Farm Stand Eating

We have had a stretch of farm stand eating.  You may say, "Of course--it's July--it's how we're all eating."  But I spent 24 years in South Florida, where summer is not a growing season, where growing any sort of vegetable during any month takes planning and good fortune and is likely to end in tears.

One summer, I wanted peach cobbler in the worst way, a homesickness that was wrapped up in missing my elders that had died, missing friends far away.  I stood by a display of overpriced peaches, not one of which had any kind of smell:  not peach, not rot, not any smell at all.*

I wanted to cry.

And because I'm an English major, I thought of those lines from Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale":   

"Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn"

I thought about tears and alien produce and how I didn't really like peaches much anyway, and then I moved along.  I thought about my peach triggered homesickness a few weeks ago when I was peeling peaches from the box I bought to support one of the high schoolers in the church I serve in Bristol, Tennessee.

One of my other parishioners has been bringing us other gifts from her garden.  We've had a blueberry pie because she made jar after jar of pie filling made with blueberries from her yard and brought the jars to church.  Yesterday she brought a bag of green beans and implored us to take them all so that she didn't have to can them.

I was happy to help, even though beans aren't my favorite vegetable.  On the drive back across the mountain, I snapped each end and got them ready to cook.  I thought about hot afternoons on my grandmother's front porch, with bowls of beans on our laps and a paper bag on the porch floor to catch the vegetable waste, which my grandmother would dig back into the compost strip in the back yard along the detached garage.  

Back to yesterday's beans:  I found some hunks of ham frozen from Thanksgiving, and we let the beans and ham bubble away on the stove and had a wonderful dinner.  I had gotten some Mills River corn that had just been picked on Saturday, so we had that too, along with  the yellow squash casserole I made on Saturday and tomato slices.

Classic farm stand meal--and could there be a poem peeking around the edges too?  Or would it just be a collection of cliches?  Is there anything new to say?

I do like the idea of snapping beans in the front seat of a car instead of a front porch.  I like the idea of channeling the elders by way of food, but that's not a new idea--far from it.  Let me continue contemplating.

*After writing this blog post, I wondered if I had written about the earlier peach experience--and I did!  Go here to read that blog post from 2016.

Housing Contentment with Ants

For the past two weeks, we've had a solitary ant in the kitchen.  I've thought it odd--ants don't usually travel alone.

This morning, I'm wondering if it was a scout ant, sent ahead to find a good homestead.  This morning, we have ants all over the kitchen.

We rarely have bug problems in this house in Arden, which is strange because we live on a densely wooded lot, the kind of woods that means we don't have any yard care tasks.  We pay for termite protection because we're in a wooden house on a wooded lot.  But we don't have roaches and ants only a few times in the last 4 years we've lived here.

Wow--we have lived here 4 years.  I still think it was a smart move.  My spouse still misses Florida.  I used to say that I missed every place I had ever lived, even the ones I didn't particularly like while I was living there.  Now I am realizing that I don't miss those places anymore.

Is this one of the undiscussed joys of aging?  More probably, it's something specific to me.  For decades I was baffled to discover that most people don't miss places where they used to live.  Most people don't go back and give deep consideration to roads not taken and decisions made.

I am now in a place that I don't long to leave:  I love all my jobs, and I'm happy to be able to live here in the mountains.  I have good friends, both near where I live and far away.  My health feels stable.  I'm also happy with our fixer-upper in Spartanburg.

Yesterday I took a quick trip down to Spartanburg.  I needed to get the check to our neighbor who takes care of our yard and to get the mail.  I also wanted to see first hand how the rewiring project was going.  The rewiring project is much closer to finished than I expected--all but 1 fixture is installed.

It is much easier to feel less stress about this fixer-upper house because I love our mountain house so much.  We're going to keep that house and move back and forth.  If I have some additional commuting time to Spartanburg Methodist College, if the fixer-upper house isn't ready by the time classes start, that's O.K.

It's easier to deal with home repairs when I'm not living in the house being repaired.  That, too, is a source of my current contentment.

It's time to shift my focus.  This week brings major due dates:  SMC online grades on Monday, a Candidacy Endorsement Writing Project on Monday, and my Paul paper on July 26, Sunday.  Let me turn my writing attention to other projects this morning. 

Making Cut Paper Cards

Earlier this week, I went to the studio of a neighborhood friend.  She wanted to make cards out of cut paper, and I was happy to try my hand.  She had the supplies, including papers we painted earlier in the year for a retreat.  If you look closely, you can see the hymnbook print behind the paint.

One approach is to look for words that match the picture or mood.  I rarely did that.  I was primarily looking for the colors that I needed.  But when I returned to the picture below to add some additional green circles that I hope look like a tree canopy, I saw some bits that worked, most notably at the top word "Seasons."

It was a fun exercise, but harder than it looks.  I was trying to make shapes that evoked tents, but I'm not sure the purple under the trees or the red shapes at the bottom of the mountains in the upper card do that.  I was more pleased with the trees and with the mountains.  

My friend also decorated the envelopes to match the image on the cards, but I didn't have the patience to work with that canvas that needed to be smaller so that there's room for the addresses.

It is fun to work on a project like this one while catching up.  I'm grateful to be able to share her supplies and the hospitality of her studio.  And now I have two more cards to send out.  I am feeling truly fortunate.

Angels of Deliverance

Today is an important nuclear anniversary.  On this day in 1945, scientists exploded the first nuclear bomb at the Trinity test site in New Mexico.

I hadn't remembered until doing some Internet wanderings that the explosion was scheduled for this date because Truman had an important meeting with Allied leaders in Potsdam on July 17.  Bomb as savior?

Oh, so many poetry possibilities!  There's the desert aspect, the prophets that so often emerge from wilderness areas.  There's the fact that this part of the country has become a detonation point for various immigration fights through the last four decades.

Those of you who have been reading this blog and/or my poems for awhile now will be saying, "Haven't you already explored this poetic terrain?"

Indeed, I have.  Yet I think there may be more to do.

It's also the birthday of Tony Kushner.  I remember long ago, in 1994, my friend who dreamed of writing plays told me about Angels in America, which she had just read.  It happened to be available from the Quality Paperback Book Club, so I ordered it.

I consumed it in one sitting.  It has haunted me ever since.

I watched both Angels in America and Perestroika when they came to the Kennedy Center during the mid-90's.  Wow.  Sometimes I forget the power of live theatre.  The HBO version came out in the early years of this century, and it, too was powerful, but when I'm watching something on a screen, I assume that part of the power comes from high-tech sorcery.  With live theatre, I give all the credit to the humans on the stage.

I have spent the years since wondering about the idea of writing that tackles the big issues of an age.  I've thought of August Wilson writing a play that represents the life of African-Americans during the twentieth century, one play for each decade.  And he pulled it off!

Some days, I think I dream too small.

It's oddly comforting to think about Angels in America, a play written about a dark time in American history.  I remember the early days of the AIDS crisis, when we weren't quite sure of the cause and how to prevent it and even as we discovered more about it, the thought that haunted us was that maybe there were additional transmission routes that we hadn't found yet.  The disease seemed more ravaging in those days, as people went from healthy to corpse in six months or less.  And then, as now, the government seemed helpless--or worse--in the face of the devastation.

And yet, here we are, into a generation or two saved by protease inhibitors.  There's recent talk of a pill that prevents transmission.  Darkness can be split apart by light.

I have hopes that ten or twenty years from now, we'll look back and say, "We were at a turning point, but we didn't see it then.  The world was about to emerge into a better place, but boy did it look bleak then."

And what writers/works will we see as the documenters of that dark time?  As a writer, is it better to document the dark time or to dream of the brighter future?

Modern Life with Tick Removal

My spouse started his day by pulling a tick out of the back of my knee--we're romantic that way.  I was sitting at my desk and felt a weird bump, which I assumed was a new skin growth, which I assumed would mean a trip to the dermatologist when I saw it was black.  And then I saw legs on either side.

It took some effort to see the tick, so I decided to wake up my spouse to get his help.  He was calm, as he almost always is in a medical situation, in most situations.  The tick came out easily, and I smushed it in a piece of paper and then put tape over it.  I've read that the body might be needed for testing, if I develop any symptoms.

I'll be on the lookout for a bull's-eye rash.  I'll also be on the lookout for other symptoms of Lyme Disease.  I'm already feeling chills, because I'm suggestible that way.

I will also look at my body more carefully and have my spouse check my scalp.  

In some ways, I'm a bit freaked out.  I've managed to get through my 61 years without ever having a tick.  In other ways, I shrug.  I live in a place with lots of trees and undergrowth, so in many ways, it's to be expected.

