Wow. The move from one house to another, about three miles apart, took the entire week.
And it 's not done yet! You should see the previous house - thank God Newlin is going to take care of that bit, with a little help from the kid next door who's home from college. I can deal with an orderly progression of packing up things in a room. I can't deal with there still being bits and bobs left behind - the mirror that goes on top of my dresser, all the clothes in the closets, a box of sewing threads ( ! ), a bag of knitting. Let someone else throw it all in a big box and move it out.
Of course, the actual physical move - loading up the car on Wednesday, having the movers move the furniture on Thursday - had to take place in those two days because Beloved Partner was on a photo shoot from the weekend until Wednesday, and then left at 3 in the morning Friday to go on another. He's coming home early, though, tonight. So that's good.
And of course, there was the exhaustion of a brilliant, enthusiastic, and depleting meeting on Wednesday night that ran late, the wedding rehearsal on Thursday night (I swear, I ran them through it in 20 minutes, and then they changed it all at the end and that was fine.), then the wedding on Friday afternoon, followed by the reception (I really shouldn't to go those, I know), the healing service this morning (thank God - there was a woman drop in who really needed it), and tomorrow a major parish meeting with the bishop.
so, a nice, relaxing, low key week.
Next week all I have on my calendar is three physical therapy appointments and one oncologist follow up.
Now, why am I writing to you about all this boring, personal life stuff? Because who else is going to listen! That's why.
I'm on orders not to do any work today. But of course I just have to shift some more of these books into bookcases...
aren't you glad I took a break to write?! Cheers, all.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Networks
I am now on Twitter, Facebook and Anglimergent. All this is very exhausting, because anything to do with the computer has a steep learning curve for me. However, I have already connected with a bunch of folks from my past, not only my present, which is cool.
Now we are moving house tomorrow and Thursday, plus I have a wedding rehearsal and wedding Thursday and Friday, and a big meeting coming up with the bishop on Sunday evening - four hours with dinner. So I'll be taking a break from the computer until Monday-ish.
Peach to you all; God's Peace be with you.
Now we are moving house tomorrow and Thursday, plus I have a wedding rehearsal and wedding Thursday and Friday, and a big meeting coming up with the bishop on Sunday evening - four hours with dinner. So I'll be taking a break from the computer until Monday-ish.
Peach to you all; God's Peace be with you.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Tweeting
Okay, so I just signed on to twitter. Now what? To search for friends who may be on twitter, they use my address book. Nobody in my address book is on twitter, but a bunch of stars and news services are. I checked two news services and one charity. Couldn't care less about the stars.
I tried a few things, and I've figured out, I think, that unless you are in my address book, or unless you give me your tweet username, I can't find you.
I posted two tweets ( ? ). I guess I'll wait and see if anyone sends me anything.
My username is (I think) http://twitter.com/rambleingrose
Please note the " e " between the l and i is necessary to the address!
But, then, all you have to do is click on, don't you? Oh I am so lame!
I tried a few things, and I've figured out, I think, that unless you are in my address book, or unless you give me your tweet username, I can't find you.
I posted two tweets ( ? ). I guess I'll wait and see if anyone sends me anything.
My username is (I think) http://twitter.com/rambleingrose
Please note the " e " between the l and i is necessary to the address!
But, then, all you have to do is click on, don't you? Oh I am so lame!
The Boon of the New Communications Technology
I'm considering Facebook or Twitter. The boon of communications technology to oppressed people who have cell phones has become apparent this week. Iran would have suppressed all the reports of the controversy surrounding the elections but they couldn't. The reports came out of that country via computer and cell phone technology - photos, videos, blogs, Facebook, Twitter... The ability of these forms of communication to reach many people at one time, and at the same time connect them with one another, astounds me. I want to be part of it.
I also value a life wherein I am not switched on 24/7/365. I have a cell phone. I do not turn it on except to make calls out. I do not give out the number because I don't receive calls on that phone. I take pastoral interviews in a parlor in the church instead of my office, much of the time, because the ringing phone is a distraction. I don't answer it. I let it ring. So why even be in the same room with it when someone comes to me to talk?
I don't post often on this blog. I don't often have anything I deem worth saying. Alternatively, even when I do have something I'd like to write about, I'm loathe to take the time away from the things that keep me face to face with people.
I may have to, or be able to, switch my brain to an understanding that virtual community may work just as well as face to face, or at least works well in this current world where community is global. After all, I frequent a blog which has become community and even church for me and its denizens. Is it so great a leap to Facebook or Twitter ( and Twitter has been recommended to me over Facebook)?
