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So yesterday was awesome.

4 Feb

[So yesterday was awesome.]  It started out as a regular Sunday with one major difference – I was feeling quite rested and ready after two weeks of vacation.  Bring on worship.

I’m sitting in my office, prepping and talking to the treasurer, when I see out the window a couple from my former life walking up the sidewalk.  Batman was here!  Batman and his wife were here!  [Wondering who Batman is?  Read this.]  It was so fun to see them and chat with them.  A day can’t go wrong when there are Dawson visitors involved!

Fast forward.  Everyone has left church and I’m tidying up a few loose ends before heading out.  Boy Scout dad and two of his kids [also my neighbors and a family who attend ROG] show up; they hold their den meeting at ROG some Sunday afternoons.  One of his kids with him is in the den; the other is his daughter.  Why is his daughter coming to the Boy Scout meeting?  To conduct a science experiment, in which I also participated.

Budding scientist:  Hi Pastor Lindsay.  Do you want to help me with my science project?
PL:  What do I have to do?
Budding Scientist: [whips ziploc bags of cookies from her grocery tote] Try three different cookies and then I’ll ask you some questions.

[Let me get this straight.  You want me to eat three chocolate chip cookies at the point in the day when I’m most hungry after working and running around since 7:30 this morning?]

PL: Um, yeah!

And so I tried cookies A, B, and C.  I ranked them for overall taste and crunch.  [Turns out one had baking power, one had baking soda, and one had neither.]  Most delicious and awesome science project ever.

From there, I went on a hospital call.  Sweet, dear gentleman who normally resides in the care center was in the hospital.  He was pretty weak and he hadn’t had any liquids to drink for at least a day; he tried to talk but with such a dry mouth, it was hard to understand him.  His son was there; he tried to translate for me.  At two different points, the sweet, dear gentleman said things in my general direction.  I looked at the son for translation.  First: He says he likes your scarf.  Second: He says you have a nice coat.  Well, thank you, sweet, dear gentleman.

More day of awesome continued with a trip to the dog park for Ms.Mabel, phone conversations with long lost friends, and velvetta cheese at a Superbowl party.  The only disappointment in this day of awesome was missing out on a date with my bestie, Sara, for the second time due to snow.  Darn snow.  One of these days, Sara and I will reunite and it will be all kinds of awesome.

I don’t speak boiler.

16 Jan
My week at church has been chilly.  And it’s only Wednesday.
It all began on Sunday.  As I prepared for worship [after hurting my back by walking], I noticed the sanctuary felt chilly.  Fifty-nine degrees chilly.  I fiddled with the thermostat and found everything as it should be except for the fact that there was no heat.  I happily turned the problem over to the men who called the other men to come in vans and shine flashlights in the boiler room.  The thermostat began to go up just as everyone was leaving church for the day.  If it is cold again tomorrow, treasurer Bob told me, just call the heating&cooling guys.  Okay, Bob.
I wasn’t in the office much Monday morning because, well, I slept until 8 and took the morning slow.  [I hurt my back by walking.  Remember?  And I knew I’d be at church thru at least 9 that night.]  I went to the Austin High School to have lunch with Mary, a member, who heads up the nutrition/foodstuff for the Austin district.  She works with fun people; it was fun.  I got back to the office and watched the thermostat in my office slowly decline.  66 … 65 … 64 … 63.  I called the heating&cooling guys.
Guy: So, uh, what’s wrong?
Me: There is no heat.  I’ve watched the temperature go down since I’ve been here.
Guy: No heat, huh?  Have you been in the boiler room?
What I wanted to say: What the hell would I do in the boiler room?
What I actually said: No.  Bob just told me to call you.
Guy came.  Guy called other people.  Guy said he thought he found the problem and he’d be back Tuesday.  Fast-forward.  Guy had been at church for many hours yesterday, finally gets ready to leave, and stops in my [freezing] office to give me the scoop.
Guy: No heat for at least two days … need new parts … I’ve been on the phone forever with warehouses and distributers … burners … cats … you’d better get some space heaters … good luck.  [paraphrased.  and maybe nothing about cats.]
I just nodded, pretending to understand at least one tiny bit of what he said.  I understood enough to call a trustee who then called another trustee who together brought industrial diesel heaters [the kind you use in barns] and space heaters.  They will stop by periodically to turn them on so water doesn’t freeze and walls don’t split and hell doesn’t freeze over.  [Did I just say my church is hell?  Not true.]
God bless the farmer trustees.
They speak boiler.  I do not.

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rollercoaster.