I planned to write about my delightful day yesterday.  I was staying with a grad school friend in Columbia, SC, and we went to the Gourmet Shop in Five Points for early lunch/late breakfast.  The place was draped in French flags, and all the workers had jaunty neck scarves, and a few wore berets.

How wonderful to be in a place that celebrates Bastille Day!  I had a goat cheese, pesto, and tomato panini with a cup of tomato bisque.  I took advantage of a Bastille Day sale and bought 3 bottles of wine for later.

We spent the rest of my birthday eating leftover pizza with the wine and bits of birthday cake I brought home.  I had a phone call from an old friend from Trident Tech and Mepkin days whom I hadn't talked to in many years--what a treat!

And now, back to regular life.  I'll go for a walk and later, coffee with a neighborhood friend.  I'm doing a day of mail delivery duty today and then quilting at the local Lutheran church.  So, it's not all regular life--regular life will be some grading and bill paying and maybe some of the writing that needs to be done soon:  sermon writing and my Paul paper and my Candidacy writing project.

Happy Bastille Day! Happy Birthday!

Today is my birthday. I was born on an Air Force base in France, where July 14 is Bastille Day. My mom always told me that when I was born they had parades and fireworks and people took the day off to have a picnic; it was years before I realized that these celebrations had nothing to do with me. I've always found it thrilling to be born on Bastille Day, and later, as I discovered the influence of the French Revolution on some of my favorite British authors, I've been even more happy to have been born on Bastille Day. Even my knowledge of how the French Revolution turned out (boo Napoleon!) doesn't dull my appreciation of the event. I see it as one of the important world events that paved the way for the world of freedoms that so many of us in the first world enjoy.

So, you're not ready to stop celebrating the human drive for freedom from tyranny, you're in luck!  Bastille Day is the French Fourth of July, and you could make a strong case that both revolutions should be celebrated in tandem.  The French began their revolution in the decade after the American colonies broke away, and for the next century, maybe 2, abusive leaders worried about the example set by these revolutions, how these revolutions showed that ordinary citizens could change the world.

It's also the birthday of former president Gerald Ford, which impressed my elementary school classmates (sharing a birthday with the president!) more than it impresses anyone now. Now I'm most happy about sharing my birthday with so many great artists. Woody Guthrie was born on this day, as was Irving Stone. It's also the birthday of Isaac Bashevis Singer--not bad to share one's birthday in such company!

I'm most happy about sharing a birthday with Woody Guthrie.  I find Guthrie fascinating as an artist. Here's a singer-songwriter who doesn't know music theory, who left behind a treasure trove of lyrics but no music written on musical staffs or chords--because he didn't know how to do it. For many of the songs that he wrote, he simply used melodies that already existed.

I think of Woody Guthrie as one of those artists who only needed 3 chords and the truth--but in fact, he said that anyone who used more than two chords is showing off. In my later years, I've wondered if he developed this mantra because he couldn't handle more than 2 chords.

I love this vision I have of Guthrie as an artist who didn't let his lack of knowledge hold him back. I love how he turned the deficits that might have held a lesser artist back into strengths. I love that he's created a whole body of work, but his most famous song ("This Land Is Your Land") is still sung by schoolchildren everywhere, and how subversive is that?

If I could create a body of poems that bring comfort and hope to activists, as well as one or two poems that everyone learns as schoolchildren, well I'd be happy with that artistic life. If I could inspire future generations the way that Guthrie did, how marvelous that would be. I could make the argument that artists like Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and the members of U2 would be different artists today, had there been no Woody Guthrie (better artists? worse? that's a subject for a different post).

Here's a Woody Guthrie quote to help you celebrate Bastille Day and the spirit of freedom, wherever it blooms. Those of you who listened to and loved The Alarm may remember Mike Peters quoting it during concerts (want to listen? see if you can find a copy of Electric Folklore Live and enjoy that soaring music one more time). Here's the Guthrie quote, which makes quite a good vision statement, for those of you in need of one:

"I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down or poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling.

I am out to fight those songs to my very last breath of air and my last drop of blood. I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built.

I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work."

All Our Cells: Cars, Monastic, and Other

Yesterday was a good day--we all headed to Bristol for church in our separate cars and lunch afterward.  The classy brunch place was closed because of some kitchen malfunction, so we went to a different downtown hotel for a different lunch experience.

Happily, they had both a breakfast and a lunch menu; it could have been worse.

Today I head down I 26 in a different direction towards Columbia.  A grad school friend had a catastrophic stroke 2 years ago, and she's in a skilled nursing unit in Columbia.  I try to get down to see her every 4-6 weeks.  After that visit, I'll swing by the house of another grad school friend.

This morning I was thinking about cells, the Julian of Norwich kind, and cars, the modern cell and wondering about poem possibilities, even though I'm sure I've used that imagery before.  I'll post the poem, but that doesn't mean I won't revisit this idea.  After all, I wrote the poem a long time ago, during a different time of commuting to adjunct jobs in South Florida.  What does it mean to be doing this driving now, as an older woman?  Stay tuned!

In the meantime, here's the older poem, first published in my chapbook, Whistling Past the Graveyard:

My Habit, My Hairshirt


A modern day anchoress, I commit
myself to my car. In my moving cell,
I sing constantly and pray without ceasing.

I dedicate myself to our modern religion
of hectic pace. I rush from one location to another,
showing my devotion in twelve hour increments.

No time for contemplation, the anathema
to the modern ascetic. I flog
myself with my cell phone and briefcase.

Occasionally, a heretical urge lures
me, a siren song urging me to slow down,
tempting me to tame my frantic schedule.

But no Gnostic visions for me. I race
through another week in the grip of my Daytimer,
my habit, my hairshirt.

A Quick Tour of Spartanburg with My Parents

Yesterday we went down to Spartanburg with my mom and dad.  They wanted to see our fixer-upper that we bought in May, and while we were there, also see the campus of Spartanburg Methodist College.  So that's what we did.

My cousin Judy also wanted to see the house and to see Mom and Dad (Judy is the wife of my mom's cousin Bob), so she drove down from the Charlotte area to join us.  And then, before we left each other, we had a wonderful late lunch at City Range Steakhouse, which despite it's name, does have vegetarian and pescatarian options.

I wondered about the wisdom of giving a house tour at this point in our renovations, this very early point before we've done very much.  But seeing the house at this "before" stage will make our renovations even more impactful (she says with hope in her voice).  The house impressed the visitors with its size--much bigger than people thought from the pictures.  My mom had been expecting a neighborhood that was much seedier, so the solidness of the neighborhood impressed her.  Everyone agreed that this screened porch was the place where they would spend a lot of time:

realtor's picture of screened porch

The campus also impressed my family members.  I was surprised to find that the door to the Ellis building was open.  That's the building where I have my office and where, so far, all my classes have been located.  We peeked into a classroom, but I didn't take them up to see my office.  It felt too much like we were trespassing, even though the door was open--plus, my locked office should be behind a locked outer door to the office space, so why make us all walk up the stairs?

As we left the building, which is at one end of the campus, we looked up the street to the rest, which I described.  We also had a bit of a driving tour as we drove to a different exit.

When I describe the school as a small, liberal arts college in South Carolina, my mind goes to my own alma mater, Newberry College, a much smaller campus, at least when I attended.  Like many a campus, both schools have an open space of lawn, around which are dorms and classroom buildings.  But SMC has another space of lawn at the other end of campus.  It's not as large as a state school--it's no UVa or UNC-Chapel Hill.

After our delightful late lunch, we drove back to our main home in Arden, NC.  Even though we finished lunch at 2:00, we had a late supper at 6:30, a supper of sandwiches.  I went to bed before the sun was down, at 8:15.  Music Week has been wonderful, but I am tired!

End of Music Week

A week ago, I'd be doing the last tasks to get ready for Music Week:  the cleaning, the final shopping, he laundry, some cooking.  I was grateful to have so much in place--food in the fridge, clean clothes--because the pace of Music Week feels more jam-packed every year.

Yesterday was a day of final rehearsals and then concerts and worship.  I went to the kid's concert--I am amazed at how the director is able to take a group of very young children, all under the age of 8, and get them focused and making good music.

I was able to record the Adult Choir during worship--they had 4 pieces for the prelude part of the service and 1 piece for the response to the Confession, 1 piece as a response to the Bible reading, and 1 piece for the Offertory.  If you'd like to hear them, I posted each one separately on my YouTube channel.

I was the Communion assistant, which went well for the most part.  Closing worship was held at the Chapel, which has no HVAC system, so we were all sweaty.  I was briefly worried about the chalices slipping out of my sweaty hands, but happily, that didn't happen.  As I walked back to the altar, some of the grape juice in the very full chalice sloshed and dripped on the floor.