But my lack of use of this blog, my desire not to be switched on all the time, not to be checking my cell phone in the middle of meetings and one on one conversations to see if it's a caller worth interrupting what I'm doing, failing to check this blog's dashboard more than twice a day to see if anyone left a message to be moderated - all these tell me that I may be just as irrelevant with a Twitter account, or whatever you call it, as I am without one.
I still have a basic cell phone, with no computer access on it. I don't have a blackberry. And my watch has Minnie Mouse on the face, with her big, white-gloved hands pointing to the hour and minute.
I don't know. If I could be assured that people who try to communicate with me on Twitter would be just fine if they didn't hear back from me for hours, I'd feel better about getting a new phone, or something that would make me a little more available.
After all, I can always turn it off.
N.B. I am taking this blog off moderated comments again. Let's see how we do.
I also value a life wherein I am not switched on 24/7/365. I have a cell phone. I do not turn it on except to make calls out. I do not give out the number because I don't receive calls on that phone. I take pastoral interviews in a parlor in the church instead of my office, much of the time, because the ringing phone is a distraction. I don't answer it. I let it ring. So why even be in the same room with it when someone comes to me to talk?
I don't post often on this blog. I don't often have anything I deem worth saying. Alternatively, even when I do have something I'd like to write about, I'm loathe to take the time away from the things that keep me face to face with people.
I may have to, or be able to, switch my brain to an understanding that virtual community may work just as well as face to face, or at least works well in this current world where community is global. After all, I frequent a blog which has become community and even church for me and its denizens. Is it so great a leap to Facebook or Twitter ( and Twitter has been recommended to me over Facebook)?
But my lack of use of this blog, my desire not to be switched on all the time, not to be checking my cell phone in the middle of meetings and one on one conversations to see if it's a caller worth interrupting what I'm doing, failing to check this blog's dashboard more than twice a day to see if anyone left a message to be moderated - all these tell me that I may be just as irrelevant with a Twitter account, or whatever you call it, as I am without one.
I still have a basic cell phone, with no computer access on it. I don't have a blackberry. And my watch has Minnie Mouse on the face, with her big, white-gloved hands pointing to the hour and minute.
I don't know. If I could be assured that people who try to communicate with me on Twitter would be just fine if they didn't hear back from me for hours, I'd feel better about getting a new phone, or something that would make me a little more available.
After all, I can always turn it off.
N.B. I am taking this blog off moderated comments again. Let's see how we do.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
It's a spiritual problem, not a business problem
All the money managers, all the marketing experts, all the advertising and good business practices are worthless without first, before anything else, the people immersing themselves deeply in spiritual practices: prayer, Bible study, waiting on God, self sacrifice, generosity, extravegent hospitality, treating "the Jesus story like it really happened, and is really happening still".
Unless every woman, man and child is committed to learning and practicing these practices, all the best money/business manager clergy and even all the most pastoral and gifted clergy, all the marketing, the advertising, the increased rental of the building won't amount to anything.
Christians are baptized to be living stones. We are baptized to live as though the Jesus story - the birth, life, death and resurrection - is real, here, now. The catch is that without death, there is no resurrection. And resurrection looks nothing like the previous life. Jesus was not recognized by anyone until he did or said something that he had done before his death. Then their eyes were opened and they saw the scars from his wounds and they knew it was him.
If you will die to the expectation that everything will remain the same if only management or business practices were better, you will have a chance at resurrection, as a new thing, in a new form, the old, ancient practices becoming new to you - prayer, study of scripture, wrestling with God and the Word of God with one another, extravagent hospitality and generosity, and regularly and faithfully continuing in the apostles' fellowship, the breaking of bread, the worship and the prayers.
Unless every woman, man and child is committed to learning and practicing these practices, all the best money/business manager clergy and even all the most pastoral and gifted clergy, all the marketing, the advertising, the increased rental of the building won't amount to anything.
Christians are baptized to be living stones. We are baptized to live as though the Jesus story - the birth, life, death and resurrection - is real, here, now. The catch is that without death, there is no resurrection. And resurrection looks nothing like the previous life. Jesus was not recognized by anyone until he did or said something that he had done before his death. Then their eyes were opened and they saw the scars from his wounds and they knew it was him.
If you will die to the expectation that everything will remain the same if only management or business practices were better, you will have a chance at resurrection, as a new thing, in a new form, the old, ancient practices becoming new to you - prayer, study of scripture, wrestling with God and the Word of God with one another, extravagent hospitality and generosity, and regularly and faithfully continuing in the apostles' fellowship, the breaking of bread, the worship and the prayers.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Thought for the Day
Yesterday, my physio therapist and I were talking about women in ministry, and she said,
"If Mary could be trusted with Jesus, why can't a woman be trusted with a Book?"
Amen.
