusiasm for those competitions.

2) Some of the uniforms have attracted attention this year, such as the US Snowboarders' pseudo-flannel shirts and the Norwegian Curling team's -- ahem -- pants. Who do you think had the best-looking uniforms?
Hmmm...none of their actual uniforms made much of an impression on me. I did think we Yanks were stylin' and profilin' in our Ralph Lauren duds during the Opening Ceremonies.

3) And Curling. Really? What's up with that?
Oh, now we were quite taken with the curling (which we watched on the USA Network while NBC was running tape-delayed coverage). We like the combination of kinetic skill and strategizing. It's also a sport that -- well, that un-buff, un-glamorous, un-young people seem to have a chance to shine in. And, yes, the brushes are kind of goofy -- I think the Swiffer people might be able to spoof them in their ad campaign about obsolete household cleaning devices -- but they do seem to work, don't they?

4) Define Nordic Combined. Don't look it up. Take a guess if you must.
This non-jock might know the answer without looking it up. Isn't it cross-country skiing combined with ski jumping? But not with the shooting, which would be the biathalon. Or something like that. Actually at our house "Nordic combined" would look more like smorgasbord washed down with Carlsberg.

5. If you could be a Winter Olympics Champion just by wishing for it, which sport would you choose for winning your Gold Medal?
Definitely Couch Commentary. I enjoy it and I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.

The Things I Find Online...

2010-02-24T04:50:00.001-08:00

Tastes Great...Less Filling?

2010-02-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

I wasn't going to blog about this, because it's really not my business how other people work out their salvation with fear and trembling...but it's been bugging me for almost two months now; and the guy has a public blog, so he's got to expect that what he writes will generate opinion one way or another. Anyway...

Mark Herringshaw is a pastor at North Heights Church, fka North Heights Lutheran Church, a congregation with roots in the so-called charismatic renewal movement of the 70's and that, apparently, after a kind of mutually uncomfortable gadfly existence within what's now the ELCA, finally split to do its own thing under the umbrella of the socially conservative, charismatic Alliance of Renewal Churches. A visit to its website made me think of an Assembly of God megachurch, but with Sacraments. Something like that.

Anyway, Herringshaw is also a blogger on Beliefnet. And last month, when people's minds were on New Year's resolutions, he began a series on his blog called The Eucharist Diet.

Okay. I'll lay out my cards. I don't particularly understand or enjoy charismatic Lutherans, based on my encounters with same. So I came to Herringshaw's blog with an established negative animus. But I tried to give him a hearing. Here's what he has to say, at the beginning of his project:

Jesus said that I should hunger and thirst for righteousness, and if I do I will be filled. He said that he had food, to another kind of food, that we know nothing about. He said that while the need bread, we don't live on bread alone, but on God's words. And Jesus himself is called the "Word." We live first and last by consuming Jesus himself... He is the Eucharist. When I feed on Jesus, the inner empty places are filled. I need be a glutton for nothing but Jesus!

So I am here beginning an adventure. For the next six months I will follow this discipline and write about it. Here are my five rules for The Eucharist Diet:

1. I eat anything I want... AFTER...
2. I ask God if it is right for me... AND...
3. I ask God to bless my food so that it feeds my body... AND...
4. I ask God to feed my soul with what food cannot fulfill... AND...
5. I eat the Lord's Supper with another follower of Jesus each day.

As I read this, I thought, "Well, so far so good; not as off-the-wall as I'd suspected." I even thought it would make a good Lenten discipline, at least for anyone who has access to daily Eucharist.

But as the weeks progressed and I kept reading Herringshaw's updates, my weirdness meter kept ticking up. Was this a spiritual exercise, or a diet plan? Was there an inherent suggestion, in the updates, that some sort of correlation exists between getting on the "Eucharist plan" and losing weight? Really? Seriously? What's the difference between that attitude, on the part of a pastor, and some poorly catechized layperson saying, "This Lent I really need to lose about 10 pounds so I can fit into my summer clothes"?

I checked out Herringshaw's website and noticed that, among other things, he seems to have a similar faith in the magickal powers of prosperity thinking. Hmmm.