The other team communed the choir, while the chaplain and I communed everyone else--including the bishop of the NC Synod.  I always find it profoundly moving to commune my mom and dad.  I'll get another chance to do that tomorrow--they're coming to Bristol on their way home.

We spent the afternoon helping our friends staying with us get on the road and then straightening a bit.  Mom and Dad came back in the late afternoon for dinner--delicious hamburgers, which we got cooked on the grill just before a thunderstorm came through.

After a week of late-ish nights, it was good to have an early bedtime.  Today we will head a different direction on I 26.  We're going down to Spartanburg to see our fixer-upper house and to see the campus of Spartanburg Methodist College.  We'll have some lunch at some point, and then we'll head back.

It's wonderful to have a slower ending to Music Week, otherwise yesterday afternoon could have been a crashing come down.

Thursday Night Hymn Festival

Last night we all headed over to St. James Episcopal Church in Hendersonville, about 15 miles away.  We trooped over there for the Music Week Hymn Festival.

Why did we need to change location?  In part, because the organ is better.  In part, because more people could come.  In part, because we've always done it this way, at least for the past decade or two or three.

Last night, at times, the organ took center stage.  Even if you think your church has a magnificent organ, it's likely 2-5 times smaller than the organ at St. James.  I know this because my mom is an organist, and at her last church, she was the organist who helped do a capital campaign for a new organ.  I thought it might be the same size as last night's organ, but she said it's about a quarter of the size.

David Cherwien was the organist and director of the Hymn Choir last night.  He showed us all the ways the organ could perform, and I was happy with the way the music illuminated the hymn itself.  At times, I wanted less organ and more singing, but I am aware that my preferences don't reflect the whole of the attendees.

Many of the hymns were familiar, but some were not.  Almost all of them came from the ELCA hymnal, the ELW (which stands for Evangelical Lutheran Worship).  As always, I am struck by what a wonderful resource that hymnal is.  Like my brain, like a computer, I don't use nearly as much as is there.

Last night, with every hymn, the audience had verses to sing; some years, the hymnfest is more like a concert, but not this year.  I thought about how unusual it is for me to sing in a group where I cannot hear myself singing--what a delight!  I took the picture above before the pews filled, and because it's Music Week, everyone was singing.

It's been a week full of delights, and I'm sad to see it come to an end today.  Happily, we are likely to be able to come to Music Week again next year.  I feel very fortunate.

Thursday Weariness

I am weary this morning, but in a good way--in several good ways:

--I've gotten to hear a lot of good singing/music and even done some singing myself.

--I've seen a lot of folks:  old friends, family members, people I recognize from past years.  I've had lots of conversation.

--The work still needs to be done:  grading, sermon writing, thinking about papers due in a few weeks.

--I've done more sketching than usual.

--We've started every morning with a vigorous walk.

--Each day since Sunday has contained one worship service, and usually 2.  And they are so well done.

--There's been Bible study:  villains in the Bible (the serpent, the Pharoah, David, and today, the Crowd).

--We've had good food.  Much of it was pre-prepped, but it still needs to come out of the refrigerator and go back in.

--I am thankful for the dishwasher, which we've used twice a day most days.

I am thankful for this time out of time, this time that reminds me that there's more to life than maintenance of body and of structures.

Music Week Sketching

I have spent time during Music Week sitting with my dad as the Adult Choir rehearses.  I may start bringing my laptop and getting some writing or grading done, the way I did the first year we came to Music Week as adults, back in 2022.

But maybe not.  Yesterday when I had read the book I brought and looked at the vender displays and still had time, I decided to do a quick sketch.  I began with a tree, the lower part of the tree, which is my go-to when I don't know what to draw.

Another go-to is pumpkins, which signify my favorite time of year, so I tried to sketch one.  I remembered that I had forgotten how to draw them, so on my phone, I looked up some techniques.

When the rehearsal time came to an end, I was really happy with the sketch I created:

I thought I might add color later, but I think I will let this sketch stand.  It brings me happiness, and I don't want to mess it up.

Later in the day, the grown son of my friend who is staying with us asked to see my sketchbooks.  He studied them intently.  I said I had work to do with perspective, and that I still struggled drawing humans.  Later, he said that he could tell which shapes were sheep and which were pumpkins and so on.  He pointed to some of my sketches to demonstrate.

He also said he could tell that my sketches started with strong, quick lines, and that can be hard to learn.  Interesting!

Being at Music Week often makes me sad that I haven't invested more time in developing musical abilities.  It's good to remember that I have other abilities.

Music Week Day 1: The Contrasts and the Contradictions

The last 24 hours have been full of contrasts.  On the one hand, it was the first full day of  Music Week at Lutheridge:

--Monday began with a long walk with the S. Florida church friend who is staying with us for the week.  Up and down hills, but I didn't really notice them because the conversation was deep and meaningful.

--Morning worship was also deep and meaningful.  I LOVED this prayer of the day:  "On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread, not revenge.  He offered bread to feed and to forgive.  On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took a basin of water to sooth [sic], liberate, and heal.  Help us, so washed and fed, to do the same."

--My inner English major was intrigued by the above spelling error, which made me think of soothsaying, which I continued to think about all day.

--My inner English major also was there for Bible study, which will take us to some villains in the Bible.  We began with one of the biggest, the serpent in the Garden of Eden.  One participant talked about the devil possessing the serpent, which sent me to the text, which reminded me that it's not in the text.  Ah, Milton, how your version has taken over everything we think we know about the story--which is what I said, in more non-English-major accessible form.

--One of our last questions for Bible study was "What does the serpent get out of this?"  I keep misspelling serpent, and this morning, I thought about serpent and repent, and now I want to write a poem, "The serpent repents."

--I was there for general choir rehearsal.  From the very beginning, this group can sing.  They sounded amazing, like they had been practicing for weeks, instead of just beginning together.

--The director has interesting ways of describing what he wants:  "You just sang the color dusty rose.  But it was the dusty rose of a piece of tuille or a curtain so faded you can see through it.  Now try it as a deeper rose color."  I immediately thought of a creative writing class idea, having students write a description and me bringing in different fabrics and colors and saying, "Now write it this way." 

--We had good meals together at our house.  The prep work was easy because I did most of it in advance.  It's becoming clear that I have prepared too much food--happily, much of it is freezable.

All of yesterday happened against a back drop of World Cup drama, both the games themselves, and the rumors of a phone call pressuring the officials to change a decision about red cards.  And then, this morning, the U.S. team lost anyway.

I got up this morning to news not only of that sports/political development/scandal, but also of the one in Maine.  If I left that sentence standing by itself, would future me remember which scandal I'm referring to?  In the interest of history, let me note that there are new rape charges against the Democratic candidate for Senate.  The charges that were already known (inappropriate sexting, inappropriate use of force against girlfriends) by the time of the primary would have been more than enough to disqualify him in the not-so-distant past.  Sigh.

I don't have a pithy way to end this post.  After all, if we're lucky, every given day is full of these contrasts if we just know to look:  deep friendship and deep spirituality and the farcical elements of modern life particularly the political bits and pieces, along with song and sustenance of all sorts.

Music Week Begins!

Yesterday was the start of Music Week at Lutheridge.  This year, unlike last year, I can be around for more of it.  I plan to go to the choral group (adult choir) rehearsals, so that if my Dad needs anything, I'll be there to help.  Plus, I don't mind being there when rehearsing is happening; in fact, I find it fascinating to see how a conductor trains, motivates, and shapes a choir.

We will be eating most meals at my house, and I have bought and prepped accordingly.  I'm still not completely sure of how many will be here, but I'm ready for a crowd.  Dining hall food during the summer is not designed for adult eaters:  think chicken nuggets, corn dogs, and school cafeteria quality pizza.  I have sandwiches of all sorts, plus a selection of chips, yogurt cups, fruit, and an amazing variation on carrot raisin salad that I made yesterday.

I have a lot of carrots, so I grated roughly 4.5 cups, a task which made me very happy for my food processor.  I didn't have raisins, so I roughly chopped 3/4 C. of dried cranberries.  I made a dressing of 1/2 cup mayonnaise and 1/2C. sugar plus a squeeze or three from a lemon, all whisked together.  Wow!  I am never buying this salad from a grocery store deli again.

Last night's meal was burgers, a choice of turkey or beef.  We had corn on the cob, and of course, chips.  It was delicious, and a good reminder that simple meals can work.

