The Feast Day of the Visitation in Sketches and in Storytelling

Today is the feast day of the Visitation, the day when we celebrate the time that Mary, pregnant with Jesus, goes to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist.  Elizabeth's story, though rare, isn't completely original; scholars point out that the barren/old woman miraculously pregnant wouldn't be unfamiliar to ancient audiences.  Mary's story is much more unusual.  I've written about this feast day numerous times:  this post is a good example.

For my Biblical Storytelling class that I took in Fall of 2024, when I had to choose a passage to memorize to go with the first one I chose, the bleeding woman, I returned to Luke 1:  39-45.  I recorded it, and overall, I was pleased.  It won't win any awards, but that's fine.  You can view this effort here on my YouTube channel.

Lately I've started sketching this scene more.  I made the above and the below sketch as my Christmas and Easter seminary class discussed the passage.  

I decided not to write about the passage for my longer essay.  Instead, I wrote about Anna, the prophetess who gets much less space, but may be more important.  Here are two paragraphs that explain my approach:

"If we go back to take a closer look at Luke, we’ll see that older people and women have a starring role in many parts of the birth narrative. The main star, of course, is Mary, the woman who will incubate salvation in her womb and nurture the second part of the Trinity until he is able to move into the ministry activities for which he was born. Her story has been studied from many angles, and often it is the only one offered to those of us who want a vision of Jesus and the disciples that is more inclusive.

But what about women who aren’t young, women who don’t see the appeal in motherhood, women who don’t have a Joseph who will love them? Elizabeth might seem like an answer, but she, too, is finding fulfillment in a very patriarchal approved way, through pregnancy and motherhood. The story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1: 5-25 and 39-80) might be the one most of us think of when we look for the presence of elders in the Nativity story or we might think of Simeon, a chapter later. Anna’s appearance, near the end of the second chapter of Luke, is much shorter, but also packed with meaning when we work on discerning the meaning of the incarnation."

Earlier this month, I started sketching, and I thought I'd do another sketch of Mary and Elizabeth.  But I didn't like the initial sketch, so I started rounding out the figures that began as the two women and ended up as chrysalises.  I love the sketch because it works on multiple levels.  The middle green part is both leaf and Holy Spirit.

It's not a traditional approach to the two women, but it's been one that has been delighting me, as I've worked on it during the month of May

The Frustrations of Forms, The Joys of Geraniums

It has been a frustrating week in some respects, frustrating from the point of view of needing to fill out paperwork and not having the systems work.  Yesterday I think I finally got all of my forms for the VA filled out; I needed to submit these forms so that I can begin CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at the Asheville VA Hospital, which starts on June 15.  I need to do CPE so that I can stay on track for ordination.  Several times I went to the first form, only to find out an essential piece of information had been entered incorrectly, which meant I needed to notify the VA, which meant I needed to wait for a human on the other end to correct the form.

Yesterday I started on the process to get my WELCA scholarship awarded/applied to my Lutheran seminary where I will take a Lutheran theology class in the spring.  I thought I was ahead in the process, since I already have an account in the ELCA grants system.  But yesterday, I filled out the form and did not see the green submit button that is supposed to be at the bottom of the form.

I have written to the e-mail where one should write if one is having trouble with the software.  And now, I wait.  The window for getting this done is very short, especially if one is having trouble.  I am trying not to fret.

Yesterday after all the wrangling with forms and websites, I took myself to the NC Farmer's Market.  A friend is getting ordained on June 7, and I have been tasked with getting geraniums.  I have assumed that would be no problem, but I wanted to see what was available.  I have been worried that I might have blown it by waiting too long.

Happily, there were geraniums.  Not at wholesale prices, but they looked like healthy plants.  I got some with buds on them, and hopefully, by the time of her ordination, each plant will have some blooms.  I put them on the table on the deck, and they look lovely as they capture the light.

I get the joys of geraniums for 9 days, a gift that gives in so many ways, as I wait for the forms to be fixed.

Sorting Sadness, Sorting Happiness

I have a few weeks here as late May turns into early June, an in-between time, in the space between heavier schedules.  I've been trying to do some sorting:  clothes, books, paperwork.  I've been trying not to feel sadness or despair.

For example, as I've sorted through the books, I'm sad at the money spent, at the books that weren't very useful.  Most of the books were for seminary classes, and I always made the decision just to buy the books required for each class, to buy them in advance so that I would have them.  I've been in school (taking classes and/or teaching) for many decades, so I know that often required books will not really be required.  I'm a good student, so I know that I could probably find the books in the library.  But it seemed easier to buy them so that I could be sure I would have them--even though I knew when I bought them that I might not need them.

I'm glad to have been able to support the authors and the publishers.  But most of the books that I'm taking to donate to the public library will not be books I'll ever look at again, no matter how well they were written.

Of course, the same might be true of many of the books I've kept through the years.  Some books I keep because they remind me of an important time in my life.  Some books I keep because I worry that they may vanish otherwise--that I'll need the book and won't be able to find it in the library once they aren't available to purchase.

I've been rereading some of the novels I've loved most in the evening just before I go to bed.  I'm usually tired, so I usually don't read more than a few pages.  Gone are the days of my youth when I would stay up long after bedtime, reading with a flashlight.  I love reading a beloved novel from my younger years because I can hold the narrative thread in my head for weeks at a time; I can read a few pages a day and not get lost.  Currently, I'm working my way through Gail Godwin:  Father Melancholy's Daughter, which I intended to read during the liturgical season of Lent, but it stretched on, and now, The Good Husband.

As I was sorting yesterday, I took some online reading breaks, and I was saddened to hear about the death of Susan Brownmiller, author of Against Our Will:  Men, Women, and Rape.  She was 90 years old, a sobering realization.  In my mind, all the classic authors of that feminist era are still in their 30's and 40's.  I am old enough to remember a time when people didn't take the issue of rape seriously and when we didn't think about issues of consent.  I'm glad those times have gone, even though I do realize we're still very far away from a yet-to-be-created world when people are safe from sexual violence.

Sorting often sends me down other memory lanes.  Yesterday I came across an envelope of work-related phone numbers from the last college in South Florida where I worked as an administrator.  I used to write important numbers on a sticky note, and then I'd stick the note in an envelope so I would know where it was.  Yes, most people would outsource this task to a phone, but I didn't have that kind of smart phone until we moved to North Carolina.  When I left that job, I took the envelope of phone numbers with me.  Even then, I didn't really think I would ever need them again, but still, one never knows.  

And now the school has closed; many of the phone numbers in the envelope no longer exist.  I took a moment to feel a bit of sadness before tossing the envelope into the recycling bin.  I thought of all the names connected to the phone numbers in the envelope.  I hope those people have gone on to something that soothes their souls, as I have.