"If Mary could be trusted with Jesus, why can't a woman be trusted with a Book?"
Amen.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
If Grace Episcopal Church in Norwalk closed, would anyone notice?
Not to be confused with Grace Baptist Church, on West Avenue in South Norwalk, or Grace Family Church on Wall Street, we’re talking about Grace Episcopal Church at 1 Union Park.
In 1890, 31 members of Saint Paul’s-on-the-Green Episcopal Church, Norwalk, “walked down the hill” and founded Grace Episcopal Church. Originally located at Belden Avenue and Cross Street, the Great Flood of 1955 caused the church to relocate to its current address at the corner of Mott Avenue and Union Park in 1964.
Grace Church was a thriving parish, with a congregation large enough to boast over 200 children in its Sunday School. However, Episcopalians are awful at replacing themselves, and as people moved out of state or died, the congregation dwindled. Today, average Sunday attendance at Grace, for all ages, is 50 souls. The average age of membership is over 60.
Grace Church is now having to decide what its future will be, and one of the options for that future is to close the doors of Grace forever.
The question is, will anyone in Norwalk notice if Grace Episcopal Church closes?
Of course, the members of the three groups of Alcoholics Anonymous who meet at Grace on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, will notice if Grace closes. The Thursday night Manic Depressives Support Group will notice. The Literacy Volunteers and their students, who study English almost every day of the week at Grace, will notice. The Senior Services Umbrella Group will have to find a different place for their quarterly meetings. Two churches rent space for worship, prayer and study at Grace – L’Eglise Baptiste des Haitiennes, who have been at Grace for over fourteen years, and the Remnant of God Church will have to relocate. The Fairfield Symphony, who only just found Grace as a replacement for their previous home, will be looking again for a place to make music together if Grace Episcopal Church closes.
It’s hard to believe that closing might be in the offing, with so many good things happening at Grace.
Grace Episcopal Church was the first organization to catch the vision of helping to build a school for girls in Waterloo, Sierra Leone. Grace Church connected with FAWE, a pan-African organization of women dedicated to education and, through donations that involved the community outside of the congregation of Grace itself, raised the money to build a two room classroom block, the first such block.
Other organizations visited the school and, seeing the plaque on the side of the building, commemorating Grace Church Norwalk’s sponsorship, asked if they could piggy-back on Grace’s work. As a result, an organization in New Haven, Connecticut has been working to provide a library, and another in the Netherlands has contributed to a second block of classrooms and a computer lab.
Three of Grace Episcopal Church’s members visited the school and met the girls and their teachers and families. The real need, now, is scholarships so the girls can continue their education. I can guarantee that, without Grace’s leadership in raising those scholarships, the entire village of Waterloo, Sierra Leone will notice if Grace Episcopal Church closes.
Meanwhile, the work of the Gospel continues at Grace. A service of prayers for healing and laying on of hands is offered at 10:00 a.m. on the fourth Saturday of the month. On the fourth Sunday of the month, at 8:00 a.m., people gather to perform some service to the community outside of the congregation of Grace Church. On the second Saturday of the month, The Mission Congregation of Grace Church meets at 1:00 p.m. for three hours of study, reflection and worship. On the second Sunday of each month, at 11:30 a.m. following the 10:00 service, Practicing Prayer offers support for people’s prayer lives.
This year we had three special events for children: The Real Hallowe’en! offered crafts and activities and lunch, followed by the story of The Real Hallowe’en, where Hallowe’en came from and what it means in the life of Christians. The Real Christmas! was a big party, with games, crafts and lunch, followed by the story of The Jesse Tree, Jesus’s family tree.
The Real Good Friday!: A Walk to Easter saw sixteen children gathered with adults at Grace for the noon service. With a time of meditative music and silences for adults, and activities and an egg hunt for children, the Walk to Easter concluded with all ages joining to experience the last week of Jesus’s life, and a taste of the resurrection.
Meanwhile, children’s Sunday education and adult Wednesday night studies continue. Sunday worship and Holy Days are observed, the Gospel is preached, the sick and shut-ins are visited, and the work of the church goes on.
If it weren’t for the dwindling savings and the shrinking congregation to support the work of the Gospel at Grace Episcopal Church, you wouldn’t be able to tell the church faces closure.
Almost in defiance of this threat of closing, Grace is now looking at a liturgical ministry with people who live on the streets of Norwalk. Sunday worship outside, followed by a meal, armed with spiritual support and information on resources, and maybe even a place for people without traditional homes to have a mailbox, or a place to store their belongings during the daytime – this is what may be in the near future for Grace Episcopal Church.