I am also going to hope that repeat meals can work.  Tonight I have a variety of elements to make Mexican possibilities, like burritos or nachos or the filling put on top of a salad.  Tomorrow night we might repeat.  Maybe we'll add in a baked potato, depending on how much I want to heat the kitchen.

After dinner last night, we went up the hill for orientation in the Faith Center and then further up the hill for evening worship in the chapel.  It was a Vespers of sorts (Evening Prayer on p. 309 of the ELW), but with more singing.  

We ended with a piece of music we had just learned at the end of orientation, Ana Hernandez's "If In Your Heart."  I was surprised at how easy it was for even a novice like me to learn (go here to buy the sheet music).  It's a Christmas song of sorts, but perfect for a close of day worship service.

The words are deceptively simple:  

"If in your heart, you make a manger for love's birth,

Then God will once again become a child on earth."

The lines are repeated in various vocal ranges, and it's just stunning.  This recording will give you an idea, but it can't replicate how it feels to be in a small chapel at camp, surrounded by skilled singers, with fireflies beginning their own evening song.

Independence Day Wrap Up

We had a weird 4th of July, and for these times, maybe that's appropriate.  We have several groups of visitors arriving today--Music Week at Lutheridge starts today!

So part of our 4th of July was getting ready.  We did extensive cleaning, and although the floors could still use a mopping, they look great.  My spouse cleaned the gutters--not something that needs to be done before company arrives, but another chore we'd put off for too long.

Some parts of getting ready were not drudgery.  I went to the small farmer's market in Mill's River, and most folks were wearing red, white, and blue, with most of the tables decorated for the 4th.  We grilled two chickens, ate some for lunch, and then pulled the rest of the meat off the bones--food for the week ahead.

I thought it was going to be a quiet day, but I woke up later, after dark, when it sounded like an explosive device was zooming past my window.  We don't have a lot of kids in the neighborhood, so it was weird to hear fireworks.  I don't remember hearing so many in past years.

Happily, I didn't hear much in the way of fireworks after 10.  In South Florida, people shoot off fireworks until 2 or 3 in the morning.

And now it's off to preach and preside at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee, then back across the mountains to do some last tidying before folks arrive.  Life is good.

Happy Independence Day: History as Life Preserver

I have begun this 4th of July listening to a variety of podcasts:  an interview with The Rest is History British podcasters and David Remnick and a NYT Book Review podcast with Jill Lepore talking about history and good books for Independence day.  I listened to this story on heartland rock, which didn't tell me anything I didn't already have figured out about Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A."  This piece on Octavia Butler's typewriter was disappointingly short. 

I have been re-reading Octavia Butler's Wild Seed, and I might go on to re-read Kindred, both interesting approaches to understanding history.  The interview with Jill Lepore meanders into a remembering of what it was to be immersed in books, especially the summer reading in childhood type.  Glorious!  I am always grateful to have longer stretches of reading time than I sometimes do during the school year.

This morning, I've also been re-reading past July 4 blog posts that I wrote.  Every 4th of July post is both similar and different, full of hope, yet also tinged by dread of what might be coming.  This year is no different.  Sure, we have a corrupt president, but that has usually been a national truth revealing how many different ways one can be corrupt, if one has enough power.

Here is the way I concluded my 2012 July 4 post.  It seems perfect for any ordinary Independence Day, but also for this one, which celebrates the U.S. at year 250:

I love this picture of a flag and a life preserver.  I often wish that our country could do more to hold out a life preserver to oppressed people across the globe.  But it's good to remember that our history serves as a life preserver of sorts, a beacon of hope to so many.

Midway Points: Inspirations and Revelations

I am grateful to have been blogging for so long, grateful for many reasons.  I often go back to re-read old blog posts--by often, I mean at least two or three times a week.  I go back to see what I was thinking/doing, to find recipes, to find rough draft ideas and inspirations, to spark my brain when I feel I have nothing new to blog about.  This morning I found this blog post about a poem idea I forgot I had for a poem called "The Holy Spirit Takes a Holiday"; I haven't finished the poem, now, a year later, but I still have the rough draft.

This meandering made me think about a summer project, making a rough draft into a finished draft each week.  And yes, that's one of my new year's aspirations that has fallen apart as the year progressed (this January blog post has details about my specific intentions for 2026).  But that's the joy of early July--there's still time to adjust my trajectory.

Speaking of inspirations, during my driving to the grocery store yesterday, on NPR's Fresh Air, I heard an interview with romance writer Kennedy Ryan.  She's the first African American to win the RITA, the highest romance writing award.  I started thinking about romance novels and wish fulfillment and the voices and faces that aren't characters in romance novels.  I thought about older women characters who might get one last shot at their dreams coming true.  Romance novels need an obstacle, and the inability to see oneself as romance worthy could be that obstacle.  Another potent one would be that one dream is coming true, and the inability to believe that multiple dreams could come true at once.

If I wrote romance novels with older female protagonists, I'd approach it as alternate life Kristin explorations.  But I was also attracted to this idea, from yesterday's interview, about creating an imaginary town, a place that becomes an escape, like all those clergy novels of the 90's.

Before I head out on my morning walk to beat the coming heat, let me also record this snippet from last year's blog post on this day:  "I wonder where we will be at the halfway point of next summer. Hopefully I will be meeting with my candidacy committee to proceed to endorsement, which is usually a halfway point to ordination, but in my case, I'm doing things a bit out of order. At Lutheran seminaries, students would do CPE much earlier, often in the summer after the first year, and then they'd get to endorsement sometime in the following year, before internship (year 3 of seminary) and the last year of seminary."

Last year Kristin had no idea how much would have changed and for the better.  My candidacy has now transferred to a different synod, which means I can progress towards ordination more quickly.  A year ago, I was expecting to have to do a part-time internship which would last two years, in addition to needing additional seminary classes, which would mean that summer of 2028 would be the earliest I could be ordained.  Now I am on track to be ordained in the first half of 2027.

Last year Kristin had hopes that she might get a tenure track job at Spartanburg Methodist College, but she would have assumed that it probably couldn't happen soon.  And now I am an Associate professor on the tenure track.

This morning, I'm feeling a bit fretful about the electrical work happening at our S'burg house--we bought all sorts of fixtures thinking that the installation was included in the expensive cost to rewire the house, only to be told we'd get an update on Monday.  Does this mean a proposal/invoice, as it sounded on the phone with the scheduler?  Or just an update on timelines?  It's tiring.

Tiring, but fixable--let me remember the saying that I first heard in one of Anne Lamotte early books, when one of her friends said that a problem solved by an infusion of cash is not really an interesting problem. It's especially not a problem when one has the money.

The sun is up to begin the day's roasting--let me go for my walk.

Life/Spiritual Lessons at the Dermatologist's Office

Yesterday, I went to the dermatologist.  I came home and made this Facebook post:  "The intense heat and sun of today takes me back to a high school time, similar weather, when high school Kristin said, "Hey, if I start now, maybe I'll have a good tan by the time we go back to school" -- which is why later life Kristin had to have another spot biopsied today. Happily, it's on my shoulder, not my face, so even if it needs more cutting, it's bearable."

I am supposed to go to the dermatologist every 3 months because of my melanoma diagnosis in December.  Because of that diagnosis, because we missed the significance of that spot for 18 months when we thought it was a weird bug bite, my dermatologist PA now biopsies more than she might otherwise, a mindset that I encourage.

She's a very kind PA.  I apologized for being sweaty.  She told me about the people who ride their bikes to the dermatologist and thus, are more sweaty than I will ever be.  I apologized for being fat, and she said, "You're in great shape," while the MA nodded enthusiastically.  I do realize that plenty of people are fatter than I am, but it still feels strange to have enough flesh in places that the very professional PA needs to move aside to inspect.

Well, that's likely too much information for the multitudes  one or two people still reading this blog.

But I also want to add that she also said I have great skin.  In some ways, she's correct--for a woman who is about to be 61, I do have great skin.  For a woman who has spent a lot of time in the sun with no protection of any kind, I do have great skin.

I am working on feeling the same thing about my extra weight--some days are easier than others.  When I'm out every day, walking and eating berries and appreciating the world in other ways, I feel fine about my body.  When I don't compare my current body to past years, I'm better than when I think about how many miles I could once run/jog.

As a wise yoga teacher once said to me:  "Quit comparing yourself to everyone else.  It won't help."  It's not solely yoga teachers who know this, of course.  Most world religions contain this wisdom somewhere.

It's a life lesson I'll continue to say to myself, probably on a daily basis.

Fixer-Upper Report

My brain has been ping-ponging all over the place.  I wish I could say that I have seized summer, that I have put together a new book length volume of poetry--or even that I've written lots of new poems.  I wish I could say that I've written some short memoir-ish/short story pieces.  I have not done any of these things.  

