I've spent the last two week-ends at retreats, and we've been doing more repair/restoration work at the fixer-upper house in S'burg, so it's not surprising that the pantry had become a bit bare. Plus it's been wiltingly hot, so I haven't felt like baking, cooking, or eating.
We did the grungy task of cleaning up the grill, a task far beyond the regular cleaning. Something happened somewhere along the way, and the grease pan stopped catching all the grease. As I wiped and scrubbed and went through a roll of paper towels, I wondered how our occasional grilling could generate so much grease.
Yesterday afternoon we decided we wanted something different to watch, and we've become a bit enamored of the baby Groot character of several short films of several years ago, like this one. So we watched Guardians of the Galaxy, and then the sequel. It was the perfect super hero movie for me: accidental heroes, lots of great music from the 70's, and reworked mythology of all kinds that worked for me, even as much of it was over the top.
The savior story lines made me reflect on how much I yearn for this kind of over the top salvation. One of my parishioners has lost her housing, and no matter how much church members try to help her, we find ourselves stymied. I keep reminding myself that much of the difficulty is structural: there's not enough low income housing for people who have really low income. There's not enough housing, period.
During the past few weeks, I've found myself thinking about possible solutions, and I wrote a post on my theology blog about Lutheran safe houses. I also try to be firm with myself about what a small church with a part-time pastor can actually do, as I worry about burn out for individual members--and about a member having nowhere to go, should the motel she's in decide she can't stay. We're at the back up plan to the back up plan, and I am both worried and tired.
In fact, I'm feeling so tired that I did a Covid test yesterday. My dean came down with Covid this week, and I just wanted to be sure that my off and on scratchy throat and exhaustion weren't anything transmissible.
As I was reading blog posts from past Septembers, I came across this fascinating poem possibility in this post from September 18, 2024: "As I've been puttering this morning, I thought, I should write a poem with the title "Hildegarde of Bingen Forgets Her Feast Day." The poem could go in several possible directions: she forgets because she is busy, she forgets because it no longer matters, she forgets because she has dementia." I went back to my files, and if I composed this poem, I didn't do it on the computer.
Chances are good that I did nothing with this idea because a few days later, I was dealing with the remnants of Hurricane Helene, which left us without power for roughly 9 days, without internet for roughly a month, and boiling water until early December. Again and again, I am a bit whipsawed when I think about all we have managed to survive.
Deep breaths--let me do something with poetry before it's time to get ready for church--or just sit here and breathe deeply.
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