Like I said, at the end of the day how Herringshaw chooses to walk his Christian walk is nonnamybeeswax. But for me trying to conflate the Sacrament of the Altar with a personal weight-loss plan would be like...well, like conflating Holy Baptism with a candlelight bubblebath. Call me ungracious or non-Spirit-filled or a blue meanie, but...I don't get it. Maybe the rest of you do.

In Which Our Two Heroines Are Frightened By the Soul of an Old Building

2010-02-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

One of our destinations, on our off-the-cuff weekend vaycay up north, was the Traverse City Commons. This development, which includes spendy condominiums, artists' lofts, shops and professional offices, is on the sprawling campus of what used to be the Old Traverse City State Hospital -- in fact, most of the original buildings are extant, and have either been renovated or are in the process of being so.

The hospital -- memorialized in many a young Michiganian's mind with the threat, "If you don't stop acting that way you'll wind up in Traverse City" -- was closed in the 1980's during the final phase of deinstitutionalization, and in the decades to follow the buildings had become vandal- and vagrant-ridden eyesores. A developer finally bought the entire property for the sum of one dollar, and proceeded to, after much effort, create something new and exciting.

That's what we were looking forward to experiencing, anyway. I have a familial connection to the old hospital -- my sainted Aunt Marian spent an extended stay there after having some sort of undefined psychotic breakdown in her early 20's -- so for me a visit to the grounds had an equivocal feel to it; I felt sad for my aunt, who had mightily resisted going there, but I also knew that the institution was well regarded in its time and was doing the best it could with what it had to work with in terms of medical knowledge. I was also happy to see the property being developed in what sounded like a respectful manner, with an emphasis on local artisans and entrepreneurs.

We turned into the drive, and headed through the wooded front yard of the property toward Building 50, the combination condo/indoor boutique mall that's the present focal point of the development. (A multimilliondollar hotel is in the works nearby.) The trees were pretty; it was like entering a large estate of yore. The founder of the hospital, a Dr. Munson (namesake of Traverse City's large medical center next door), had declared that "Beauty is therapy," and one of his innovations was to turn the campus into an arboretum featuring just about any tree that can survive a Michigan winter. And Building 50 itself, which at one point had fallen into quite a state of disrepair, was now bright and shiny, surrounded by cars and directional signs enticing visitors inside.

As we entered the building, though, and proceeded to the Mercato, the collection of boutiques on the ground floor, the former life of the building seemed to hang heavy in the air. We passed glass showcases of hospital memorabilia, including some scary-looking electric devices from the turn of the previous century. A poster hanging above was a reproduction of an old tourist postcard from Traverse City, showing a spooning World War I era couple against a backdrop of the hospital grounds, with a legend, "No, I'm not looney -- just mooney." Most of the boutiques were still shuttered in iron bars for the morning. Down the hallway, a pensive young man sat slumped in a chair next to a locked art gallery.

We poked around a florist/gift shop for a few minutes. Fellow Traveler had become uncharacteristically quiet. Finally she said, "I think I want to leave. But we need to find a bathroom." The florist pointed us down the hall toward Trattoria Stella, the flagship restaurant in the development, at the end of a low, brick-arched hallway.

It was there in the nicely appointed bathroom, staring at the original hardware built into the walls and at a man's name incongruously scribbled in pencil onto a brick next to the sinks, that I started acknowledging a heaviness and depression all around me that I couldn't attribute to the architecture or lighting, that I'd been trying to fight off in the spirit of open-minded tourism. But I couldn't. And I didn't feel it as much as FT, who emerged ashen-faced and said, "I really need to get out of here," with an urgency that bespoke real discomfort.

So we did. We wended our way down and around until we found an exit, and made it back to the Jeep. We drove down the street to Pleasanton Bakery, an artisan bakery we'd heard good things about; FT stayed in the vehicle while I ran in, but I didn't linger. We then visited The Underground Cheesecake Factory farther into the interior of the campus. We let Gertie run around a little near an old, unrenovated building across from the cheesecake bakery but we did not spend a lot of time there, nor did we venture into the Left Foot Charley winery next door. We finally just left -- past the former patient cottages turned into condominium units, past the church-turned-arts-center -- and kept going until we were in Suttons Bay.

As we left Traverse City FT sighed. "I can't explain what I felt back there," she confided, "but I didn't get over it until we got off the property. It was something...bad. I don't want to go back again."