As I sort, I feel a wistful happiness.  I think of all the moves that have brought me here.  I think of the fact that I am happy to be here, right where I am, which is a situation/feeling which has not been common for me (and which may explain all the books).

Memorial Day 2025

It is Memorial Day, and this year, it's almost slipped right by me.  I don't watch much TV, so I haven't seem all the ads about the sales that may or may not be happening.  I don't live in a military town, so that aspect of Memorial Day is missing.  It doesn't feel particularly summery, and even if it did, my clothes don't change much (layers!), so I don't need to unpack one closet after packing up the past season's clothes.

I'm also not working a full-time job in the way that I have in the past, so this day isn't a day off for me in the way it has been in the past.  Many days in May and early June are days off for me this year.

I don't have major Memorial Day plans, like I might have in the past.  Long ago, my Jacksonville friends celebrated birthdays with a huge party, and we would go--now they are divorced.  Most of my Florida friends who used to do Memorial Day cook outs have moved various places, as have we.  Later this morning, I'll take one of the cars in for service.  I've already done some grading for my online classes and some poetry writing.  Plus, I made a few submissions to the few literary journals which are still open and not charging fees.  

Overall, it will be a low-key Memorial Day, and that's fine with me.  I feel fortunate that it's not a day of personal grieving for me.  While I've known many people who have served in the military, I don't know of any who have died.

I've spent some time reflecting on how few of us these days know people who have served in the military, and even fewer of us have first hand knowledge of military deaths.  I also know that some amount of class privilege is a marker.  But medical developments are also responsible.  We didn't have the number of military deaths for conflicts in this century, compared to past centuries--we have the equipment and techniques to keep wounded soldiers alive as they are transported from the battlefield.

Still, it's a good day to think about sacrifices made for those of us who haven't had to fight.  It's a good day to remind ourselves that we're not done with war and to look for ways to encourage leaders to back away from conflict.  It's good to remember that we still have military forces serving in all sorts of places, both conflict zones and peaceful ones and dangerous places that aren't full-blown conflict zones.   

Fish Fries and Mission Questions

Yesterday afternoon we went over the mountain to Bristol, Tennessee for the last fish fry of the season as Faith Evangelical Lutheran Church.  It's one of the community events that the church does, usually 4 of them throughout the spring.  

It's an amazing deal.  Ten dollars per plate, which includes fried or baked fish, green beans, pierogi, mac and cheese, cole slaw, and a roll.  That ten dollars also includes a beverage and a vast array of desserts.  While most people don't treat the event as an all you can eat extravaganza, we do give seconds if asked.  The money raised goes local charities, primarily the food pantry.

It's not an evangelical event, not in the traditional way.  Most of the people who come to the event already have a home church.  Most of the people who come already know about the church.  It's a small community, so most of the people who come have a personal connection to those of us at the church preparing and serving the food.

In a variety of classes and workshops on mission, I've been told that an essential question for churches is this one:  would your larger community miss you if you were gone?  Does the larger community even know that you are here?

Long before Faith Lutheran starts to advertise, the phone calls come in January, phone calls asking when the first fish fry will be.  Our church raises not only money for the food bank, but members work there, distributing food to the community.  We don't do the kinds of things that other churches might do:  no one uses our building but us, for example.  We don't offer computer literacy lessons or other kinds of classes that community members might want.  We are far from the legislative places where big decisions are made--we won't be demonstrating as a single church.

I often think of what I might do if I was their full-time pastor.  I'm not convinced that the church can grow much in terms of gaining new members.  There might be more to do in terms of being an essential member of the community, in terms of networking.  But again, it's a small community, so it's likely already happening, although perhaps not in a way that mission experts would be able to quantify.

How many members, how many individuals impacted?  I am grateful that I don't have to think in terms of these numbers.   I can just show up to enjoy a great meal, exchange stories with people who come, and give thanks for a wonderful community.

Colonoscopy Recap

I am pleased to report that my first colonoscopy went well.  It was done in a hospital, unlike my spouse's first colonoscopy, which was done in a place in South Florida, a colonoscopy center in an old strip mall out in the west of Broward county, a place with no outside sign which made me wonder if I was taking him to a place where his organs would be harvested.  His second colonoscopy was done in Asheville, in a stand alone center which was much more professional looking, and, like the first colonoscopy center in South Florida, very crowded.

Yesterday, my spouse and I were checked in, and then we were taken to a private room.  People came and went, asking questions, explaining procedures, hooking me up to machines, putting in the IV line.  Soon enough, we were on our way to the procedure room.  And then, soon enough it was over.  

I was grateful for the wheelchair ride to my car.  I was grateful for my spouse who took good care of me.  I was very grateful that I had an unscheduled afternoon so that I could take a nap.  And of course, I'm most grateful that nothing was wrong and that nothing went wrong.

My doctor found and removed some polyps.  I don't know of anyone who has had a colonoscopy who hasn't had polyps removed.  My spouse did some internet searching and discovered that a polyp has a 24% chance of turning cancerous, so I'm happy to have them removed.

I am most grateful that I'm not being punished for my delay in getting this preventative care task done.  I had a colleague who went through a dreadful ordeal, which you can read about on his blog; he ultimately died.  I wouldn't wish his ordeal on my worst enemy.  So I was relieved to find out that nothing had grown out of control while I didn't get a colonoscopy.

I took the rest of yesterday off.  I had thought I might do some sermon writing or some work on my online classes or go for a walk.  Instead, I took a long nap, followed by a trip to the grocery store.  We ate steak for our midafternoon meal, and watched mindless cooking competition shows until it was time to go to bed again.  By later afternoon, I was able to do a bit of sewing which soothed me in the way it often does.

And now it's time to attend to other tasks, the work of the week--but first, a walk!

My First Colonoscopy

I have been up since 2, and there's no point in going back to sleep--I am doing prep for my first colonoscopy which happens at 8 a.m., with check in at 6:30 a.m.  I am a bit late for my first colonoscopy, for a variety of reasons.  I'm a believer in the value of colonoscopies, and given the rising cancer rates in young people, I now think the first colonoscopy should come before age 50.

But as I think about my own experience, I do understand why many people will put off their first colonoscopy.  Even with my jobs that are more flexible and forgiving than jobs I've had in the past, the prep work takes some consideration, more so than, say, a mammogram.  There's the liquid fast and the medications to clear out the system.  I feel lucky that I got to have pills instead of the liquid medication.  My spouse had an even more involved prep time that took the better part of a week.  And for the procedure itself, it requires a day off, since the patient can't drive afterward.

I've been talking about health care concerns with a friend who is having a hip replaced.  She is single, so finding the people to help her afterward is tricky.  She resents the notion that we all have family networks to help.  I resent the idea that family networks can pitch in the way we are expected to.  Actually, let me be more clear--I resent the capitalist system that makes all of this so hard.