9 Jan
My work week has been a rollercoaster and, frankly, I’m not thrilled about it.
Sunday was fine.  Back from vacation.  Feeling fresh.  I think people learned a little about epiphany.  Linda, a member who wrote a book about her life with polio and keeps a blog, actually wrote about the service in a post.  Check it.
Monday sucked.  My to do list was long, I felt swamped, and found my list of to do filled with menial tasks that seemingly lacked ministry.  Figure out who needs keys for the church.  Buy a dvd player for the church.  Phone calls.  Newsletter.  I was just crabby and it made for a bad day.  [Then I kickboxed, made pad thai, and watched The Bachelor so there was improvement.]
Tuesday was good.  I had a productive office morning/ministerium meeting in Blooming and then was off to Austin for visits – some really profound, holy visits.  My first visit was to a man who is dying.  He was tired, laying down, and had “taken his ears out.”  The family said I could go in a say hi and to communicate they handed me a white board and a red dry-erase marker.  I would write on the board, show it to him, and he would nod or give me a hand gestures.  It went something like this: Hi.  It’s Pastor Lindsay. / Would you like communion today? [nods yes. give communion.] / The body and blood of Jesus given for you. [nod.] /  We are praying for you. [gestures to hold my hand.]  It was a pretty holy place.
Today was not horrible … but confirmation – my beloved confirmation – threw me for a loop tonight.  We hadn’t met for actual confirmation class since the end of November; maybe our rhythm was just off.  But between one of the kids making a gay joke [I might have jumped on that a little too harshly.], cell phones, secrets, and just gross disinterest [I may be slightly exaggerating.], it was so frustrating.  I made me completely question what the hell I’m doing for structure and how badly I’ve screwed it up.  [Of course I immediately blame myself.]  Shit.
But hey – if the course of the week continues, tomorrow will be awesome.  Here’s hoping.

merry christmas, mabel.

27 Dec
You know you’ve made it and you’ve been accepted into a congregation when your dog gets Christmas presents.
It was handed to me last Sunday morning.  The tag, right below the bow, said To: Mabel.  From: Shad and Gracie.
I let Mabel open it when I got home that morning.  She loved it.

Mabel is at the kennel now, while I’m home on vacation/for Geep’s funeral.  I dropped her off on Christmas Eve morning and I received a phone call Christmas Eve night.  Mabel had been in a fight.  A dog scuffle.  She tried to take a bone from another dog and got her hind quarters handed to her.  There was a nick out of her ear and a gash on her butt.  Poor Mabel.

snow.

20 Dec
It snowed here.  The wind is howling, schools were closed, and Mystique face-planted in the front yard.  And the best part – I have given myself the privilege to work from home.  In flannel polka dot pajama pants and wrapped in a blanket.  [Ten points for the person to guess the movie that playing in the background.]
In anticipation of the storm, I canceled any obligations I had today in exchange for the peace of staying off the roads.  I ran around like crazy yesterday to get things down so I could stay in.  I have plenty to keep me busy in the warmth of home.  It’s Christmas for a pastor.  I have sermons to write.  Three, to be exact.  I have things to do for sure.
I did go to the office this morning.  The commute wasn’t terrible but it ended with very wet pant legs.  I had to walk across the parking lot to grab some needed bulletins, books, and papers.  The lot hasn’t yet been plowed and it went from very little snow to very high drifts.  I could barely get the church door open against the drifts next to it.  
If I’m honest, I’m not bothered by the snow at all.  In fact, I really like it.  I think I like snow.  I dream of someday owning snowshoes and would love opportunities to go cross-country skiing more often.  It’s a good thing I don’t mind the white stuff or the cold – Paige and I bought train tickets to Montana yesterday.  Montana in January.  So excited.
It is best the snow has come now.  We hope for clear roads come holiday travel, especially this girl, whose only hope of being with family on Christmas is a clear drive home following Christmas morning church.  Here’s to writing three sermons, leading four services, and packing/wrapping all before then.  And all I feel like doing right now is napping.  

pity, party of one.