In the next month, I will need to write a paper for my Paul class, and finish a huge writing project for the next phase of candidacy in the process to becoming ordained.  My hope has shifted to having time for Creative Writing in the fall.

In the meantime . . . 

We are trying to get ready for guests next week for Music Week at Lutheridge, while at the same time, doing some stuff that the fixer-upper house in Spartanburg requires.  My spouse is on his way there so that the inspection of the electrical rough-in can happen (I have to stay here because I have a dermatologist appointment in my every 3 months after a melanoma schedule).  We went down there yesterday and came back with a shopping list.

We stopped at our local Lowe's in Arden, which is always fairly deserted, compared to similar stores in South Florida.  We chose ceiling fans, a light for the kitchen with a track with 4 lights, lights for over 2 bathroom vanities, and a small light for the fall.  We also chose a hood for over the range, which costs far more than I wanted it to cost.

When we bought the house, I was not thinking we would replace the ceiling fans.  On the contrary, I was happy that the house had so many ceiling fans.  But they're very old, working to varying degrees.  The electricians will install them if we bought new ones, so we went ahead and replaced most of them.

When we looked at the house, back before we bought it, I thought that we could paint the walls, refinish the hardwood floors, and move in.  And we could have done that.  But even though the house has solar panels, the wiring inside the house hasn't been updated:  most of the wall plugs are 2 prong.  We could have used adjuster plugs in every spot, but it would mean that the house wasn't grounded--not the safest for humans or for fire risk.

When it's time to sell the house, these improvements may pay off.  We're not living in a part of the country where old houses are bulldozed for new building to happen, so future buyers are likely to be happy about the house having been rewired with a new HVAC system put in.

And in the meantime, these improvements will make the house better for us to live in too, during the 4-5 days a week that we're there during the school year.

Snippets in a Mid-Summer Tone

Summer has arrived, but not necessarily in a good way.  It's hot and humid across most of the nation, and yesterday was one of the first days up here in the mountains where I thought that maybe I should limit my outdoor activity in the middle of the day.  Let me record some snippets.

--This morning I heard a car alarm, which made me think about how seldom I hear car alarms these days.  This morning's car alarm kept sounding for over 10 minutes, which made me think about how an alarm that doesn't stop just becomes background noise that's easier to tune out.  

--Could I make that car alarm a symbol in a poem that stayed away from the obvious?  A blaring car alarm that wasn't a signal of the end of democracy?  A blaring car alarm that wasn't pain from the body?

--Another possible symbol:  a carrot cake that doesn't taste of carrots or spice or cream cheese frosting.  I bought treats yesterday when I went to the Fletcher Village Bakery for day old bread. The lemon raspberry swirl cheesecake was a win.  The carrot cake was not.  Happily, it didn't have raisins.  It also did not appear to have many carrots or a traditional cheesecake frosting.  We could taste the toasted coconut and the walnuts, so it wasn't unpleasant--but it wasn't carrot cake.

--Last night we watched The Last Showgirl, in part because my spouse hadn't really heard about the reinvention of Pamela Anderson.  I was mildly interested, much more so in Jamie Lee Curtis and this role for her, not as much for Pamela Anderson.

--The movie could have been so much more of an exploration of creativity.  There was a bit of that, which I didn't expect, which made me want more.

--On Sunday night, we watched a much older show, some sort of compilation of clips from all the Comic Relief shows.  For younger folks, Comic Relief was a show done in the age of shows and concerts that raised money for some specific cause.  It was fascinating to see so many comics from a different age, most of whom I vaguely recognized but couldn't name.  Some of that material didn't age well, but since it was a show on a major network in the days of network censoring and a much more powerful FCC, it wasn't really transgressive.

--A week ago, I'd have been just starting the car to drive west to Indianapolis.  This morning, I'm headed out for my walk and a bit of breakfast berries--both wild blackberries and the blueberry bushes a neighbor can't harvest while she's at the beach.

A Week Ago, Getting Ready for TEEM

A week ago, I was thinking about how I might be feeling in one week, when I was back from travel, back from my first time at a TEEM intensive.  I am feeling the way I hoped I would be feeling.  I am feeling relieved and hopeful--and not too exhausted.

A week ago, I was getting ready to pack.  One of the benefits of driving is that I can overpack.  I ended up with three extra tops and sweaters/overshirts, which was fine with me.  I decided not to bring long pants or skirts; I assumed we'd be in a casual mode, and happily, I was right.  The tops I brought were dressier, so if I had gambled wrong in either direction, I wouldn't have felt too out of place.  Including me, we had 6 females, and none of us wore dresses or skirts; only 3 of us wore shorts, and I was the only one who wore long shorts each day.

Why do these sartorial choices still seem so important?  Because they are, in so many ways.  Why did I spend so much time planning?  Because I was going to be far away from home, and I have the type of body where I can't just go to Target and find clothes that will fit me.

I felt comfortable in my own skin, and that doesn't always happen for me, even at this relatively late age of almost 61 years old.  We were a wide variety of people from a wide variety of backgrounds--that also helped.  It was so different from some of my seminary classes, especially the in person classes that happened during the day, where I was the oldest student and often the only one who had already had a career.

I was the only one with a PhD, but I'm O.K. with that--it's always been my situation in many different phases and parts of my life.  I did try to be conscious of how much I was talking--I wanted to give everyone a chance.  I think I was successful.  Late in the day, one of my fellow students said, "I'm really glad you were part of this week.  You've added a lot to the class discussion."

I was especially grateful for that comment, because earlier in the day, after a discussion of procreative sex (the only kind of male-female sex valued by the ancient world) and the texts that have been read as anti-gay, I said, "Paul thought that we'd all be better off celibate.  I'm not taking relationship advice from any of these people."

It was a good week, and I'm glad I went.  It puts me that much closer to ordination.  But it also gave me new experiences and new friends and some new information about Paul (see this blog post).  As I age, I want to keep doing things that move me out of my comfort zone--nothing crazy, like sky diving, but experiences that keep my brain working in new ways.

Harrowing Drive Home

I feel lucky to be here, writing at the desk that came to me from my grandparents, safe in my mountain home.  It was a harrowing drive home yesterday.

At first it was lovely.  I put gas in the car and was on the road by 7 a.m., which was 45 minutes later than I wanted, but finding a luggage cart and checking out of the hotel took more time than I anticipated.  Still, it's summer, plenty of daylight, so I wasn't too worried (I try to avoid driving in the mountains in the darkest part of the night).  I thought I might even stop along the way, maybe have lunch in Berea, Kentucky, see if I could discover some places where I might support local artisans.

I was in that part of Kentucky by lunch time, but I was in the beginnings of the torrential rain that would leave much of Kentucky flooded.  My phone sounded an emergency alert:  flash flood warning until 1 p.m., do not drive, seek shelter.  The last time my phone alerted me about a flash flood warning, I was driving home from Spartanburg the evening before Hurricane Helene.  I said to myself,  "Flood?  I'm in the mountains!  I'm on an interstate!"  Twenty-four hours later, that part of the interstate was indeed under water.

Yesterday I decided that the safest option was to keep driving.  Mind you, it didn't feel safe:  so much water both on the interstate and falling from the sky, such reduced visibility.  But I knew that if I left the interstate, I might drive to some place less safe.  So I kept going at 45 mph on I 75, thankful that everyone else was driving slowly too.  And I did drive out of the weather.  At my next gas/rest stop, I checked the radar to make sure there weren't additional weather surprises ahead.

Even though I checked, I knew I was traveling through a very unstable weather pattern so I kept going.  As I got close to the Virginia/Tennessee line, the phone wanted to take me on US 70, so I pulled over, just to check before I proceeded.  I wanted to make sure the phone wasn't taking me back to I 40, which I wanted to avoid, if the weather turned bad.  I knew that US 70 would be twisty, but I decided it would get me home faster than other routes.

It was indeed twisty.  A storm had already been through; at one point, I had to stop, wait for oncoming traffic to clear, and then drive around a downed tree.

I pulled into the driveway just before 4, almost weeping in gratitude.  We were expecting heavy weather in Arden, so we unloaded the car, watched a bit of TV, and collapsed into bed.  I made this Facebook post late in the day, and it seems as good a way to end as any other:

"I am safe at home in Arden, having taken many scenic routes on my way back from Indianapolis. Whenever I feel fretful about the state of the nation or our place in the world (either me individually or some collective we), I should take a drive through some part of the Appalachian mountain range to get some perspective."