The process itself hasn't been as hard for me as a patient as I expected.  I was dreading the liquid fast yesterday even more than the clearing out of the system.  I can get irritable when I'm hungry or headachy.  And I haven't been allowed to have anything for headaches for a week now (Tylenol is allowed, but Tylenol has never touched any pain I've ever had, so I'm not risking liver or kidney damage).

But the fast wasn't bad.  I kept myself busy and drank lots of liquids and I feel O.K. this morning.  That said, I'm looking forward to being done with this--and glad that I'm not juggling work and family demands on top of everything else.

Thinking about CPE

This summer, starting June 9, I will be doing Clinical Pastoral Education at the Asheville VA Hospital.  It's another requirement on the path to ordination, and like so many of the requirements, I find myself with more paperwork to fill in.  Since it's the VA, there are some new elements.  I got an e-mail with instructions about how to log into the system so that I could fill in more paperwork.

When I was let go from my job in 2022, I did similar setting up to be able to get unemployment compensation.  There's a system, ID.me, that I used then and needed to use yesterday.  Happily, I still have the same cell phone number that I used then, and after a few glitches, I finally got logged in--only to discover that it transcribed only half my last name into the first form I needed to fill out.  So I clicked on the button to tell the VA about the mistake along with a photo of my driver's license to show my legal last name.  And now I wait to be able to continue with the forms.  Happily, there is time.

I don't know what to expect in terms of the weekly CPE schedule.  Will it be like a 9 to 5 job where I report to an office?  Will it be like a chaplain job where I spend time going to hospital rooms and talking to patients?  Will there be papers to write and/or debriefing sessions?  Will the schedule vary, with some overnight duties?

I don't know, so I haven't signed up for any volunteer duties at Lutheridge, and I'm trying to get some stuff done before CPE starts--some doctor visits (and a colonoscopy tomorrow), some sorting, some chores.

I also wonder if I'll have my own office.  Probably not.  Will I have a desk or a locker where I can keep things?  Will there be a place to heat up my beans and barley?  It's the meal that I take whenever I'm reporting to a place for a period of time that means I need to bring food to eat.  If I need to leave stuff locked in the car, I can do that.

When my parents were in town for the Lutheridge celebration in early May, we drove over to see the campus.  The Asheville VA Hospital looks lovely from the outside, more like a small college campus than a modern hospital.  The parking lots that stretched across the back of the property were mostly empty on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and I have no idea if they are ever filled.  Once they must have been.

I've been told that the Asheville VA Hospital is a great place to work and a great place to get care, and I hope that's true.  I've been told only good things about the CPE program there.  I'm looking forward to finding out more for myself.

Placing Book Orders for College Classes in an Age of AI

Yesterday was a day of taking care of small tasks:  ordering books for fall classes at Spartanburg Methodist College, importing syllabi for fall online classes and then putting dates in the syllabus for my online class that starts in late June, picking up prescriptions, reviewing the instructions to get ready for my Thursday colonoscopy, and on and on.

My spouse has been feeling under the weather, so we shifted menu plans, and I made a pot of chicken and dumplings, one of the better ones I've ever made.  I am now convinced that I can only make fluffy dumplings with a biscuit cutter and hand mixing.  The food processor makes the rubberiest dumplings.

In the late afternoon, I went to a neighborhood friend's house for a dinner of snacks and wine (one of my favorite kinds of dinner) and sketching, while her spouse was at church council meeting.  It was the perfect way to end the day.

This morning, I find myself thinking about the Norton Anthology of  British Literature, more specifically, of the 3 volumes that cover the second half of the survey course.  I spent part of the week-end rereading Michael Cunningham's The Hours and watching the film and thinking about Virginia Woolf.  Mrs. Dalloway is now in the anthology, in its entirety.  When I studied British Lit in undergraduate school in the 1980's, Woolf's reputation was in the process of changing.  But at the time, she wasn't always seen as important, particularly not her fiction writing; feminists did prioritize her nonfiction writing on how hard it is to be a woman writer.

I remember when Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was first included in the Norton, somewhere at the turn of the century.  Now we don't have Frankenstein, but instead her novel, The Last Man.  So I ordered Frankenstein in a separate volume.

This morning I wondered how grad studies might have changed.  Would we still spend the same amount of time on Wordsworth and Coleridge?  Is Frankenstein seen as more important, the gateway to much that is modern?  And more sobering, to think about how removed I am from literary scholarship, that I'm probably asking the wrong questions.

I am looking forward to teaching these works again. I will probably not spend much time on the last 40 years, particularly as Norton enlarged the scope to include all sorts of countries that used to be colonies, which makes the topic unmanageable.  We will do a deep dive into post World War II lit and end by thinking about whether or not these topics (fear of nuclear annihilation, seeing an increasing concentration on human rights for more groups, who will rule the world now) are still relevant.  

For decades now, when I got to make my own textbook choices, I've gone with no book.  This year, as I've been reading Maggie Smith's Dear Writer:  Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life, I decided to use it in my English 100 and 101 classes.  I'm not sure exactly how yet.  For those first year writing classes, I still plan to do a lot with trees and observing nature.  But some of the chapters in the book will make a great contribution to the class and to their experiences as first year college students--at least, that's my hope.

Last night, at my neighborhood friend's house, we talked about AI and teaching and how life is changing.  I'm glad that when it comes to teaching, I'm in a place where I have a lot of latitude.  All of my colleagues are distressed about AI and how students use it to avoid doing the work of being a student, and we're all experimenting with different ways to engage students.  

I feel lucky to be part of a liberal arts college at such a time as this.

Setting Summer Intentions

A week ago, I would be getting ready for graduation.  We planned to leave at 11:30, which we did, and it was a good thing, because there wasn't much parking left at the Cathedral when we pulled into the parking garage.

This morning, as I was thinking about that, I was also thinking about the upcoming summer, about how one week has already slipped away.  I want to set up some good practices so that I end the summer not having frittered it all away.  I am thinking about using a sketchbook as a journal to record calorie counts, exercise, writing, and to make a daily sketch or a daily observation.  I recently came across one that I kept in the past, one that I had forgotten that I kept.  It was interesting to thumb through it again, the vague memories becoming sharper.

I want to see if keeping a daily journal might help me be more accountable.  Will I write more?  Will I make healthier food and drink choices?  Can I get back to a habit of quick sketches?

Of course, the disadvantage is that I end up with another notebook to store.  The advantage to journaling electronically is that I don't have boxes and boxes of journals.  But I am sure that I don't write as often, because I need to have the laptop up.  It's easier to have a sketchbook on my lap than the laptop if my spouse and I are watching TV.

I also have new New Year's intentions on the brain, which are still my intentions, which I can still do, if I get back to consistency:

--20 days of strength training each month, which I am interpreting loosely:  squats would be strength training, as would weight lifting, as would leg lifts

--having 52 publishable poems at the end of the year, not just an assortment of rough drafts

--getting better at sketching the human form, particularly faces, hands, and feet.