When we returned home I started Googling information about the hospital, and found that we were not alone in our experience. Building 50 was apparently once home to the severely disturbed. And it seems that many visitors to the Commons, as well as employees of its businesses, have had close encounters with various manifestations of weird mojo. I don't know what to do with this sort of thing, because it's hard to fit into my spiritual paradigm...but if collective pain and confusion and fear and loneliness can somehow seep into the very masonry of a building and remain trapped there long after the sufferers have gone, then that's what we felt.

This makes me sad, because I really, really want this thing to be a success -- a redemption of positive from what had become a symbol of negativity, first in its original mission and then as an abandoned, vandalized wasteland in the middle of an otherwise "cool" city. I told FT that the developers would do well to have some sort of cleansing ritual or rituals done on site -- invite a priest or two, a shaman from the local Native American Tribe, anyone else with any spiritual chops, and let them do their thing in Building 50 and surrounds.

Church Tourists

2010-02-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

It was approaching Valentine's weekend, and it looked as though we were going to have a fairly standard, quiet family celebration; Fellow Traveler had requested pasta bolognese for V-Day, so I was pouring through cookbooks looking for a good recipe, and she had volunteered to make appetizers and dessert.

Then, Wednesday morning over coffee, FT suddenly said, "Wasn't that place where we had the good bolognese up north?" I thought for a moment; yes, I seemed to recall that too.

"So -- what if we just called up the Red Lion Motor Inn (our new home base in Suttons Bay when we travel in the Leelanau) and made reservations, packed our bags and just spent a long weekend up there?"

Well...knock me over with a feather. Of course that sounded like a swell idea. So off we went, Gertie in the back seat, for an excellent adventure in northern Michigan.

I am not going to detail every place we visited while on what turned out to be an almost-five-day adventure; suffice it to say we went up and down the Leelanau coastline and everywhere in between to soak up as much local culture as time would allow. But I will share our experience in church tourism.

For all the vacations and excursions to the kids' homes that we've made in our years together, FT and I have almost never had an opportunity to worship as visitors in other churches. There's always been some monkeywrench thrown in the works that's kept us from doing it during our other Leelanau trips, and other than our Christmas Eve Mass in Brooklyn the kids' somewhat jealous stewardship of our time with them limits what we do when we travel out of state. But we had promised ourselves we'd go to church this weekend no matter what.

So we did, despite some sleety-mushy snow blowing off the lake. We carefully made our way up to Northport, at the very tip of the Leelanau finger, for breakfast at one of our new discoveries, Kamp Corners Coffee inside the old Northport mill. (Toasted bagels slathered in salmon spread...real English-style scones, served with clotted cream on request...excellent coffee...a cozy setting at one end of a venerable old Northport building that has been renovated into a rental hall for weddings and parties.) We then headed to Bethany Lutheran Church on Nagoba Avenue, one of the main streets running through town. (As you can see, the photo to the side was not taken on the day we visited.) This is a very old church whose pastel interior seems to reflect a creative tension between Scandinavian sparseness and Germanic fussiness; an inlaid painting of Jesus' ascension, framed in carved, gilded wood, provides a focal point in the otherwise plain design.

As you might expect in the middle of February, the congregation was down to about 25 -- maybe a third of whom were in the choir. A decent mix of ages, though, I thought, and a healthy gender ratio; sistahs may be doin' it for themselves these days, but I always feel sad, and a little alarmed, when I walk into a church filled with all women. Despite the small number of worshippers, though, these folks sang, and sang well, and FT actually got to participate in a sung liturgy from the ELW.

FT is not a cradle Lutheran, so some of the service was new to her, not the least of which was a Service of the Word on a Sunday morning; bummer. Because all the local churches are missing their snowbirds, this congregation is pairing up with the Episcopal church down the street for Lent, and it was rather amusing to pick up on the unspoken but nonetheless palpable angst on the part of the congregation that, for the next four weeks, they'd be expected to celebrate the Eucharist every Sunday for the sake of their Episcopal guests. ("What is up with that?" asked FT afterward, so I had to give her the short course on Pietism and liturgical renewal and general old-Lutheran cussedness regarding change of any kind.) We pondered the novelty, for us, of canned Prayers of the Church written right in the bulletin. We enjoyed the children's sermon, and were in fact happy to see kids present, in this community that's lost a lot of the younger population to economics-driven flight out of state. And we were happy to be welcomed in a genuine way by everyone from the usher to the nice lady who sat in front of us to the older gentleman who appears to have the role, found in nearly every congregation I've ever been part of, of Mr. Congeniality -- the guy who comes across the aisle to shake your hand and say, "So where you from, and what brings you up here today?"