Grace Episcopal Church is not closing anytime soon. If indeed Grace does close, it will leave a hole in the city of Norwalk, and it will do so not with a whimper but with a bang, preaching, learning and living the gospel for all to see, here at the corner of Union Park and Mott Avenue, one way or another, every day of the week.
In 1890, 31 members of Saint Paul’s-on-the-Green Episcopal Church, Norwalk, “walked down the hill” and founded Grace Episcopal Church. Originally located at Belden Avenue and Cross Street, the Great Flood of 1955 caused the church to relocate to its current address at the corner of Mott Avenue and Union Park in 1964.
Grace Church was a thriving parish, with a congregation large enough to boast over 200 children in its Sunday School. However, Episcopalians are awful at replacing themselves, and as people moved out of state or died, the congregation dwindled. Today, average Sunday attendance at Grace, for all ages, is 50 souls. The average age of membership is over 60.
Grace Church is now having to decide what its future will be, and one of the options for that future is to close the doors of Grace forever.
The question is, will anyone in Norwalk notice if Grace Episcopal Church closes?
Of course, the members of the three groups of Alcoholics Anonymous who meet at Grace on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, will notice if Grace closes. The Thursday night Manic Depressives Support Group will notice. The Literacy Volunteers and their students, who study English almost every day of the week at Grace, will notice. The Senior Services Umbrella Group will have to find a different place for their quarterly meetings. Two churches rent space for worship, prayer and study at Grace – L’Eglise Baptiste des Haitiennes, who have been at Grace for over fourteen years, and the Remnant of God Church will have to relocate. The Fairfield Symphony, who only just found Grace as a replacement for their previous home, will be looking again for a place to make music together if Grace Episcopal Church closes.
It’s hard to believe that closing might be in the offing, with so many good things happening at Grace.
Grace Episcopal Church was the first organization to catch the vision of helping to build a school for girls in Waterloo, Sierra Leone. Grace Church connected with FAWE, a pan-African organization of women dedicated to education and, through donations that involved the community outside of the congregation of Grace itself, raised the money to build a two room classroom block, the first such block.
Other organizations visited the school and, seeing the plaque on the side of the building, commemorating Grace Church Norwalk’s sponsorship, asked if they could piggy-back on Grace’s work. As a result, an organization in New Haven, Connecticut has been working to provide a library, and another in the Netherlands has contributed to a second block of classrooms and a computer lab.
Three of Grace Episcopal Church’s members visited the school and met the girls and their teachers and families. The real need, now, is scholarships so the girls can continue their education. I can guarantee that, without Grace’s leadership in raising those scholarships, the entire village of Waterloo, Sierra Leone will notice if Grace Episcopal Church closes.
Meanwhile, the work of the Gospel continues at Grace. A service of prayers for healing and laying on of hands is offered at 10:00 a.m. on the fourth Saturday of the month. On the fourth Sunday of the month, at 8:00 a.m., people gather to perform some service to the community outside of the congregation of Grace Church. On the second Saturday of the month, The Mission Congregation of Grace Church meets at 1:00 p.m. for three hours of study, reflection and worship. On the second Sunday of each month, at 11:30 a.m. following the 10:00 service, Practicing Prayer offers support for people’s prayer lives.
This year we had three special events for children: The Real Hallowe’en! offered crafts and activities and lunch, followed by the story of The Real Hallowe’en, where Hallowe’en came from and what it means in the life of Christians. The Real Christmas! was a big party, with games, crafts and lunch, followed by the story of The Jesse Tree, Jesus’s family tree.
The Real Good Friday!: A Walk to Easter saw sixteen children gathered with adults at Grace for the noon service. With a time of meditative music and silences for adults, and activities and an egg hunt for children, the Walk to Easter concluded with all ages joining to experience the last week of Jesus’s life, and a taste of the resurrection.
Meanwhile, children’s Sunday education and adult Wednesday night studies continue. Sunday worship and Holy Days are observed, the Gospel is preached, the sick and shut-ins are visited, and the work of the church goes on.
If it weren’t for the dwindling savings and the shrinking congregation to support the work of the Gospel at Grace Episcopal Church, you wouldn’t be able to tell the church faces closure.
Almost in defiance of this threat of closing, Grace is now looking at a liturgical ministry with people who live on the streets of Norwalk. Sunday worship outside, followed by a meal, armed with spiritual support and information on resources, and maybe even a place for people without traditional homes to have a mailbox, or a place to store their belongings during the daytime – this is what may be in the near future for Grace Episcopal Church.
Grace Episcopal Church is not closing anytime soon. If indeed Grace does close, it will leave a hole in the city of Norwalk, and it will do so not with a whimper but with a bang, preaching, learning and living the gospel for all to see, here at the corner of Union Park and Mott Avenue, one way or another, every day of the week.
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