I am going to add one more intention, at least for the summer:

--keeping track of calories consumed, with a goal of 1200 to 1500 calories a day; I'm not going to count fruit, vegetable, and bean calories, in the hopes that I will eat more of them if they don't count towards the total.  I'd like to drop some of the weight I gained since 2020.  I plan to drink less.  Tracking it all will keep me accountable.

Confirmation Class by Old-Fashioned U.S. Mail

I've been approaching Confirmation in a variety of ways.  The most traditional way has been the Sunday School format.  Decades ago, when I did Confirmation as a student, we had regular Sunday School class and then we met again for afternoon Confirmation class, followed by evening youth group.  Those days are not these days.

Even if the families were willing to return to church, we don't have that many youth for activities.  But I'm not living in the area, so even if the families were willing, I can't do it. I need to be back at my house in the NC mountains so that I can go to my teaching job in Spartanburg on Monday mornings.

I've also been hesitant to do a lot of Confirmation because I thought a new pastor might be coming soon, and I didn't want to overstep.  But now it's become clear that a new pastor isn't coming soon, so when we finished our study of the sacraments, I decided to move into a discussion of the creeds.  In the fall, if I'm still Synod Appointed Minister, we'll explore the 10 Commandments and then do a bit of Bible study in the spring.

I wasn't at church on May 11 because I was out of town for graduation.  But I wanted to give my students an assignment.  I decided to have the students mail them to me--a bonus, that I get mail, but also, they had additional incentive to do it.  

For our May 4 class, I gave them three sheets of paper and a stamped envelope addressed to me.  On one sheet of paper, I had them write God, on the second Jesus, and on the third, Holy Spirit.  I told them that the assignment was to draw or write or collage what they thought of when they heard these words and thought about these aspects of our Triune God.

I wasn't sure what to expect.  Would they even mail the envelopes to me?  I'm happy to report that they did.

I'm not going to post pictures because I said I wouldn't share their pictures.  But they are delightful, and they make me think that children in our churches are understanding far more than we might give them credit for.  And I want to remember that I, too, might be a more effective Confirmation teacher than I give myself credit for.

Sorting for a New Season

It is oddly warm here in the mountains, much more like summer than mid-spring.  It reminds me of childhood summer nights at my grandparents' house in Greenwood, SC, where I would wake up in the middle of the night to realize the night had gotten slightly cool-ish.  The streetlight coming in through the window of my current mountain house reminds me of the big light that illuminated my grandparents' back yard.

I am in the middle of shifting my schedule, in part because of the heat, but mostly because of all the construction and tree/lot clearing around Lutheridge.  I need to get out for a walk before the men and their heavy earth moving equipment swing into action.  Yesterday I walked just after 6 a.m., and it was much more peaceful.  It's a walking time that will work throughout summer.

The problem with this plan is that I might not get back to writing.  Yesterday I had an ear appointment at 9, so any writing time I had was effectively over once I went for my walk.  I need to get back to writing before sunrise, instead of doing the internet zipping around that I usually do.

I am doing CPE this summer, and I need to use this time wisely, so that I have good practices in place by the time it starts on June 9.  I woke up thinking about the stacks of books that could be boxed and taken to my school office eventually.  They aren't necessarily the books that bring me comfort or the books that I want to have access to as the house remodel continues--in other words, it won't be like my office at the places I worked in South Florida.  But it would get them out of the way, and it would let me postpone making a decision on their final destination.  There are books of theology that I might want to let go of now, if I could figure out where to send them.  I do realize that if I don't want them, it's unlikely that they will find a good home.  

One last thing I want to remember from the past two weeks.  After the Create in Me retreat, I had a bag full of yarn that people had brought for projects and didn't want to take home.  Our local library has a basket of free yarn, so I unloaded our contributions to the basket.  A woman had been lingering, and she said, "My daughter has her eye on your yarn. She and her sister crochet and knit, and their teenage budgets can't afford much new yarn." 

I said, "Let me scoot over, so you can start seeing what's here. Take as much as you want."  I also offered her the plastic knitting needles that someone had left on my Create in Me table.

The teenager took the plastic knitting needles and much of the yarn, and I ended up giving her the reusable grocery bag that I had used to transport the yarn.  She acted like I had given her a gift of gold, and that reaction made me so happy.  

It's good to remember that my castaways might be someone else's treasure, and I can't always be sure of what will be what:  treasure, extra garbage, useful or not.  As I shift into the next season, let me remember.

One Hundred Years of "Mrs. Dalloway"

I'm a bit later to my daily blogging than usual.  In part, it's because I slept a bit later.  In part, it's because I fell down a bit of an internet rabbit hole when I discovered that it's the 100th anniversary of the publishing of Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway--yes, 100 years ago on this very day, May 14.  

I really enjoyed the essays on Lithub, particularly this one which talked about teaching the book to today's students and this one which talked about reading the book before and after the pandemic:  "Emre, who worked on The Annotated Mrs. Dalloway in 2020, says the endeavor was an especially apt pandemic project: 'It’s a novel that is registering the aftershocks of a moment of unprecedented mass death. It is deeply preoccupied with different systems of keeping time after it feels like there has been a massive historical rupture in the world.'”

Reading the essays made me think about Michael Cunningham's The Hours, both the first time I read it when I was commuting by public transit to my teaching job at the University of Miami in 2001, and the last time that I read it in 2017, which I talked about in this blog post.  I found his braiding of three narratives so compelling.  I started thinking of my own braided narrative, but in the end, I only wrote one of the braids, and I wrote it like a traditional novel.

At this point in my narrative, you might be expecting publication information, but I never published it, and I'm not sure I ever sent it out.  I reread it years ago, and a friend read it more recently and wondered why I never did anything with it.  I was discouraged and tired.  It was about a poet in her 40's who enters into a partnership with a younger musician/poet, and the whole thing blossomed into a love story, which delighted me, but also aggravated me because all of my novels turn into love stories, even when I plan differently.  I stopped writing my apocalyptic novel in part because it was turning into a love story, but also in part, because I was scaring myself with plot details that were coming true.

Now I am thinking of new projects, a new narrative that might weave the voice of an older woman in seminary, a younger woman teaching section after section of freshman comp in a community college, a middle aged woman struggling to write poems around the edges of her administrator job--and yes, they would all be me.

I am also thinking of a new novel that could use all the old novels I have that aren't published.  I am intrigued by the idea of cutting and pasting bits into a new manuscript, a collage that I suspect I wouldn't be able to make coherent.

But first, let me reread Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours.  I've spent time this morning ordering various copies through my delightful public library.  Now that I'm done with seminary, I'm looking forward to having time to read different delights, to think about my creative writing differently (or even, just to do more creative writing).