We had a great morning there. We will be back.

Oh...and the bolognese, at Gusto's in Suttons Bay, was delicious.

Settling For Less

2010-02-18T18:31:00.000-08:00

A great Lenten essay by Barbara Brown Taylor. (Hat tip to RevGal/Facebook friend the Rev. Beth.)

Frugally Foodie

2010-02-18T17:42:00.000-08:00

I was in search of a recipe today, a recipe for applesauce pie -- my mom never made this, but we have some home-canned applesauce that I think would be mighty tasty in a pie -- so I went to my mother's battered (mostly battered by me, as a small child) "green cookbook."

The cover and first few pages have been missing for decades, so I can't tell you the title. I know that my mom got it as a wedding shower present back at the beginning of the 50's; the artwork and photos suggest that it was published a decade earlier. My mother seldom used this book -- she told me the recipes were too fussy and never worked out for her -- but she kept it all her life, with all her other recipes. And it was a big part of my childhood; I treated it first as an interesting picture book, and then later as an inspiration for my budding culinary impulses.

I never did find the applesauce pie recipe I was looking for, which involves eggs and creates a kind of appley custard. Instead, this book suggested simply pouring applesauce into a graham cracker crust, chilling well and plopping some whipped cream on top -- tah-dah: pie.

You've got to love the thrifty, silk-purse-out-of-sow's-ear ethic of the green cookbook. While it has its share of early 20th-century fancy fare like baked Alaska and intricate party canapes, it also contains lots of recipes using stale bread; odds and ends of leftover stews and roasts; wildsourced fruit and game; and what cooks delicately refer to as "variety meats." (If tripe, sweetbreads and hearts ever make a comeback, our household is hooked up with recipes, I'm telling you.) Need a cake but only have one egg? Bake a one-egg cake. Can't afford a crown roast for a special dinner? Make a sausage "crown" filled with potato salad. Did the milk turn sour? Make pancakes. Leaf lettuce a bit past its prime? Toss it with a hot bacon vinaigrette.

This shames me a little, as I think about our own penchant for shelling out serious money for the esoteric ingredients of one experimental recipe even as we regularly throw out literal buckets of leftovers,odd bits and Good Ideas At the Time.

Using what you have instead of wanting what you don't have -- not a bad Lenten discipline.

Beginning Lent

2010-02-17T19:49:00.000-08:00

Everybody Hurts .

Bring Out Your Dead

2010-02-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

We spent most of the daylight hours in church on Sunday.

It was all good stuff. In the morning we had a three-fer adult baptism -- we've been seeing a lot of those lately -- so church ran long. After a quick lunch and an errand in the neighborhood, we were back in church that afternoon for a half informational meeting/half brainstorming session on how our church "does" funerals and how we can help families, both in the church and those with little or no connection to our parish, during a time of transition in our society -- largely based on economics -- regarding how we care for our dead.

Our pastor thinks that families are increasingly choosing, or being forced by economics, to take back more responsibility for caring for their dead; finding alternatives to funeral-home-planned funerals and burials; having to do more with less time and less money. So part of our discussion was about our church's capacity for assuming some of that burden; offering to host visitations at our church, for instance. We talked about the increasing popularity of cremation and increasing tendency for people's remains to wind up somewhere other than a cemetery, and how a columbarium and/or a memorial wall and/or memorial garden might be a creative way to respond to that as well as to ease the pressure on our rapidly filling church graveyard.

We also began talking about how to assist our unchurched neighbors in bereavement while at the same time providing some guidance and boundaries in terms of funeral protocol (as in, "Highway to Hell" as funereal hymn, tequila shots in memory of the deceased and other DIY rituals are not appropriate elements of a Christian funeral) and cost-sharing. We can pull off a pretty cheap funeral for a truly financially hurting family; but there are other equally thrifty alternatives in our community, so we don't want to become patsies for people who pretty much want to throw Gramps into the nearest hole and fuggetaboutit.

