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.