Graduation Recap

Yesterday at the end of graduation, I said to one of my professors that I didn't think I would have many more experiences that were that meaningful in my remaining years on the earth.  My professor started to protest, and then we looked at each other, and she said, "You're probably right."  A graduation ceremony in the national cathedral, a graduation where we were lifted up and affirmed before being sent out into the world to do the work we're called to do--no, it won't get much better than that.

I knew that my graduation would be livestreamed, and I hoped that it would be available as a recording too.  Hurrah--it is!  You can view it here, and be sure to watch the benediction at the end, at hour 1, minute 58.  It was the most passionate benediction that I've ever seen, and I felt so blessed--not in the "Have a blessed day" kind of blessed, but the "I am casting a spell of protection over you as I give you your marching orders" kind of blessed.

We got to the cathedral in plenty of time, and there were still parking places left in the parking garage.  I took leave of my family to go wait in the Joseph of Arimathea chapel.  We stood in alphabetical order and waited and waited for it to be time to walk to the back of the cathedral.  

It was great to have that downtime before graduation, a chance to chat with my fellow students.  I reconnected with a student who invited me to go to a Carolyn Forche reading with her in the spring of 2023 (I wrote this blog post about it).  We talked about how rewarding it had been to be in classes, instead of learning on our own.  Before I went to seminary, I wondered if I couldn't just accomplish a similar amount of learning if I bought a lot of books and read them.  Perhaps I could have come up with something similar, but I wouldn't have been able to replicate the insights that came from professors and fellow students.

At first my heart fell a bit when I saw the program; it shouldn't come as a surprise when a seminary graduation is more like a worship service.  I was happy that all of the presentations and acceptance speeches and the main speech were so compelling.  More than once I reflected on how grateful I am to have been part of a seminary that is so committed to social justice, to diversity, to acceptance, to being a faithful and powerful witness in the heart of the nation's capital.

Soon it was time to get our diplomas.  We went to wait our turn, and then, suddenly, there's my name being called, and I made my way across the platform.  We got our actual diplomas, and I was happy that my name was correct--no reason that it shouldn't be, but it's more common that some part of my name is misspelled than that various entities get it right.

We got our fiery benediction, and off we went, out into the cloudy afternoon.  I was grateful that the rain held off, grateful that I was able to find my family, and so, so grateful that I was in a space where I could be fully present.  I didn't have a boss who told me that I couldn't go or who said that I needed to check in.  All of my jobs have been at a stopping point, a serendipity that I couldn't have engineered any more perfectly.

We ate dinner at Millie's, which had a synchronicity that delighted me.  During my first walk as a seminary resident, I discovered Millie's and came back for an ice cream--that became my occasional treat.  My sister and I ate there a few times.  The first time I had the steak salad, it was amazing.  It hasn't been that wonderful since, but I was happy to have it one last time with my family:  salads and wine and a dessert that a fellow student had sent to us.  What an expansive generosity yesterday we experienced yesterday!

At the end of the day, my spouse gave me a gift that he picked out at the cathedral gift shop:  beautiful blue prayer beads on a bracelet, with a charm that contains a small bit of paper with a Bible verse that reminds me not to worry.  I think of how many worries I've had about seminary:  could I do the work, would I have enough internet bandwidth, could I maintain all the kinds of balance I want to maintain?

I am glad to have the answers to those questions.

I am happy to have this diploma, this degree completed.

Graduation Morning

It is graduation morning, a day which may have seemed improbable years ago, before Covid, before seminaries started experimenting with distance learning, before higher education began its long and then sudden decline, before, before, before.

I have earned an MDiv from Wesley Theological Seminary, and later today, I'll participate in the graduation ceremony that happens in the National Cathedral.  It starts at 2, and you could watch from a distance by way of this livestream link:  https://youtube.com/live/hAGLcoosBYo?feature=share

I am not sure what to expect, beyond the usual:  lots of folks in caps and gowns, walking across some sort of stage to get a diploma.  I have participated in many graduations, but rarely as the one getting the diploma.

I have sensible shoes, and I'll wear the olive skirt with the pockets, not the black but pocketless skirt that would blend with the gown better.  I am not nervous about the graduation ceremony.  I'm not speaking, after all.  My family will park the car, and I'm hoping we'll be early enough that they can get a space in the parking garage.

Because the Eucharist ceremony was on Thursday, we've spent several days here in the DC area, days with family members, precious time.  Some of us have been in a local hotel, sharing space with lots and lots of soccer players who are in town for various championship games.  This morning, I'm hearing sniffling and sneezing and hoping it's just allergies.  I have avoided airline flights for a variety of reasons, but belatedly, I'm thinking about the risks of crowded hotels.  We haven't lingered in common spaces or crowded spaces, so hopefully we'll be O.K.

I'm thinking about the last time I stayed in this hotel, back in October for the onground intensive week.  At that time, it seemed more populated by business travelers.  I remember feeling so exhausted, not just from the intensive work, but also from the cumulative fatigue that comes from having a natural disaster fall on one's head.

It's good to remember that it hasn't all been easy. I still feel a bit weird, like people are making too much fuss over me.  After all, I've enjoyed my classes and most of the work felt like it came naturally to me.  But as I think about this 4 year journey, I am reminded of all the ways it has taken perseverance.  It's good to celebrate these milestones.

The Perfect French Meal

If you came here hoping for a Mother's Day post, I wrote a somewhat untraditional post for my theology blog--and of course, I've written many a post in the past.  In my younger years, I thought about gender and nurturing more; these days I'm thinking about being a wise female elder.  Am I one already?  If not, what should I be doing to prepare?

This year, I'm thinking about gender and getting older and career shifts or maybe not a shift as much as additions.  I'm having these thoughts because I'm graduating from Wesley Theological Seminary with an MDiv.  And yet, even though I'm graduating, I'm not moving directly to ordination.  Because I went to a Methodist seminary, I have some Lutheran course work to do, along with other requirements.

Still, this graduation feels like a big step to me.  And we've had an extended celebration time.  Unlike most seminaries that have a worship service one day and graduation the next, Wesley has a Eucharist service on Thursday, and then graduation on Monday.

When I realized we'd have so much extra time, we (meaning me, my sister, my spouse, my mom) thought about what might be fun.  We had planned to go to the Museum of African-American History, but that trip was rained out.  Yesterday we went to my mom's favorite French restaurant for lunch--happily, we didn't have to miss that appointment.  We spent a delightful afternoon at L'Auberge Chez Francoise.

I've only been there once before, to celebrate a parental anniversary.  It was great to return.  Yesterday they had one lunch seating, so we didn't feel rushed at all.  We did the 4 course prix fixe meal, which at first seemed expensive, but then I started thinking about how much I often pay for a meal out, and it felt more reasonable.  

We had a noon reservation, and we left at 3--delightful!  I decided to go with the beef tenderloin, a dish that I'm least likely to make at home, a dish that would be similarly expensive if I made it myself.  Before that dish, we had an amuse bouche of split pea soup, the best split pea soup I've ever had.  We had an assortment of appetizers.  