Spending almost two hours talking about subjects like the logistics of hosting the dead in our sanctuary overnight ("Might not be a good idea on a lock-in weekend," someone deadpanned) might not sound like the most pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon...but Fellow Traveler and I came away from this feeling like our congregation is going through some good, healthy growing pains that are goading us into better people and a better faith community.

Hangin' With the Saints

2010-02-07T05:47:00.000-08:00

Since I began our church blog, one of the regular features I've established is Saints Alive -- little hagiographies of the people who show up in the ELCA and TEC calendar of commemorations. I began by sprinkling our usual weekly rota of features with a bio on that individual's commemoration day, but recently switched to giving the saints their own day on the schedule.

Like most Lutherans, my knowledge of the saints was pretty spotty before embarking on this project. The names were recognizeable, sure; but I couldn't have told you anything of substance about most of them. And, deep down, I suppose I held the sort of knee-jerk inherited reservations about paying too much attention to the sainted faithful: that much of their actual stories have been obscured by imaginative embellishment; that they themselves would say, "Don't pay attention to me; pay attention to Christ"; that focusing on extraordinary, rock-star Christians takes away from the quiet, faithful everyday discipleship of the majority of believers; that -- oh, dear -- celebrating the lives of the saints might make one favorably disposed to a theology of [shudder] works-righteousness.

But after several months of laying aside my enculturated skepticism I've got to tell you all -- I love these people. I look forward each week to learning more about them; especially the less celebrated among them.

Just this week, for instance, I learned about Ansgar of Hamburg, the patron saint of Denmark...one of the ironies of Christian history, since both Denmark and Sweden proved almost impossible missionary nuts to crack for this poor man. He just couldn't catch a break. He toiled for decades to spread the Gospel in the Scandinavian countries, but with little success -- and wound up losing his own diocese to war and the vagaries of politics. After he died, much of the Scandinavian missionary effort fell apart and stayed that way for two more centuries. Ansgar should be the patron saint of every failed mission startup, every pastor who's had to oversee the dissolution of a congregation, everyone whose ever had a great idea for following the Great Commission that's completely blown up in their faces.

Gladys Aylward: another great saint, of modern times (who became the subject of a very good movie, Inn of the Sixth Happiness, starring Ingrid Bergman). Here was an English parlor maid with no means or education, who after attending a revival meeting was struck with a sudden conviction that she needed to go to China as a missionary. Rebuffed repeatedly by various missionary societies as being an unacceptable candidate, she persisted in this dream until she finally wheedled her way into a job helping an elderly missionary in China; she took her whole life savings, leveraged it into train fare and rode through Asia to get to this remote outpost. Aylward eventually took over the mission, won the trust and affection of her neighbors, eventually founded an orphanage, and during the Japanese invasion of World War II helped save 200 orphans from almost certain death by leading them on an arduous trek through the mountains to safety. And those are just the highlights of a remarkable career. When Inn of the Sixth Happiness came out the Newsweek film critic, apparently not understanding that it was based on a true story, panned the movie as being too fantastical to be compelling -- when in actuality the movie wasn't real enough in terms of adequately portraying Aylward's life.

And -- speaking as a feminist who isn't afraid to use the F word -- how can one not be impressed by the witness of such strong women of history? -- women who usually had to contend against the institutionalized sexism and vocational limitations imposed on them by the very Church that now celebrates them as exemplars of Christian life? I am constantly amazed by the courage, persistence and tough-mindedness of the women who've wound up in the Church's saints' days and commemorations.

It makes me wonder what we Lutherans have lost, in terms of inculcating a sense of identity and aspiration, by more or less kicking the saints of the Church to the curb. And our odd treatment of God's people in history -- our focusing almost solely on Bible stories, then ignoring the next thousand-and-some years of Christian history to fast-forward, sans context, to Luther nailing his theses to the church door 'n' stuff, then fast-forwarding again to the present day and telling one another and our kids, "We're all saints! Yay, team!" -- sorry, but if my kid came home from a history class with that kind of syllabus, I'd be having A.Talk.With.The.Teacher.