8 Dec
Hey.
It’s my birthday.
I’m 29, boring, and I loathe sermon writing.
The day started out well.  I woke up on my grandparents’ couch.  I was home in Edgerton for an ever-so-very-brief two nights because of a memorial service I led on Friday in Illinois for a Dancing Banana’s father-in-law.  I was honored to have been asked to lead the service and grateful to have a way in which to contribute and help in such a difficult time.  And the funeral director?  Crazy awesome.  [And by crazy awesome I mean crazy.]
Anyways, I woke up on my grandparents’ couch.  We went out for breakfast, meeting my mom and her gentleman friend.  It was fun and delicious.  Next we went to see the new house of my mother’s.  I shopped local with Grandma and popped by to say happy birthday to my birthday buddy cousin, Connor [who is 20 and had returned from study abroad in Ghana just the night before].  Then I packed up and headed out.  From that point on, my birthday got really lame really fast.
I stopped at Starbucks in Wisconsin Dells to claim my free birthday drink and then I stopped in LaCrosse to claim my Mabel who had been boarded there for the past two nights.  We drove home and I muddled my way through a patchwork, likely-disaster sermon for tomorrow.  [I’d had a funeral at ROG on Wednesday; between that and the memorial service on Friday, no Sunday prep was to be found during the work week.]  When I have to write my Sunday sermons on Saturday night [my birthday, nonetheless], I become a monster.  I become a monster who cries and will say she hates her job.  A bitter monster.  deep breath.

Maybe when you turn 29, birthdays just get boring and bitter by default.  
No?  It’s just me?
Of course.
I used to say that birthdays were my excuse to make my friends do something I wanted to do.  Like have friends over to my house.  Or go on an adventure.  Or play crazy board games.  Or eat cake.  Now maybe birthdays will be my excuse to drink wine at home alone [which really makes it no different than any other night].

Party on, Wayne.

Party on, Garth.


coughing hysteria.

3 Dec
I’ve had a cold for the past week.  This isn’t new.  I’ve lived with it.  I’ve chugged cold medicine and gone through boxes of kleenexes.  I thought I was beginning to feel better.
Then Sunday morning happened.  I was fine.  Just fine.  [Or as Monica would say when she is sick, I’m find.  Chandler responds, When you say fine with a D, you’re not FIND.]  My voice was a little nasal but that’s it.  I wasn’t really coughing.  I was good.
Until the reading of the gospel, which, luckily, was an all-together reading for this particular Sunday.  The congregation continued reading while I got the most giant coughing fit ever.  I couldn’t stop.  They keep reading Psalm 96 while I ran into the sacristry where I remembered seeing mint candies.  Something to suck on would help calm the coughing, I thought.  
I thought wrong.  The children’s sermon time was horrible.  I finally, into the microphone, had to ask that someone get me some water.  A bottle of water came up the aisle, along with a partially opened cough drop from the depths of some old lady’s purse.  I ate it.  There was no time for Halloween candy ethics [if it’s open, throw it away]; that cough drop helped me survive the rest of the church service.
I still coughed a lot.  And made the congregation answer a question to one another at the beginning of the sermon just so I could blow my nose.  It was terrible miserable and I’m so embarrassed by it all.  But what else was I to do?  I had no associate to take over, and just wasn’t sure what my next move should be besides hacking up a lung into my elbow cough pocket while serving communion.  [Just kidding.  By communion time, I was mostly okay.]
I went out with a group of eight older church ladies later that afternoon.  We went to see the production of White Christmas at the local college and then out to Culver’s.  We addressed my coughing fit and they told me I handled it very well.  You’re human, one woman told me.  True story.

a thankful november: today.

12 Nov
It’s Monday.  Nobody likes Monday.
But today was a good Monday for this pastor.  It started with quilting with the ladies, and by quilting I mean I had coffee with them and then, of course, potluck lunch. I brought cakepops to share.  I had many in-depth conversations about cakepops.  It’s cool.  I like to talk about them.
A communion visit and then coffee with my mentor?  Good.  Conversation with seminary roomie via mobile?  Good.  Good news via text from a pregnant friend in Montana?  Good.  Council meeting?
Good!
Council meetings typically leave me in tears.  I’m usually frustrated at my inability to lead.  They’re long.  Sometimes respect for each other isn’t there.  But tonight – it was good.
How did that happen?
First, we started with worship.  I normally lead devotions [read: lame] but tonight I wanted to give them a sneak peak at Holden Evening Prayer, a service we are trying during Advent this December.  The council didn’t seem entirely thrilled – especially the men – but they stuck with it.  It took a half hour – much longer than typical devotions.  I wondered if they hated me for it.
But I think they were okay.  Then I presented them with a possible mission statement for Red Oak Grove.  To get to it, I made them play hangman.  They guessed letters and I filled them in to get Gathering in grace, growing in faith, going forth to serve.  They humored me and then we had a decent conversation about the statement.
THEN the meeting was about to wrap when someone spoke up.  This person is one in charge of the church’s seminary endowment fund.  [a fund of money we can’t touch but to support future pastors in seminary with the interest gained.]  No one is using the fund right now.  Maybe our pastor could use the interest gained this year for her seminary loans?  It’s not much, she said.  It didn’t matter how much; I was humbled at the thought.  
We held hands [yeah. we do that.], said the Lord’s prayer, and the meeting was over.  The meeting was just over an hour.  That’s at least thirty minutes shorter than usual.  And then Paige posted this photo from last night on facebook.  Thankful for the feet of friends [and the rest of their bodies, too].
Good day.

my next screen play.

