Archive | July, 2011

ordinational emotions.

12 Jul
[ordinational?  a word?  likely not until now.]
In attending ordinations of friends and beginning to plan my own, I often find myself emotional.  Two Sundays ago, the gospel text was from Matthew 11, the text that is read as a red stole is placed on the ordinand’s shoulders.  [“Come to me, all who you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30]  I found myself getting excited, anxious, and ready for this next step and this milestone in my journey into ministry.  
Since then, I can only guess that my actual ordination will be one of teary eyes.  I can’t quite pinpoint exactly what makes me so emotional about the planning of/the day but I can gather a few things.  They say that at one’s wedding, it is such a happy day because it’s the gathering of all the loved people in your life.  I’ve had no such wedding, but I only anticipate an ordination to be similar in that when I look at the congregation, my gaze will be met by so many important and loved people in my life who have supported me.  I look forward to and begin to get sentimental at the thought of family, friends, and congregation members gathering to celebrate God’s call in me to ministry.  The thought of it makes me grow emotional, and so incredibly blessed and thankful.
Forgive my constant admiration and idolization of internship, but I grow so excited to think of their celebration with me.  A year ago when I left, they [my coworkers] had said that they would want to come and be a part of my ordination but I understood that it was eight hours between us.  As I make plans and hear from others, it seems that many of my Dawson coworkers intend on making the drive.  They – and the congregation as a whole – have been such a formational part of my call to and competency in ministry that to even think that they will travel here makes me cry.  So excited.  [Sidenote: I wrote an email to Karen at Grace about ordination details to share with the congregation.  I mentioned the bus sighting of the Dawson mission trip folks I had on my way drive on Sunday and her response?  “I don’t think it was any accident that you saw the bus – you will always have a connection to Grace.”  Tears.  Tears because I want that to always be the truth.  I miss Grace.  I love Grace.]
In the planning of this ordination service, I also see congregation members of my home congregation so incredibly supportive and congratulatory.  I could not tell you the last time that East Koshkonong was host to an ordination; this is new territory.  They have gathered behind me in so many ways as I grew up in those pews – as a high school flute player with the senior choir, as a student in college, as a girl who lost her father, and as a pastoral candidate in seminary.  I grow so excited to share my ordination with them.  [Though I will say that this also comes with embarrassment – I have been absent it seems for so long that my name-to-face recognition is low.  Very low.  Must study the church directory.]
Cassie, who has been ordained for over a month, says that she got out all the tears and emotional breakdowns in the week prior to the service so she remained dry-eyed for the actual day.  [I just outed you, Cassie.  Hope that’s okay.]  I might make this my proposed approach so that when when friends and family read charges, when Cassie leads the prayers, and when Kendall preaches I don’t fall apart at that moment.  It will be an emotional day and an exciting day of praising God and celebrating the work Christ does in the world, in and through each person.
Can’t wait.

play day.

11 Jul

As I blogged late last night, I was certain today would be a good day.  Oh, it was.  Because I did nothing but play.

Well, wait.  I can say that I mailed out a pile of ordination announcements to family and close friends [but that’s fun for me – I love paper and snail mail].  I also chose texts for my ordination service and emailed those to my preacher [the preacher whom I am hands down thrilled he accepted and was willing to preach].  I asked my cousin to be the lay reader and the sixth grader shot me down.  And therein ended the ordination planning for the day because then I started playing.
I visited my grandma at the tv store [my uncle owns a tv/appliance store in Edgerton.  my grandma mans the phones when he and grandpa are out on service/installation calls.] and then just stopped by my aunt/uncle’s to see what the cousins were up to.  Nothing.  That’s the answer there.  Nothing.  So I did nothing with them.

[this photo is meant to be hideous.  this is not how molly typically looks.  promise.]
We drove to our house and baked home-made pizza.  We drove to our other cousin’s house and waited for them to get back from shopping.  We went prepared and waited in their pool.  nbd.  [no big deal.]  We swam, hid from Logan and Drew when they showed up, and then swam more.  Connor, Sam, and Molly came back to our house for cakepops and hammock time.  Laughter was aplenty and more is planned for tomorrow.
Perk #63 of being home: Impromptu cousin adventures.

a church day.

