Hurricane Season, Pride Month, and Shifting Into Summer

Today is June 1, which means different things to different people.  Let me write a collection of snippets loosely connected by the fact that it's June 1.

--Hurricane season starts today.  I am glad that I'm living in the mountains.  Last year I wrote that I was glad not to be a Florida homeowner, and that was before Hurricane Ian.  I am still glad to be a homeowner of a house in the mountains.  I know that when a storm like that hits the state, or even when a small storm hits the state, insurance rates go up for everyone.  I look back at what we paid for homeowner's, hurricane, and flood insurance, and I am astonished we could stay there as long as we did.  It required us to work a lot of jobs to keep our financial heads above water, even as the water (both literal and metaphorical) was rising below us.

--It is the start of Pride month.  What does this mean in a time of legislatures that are bearing down on transgender people?  I listened to a great episode of 1A that explained that many of the things that legislators say they must prevent, like genital surgery of minors, simply isn't happening.  Here, as with many issues, I firmly believe legislators shouldn't insert themselves into medical decisions when they aren't trained physicians/clinicians.

--It's a month of Synod Assemblies for some Lutheran synods (ELCA brand, the kind of Lutheranism that is more inclusive), and I have no idea if any of them will be addressing any type of oppression at all.  I know that my home synod, the Florida-Bahamas Synod, has a bishop election, and often other items get put aside so that elections can move forward.

--I will not be going to any synod assemblies, although there are several that hold my interest (I live in the North Carolina synod, I have an internship this school year with the Southeast Synod, I go to a school that's part of the Metro DC synod, and I have had a scholarship from a church in the Virginia synod).  I begin my part-time preaching job in Bristol, Tennessee this Sunday, so getting away for a synod assembly doesn't make sense.

--Yesterday I sat down to write my sermon for Sunday--what a delight.  I know the writing process won't always be this easy, but I am writing about God the Creator as a focus for Trinity Sunday, the creator in the first Genesis story that's part of the Revised Common Lectionary selection for this Sunday, the one who declares everything "good and very good."

--I am reminded of what I wrote with chalk on a sidewalk last month:

--Last night, we went to a picnic at the lake at Lutheridge, a picnic to introduce the summer counselors to the people of the residential section.  Here's a picture taken by my next door neighbor:

--It was interesting to reflect on our various ages.  Most of the counselors are fresh from a year or two of college, and only a few of them are people who have been a counselor for more than two years.  Most of the residents are 15+ years older than my spouse and I am.  I think we baffled both sets of people at the picnic last night:  you're living here full-time, and you're not exactly retired, and one of you is in seminary?

--Forty years ago (I first typed thirty years ago, and then did the math), I graduated from high school, at the end of May.  Part of me feels it's impossible that so much time has gone by.  Part of me is astonished at all I have accomplished.  I am interested to see what happens in the next 40 years (while also realizing that I am likely to be dead at the end of those 40 years; next month I will celebrate my 58th birthday).