But, anyway...I am having a wonderful time hangin' with the saints, old and new. And as the famous hymn says, "I mean to be one too."

Gordon Ramsay: Church Consultant

2010-02-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

Our household's new boy crush this winter is amped-up, foul-mouthed celebrity chef/restauranteur/ubiquitous television personality Gordon Ramsay.

We've gotten hooked on BBC America's version of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, in which, each episode, Gordon lands on the doorstep of a moribund eating establishment and proceeds to run the staff through a kind of restaurant bootcamp for a week. He departs for a month, then returns to see if the owners and staff have taken his advice to heart.

It's formula television to be sure, staged and edited for maximum entertainment effect. But despite this, we find Ramsay to be sincerely passionate about food; about the hospitality business; about the importance of honoring local food traditions and supporting local farmers and food artisans; about mentoring people, especially young people, who have the requisite talent and motivation. And he truly seems to want to help the hapless restauranteurs he encounters who have, in his words, gotten themselves in the shit. Yes, he's quite an exciteable fellow; but as my mother used to say, "I'm yelling because I care."

I told Fellow Traveler that I heart Gordon because I suspect I have an inner Gordon of my own who yearns every so often to be let loose on the world. FT, who after her time in the military and at the university spent many years managing food service in places ranging from airline catering companies to urban hospitals to care facilities for aging nuns, has a professional's insight into many of the issues that Gordon tackles on his shows, so for her they're like Old Home Week without the responsibility and stress. (And she freely admits to getting her Gordon on, at least in terms of intimidation if not vocabulary, during her career; her children joke that in a just world she'll wind up in a nursing home whose kitchen staff consists of her fired employees.)

I sometimes wonder what would happen if Gordon would apply to churches the same kind of tough love he applies to failing restaurants. Especially in the climate of the ELCA, where official pronouncements all seem to float amid a word cloud of fuzzy therapy-speak, and where intracongregational relations so often involve triangulation, obfuscation and innuendo ("Pastor, some people are saying..."), what would it be like to have Gordon Ramsay entering into the life of a congregation for a week and goading people into brutally honest communication and active engagement? Can you imagine him, say, critiquing the average church council meeting?

"What the b***** hell? You've gone on for 15 minutes now, and you haven't actually said a b***** thing! Christ Almighty, grow a pair of f****** bollocks and say what you mean!...'Somebody' doesn't like the changes to the Sunday School program? Somebody? Oh, for Christ's sake! It's b***** well you, madam. You are the somebody. So stop the f****** whingeing and own your own statements! What the hell! You're all f****** adults in a business meeting, not toddlers in a creche, pissing yourselves in your nappies! Grow up! Let's start all over again..."

Or imagine Gordon critiquing an ushering staff on a Sunday morning:

"There's a visitor looking lost -- where the hell are you? Over here counting bulletins? What the f***? What does an usher do? What does an usher f****** do? You greet people as they come in! You help them find a seat! You make them feel welcome! You don't stand mooning about here in the narthex, you berk, poking through the b***** bulletins! Shit! Useless...absolutely useless. Here, let me show you how it's done..."

Gordon attending a confirmation class:

"Turn off that b***** cellular before I take it out and stamp it into f****** bits! What the hell! This is a confirmation class, not a f****** pyjama party! Did you even hear what the pastor just told you about the Apostles' Creed? Did you? Did you? F****** unbelieveable. I'd tell you to go off and join the b***** heathen, but you're there already because you're about as f****** ignorant about Christianity. Jesus. Pay attention. All right then. Here's what we're going to do..."

It's fun to imagine, anyway. And I notice that, in his show, Gordon always pairs his Law with Gospel -- after getting his pupils' attention by verbally reaming new orifices into them, he offers to teach them another way; and models it, and sticks with them until they seem to be getting the hang of it.

In an era where we're all so afraid to offend, maybe it's just refreshing to occasionally come upon a character willing to sin boldly in service to helping other people be who they can be...who acts as a therapeutic rubber band snapped on the wrist of our psyches, making us sit up and take notice.

He yells because he cares.