11 Jul
I’m highly caffeinated.  
It’s nearly 1am.  I spent right around nine hours in a car today.  And I’m wired.
Two iced coffees, two sodas, and a cup of warm coffee in a church fellowship hall.  
The day began with worship at my home congregation.  Talk of upcoming ordination and congratulations were many from dear congregation members.  There was a bit of distraction and also a bit of focus on the congregational vote that was happening in Austin.  THE vote to call me as pastor.
I arrived home and found my phone ringing.  A 507 number.  This was it.  I answered and heard this on the other end –
“Congratulations!”
[pause]
“Thank you?”  [I wasn’t entirely sure who was on the other end …]
The conversation continued and it was, indeed, the chair of the call committee of Red Oak Grove Lutheran Church in rural Austin.  They voted to call me as their pastor.  [yay!]
phew.  I had known in hypotheticals that this would eventually be the case.  I’ve never heard of a vote not passing but it was still reassuring to know that it’s the real deal, that I could make it facebook official, and that I can now mail out my ordination announcements.
After the phone call, I jumped in the car and headed north on Interstate 90 towards LaCrosse, passing a bus of Dawson friends traveling south at one point just north of Madison.  I knew that Dawson youth were on their way to Chicago for a mission trip and I knew that they had stayed the night in the Dells the night prior.  I kept my eyes peeled, wondering if our paths would cross.  And they did!  I called Emily to say hi and to tell her I saw her bus with organist Chris driving in his bus-driver-man clothes.  It was a fun coincidence.
I drove to Sparta, jumped in the car with friend, Cassie, and we headed west to Albert Lea to our pal, Josh’s, ordination.  I was able to catch up with my roommate, who also attended, and congratulate Josh.  Josh is called to a church in southwestern Minnesota – the synod I was in last year while intern in Dawson.  I caught up with the bishop from that synod, who was interested to know if I had a call yet.  If not, he said he was ready to snatch me up.  [Apparently both southern Minnesotan bishops fought for me in the draft.  ego boost]  Cassie and I returned to Sparta, and then I jumped back into my car and drove home, arriving on Aarback just after midnight.
It was a good church day.  I have an official job.  Josh was ordained.  Car time road trip with a seminary friend.  Waving distantly to old friends.  Tomorrow [technically today] will be a good day too.  Ordination announcements can officially go out and plans can begin to be made officially.  And then I’ll start crying because, for some reason, my ordination makes me super emotional.  More about that to come.

Today –

9 Jul

– and everyday –

Here’s my problem.

8 Jul
[well.  just one of the many.]
Not being employed often means I have a full day to complete stuff.  This stuff ranges from a quilting goal, to watering my mom’s flowers, to planning an ordination service, to needing to make a phone call, to needing to take a walk up and down the Aarback hill five times.  Most nights I go to bed with a list in my head of what I want to accomplish the next day.  But the problem is that I have the full day to do it.
I wake up.  I make myself wake up before 8. [I feel lazy if I sleep past that though I realize, for many of you, even 8 is late!]  I eat breakfast and often one of three things happens.  While I eat my cold oatmeal, I either turn on the television, jump on my macbook, or start in on the kindle.  [Hello, electronics.]  And then I get sucked in.  Today, it was the television and the movie Easy A.  We have these movie channels and they are the death of me.  First, The Proposal is on at least three times a day.  [I also already watched the last ten minutes of that movie today.] Yesterday, Lord of the Rings was on.  Sometimes Death at a Funeral.  I’ve seen these movies a million times, folks.  But it’s on tv and I get sucked in.  Easy A was a new one for me today but by the time the movie was over, it was 10:30 and I had nothing to show for my day so far.
But I have all day, right?  I still haven’t watered my mom’s flowers or done the dishes.  I have frozen cakes waiting to be rolled into balls that I haven’t touched.  I bought more gray fabric to complete quilt squares that is still uncut.   I need to call my aunt about ordination things and a birthday package to wrap.  I have all day.
Until suddenly, it reaches that point in the day where I think, “Sh*t!  I still have all this stuff to do still!”  I had all day but suddenly after pinning on pinterest, stalking on facebook, and watching How I Met Your Mother, my day is gone.  Gone.  I just reached that point. It’s almost noon and I have plans that take me away from the home at 3pm.  But instead of doing something productive about it, I’m blogging.  Eh.  I have a full day tomorrow to do stuff.  [And there is the problem.]
[Would you like to hear a second problem?  Pond swimming and weed pulling was great fun but it seems I’m now breaking out in itchy red bumps from the excursion.  And what’s that?  Oh, right.  They’re starting to blister.  Darn you, pond weeds!  *shake angry fist*]