Kristin in Indianapolis, Paul in Spain

In another hour or so, I'll put the last of my stuff in the car and head back to the mountains of North Carolina.  I've been in Indianapolis, taking a class on Paul, another task done on the path to ordination in the Lutheran church (ELCA, the more progressive expression of Lutheranism in North America).  

It has been a great class, full of deep dives into Greek words and church history and Paul's theology, which can be summarized as Proclaim Christ Crucified.  We even had a fun digression into what we would proclaim--I find it problematic to proclaim Christ Crucified.  Christ incarnate, yes.  Christ risen from the dead, yes.  But crucified?  That's the most important thing?

The cross means something very different for Paul than it does for me.  The cross as a symbol/shortcut does something very different for Paul.  I get that. 

We talked about not knowing how Paul died, not for sure.  Church custom/tradition posits that it's likely that he died in Rome, executed by Emperor Nero.  But it's also possible that he left Rome and continued onward to Spain.

A random thought floated through my brain on Thursday:  that would make a good poem, Paul in Spain, late in life.  By yesterday morning, I decided to jot down some lines, and voila!  A poem emerged, mostly formed.

Here's how it begins:

Paul slices citrus for sangria, 

oranges and lemons plucked

from trees in the lingering light

of a late October evening.

Who would have dreamed or demanded

such a soft landing?

This morning I thought, oh dead, when does citrus ripen in Spain?  I chose "late October evening" because Paul is in the late autumn of his life.  Happily, a quick search this morning shows the detail can work--and even had I discovered that it didn't, I'd have probably kept it.

The poem ends this way:

Safe for now, he pours the sangria

and waits for the sun to set.

I do worry that the poem is cliched, and I also worry that it won't be interesting to non-Christian readers.  But we all age, and this poem looks at aging.  By using Paul as the vehicle, maybe it does say something new.

I'll put it away and look at it again later this week.  But I am happy to have created a poem the way I once did:  an idea comes and within 24 hours, I'm attempting a poem and seeing it to completion.  Hurrah!

Rethinking Paul

Yesterday was our first TEEM class on Paul.  It was riveting.  I'm still not much interested in preaching using Paul's letters, but because Paul has been so influential and so misused, it's good to find out what's really there.

The most interesting way of thinking about Paul that was new to me is to see him as a Jew framed by apocalyptic thinking, the apocalypse being when God comes to earth to judge the living and the dead, an event which will begin with the dead rising up from their graves as they come back to life to be judged.

So when Paul meets Jesus on the Damascus Road, a man who has been dead brought back to life and speaking to him, he assumes that judgment day is under way.  Being a good Pharisee, he would assume that Jews will be O.K. on Judgment Day--as people of the Covenant, God has chosen them.  But Gentiles are in danger.  Thus, off he goes to tell them how to be saved.

I asked the question that some of you might be asking.  Did Paul see a human Jesus on the Damascus Road?  I have always thought of that event as the heavens splitting open and the voice of Jesus speaking to him, not as an encounter with Jesus in his human body.  My professor talked about the different depictions of that event, including recountings of that event that we find in Acts and the letters of Paul.  In some of them, the encounter does sound disembodied, the voice from the heavens.  In others, we could interpret it as an encounter between Paul and a human-appearing Jesus. 

I still maintain my long-standing approach to Paul.  He wrote letters to specific churches/communities with specific problems.  Taking those letters and applying them to twenty-first century life makes very little sense--unless we're experiencing similar problems.  We had an interesting session looking at 1 Corinthians, the passage where Paul excoriates the Church for eating the good food before the whole community arrives and connecting this behavior with Communion.  How do our own Communion practices exclude or include in similar ways?

I still can't see myself preaching on Paul or even having the kind of Bible study that would interest most people.  But I'm very glad to have had this educational opportunity.

A Short TEEM Report

This morning has less blogging time, but I have finished my movie review, the first assignment for my TEEM class on Pauline letters.  I have done the practice quizzes one more time--I've been doing them over and over in the hopes that I'll do well on the quiz that will begin today's class.  

We have another quiz tomorrow, and I haven't done any practice for that one.  So tomorrow may be a light blogging day too, as I practice and practice.  I have not taken a quiz for course credit since undergraduate school.  Of course, I've taken quiz after quiz as part of HR training--those quizzes that you can take over and over again so that you can continue to be employed.

Each quiz counts for 10% of the course grade.  My inner good girl wants to make an A.  My pragmatic older self knows that whatever grade I make will be fine.  I'm not even sure if TEEM classes show up on a transcript.

And then, part of me wonders why I care about my official record.  Am I going to do more graduate work?  Maybe--and that's why I care.

Yesterday's TEEM training was a workshop on stewardship.  When I first heard about the workshop, I felt a bit of despair.  I've already had so much stewardship training.  But it was a great workshop.  We talked about a much broader vision of stewardship:  what do we value?  How do we protect what we value?  It's far more than money, budgets, and a finance team. 

I've been part of small churches, with attendance below 50 members, so these are not concepts that are new to me.  In a very small church, one can't assume that others will pick up the slack, unlike in a church that has over 100 members in the pews on Sunday.

Our workshop leader, Tim Brown, was both compelling and entertaining.  We had worship in the middle of the day, followed by Indian food.  It was good to have that long break.

Let me bring this writing to a close so that I can get some breakfast before the day begins.  Onward!

TEEM Work in Indianapolis

For a woman with a reduced summer schedule, my blogging gets off schedule more than I would have expected--I did not plan not to write for the past 2 days.  On Monday, I did some intense grading and got grades turned in for the online class that ended this week.  Yesterday, I wrote the rough draft of a paper for the class on Paul's letters that I'm taking this week.

Then I hit the road, heading out to Indianapolis.  I am doing part of a week-long intensive as part of the TEEM program that meets there 3 times a year, staying in the Drury hotel and doing classes at the office of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod.  It's part of my ongoing journey to be ordained in the ELCA.  So far, the pre-intensive materials are inspiring, and I have hopes as I shift to a different approach towards ordination.  A side benefit will be learning more about how the TEEM program works.

The trip to Indianapolis takes longer than it did before Hurricane Helene:  part of I 40 is still 2 lanes, one in each direction, for about 20 miles.  There's also a long stretch of I 74 which is under construction and 2 lanes.  Happily traffic kept moving.

Most of the roads I traveled yesterday were surprisingly empty, and in the morning, that made the construction zone across the mountain into Tennessee easier.  I've never liked that stretch of I 40, even before part of it slid down the mountain in the storm.  Shortly after that passage, my phone directed me to take an older highway up to Kentucky, a route which took me through the Cumberland Gap.  The mountains were gorgeous and the roads not too winding or steep.  Even the Cumberland Gap tunnel wasn't as claustrophobic as I feared it might be.

The weather was overcast when I started, and happily, the worst of the rain had moved east.  I still drove through a bit of rain here and there.  I had a front seat with food, baby carrots and 2 kinds of homemade bread, so I didn't need to stop for food.  It does feel weird to be so close to family and old friends who moved and not feel like I have time to stop.

I left my phone on for the whole trip so that it could dictate directions to me; I didn't plug it into my phone's USB port until halfway through the trip.  My car's USB port doesn't charge very well, but it kept the phone from losing charge quite as quickly.  Still, by the end of the trip, I was worried that my phone would die before I got to the hotel, and unlike other trips, I had no idea where I was going, in terms of what exits to take and which roads I needed to find.  Happily I was able to find my way before the phone died.

I got checked into the hotel with no problems, and unloaded the car easily.  I mention the ease of it all because I don't travel light, so I'm always grateful for available luggage carts, especially in a hotel with 9 floors.  My 7th floor room is spacious, bright, and clean, and so far, it's been quiet--all qualities which make me profoundly grateful.

I've met some of my TEEM cohort last night.  The hotel offers a 5:30 Kickback each night, with 3 drinks per adult and a light dinner buffet.  Last night, the buffet included hot dogs, nacho chips and fixings, flour tortillas and fixings (including "fajita chicken"), and a small salad bar, with lettuce, grated cheese, and cherry tomatoes.  The soup was roasted red pepper tomato--delicious.  To think, I had been expecting some cheese and crackers and some Chex mix.

I brought my book on Paul with me to dinner.  I figured if I didn't find the TEEM group, I'd have something to read.  But I did find the director, whom I had met on a Zoom call last week, so I knew what he looked like.  I had dinner with the cohort members who were there, and as I expected, we have a lot in common:  we're serving churches in a variety of contexts, but there's so much more to us than that.  

They've had 2 days together, but they were warm and welcoming, and we lingered over dinner.  Delightful!  I was not awake much later, since it had been a long day.

We have some long days ahead, so let me bring this writing to a close.  Today we have a workshop on stewardship, which is great because I can use another day to catch up on my reading.  I joined the class late, just last week, so I am a bit behind.