31 Aug
[and by next I mean first.]
I just spent an hour dropping off bulk mail at the Austin Post Office.  The LOG [our monthly newsletter at ROG – get it?] is en route to members thirsty for the latest word from this church.  [or maybe it’s their recycling bin that is hungry for it.  whichever.]  Anyways, Marilyn usually drops this off.  She’s the one who weighs it, fills out the appropriate paperwork, and makes sure when it is dropped off that it keeps the lovely USPS clerks happy.  This time the cookie crumbled and it was my job to deliver.  I got a sneak peak at the world that is church administrative assistants.
Behind me in line was another church dropping off their monthly newsletter.  I spent a fair bit of time at the counter this time around because the weight on the group of 10 newsletters was off by .009.  Off by too much apparently.  The clerk who was helping me had to go ask someone else a question, and then she had to reweigh, and then she had to explain to me how to fill out new paperwork with the appropriate weight, all the while this administrative assistant behind me waited for another clerk.
Another clerk appeared and the admin assistant behind me went to her with the boxes of newsletters in her hands.  She kinda giggled, looked at me, and said, More of the same thing, in a sing-songy voice.  But her weight on the group of 10 was correct.  No further questions, no reweighing.  She was in.  And then she sneered at me with a mix of pity and a mix of superiority as she left the counter, arriving after me and leaving before me.  What a smug church basement lady.
Okay.  No, she didn’t really sneer but what a movie screen play it could be if she did!  The entire drive home I wondered what the secret lives of church administrative assistants is like.  Competitiveness at the post office counter over bulk mail, bragging rights over who could fold bulletins the fastest, and who also played the organ.  I imagine the movie would be a lot like Drop, Dead Gorgeous but with less murder and more lipstick stains on coffee cups.  

wedding season.

25 Aug
One wedding this weekend.  Two next weekend.
uffda.
The one this weekend is one I’ve actually been excited about.  Let’s just say this to start – weddings are hard for me as a pastor.  Weddings are often events where I know only the couple getting married and maybe a handful of others.  Weddings require me to spend time with a whole bunch of people I don’t know and that is exhausting for me.  Weddings are another sermon for the week and are all so different from each other that each is its own entity requiring thought and planning and time.
This weekend’s wedding is for a couple with whom I would love to be friends.  They are beyond kind and friendly.  They were the first people at Red Oak Grove to have me over for dinner, which happened when I visited their house regarding their daughter’s baptism.  The groom is also part of a family that I know.  His cousin is in my confirmation class.  Through being a part of his great-uncle’s funeral a couple months ago, I was able to meet a lot of the family.  It was comforting to know that I would show up at the farm and have familiar faces.  In fact, this was the first wedding at ROG where I was a.) invited and b.) went to the rehearsal dinner.  And it was fun!  I sat at the kids’ table with Marnie, the confirmation student, and the other kiddos in the wedding.  One of them, a six year old boy, cracked me up beyond belief.  It was great entertainment for the evening.
And then there is the farm.  That’s the other part of this wedding that excited me.  The ceremony was to take place at the bride’s family farm.  I like that say that it was my wedding.  Only I attended as officiant.  Hay bales, mason jars, on the family farm.  Pretty sure I blogged about this way back when.  I was excited to see how this picture perfect wedding played out. 
Let’s just say it rained.  We held out as long as we could and it looked like we had a window of clearing.  The bridal party lined up and we started the ceremony.  Halfway through the declaration of intention, the sky opened up and it started to pour again.  Vows, rings, kiss, done.  [A little bummed that the wedding homily I worked on for a few hours will never be preached but so the cookie crumbles and the rain falls.]  Everyone was soaked by the end of it, even with umbrellas throughout the crowd and wedding party.  
The couple was so great about it though.  I think some brides and grooms would turn sour at such a unwelcome shower of rain but they practically laughed through the whole thing and were so great about it.  It’s one not to be forgotten.  I’m home briefly now to throw my clothes in the dryer before heading off again to the dinner portion of the celebration.  Luckily, that is slated to be inside at a ballroom.  Mmm, cake.
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