twelve total reasons.

7 Jul
to begin, this is not a pity post.  at all.  just thoughts.  [are we clear?]
I’ve thought a lot about my single-ness since moving home.  I’ve watched The Proposal with Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock about 86 times because it seems to play on the movie channels at all the right times, and I’ll admit, I get easily sucked into nearly any movie with Ryan Reynolds.  It probably does not help to watch a movie about marriage over and over. But also, my friends here are all attached – boyfriends, marriages, and babies.  They’re not apt to spontaneously invite me to do something, or apt to accept a spontaneous invitation from me.  They have other people intimately a part of their life; they live with other people.  I’m involved in three weddings for friends this summer/fall [plus one of a cousin].  I told one of those friends that she could have my “and guest” back and give it to someone else as she struggles to keep numbers down for the reception.  She told me, “It’s in September; you never know!”  Yes, it is a few months off but nope, pretty sure I won’t need that “and guest.”  [Though I also wouldn’t mind being proven wrong.]
Which leads me to my point – a college friend posted this article to facebook tonight – Single for Six Reasons.  The author of this article wrote it in response to another article under the same premise – Why You’re Not Married – which gives another six reasons why one might be single.
The six reasons why you’re not married in the original article [written by a television writer, mind you; these are her words, not mine] are as follows: you’re a b***h, you’re shallow, you’re a slut, you’re a liar, you’re selfish, and you’re not good enough.  Hmm.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that I don’t agree.  To any of my single lady friends – these are most certainly not why you’re/we’re not in relationships.  Some credit to the humorist as she does continue to say that she certainly does not believe that last one, but rather, it’s ourselves who think we’re not good enough.  [Breaks my heart.  Thank goodness for Jesus in whose eyes we are always loved and enough.  If only we would think the same about ourselves and each other.]
The six reasons in rebuttal?  You’re patient, you’re confident, you’re successful, you’re beautiful, you won’t accept anything less than you deserve, and you know what you want.  I like these reasons better; these I would like to believe.
Truth be told, for the whole variety of single women out there, any and all of the twelve [plus some] might come into play – agree with them or not and whether I think they apply to my life or not.  But what I agree with most – and I think this comes out of both the original and the rebuttal – is how key it is to know oneself.  I’ll preach until the cows come home [unless they’re traveling from a very very far distance] that self-awareness and knowledge of self is important.  Super-duper important.  
So if I feel like I’m self-aware and know myself as an individual, does that mean I’ve earned my boyfriend card?  That’s okay.  Right now, I’ll play the I’m-okay-being-single card.  I can watch as much Friends as I want and quilt like an old lady with no other commitments.  [phew, right?]  [Though I will also confess in my boredom I have continued to research a trip to Quebec City.  I feel like it would be a great honeymoon destination … or maybe as a I-turned-30-and-find-myself kind of trip.  Time will tell.]  
I feel as if this was a bit of a pointless post.  I guess I wanted to share those articles, without completely letting go of my control or showing my complete and utter vulnerability.  Check?  Check.

Cakepop Crazies, part II

6 Jul

To see the first episode, click here.
To see where the Cooking Pastor all began, click here.

project pond scum.