While I enjoyed my coquille of seafood, my spouse's tiny pot of wagu beef cheeks in a mushroom sherry gravy was amazing--like pot roast elevated to gastronomical perfection.  

There were plates of bread and beautiful salads.  I often don't like the ubiquitous mesclun mix, but yesterday's salad was yummy.  Later we found out that they grew the greens on site, which probably explains their yumminess.

Everyone's main course looked fabulous; I'm sure I could have been happy with any of it.  I didn't take as many pictures of later courses--it was great to live in the moment without trying to document it all.  We finished with dessert--also a place where everyone's choice looked delicious.  I have no regrets about yesterday's meal, which is not usual for me with a restaurant meal.

Many people will be eating out today as they celebrate mothers.  I'm glad we chose to go yesterday instead.  Today the restaurant will have 4 seatings instead of 2; something essential will be lost, although the diners probably won't notice.

I am so glad to have had yesterday's experience:  glad to have been able to find a time when we could all go, glad to have been able to afford it, glad that the restaurant survived the various challenges of the past decade.

Prayers of Blessing at a Seminary Eucharist Service

Yesterday was an even more interesting juxtaposition of events than I thought that we would have when I first wrote a blog post in the morning.  In the morning, I learned of the death of Martha Silano.  In a way, it wasn't a surprise.  I knew of her ALS diagnosis, and her latest poems showed how quickly the disease was progressing.  Here is her May 3 Facebook post:  “If I could eat just one sliver of Genoa salami … and maybe a bite of crispy bagel …. I’d give back every poem I’ve ever written.”

Those words have haunted/inspired me in the days since, the idea that we never know when the things we enjoy might become unavailable to us, because of disease or the forces of history or the lack of time or tariffs or any other reason we want to plug in.  I think of all the times when I've been worried about something (weight gain or would I have enough money to pay the bills or would a teaching schedule come through or why did someone wrinkle their face a weird way which might mean that they are annoyed with me) when I should have been cherishing the moment in a different way, a savoring the richness way.

I thought of Martha Silano at lunch.  My mom, dad, spouse, and I had gone up to Fredericksburg, MD, and we ate at The Wine Kitchen.  It was the perfect day to enjoy their patio seating that overlooked the Carroll Creek, which had a vibe that was both commercial and natural; the weather was perfect with a light breeze, and it was shady.  They had a lunch special that included a glass of wine.  I had the glass of wine for many reasons:  because it went so well with the mushroom strudel, because it was a good deal, because it was part of a perfect lunch.  In my head, I made a toast to Martha Silano and all the wise ones who have reminded me that we need to enjoy life as we can, in all the ways that we can.

During the afternoon, we found out that we have a new pope.  There was some time in the afternoon between lunch and leaving for seminary for the Eucharist service, and I did some reading.  Pope Leo seems like an interesting choice (a Chicago native who spent so many years in Peru that he became a naturalized citizen of Peru).

And then we headed down to D.C.  We left early, because one can never be sure about rush hour traffic.  We got there a bit early, but that was good, because I could get the tickets my family will need to get into the graduation ceremony.  There was a moment when the person in charge of tickets looked at the list, and I felt this fear that maybe I wasn't on the list, that maybe there was some requirement I had forgotten.  Happily, that fear was ungrounded.  I got the tickets, and we went to the chapel.

It was wonderful to sit in the chapel, being surrounded by classmates and family members.  I was touched by how many people remembered me from my brief time living on campus; a few people could still call me by name.  The Eucharist service included a blessing of graduates-to-be by individual faculty members.  We waited in a line, and as each person was free, we processed to them.  I felt lucky to be blessed and prayed over by a faculty member whom I liked:  I took both her Ethics class and her Stories of Power class.  Some of the faculty members I didn't know, and I wondered how that prayer would have been--much more generic, I imagine.

My prayer/blessing included mention of me as a Literature professor, as someone who inspires good in the world, as someone who is both confident but with humility.  I found myself wishing I could have recorded it in some way.

But then I thought about how much I have recorded, which often means I'm not truly in the moment.  I tried to concentrate on staying present and tried not to think about how much concentration it takes to stay present with the moment.

There was a reception afterwards, with heavy appetizers, which made our evening meal.  We ended with a glass of wine each back at the hotel, a wonderful end to a wonderful day.

We live in a time where everyone uses the word "blessed" so much that it seems stripped of meaning:  "How are you today?"  "Blessed"--or "Have a blessed day."  But I really do feel blessed, along with the guilt that comes along with that.  Why do I get to enjoy a day like yesterday when a talented poet like Martha Silano does not get a longer time on the earth?  Even theological thinkers have some trouble with that question.

In the end, let me just remember that if we're lucky, we have good days, and the good days aren't a sure thing.  Let me remember to live with intention, to seek out the good days, to arrange my life so that good days are more likely.

Contemplating Julian of Norwich During Graduation Week

Today is the feast day of Julian of Norwich, at least for Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Anglicans; Catholics will celebrate on May 13. Tonight I will go back to my seminary campus for the Eucharist service for students who are graduating with their Masters degrees, and there's a dinner and reception afterward.  How wonderful to be celebrated this way!

And how different from how Julian of Norwich has been celebrated, or ignored, through the centuries.  She was alive from roughly 1343 to 1416, a tumultuous time with the Black Death making its first appearance in England and a revolt of peasants that spread across the country.  She lived in Norwich, which was a center of commerce and a center of religion.  

I've been interested in Julian of Norwich for a long time.  When I first started teaching the British Literature survey class in 1992, the Norton Anthology had just added her to the text used in so many survey classes.  Why had I not heard of her before?  After all, she was the first woman writing in English, at least the first one whose writing we still have.

My students and I found her writing strange, and I found her ideas compelling.  She had a series of visions, which she wrote down, and spent her life elaborating upon. She wrote about Christ as a mother--what a bold move! After all, Christ is the only one of the Trinity with a definite gender. She also stressed God is both mother and father. Here in the 21st century, we're still arguing about gender and Julian of Norwich explodes the gender binary and gives us a vision of God the Mother, God the Wife--and it's not the Virgin Mary, whom she also sees in her visions.

Her visions showed her that God is love and compassion, an important message during the time of the Black Death.  She is probably most famous for this quote, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well," which she claimed that God said to her. It certainly sounds like the God that I know too.

Although she was a medieval mystic, her work seems fresh and current, even these many centuries later. How many writers can make such a claim?

A few years ago, I read her complete works, which I didn't enjoy as much as I thought I would.  The writing seemed circular, coming back to many ideas again and again, with lots of emphasis on the crucified, bleeding Jesus, lots of focus on suffering and sin. The excerpts that most of us read, if we read her at all, are plenty good enough.  I was both disappointed to discover that, and yet happy.