Father's Day and the Summer Solstice

Today we have a variety of holidays to celebrate. People who have good relationships with their fathers, or people who have children, may be celebrating Father's Day. Others may be observing the Summer Solstice, in any variety of ways. Some of us will go to church, as we normally do.

I will be preaching, but at this moment, my sermon doesn't mention Father's Day.  The Gospel for today is  Matthew 10: 24-39, the text about Jesus coming to bring not peace, but a sword, to divide families.  So I'm taking a long view of all the summer liberation holidays:  from June 6 to Juneteenth to July 4.  Once I've finished the revisions, I'll give a link to the sermon which I always post on my theology blog.

Because it's Father's Day, my social media feeds will be full of people talking about their fathers.  I do feel lucky to have gotten the father that I did.  The older I get, the more impressed I am with how well he did as a father.  My dad was born in 1937, so again, I'm lucky that my father learned to adapt to the world his daughters were born into, a world with more opportunity for women, while at the same time, not fully liberated.

I think about my own generation, so full of absent fathers and abusive fathers. So many of us experienced divorce done badly, oh so badly, in the 1970's. I was lucky that my own father was different.

In fact, my father seemed more like the fathers we see these days. He could pack our lunches and brush our hair into acceptable ponytails and teach us how to be long-distance runners. He helped us with science fair projects and took the family on camping trips and in general, he was very involved in our lives. I haven't met many other people of my generation who were as lucky.

I'm glad that we've become a society of people, at least some of us have, who can be our best parents to children, whether we're fathers, mothers, or part of the village raising the children. We still have a long way to go before our culture is where I'd like us to be in terms of work/family balance. But that's a topic for a different blog post.

Today is also the summer solstice, the official start of summer.  Many of us live in places where summer weather comes early and never leaves.  But even in those places, like South Florida, the light does change.  In the northern hemisphere, we have the most amount of daylight today.  We won't really notice a difference tomorrow.  But by late August, we'll have darkness earlier.  Last night I got up briefly at 9:30 p.m. (after falling asleep at 8 p.m. with the sun yet to fully set) and noticed that we still had that not-dark, bluish twilight.  We won't have that for much longer.

We're at the midpoint of the year and in many ways, the midpoint of summer.  This might be a day when we want to think about our trajectory--are we on track for the year?  Or maybe we want to celebrate nurturing of all sorts.  Maybe it's a good day for self-care.

For me, it's time to turn my attention back to sermon revising.  One of the treats of summer is that I can also get a walk in before it's time to head across the mountain to preach and preside at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee.

TEEM Work and Other Anxieties

It has been a strange week in terms of home renovations.  We're at a point where it makes sense to wait until the work of next week is done.  Hopefully by this time next week, we'll have an HVAC system installed and the house rewired.  Then we'll do the painting and the hardwood floor restoration.

It feels weird knowing how much work needs to be done, but not doing it.  Of course, I have plenty of other work to be doing, primarily grading and encouraging students.

In a way, it has been a good week to be pulling back on fixer-upper tasks.  I've gotten information about the next part of my path to ordination.  I will take three classes through the TEEM program, and the first class is next week.

The TEEM program has 3 onground intensives a year where participants gather in Indianapolis and take 2 classes, one on Monday-Tuesday and one on Thursday-Friday, along with a workshop on Wednesday.  I will be taking the Thursday-Friday class on Paul's letters next week.  I'm happy to be able to patch up some holes in my knowledge; I had wanted to take a seminary class on Paul, but it never worked out.

I needed this week to order books and get started on the reading.  I had missed the deadline to get the discounted hotel price, but happily, when I called, I was able to get that price. 

It's been an up and down week in terms of anxiety.  When I'm at the house in Spartanburg, I feel that we made a good decision.  When I'm not there, there's a bit more self-doubt rattling in my brain.  I've never driven to Indianapolis from here, so I feel a bit of anxiety in terms of a car trip, while reminding myself that I have relatives along the way who could help me if need be.  I'm headed there by myself, because my spouse needs to be here to oversee the HVAC installation and rewiring.  I'm looking forward to being away, but also a bit anxious at the thought of all the new people I'll meet.  I feel a bit of anxiety at the thought of all the money we're spending on home repair--if it goes well, I'll be glad we spent the money. 

I have some course work to do besides showing up for class next week.  There's reading to do, and a movie about Paul to watch, which I've done, and a review of the movie to write, which I haven't, but will soon.

But it's nice to feel I have time to do that work.  The last time I was getting ready to go to an onground intensive, it was October of 2024, and we were still dealing with Hurricane Helene aftermaths.  I'm sure there's some residual anxiety that my body is dredging up.

Hopefully, in a week or two, I'll be able to look back on this anxiety and smile because all the moving parts came together so well.

Liberation Holidays: Juneteenth

Today we celebrate our newest federal holiday:  Juneteenth.  Of course, many populations have been celebrating Juneteenth since the news of freedom first came to the last enslaved people in Texas in 1865.  This is the first year that I've been in a workplace that recognized the holiday.  In 2021, I was working for a small school that was very stingy with holidays, so we didn't have that holiday or MLK day or Presidents Day.

In 2022, I was no longer working for that school.  I was driving back across several states, coming back to Florida from the onground intensive at Southern Seminary.  I was already a certified spiritual director through their program, but I went back to take advantage of the education, to have a reunion with my small group, and to see a friend graduate from the program.  Two weeks later I would turn around to drive back up to Arden to buy the house that I'm writing in this morning.  So far, I have never regretted that purchase, which is not usual for me when it comes to housing or moves or jobs.

Or maybe it is becoming usual.  I don't have regrets about the spiritual direction certificate or my MDiv.  My main regret about my job at SMC is that I didn't have it sooner.  I love this house in a way that I haven't loved any other house.  Maybe my lack of regret is a pleasant part of being in late midlife.

I am tempted to tie these ideas back to Juneteenth, but I don't want to trivialize the holiday or the history.  While regret can enslave us, it's a very different enslavement than other forces and humans that enslave.

Wat are the forces enslaving so many of us? We think of iron shackles, but there are other societal constructs that hold so many back: debt, geopolitical forces, violence, educational systems.  And let's not forget that literal slavery hasn't disappeared. 

So on this Juneteenth, let us think about the captives who need our help to be set free. Let us also think about all the captivity narratives that hold us enslaved. Let us embrace liberation narratives. Let us envision what life would look like if all were truly free.

The Rethinking of Mary Magdalene Gets Wider Acceptance

I have been listening to a fascinating interview between Diana Butler Bass and Elizabeth Schrader-Polczer.  Several years ago, Bass preached a sermon using Schrader-Polczer's work, which Bass points out is one of 3 of the most watched sermons of all time; the other two were Bishop Budde's sermon at the interfaith worship service after the second inauguration of Donald Trump and the sermon preached at the wedding of Prince Harry and Mary Markle.

In that sermon, Bass presented the work of Elizabeth Schrader-Polczer, who was then a PhD student at Duke.  She did research on the Lazarus text and noticed that the word Mary had been changed to Martha.  Why would someone do this?  And how can we be sure?  

Bass published her sermon here.  It's worth the read, and it's got a link to hear the sermon.  Bass makes the case that it was likely a 4th century change, a change to disempower Mary Magdalene.

In the interview I'm listening to today, Bass and Schrader-Polzer review those ideas.  It's an interesting window into how research on ancient texts is done, and how this work was done.  It's got great information about issues of gender, along with church history.

Here are some highlights:

--At minute 28, they talk about the canon--which books made it into the Bible, which did not, and why.  Schrader-Polzer posits that the approach to Mary Magdalene, the changes made in the Gospel of John, might have happened in the 2nd century so that the book would be seen as more acceptable, so that it would survive. 

--In the oldest artwork, whenever there's a Lazarus, there's only one sister.

--Throughout the interview, there's lots of great information about translations of the Bible and how we come to have the Bible that we do.

--It is fascinating to me that there are changes to Bible commentaries and forthcoming changes to translations, including the master text, the "Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle-Aland). The 'Nestle-Aland,' or 'NA,' is the source from which almost all versions of the New Testament are translated into every language around the world" (quoted material from Bass' newsletter).  These changes happened because of Schrader-Polzer's work and Bass' promotion of this work.  I'm inspired that academic work can have this effect.

--Bass points out that this kind of revision to Bible scholarship, a major revision like Schrader-Polzer's, doesn't happen often and usually about once a generation.

--In the first century, the town of Magdala didn't exist (roughly minute 1:08).  So using Mary of Magdala would be a wrong translation.