5 Jul
the pond – with Aunt Peggy & Uncle Brian’s in the background
Growing up, my summers were spent at the pond.  You know – the pond.  The same pond in which my dad and his siblings grew up swimming.  The pond that sits on my neighbor’s property [that neighbor being  my aunt and uncle].  The pond that was probably a 12 minute walk through corn field paths, along the creek, and past the hornet’s nest from our farm.  Or a five minute tractor ride.  Maybe three in the bed of the truck.
The pond was where my brothers, cousins, and I lived in the summers.  My aunt works at the high school so she, like us, had her summers off and spent those days as lifeguard, swimming instructor, and freezie pop provider.  The place where we cooled off and cleaned up after a day in the tobacco fields, and the place where we made each other filthy with muck and pond scum fights.  The pond was one of my happiest places as a child.
It was where I learned to swim and tread water for hours.  My personal feat as a little girl was performing summersaults and handstands just off the pier.  [I believe it was thirteen summersaults in a row – and in one breath – that was my final and best record.]  It was where I learned to hold my own with four boys named Matt, Ben, Mike, and Kyle.  
It’s been years since I’ve been swimming in the pond.  Being away for summers and simply with the brothers and cousins growing in age, the pond isn’t our natural gathering place anymore.  In the years away, the pond has changed.  The middle pier/diving board is now gone, along with the pier on the western edge that no one used but for fishing.  The remaining pier is a bit saggy in places and the fish population has grown.  As have the weeds.
When we swam in the pond nearly every day for many summers in a row, the weeds were never much of a problem.  We would clear them out in the beginning of the summer and feel them no more for the rest of the season.  It’s likely been many years since the weeds were cleared from this swimming hole.  That, my friends, was the project for today.
Cousin Connor encouraged us to take back our swimming pond.  [I think he’s just as bored as I am since he returned from his two weeks in Kenya and as he waits to begin his first year of college in the fall.]  Emma and I responded with a strong, “Huzzah!” and the weeds had met their match.  It’s just not so much fun to swim out to the middle of the pond and have the seaweeds graze your body as you paddle past.  It can be a little disturbing, and maybe a little eerie.  The weeds had to go.

The ones closest to shore were raked.
The best method for weed removal?  Spaghetti-style.  As a fork winding spaghetti off a plate, so becomes your leg winding and pulling the weeds from the bottom of the pond.  Connor and I pulled all the weeds we could reach with our legs, twisting and twirling until the weeds came up on our foot.  We’d pull them off our feet and Emma would take the canoe paddle and bring them up to shore or onto the pier.  We had a system and it worked fairly well for us.  [Not so well for the weeds.]
Does this gross you out?  The weed-pulling spaghetti-style?  [I’m sure a few of you might just be grossed out at the thought of swimming in a pond.  You have my mom’s company.]  In a weed fight fought later in the afternoon, it was discovered that it certainly grosses my sister out.  She made gagging noises as Connor threw weeds on top of her head.  Sure, the weeds make you a little itchy, and pulling them from the bottom makes the water all sorts of murky and dirty.  Connor attempted to nail me with a paddle of weeds from the boat as I treaded water in the middle.  He missed, but I hit him square in the back upon retaliation.  Best line of the day?  As he jumped in the water to clean off and yelled, “I have weeds in my pants!”
A majority of our catch.
Connor and I with our spaghetti.

Lindsay + July = Completed Quilt

4 Jul
I will finish a quilt.  I will finish a quilt.  I will finish a quilt.

And these will be the fabrics in said quilt. [The chicken/rooster fabric is my favorite and how I figure the other fabrics mix in.]  The quilt has been a work in progress for the past month with 36 12×12 squares currently completed.  Now it’s to the nit-picky time-consuming cutting and assembling many pieces to make a single square.  It’s all backed by gray, my favorite color of late.  
I will finish a quilt.  I will finish a quilt.  I will finish a quilt.

latest pinterest favs.

4 Jul

I think I’m going to spray paint nearly everything in my new home.  Do we think folding chairs would chip easily?  Would a spray paint primer work best first?  [I think I’m going to learn so much about spray painting nearly everything in my new home.]  These colors actually match my plates and the bowls that I drool over and will eventually buy …

This just makes me smile.  Look at her cubby knees!

Source: etsy.com via Lindsay on Pinterest

Oh, C.S. Lewis …

Maybe this can be a project for the week.  I need some organization of my thread and bobbins.
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