Not for the first time, I wonder what's been lost to history in terms of writing. If she was thinking about some of these explosive ideas, might others have been even more radical? What happened to them?

I'm grateful that we have her work--at least there's something that gives us a window into the medieval mind, which was more expansive than we usually give credit for.  And I'm grateful that so many people have discovered her in the decades since the Norton Anthology first included her.

I'll keep her in mind today, as I participate in ancient rituals, like Communion, that she, too, celebrated.  I'll keep her in mind as I discern next steps on the path.  My path would seem as strange to her as hers does to me--although I will confess that the cell of an anchoress/anchorite is appealing on some days.  I love the idea of ancient church rites and rituals that connect us across centuries--may they continue!

Getting Ready for Graduation

Part of what I will do during this brief May break is going to various doctors.  Nothing is wrong, but I am at that time of life where preventative maintenance takes more time.  Specifically, I have my first colonoscopy two weeks from now.

Yesterday I went to an ENT.  I've had various doctors look at my left ear, and the audiologist referred me to the ENT because she wasn't comfortable with the amount of hard wax that was in my left ear.  I made the appointment and then got very intentional about using the earwax softening drops every night.  Happily, it worked.  The ENT was able to get the impacted wax out with injections of warm water, which was unpleasant but not as painful as scraping would be.

Still, it all left me a bit sore and unsettled, which was not a surprise, which was why I postponed this appointment until the week when I didn't have teaching or seminary classes to take.  I spent much of yesterday afternoon sitting and sewing and waiting for the aspirin to take effect.  In the evening, I packed a bit for the upcoming graduation festivities.

I feel a bit strange, doing all the graduation festivities.  But I've always done them.  It feels important to mark the time that way.  It feels a bit self-indulgent, although I remind myself that no one has to come see me.  And it's not like I have to take time off work to do all the graduation festivities.  

Life reminds me over and over again that I may think I have lots of chances to travel, to be with loved ones, to do out of the ordinary activities--but that's getting less and less true, as I get older.  

Plus, this graduation is in the National Cathedral--this graduation will likely be the only one I've ever had in the National Cathedral. 

Sewing at Semester's End

I spent a good chunk of yesterday morning grading and checking and checking again and then turning in final grades.  And then, I went for a walk in the beautiful, sunny, chilly morning.  I spent the afternoon watching old episodes of Top Chef and working on the log cabin quilt squares that I started last week-end.

There are five log cabin patches/squares on the top of the chair; I did most of the sewing of them over the past two days.  Nine days ago, I had nothing assembled at all.  I mention this, just to note how much I can accomplish if I just sit and sew while watching TV.

The strips that I am using come from strips that would have otherwise gone into the garbage at Quilt Camp a few weeks ago.  I collected bag after bag of scraps that would have otherwise gone into the garbage, enough to fill the hatchback of my little Toyota Prius.  We used some of it at the Create in Me retreat, and I sent most of it back with a retreatant from Knoxville who will take it to a resource center where people can come in and get all sorts of supplies for free or for cheap.

I am creating these log cabin patches/squares to enlarge the quilt in progress; I need at least 7 more, maybe 14.  The picture above is the top that I put together over the past two Quilt Camps, with patches/squares that I made mostly during the spring of 2023.  Here's a picture from January of 2023, in the early stage of the process.

I used these squares in my Queer Theology class, which I wrote about in a blog post.  I am so grateful to have gone to a seminary where my professors encouraged interesting approaches.

I've gotten some of my seminary grades, and I should get the rest today--graduate grades are due tomorrow.  The grades are good and the comments make me happy.  Every time I turn in an assignment, there's still that fear that I've done it wrong.  For the two classes that I took this semester, I'd taken other classes with each professor, so I wasn't as worried, but the worry is always there.

Today I should restore some order to the house.  I need to pay some bills, return some library books, all the things that could be postponed until now.  But I will probably also sew some more.  I really enjoy putting the strips together, seeing how the whole becomes so much more than the individual strips.

Spring Term: Done at Last!

It is finally here, the moment I've dreamed of, the moment that I was afraid I might not be able to find.  My last set of grades are turned in, as are my last seminary papers.  Let me take a moment to collect some fragments so that I remember.

--People might see the above sentences and think I'm done with work for a bit.  Nope--I need to update course shells for my online courses for summer which start on May 13.  I am still the Synod Approved Minister for Faith Lutheran in Bristol, TN.

--Last week, we didn't go to Bristol because I was at the Create in Me retreat.  Yesterday we were both amazed at how the trees have gone from budding to green.  It was almost disorienting, to go from being able to see far beyond the highway to not being able to see beyond the trees at all.

--But I am also so glad that the trees that were so late to budding and leafing are green now, and not dead, like I was afraid that they were.

--I am remembering USC grad school days--when I was done with classes, both the ones I taught and the ones I took, I'd head to the public library to get reading for fun.  Our public libraries are closed on Mondays, but tomorrow--tomorrow is a possibility.  I have a pile of books to return, now that I've finished writing papers.

I am having trouble thinking of things to say--a bit braindead, after so much grading to meet today's noon deadline for grades.  Let me go for a walk to clear my head.

Week-end Update: Graduations and Birthday Parties

It's been a full week-end.  Even though I got my last seminary papers turned in on Thursday, the other work continues.  I spent the week-end returning to this morning's sermon, and yesterday, very early, I headed down to Spartanburg for graduation at Spartanburg Methodist College, an event that was held at Spartanburg High School.  I tried to think when I had last participated in a graduation event, probably 2021 or so.  

We had a graduation without a speaker coming in from the outside; we had a student speaker.  Nobody missed the outside speaker.  I thought in these terms because once, long ago, when I was part of a graduation planning team, I argued for keeping the student speaker but not having an outside speaker, and  my fellow planners argued that it would come across as disrespect if we didn't have an outside speaker, that people expected it.  And so, some crony came to bleat about how wonderful he was and maybe these graduating students could be just like him if they were lucky--blhhh.

I am always happy to see students make their way across the stage.  I often see students when they're at a less successful stage of student life, so it's wonderful to be reminded of happier possibilities.

I haven't been part of a morning graduation before--yesterday's was at 9 a.m. with crowds expected, so I left my house at 6:15.  I spent much of the morning waiting and standing, because there weren't chairs in the gym where we assembled.  I was back in my car at 10:50, and had time for a stop at the strawberry farm, where I got a basket of berries.

My folks came over for lunch, and we spent a lovely afternoon together, along with dinner at our house.  We also had time together on Friday night.

On Friday night, there was a banquet at Lutheridge to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the camp.  My mom was one of the first generation of camp counselors, and the camp invited her to give a short speech.  We went to the banquet, Mom did a great job, and it was a lovely evening.  I was surprised by how many people we knew--and then again, how many people we didn't know.  We have lots of connections to Lutherans across the Carolinas, and many of them attended.

