Archive | April, 2010

Wedding weekend!

12 Apr

My best man duties were put to the test this weekend. Could I :
  1. Get manicures and facials with the groom-to-be?
  2. Organize, set-up and participate in the bachelor party?
  3. Accompany the groom in getting ready/calming nerves before ceremony?
  4. Walk without tripping on my heels?
  5. Be any more excited? [No!]

It was a wonderful weekend and I couldn’t have been more honored and more happy to be with Adam throughout it all. I LOVED being a best man – HIS best man. It was simply an absolute joy to hang out with him. It has been a long while since Adam and I had spent time together so to be with him this weekend was great.
The wedding was perfect. beautiful. all things lovely. Both Kara and Adam looked overjoyed to be walking down the aisle and promising their lives to each other in front of family and friends. I’m so happy for them both and the new joys they will discover in this journey!
[[ Click the play button in the bottom task bar, beneath the photo, to begin a slideshow of more wedding photos! ]]

Easter visitors!

6 Apr
My mom and sister made the trek to Dawson to spend Easter with me … or at least near me/in my apartment while I worked. They arrived Friday afternoon and stayed until Monday morning. It is an eight hour drive from Edgerton to Dawson – phew! – and I certainly hope they feel it was worth the gas and time in a car!
I was excited to play host and to show them around my current “home” for the last seven months. I think it offered my mom some degree of comfort to see my living situation and meet my coworkers, to understand that this is a good place for me and to see that I am really happy with where I am at. My coworkers were (of course) awesome at welcoming and greeting and there were a few congregation members who weren’t shy either. My mom heard over and over, whether from the pew of ladies sitting behind us or other off-the-cuff comments, how she looks like a sister to me rather than a mother. Ego boost!
We did the church thing, shopped in Dawson, met the gnomes, and took the grand tour of the town. We also hung out a lot at my apartment, watched a fair amount of Friends, and all napped at various points. It was pretty much as low-key as you can get for a weekend away but it was enjoyable to have them here. I hope that they agreed that it was enjoyable to be here!

Holy Week.

5 Apr
It was holy week from a new vantage point. Just as the season of Lent opened for me with the bizarre but strangely wonderful experience of the Ash Wednesday worship service, the season closed with a fruitful and exciting series of services of which I was a part in a new and different way than before. And in the midst of a week in which I felt weighed down by the uncertainty of how to preach a funeral sermon, I found great joy and excitement in the planning of Easter services and the writing of my Easter sermon.
Our holy week worship schedule began with a seder meal on Thursday followed by a service of Holy Communion. Thursday was also April Fool’s so I may have been given a raw egg to peel amongst the boiled eggs for the meal. We may have also included a new reading, blessing, and the finding of hidden Easter egg cookies at the end of the seder. (An addition that perhaps would be seen as slightly heretical to the tradition of our Jewish ancestors? Perhaps. We did it most tastefully in the spirit of April 1.)
Friday evening was a Tenebrae service, highlighted with choir anthems, readings from John, and the seven last words of Christ. The service ended in darkness and in silence, the cross and alter having been veiled in black. I had never before been to a Tenebrae service; it was a meaningful first experience. I had little role in the leading of the service – most was done by song/choir and narrators. I read prayers, guided the acolytes in the extinguishing of the candles, and then also played flute with the choir on a piece.
Sunday. Easter. Three services – 7am, 8:30, and 10:30 – all wonderful. The “Sonrise” service was mine to plan and preach with the following two services being identical. Let me sing “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” and “Thine is the Glory” with the organ and I’m a happy camper. Add special music, a beautifully decorated sanctuary and pews full of people and it was a perfect Sunday to find the tomb empty. (Though I realize and am glad that even without those things, the tomb is still empty!)
Might I also add to the list – a rocking children’s sermon. PK and I had a lot of fun with hundreds of slips of colored paper, the sounds of an earthquake, and making the whole congregation participate in sharing the message of the gospel — Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

would you rather –

5 Apr
Last week was a bit on a crazy side. Holy week brought a weekend of five worship services and with the addition of two funerals, time was short and stress was high. But now, as I write this on the Monday of a new week, it’s evident that I survived! woot! I’ll speak more of holy week services in a later post but first, some new “firsts” which led to the following question from my supervisor :
Would you rather eat a hamball or preach a funeral sermon?
My first hamball: In this region of Minnesota, if there is a visitation preceding a funeral the night before, it ends with a prayer service. As the intern, the prayer services are my gig. I led a prayer service this past Tuesday night and then the husband – the same man who has taken to calling me “Pastor Sweet Pea” – invited me over to his house to join his family for lunch. (It was 8pm … “lunch” could mean anything except the noon-day meal.) Unable to say no to pretty much anything, I accepted the offer.
I arrived at his house and immediately was shooed into the lunch line. I grabbed myself a sandwich and a cookie. My host gave up his chair at the dinner table for me, I sat down and then someone behind me grabbed my plate and returned it to the table with an addition – a hamball swimming in chunks of pineapple and a mysterious sauce.
Now, I’m not blaming the cook but rather am simply questioning the ethics of it all. Ground ham in ball form? I ate it but will admit – as I texted my supervisor following the incident – I was “mildly disgusted.” This was something new to me and I’m not so certain I was a fan. Apparently, upon further investigation, I understand that the meat market in town sells the ground ham. As more people find out my general distaste towards the ball of pig, I grow worried that it will show up on my plate more often. Sarcastic threats of hamballs have been many from coworkers since the hamballing episode …
My first funeral sermon: With the planning of holy week services and writing of Easter sermons in addition to two funerals, I had my first opportunity to write and preach a funeral sermon. My supervisor typically preaches at all funerals but with the schedule of this week, it seemed to be a good chance for me to have the experience.
So here is what Lindsay does – Lindsay accepts such challenges with an optimistic mindset and then freaks out days later when she realizes what she needs to do and feels in no way equipped to do it. I felt very ill-equipped to write a funeral sermon; the words came very difficult for me. I knew very little of the woman or her family and that, for me, made it more of a challenge.

But you know what? I did it. I wrote it. I preached it. I received critique and feedback from my supervisor in the days preceding and after preaching, felt fairly confident about the message. Because the funeral took place on the Saturday before Easter, I spoke of Easter lilies and the symbol of hope in the resurrection that they convey. The sanctuary at Grace was decorated with lilies for the next morning and, it turns out, a lily was the flower that the family gave for the funeral. God was at work.
Which would I rather do? As a facebook friend wrote to me – the best of both worlds – “Convince the family to include hamballs in the funeral lunch to eat after preaching the sermon.” Jackpot.
Newer Entries →