February Friday Five

2010-02-05T05:11:00.000-08:00

We have been having an uncharacteristically un-dreary midwinter here -- just the other day we were remarking on the number of sunny days -- but usually up here it's more the way RevGalBlogPal Sally describes it, in today's Friday Five intro:

Candlemass is past, and Christmas is well and truly over, here in the UK February looks set to be its usual grey and cold self. Signs of spring are yet to emerge; if like me you long for them perhaps you need ways to get through these long dark days. So lets share a few tips for a cold and rainy/ snowy day....

1. Exercise, what do you do if you can't face getting out into the cold and damp?
That's easy -- nothing. Both Fellow Traveler and I are terrible couch potatoes when it's cold and inclement -- FT has to watch her asthma, and we're both just disinclined toward indoor exercise (hence the barely used free fitness center privilege we earn as volunteer webmeisters), and we both have sedentary pastimes we enjoy more.

2. Food; time to comfort eat, or time to prepare your body for the coming spring/summer?
Soup is my wintertime comfort food...as folksinger Greg Brown puts it, Smells like winter at our house/winter smells like soup. Last week I made my mother's winter standard, cream of potato soup with bacon, to rave reviews. (Fry diced bacon until browned but not hard; drain and set aside, leaving maybe a tablespoon of bacon grease in the pan. Use this to sautee a small onion, diced, and about a cup and a half of celery, sliced thin. In the meantime cook about 5 decently sized, peeled and diced, potatoes in just enough water or stock to cover; when they're tender, drain off most but not all of the cooking liquid, then combine in a blender with the sauteed vegetables, and pulse until nice and smooth...or, if you prefer more texture, mash the potatoes by hand in the remnant of cooking liquid, then add the vegetables as is. Whichever you prefer, at this point return the pureed vegetable mixture to the potato-cooking saucepan/leave it there and add about a cup and a half of milk. Add the reserved bacon and heat mixture until hot but not boiling.)

3. Brainpower; do you like me need to stave off depression, if so how do you do it?
My Seasonal Affective Disorder is very positively affected by any extra winter sunlight whatsoever...so by about the second week in January I'm already feeling a bit more chipper. December is usually the cruelest month for me; I think a combination of pleasanter-than-average weather and the busyness of our travel schedule was the only thing that kept me out of my usual December funk.)

4. How about a story that lifts your spirits, is there a book or film that you return to to stave off the gloom?
Garden and nursery catalogs -- garden porn, as we gardeners like to refer to it -- are my books of choice this time of year, much to the amusement of friends and loved ones. This is especially true this winter, as I've been tasked with the projects of 1) making our landscaping more bee-friendly, if we go ahead and pursue that particular new project; and 2) re-doing the plantings around our patio/gazebo, to replace the scraggly spirea that came with the house. The challenge of identifying honey and pollen plants and deciding where to place them in our yard, and the challenge of picking bee-friendly shrubs and perennials that will "pop" around our patio area -- which encompasses three different sun exposures -- has been keeping me very mentally and emotionally engaged. (Fellow Traveler, who is adamant that she knows nothing about color and shouldn't be asked about such things, was nonetheless intrigued by my latest suggestion to combine oranges and blues -- colors that I think would look swell against the colors of the patio and the house, and that I've used with some success in container gardening.)

5. Looking forward, do you have a favourite spring flower/ is there something that says spring is here more than anything else?
Around here it's the first appearance of the robins that usually get people excited.

Bonus; post a poem/ piece of music that points to the coming spring......
I love George Winston; his music reminds me of my bookstore-slumming days, in my 20's, with Windham Hill ambient music wafting through the store all day. Here's Winston performing "Rain":

Not Anytime Soon

2010-01-29T08:38:00.000-08:00

If you are a Floridian, please understand that I don't think less of you as a person.

But...I don't want to be you.

It's nothing personal. It's me, not you.

It was awkward visiting Florida last week, being beseeched by family and friends to come back for two weeks, or a month, or a season, or forever, and smiling politely while thinking, "Not only no, but hell to the no."

As far as Orlando or Kissimmee, there's no question: Short of being kidnapped and held in chains (perhaps in the Medieval Times dinner theater), nothing could compel us to live there; not even our sons. Visit, yes; not live, not even for a month.