One of the people we knew but had never met in person was the couple who sold us the house we bought in the residential section.  It was great to meet them, even though it was also a bit weird.  I feel like we got a really good deal on the house.  My spouse feels we paid about $10,000 too much, and he speculates that the couple who sold us the house might feel like we paid $10,000 too little.  I suspect that they are relieved that we came along and wanted the house without much fuss (cash!  no inspection!--perhaps I should have said with no fuss).  They live 6 hours away, if there's no traffic, so it's not like they spent lots of time coming to their mountain retreat. 

This morning we head to Bristol, Tennessee--the part-time minister job at Faith Lutheran continues, and it may for a lot longer.  The church has been exploring ways to have a more full-time minister, but no success so far.  I'm happy to be there as long as they want and need me--and I'm glad that I went ahead and started Confirmation class with those students.

Let me get ready.

Last Seminary Paper Submitted

Last night, after my final seminary class session, I turned in my final seminary paper.  It was about recovering the voice of the prophet Anna, who we meet for 3 verses in the second chapter of Luke (36-38) after Simeon has hogged the spotlight.  We don't get Anna's words, but we do get her actions:  she sees Jesus and goes out to tell everyone the Messiah has come, which makes her the first evangelist after the birth of Jesus.  Thirty some odd years later, Mary Magdalene will also testify, but Anna is first.

It was a fun paper to write for a cool assignment.  In the first part of the assignment, 8-10 pages, we were to write an academic essay that looked in depth at the text that we chose, mostly exploring what others have said about the passage, and in the last part of the assignment, we had much more leverage to be creative:  we could write a sermon or a skit or an outline of something longer, but we had to explain the relevance of the material to a modern listener.

Much of the week, I've been focused on this assignment, but every so often, I let myself think about the whole seminary process, and what all has changed since I first explored the Wesley website, in February of 2021.  In a way, I'm very lucky:  the website described the seminary as it was before Covid.  Even now, as I look at the website, I see pictures of the largest lecture rooms on campus full of people.  When I was there, taking classes in person, we were able to space out across the room, and I was glad.  But the lower in-person attendance did mean that many of the campus opportunities described, like food service, no longer existed.

When I first applied to seminary, the school where I had my full-time job had been sold, but we weren't sure about the implications.  For a time, the new owners talked about consolidating, then they expanded, then they closed most of the campuses, then they closed them all.  I'm glad that I didn't count on them for future income.  I've never regretted leaving academic administration; I was always wanting to protect the interests of faculty and students, and people higher up wanted me to figure out how the school could make more money (they hired me, a PhD in English, and wondered why I couldn't figure out how to transform a campus into a money-making machine).

When I first applied to seminary, we had a house with a mortgage in a flood zone, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.  In between then and now, we moved to a condo in downtown Hollywood, which we only lived in for 10 months before buying the house we own outright now, in the mountains of North Carolina.  We also moved some of our stuff to a seminary apartment, which I only lived in for 9 months.  It seemed certain that the building would be bulldozed to make room for a brand new building, but that hasn't happened yet.  I have no regrets about making the decision to move back to North Carolina.  I've been able to take the classes I need in the modality I need.

I do feel lucky that I got to experience seminary classes in a wide variety of modalities--and such a wide variety of classes.  I've taken art classes where I got to work in mediums that were new to me.  I've taken theology classes and Bible classes and preaching classes.  I've taken classes that didn't fit neatly into the subject matter.  I've had amazing professors who have astonishing credentials.

We've weathered a variety of disasters.  One was a disaster in the traditional definition of that term:  Hurricane Helene.  I expected that a hurricane might disrupt seminary when I lived in South Florida, but not in North Carolina.  The extent of the devastation still shocks me.  I broke my wrist, which was a survivable disaster, but it did require surgery (three years ago, on this very day), and it did complicate the end of my second semester (thank goodness for talk-to-text technology) and made the move to North Carolina harder than it had to be, since I couldn't pick up anything at all.  My husband's brother died suddenly, just six weeks after graduating from seminary himself.  I've spent my seminary years worrying that one of our parents would die, but I didn't expect a younger member of the family to drop dead.

My job trajectories have surprised me.  When I did all the pre-candidacy interviews, at the point after I described my job history, more than one person mentioned how my face lit up when I talked about teaching.  And here I am, teaching full-time in a face to face modality again.  When I first applied to seminary, I had never heard of Spartanburg Methodist College.  Now I don't understand why more people haven't heard of it:  it's a solid school with an amazing scholarship program. 

I've also had the opportunity to serve as a part-time Synod Appointed Minister, which has given me a lot of the joys of being part of church leadership with none of the headaches.  When I started applying to seminary, I would not have thought that I would be a good fit for a rural church in the mountains of east Tennessee.  Nothing has deepened my appreciation for worship like this appointment has.

Even though I'm finishing my MDiv, I'm still a distance from being ordained.  Because I went to a Methodist seminary, I have some Lutheran things to do, like CPE and at least one class in Lutheran theology and an internship (as of right now, my SAM experience can't count for an internship).  But I have no regrets about my seminary route.  It's been a wonderful experience, one that has shaped me, one that I will miss.

Happy May Day!

 Happy May Day!  Or Happy International Workers' Day!  Maybe we should dance around a Maypole singing "Solidarity Forever."

I imagine that most of us will go to our jobs on this fine May Day. Well, those of us in the U.S. will go to our jobs, if we still have jobs. May Day is a holiday in many other parts of the industrialized world.

In my elementary school in the 1970's, we had a May Day celebration that focused on flowers and Maypoles, not on workers. Looking back, I'm amazed that our teachers were able to rig together a Maypole. We spent weeks practicing the weaving of the ribbons in the Maypole dance. We had a whole Mayday festival. Parents came. There was a Mayday king and queen.

Ah, those good old pagan school days!

When I was a child, I liked the idea of leaving flower bouquets on people's front porches.  These days, I'd be hesitant to do that, even though I am up before the dawn.

I have rarely lived in a place where May was more springlike than summerlike.  But the nights cooled off, so May has often been the most tolerable month of the year, regardless of where I've lived.

Here in the mountains of North Carolina, we've had a colder than usual winter and spring has kept bouncing us back to winter.  But still, we're moving from flower season to green season.  Today I drive down to Spartanburg for the first time in a week--maybe I'll buy strawberries on my way back.  It's not a bouquet of flowers, but surely it's a fitting way to celebrate May Day.

Today I go to Spartanburg Methodist College for a morning of faculty development (where I hope to have the mysteries of Canva explained to me) followed by a Faculty Appreciation Lunch. I'm trying not to feel sad about how many years I've been teaching and how few Faculty Appreciation events there have been.

No, let me not be swamped by sadness. Let me focus on the joy of being in a place that appreciates the faculty and a spot in the world where I can celebrate May Day with strawberries.