--"Reframing ancient questions" vs. "opening new questions"--Bass uses this language about the way that the Catholic church might approach these developments.  She posits that this research is the reframing of ancient questions kind of development.

--Just after 1:18, Bass and Schrader-Polzer talk about the Gospel as a piece of story telling, a cohesive narrative, that is not the way that most people think about a Gospel:  approaching it the way a creative writer/teacher would see it.

More Thoughts on Tiredness and Home Repairs

We had good news at the fixer-upper house in Spartanburg yesterday.  The kitchen sink had very low pressure, but the rest of the house is fine.  The plumber who came out to make sure nothing was leaking said we could fix that ourselves by changing the faucet.

I was doubtful.  Based on what????  I have far less plumbing experience than the plumber.  Happily, we replaced the faucet, and lo and behold, good water pressure.

I dread plumbing fixes for all sorts of reasons, chief among them, of all the projects we do, plumbing is most likely not to come together the way it should.  There's often unexpected leaks and trying to do the same fix over and over again, along with much cursing and bad feelings.  The kitchen faucet project did not have any of these issues.

Then we moved on to the next project:  painting all the walls, except for the kitchen, which we will probably cover with beadboard.  If you haven't painted the walls of an older house, you may not know how much prepwork is required, primarily filling in the holes with "mud" and then sanding them smooth.  Yesterday we finished the sanding.

We won't be doing the painting until the rewiring is complete, and we've got the HVAC in.  It was good to sand without having an HVAC system running to suck dust into the system.  But the painting will go more smoothly with an HVAC system working.

We headed back to our Lutheridge house after getting the sanding done.  In some ways, it was a short day, with 4-5 hours of work.  But I was just as exhausted as if we'd been working double the time.

Here's where I might say, "But exhausted in a good way."  I'm not so sure.  I did an hour or two of sanding--and that wore me out.  Hmm.  It's work that I never do on a regular basis, so in some ways it makes sense that I'm tired.  But it's not like we had to build a wall first:  no heaving lifting.

I am trying just to accept my body where it is, day by day, instead of trying to understand so I can outsmart it.  I am trying to give my body good nourishment and exercise each day, and it's important to remember that rest is an important part of both good nourishment and exercise.  Some days, I'll need more sleep than other days--and if it means I'm falling asleep by 6 p.m., that can be just fine.

Happy Bloomsday!

I only care about Bloomsday as a sort of cosmic accident. When I got to grad school and pored over the list of classes I could take, I discovered that most of them were full. As a new grad student, I was last to register. And so I found myself in Tom Rice's class on James Joyce. What a life-changing experience that was.

Several of the stories from Dubliners show up in anthologies, even first year literature anthologies, so I might have eventually discovered them in my teaching life that was to come. But would I have ever had the patience to wade through Ulysses all by myself? Absolutely not.

Bloomsday celebrates the day, June 16, on which all the action in Ulysses takes place. The book covers almost every kind of action that can take place in a human day: we see Leopold Bloom in the bathroom, we see Stephen Dedalus pick his nose, we see Leopold Bloom masturbate . . . and we finally get to the masterful final chapter, where Molly Bloom muses on the physicality of being a woman.

As with many books, whose scandalous reputations preceded them, I read and read and waited for the scandalous stuff. As a post-modern reader, I was most scandalized by how difficult it was. It's hard to imagine that such a book would be published today.

But what a glorious book it is. What fun Joyce has, as he writes in different styles and plays with words. What a treat for English majors like me, who delighted in chasing down all the allusions.

I went on to write my M.A. thesis on Joyce, trying to prove that he wasn't as anti-woman as his reputation painted him to be. Since then, other scholars have done a more thorough job than I did. But I'm still proud of that thesis. I learned a lot by writing it. At the time, it was the longest thing I had ever written--in the neighborhood of 50 pages. A few years later, I'd be writing 150 pages as I tackled my dissertation--on domestic violence in the Gothic. By the time I'd written my thesis, I had said all I had to say on Joyce.

So, happy Bloomsday.  Those of us who were born later than Joyce, who haven't read much of the work that came before Joyce, probably aren't aware of what a radical experiment he presented.  A work that takes place in just one day?  Revolutionary!  I could argue that Virginia Woolf did it more artistically with Mrs. Dalloway, but before the Modernists, most people would have thought of just one day as not worthy of documenting.  And Joyce's interior monologues capture like no other work what it's like to be inside a brain, to listen to thoughts without the scaffolding of traditional narrative.

I have read Ulysses several times, and I confess, I likely will never read it again.  But I'm grateful to have done it, grateful that it exists, grateful that I had guides to show me of its mastery.

Sermon Revisions, Poem Revisions

It's been a good week-end, with our attention shifting from home repairs to church work.  I usually have a rough draft of my sermon written by Friday, but not last week.  So my main writing task on Saturday was sermon writing.  Happily, by the time I sat down to write, I had already plotted it out in my head.

You can read my sermon in yesterday's blog post at my theology blog.

It's always interesting to see how the sermon changes from rough draft to preaching manuscript to actual delivery.  For example, I will occasionally reference the youth sermon, but since I don't write it in advance, it won't be in the written versions.

We're a small church, and occasionally in the summer, when families are on vacation, we have no youth, so there's no youth sermon.  When I announced that there would be no youth sermon, I asked the congregation to think about what had brought them joy in their own youth.  I referenced a popsicle in the park event that one of the members had made the subject of a Facebook post.  The recording of the sermon referenced that popsicle event; the manuscript does not.

You can view yesterday's sermon here, on my YouTube channel.

I've been trying to read my sermon less, which in some ways is good, primarily in the more lively energy.  But I don't like that I get tongue-tied, and I worry about my sermons getting longer.  I try to limit my discursive comments so that they don't become a wandering tangent where I can't easily get back.  I want a sermon to be 9-12 minutes, so if I'm going to continue this experiment in not looking at the manuscript as much, maybe the manuscript needs to be shorter.  

Now it's time to shift my attention back to poetry writing.  My various writing projects do feed each other, while at the same time demanding time, which requires constant balancing.  Last week, I returned to a May rough draft of a poem, "A Song Both Familiar and Strange."  In the poem, I connect my visit to my friend who had a catastrophic stroke which means she now lives in the skilled nursing unit to Julian of Norwich.  I did some serious revising, moving stanzas, taking out material.  I think it's done, but before I started last week's revisions, I thought it was done.  

Last week's earlier draft ended with this stanza, which I worried ended the poem on too melancholy a note:

By your bedside, as you sip
tea through a straw, I think
of Julian of Norwich
who insisted that all manner
of things shall be well.
I wish that I could share
the convictions of Julian,
but in the presence
of your shrinking
body and mangled speech,
my doubts blossom
into an orchard of hazelnut trees.

Now that stanza is in the middle of the poem.  Here's the last stanza:

Like a medieval priest
chanting words in a strange
language, I read scraps
of Julian’s work, her odd
metaphors for the Divine
filling the space between us.
You listen and sing
a song both familiar and strange.

Last week I even made some poetry submissions.  In some ways, it's easier in the summer when many journals aren't taking submissions.  In September, when most journals are "open," and most for a very short time, I find it overwhelming.

Home Renovation in Our 60's

We have been doing home repairs and remodeling all of our married lives.  It's interesting to think about how things have changed in the decades:

--We have so many more choices now.  Once we went to the big box store and chose from the 6-15 types of tile or flooring or other materials on display.  Now the displays are bigger, and one can easily special order from a variety of sources.

--Once my spouse could work 12 hour days; I have never been able to do that.  Now we are both tired and ready to call it a day after 5-8 hours.

--One of the most obvious reasons why we're ready to work more reasonable hours is that we don't have the physical stamina that we once did.  I am about to turn 61, and my spouse will be 62 in September.  Our 20-something selves could go and go, even as I wished we were doing something more fun.  We could get up day after day and do hard, physical labor.  Now we plan some rest days, in part because I have other work to do, in part because we need to recover.

--You would think that after doing this work for decades, we'd be better at communicating.  Actually we are better, in the ways of longly-wed couples who can recognize the dispute we're having.  It often boils down to me thinking we've made a decision and have a plan, and my spouse not seeing it that way or not remembering the details.

--My spouse still sees evidence of rack and ruin everywhere.  I am inclined to shrug and try to decide if it's worth fixing.  We've decided to have the house re-wired and to put in a new HVAC system.  I am less concerned with a crack in a wall or the ceiling.

--In part, I'm less concerned because we have more money to deal with issues.  We've also had much more problematic houses and had no trouble selling them, so I tend to avoid catastrophizing--which is strange, since my brain often goes to catastrophe in other areas.