Fellow Traveler reconnected with one of her very best high school friends, who now lives with her husband in a retirement mobile home community in the cow-country interior. As much as we enjoyed that visit -- this lady and her husband are delightful, and real pistols -- we couldn't help but think, why? Why, of al the places on earth to live year-round, would they choose this place? Now, I'm sure many of our friends would ask the same thing of us. But it seemed that this particular community, ironically, was quite a bit like ours, only without any of the good things, plus venomous snakes and breath-sucking humidity.

Our big road trip of the week was an excursion to St. Augustine. I enjoyed St. Augustine a lot -- its historicity and artsy-ness with a dash of college-town, and its proximity to the water. It looked and felt like the Leelanau in the summertime, only with more pirates. But, as Fellow Traveler told our filial chaparones, "This is the only place in Florida I'd ever consider living, and only if the weather were like this [breezy and barely breaking 70 degrees] year-round." -- an observation met with nervous, defeat-conceding heh-hehs.

Of course, our kids think we're insane for enduring the single-digit weather we came home to. But we don't mind. It actually, and I can't believe I'm saying this, felt good to feel the cold wind hit my face as we walked out of the airport to the parking lot. The Upper Midwest is a pretty good place to live.

Stealth Church

2010-01-29T07:17:00.000-08:00

It's difficult to know even where to begin to blog after spending a week of nonstop activity in Florida -- and I'm still bringing my brain up to speed after a day of recuperative collapse here at home -- but since I'm a church geek, perhaps I'll start there.

We didn't get a chance to visit the ELCA church just a couple of blocks from our resort, because Saturday and Sunday were our busiest family-and-friend days. I enjoy intramural church tourism, so that was a bummer. As far as that goes, even in a tourist-focused community like the greater Orlando/Kissimmee area, it's hard to spit without hitting a church of some kind -- on the 192 main drag, usually a Spanish-speaking Protestant congregation operating out of a storefront.

What I found amusing, though, were the stealth churches. On our one free morning we decided to have lunch in a nice little Chinese place in the Watertower Plaza of Celebration, the Disney-engineered planned city between Kissimmee and Orlando. Despite the Disney connection, the plaza was refreshingly free of theme-park-icity, and actually seemed to be more geared toward locals than tourists. As we drove around the neat yellow blocks of storefronts we came upon one with a sign reading "The Hub"; underneath was a subtitle something like "A Place To Connect," with information about meeting times. A logo reading "Celebration!" was off to the side. Then, in the billboard equivalent of 5-point type, like the kind on the back of your credit card bills, was something about "Church." My keen analytical mind kicked into gear: Aha! A church that doesn't want you to know it's a church!"

After we got home I tried looking up this outfit online. Apparently it is a kind of satellite ministry of Celebration Community Church, a non-denominational congregation whose theological orientation was difficult to ascertain, even after wading several pages deep into its website and into its "What We Believe" section. I'm guessing Southern Baptist in a cabana shirt with a happy-face pin on the collar. I'm also guessing that, after getting involved in the congregation enough to feel comfortable enrolling in a "Lifeshaping" class ("I went to Pilates this morning, and then after dinner we're all going to Lifeshaping..."), one would find out that if you're female your role in the congregation is pretty much relegated to Kinder und Kueche, and that if you're gay or lesbian...well, let's not even go there.

My reaction to all this twee coyness and equivocation: Oh, cut the crap already. Or as our church-estranged Orlando kids, whose livelihoods are based on creating convincing worlds of illusion and who can thus spot fakery in a nanosecond, would say: Really? I mean, seriously?

On Monday, while visiting St. Augustine, Fellow Traveler and I paid a visit to the St. Augustine basilica in the middle of the old town. (Son-in-Law's comment, when we've gone church sightseeing before: "I'm always afraid I'll spontaneously combust if I step inside.") Here we got unabashed old-school Roman Catholic: crucifixes, candles, statues of Our Lady and the Infant of Prague, holy cards of tortured saints. A hint of lingering incense.

It is what it is. Hallelujah. As are the multitude of shabby little Pentecostal tabernacles and white clapboard churches dotting the backroad Florida countryside. As are the ecclesias along 192.

Here's a unique marketing concept for churches desperate for outreach: Stop the bullshit. Please. Stop trying to pretend that you're a "lifestyle center" or "gathering place." Stop the lying-by-omission on your signboards and in your websites. You're not fooling anyone.

Authenticity. Being who you are, not what you think other people want you to be. What a concept.