Stash Enhancement
So one evening I'm minding my own business on Ravelry and got a PM from a RavFriend saying that she had heard my screenname drawn at Maryland Sheep and Wool for one of the RavelRaiser prizes. Eep!
I was on pins and needles until the next morning, when it turned out I had won the Lace Dream Stash.
The woman at the front office was a little nonplussed at my eagerness to get my package today. Also, I had red clay on my sandals and didn't want to muck up her space, but I was insistent on getting my box.
I opened and found these:
So what shall I do first?
Behold, a meditation
Thought I would post the meditation I wrote for our recent women's conference in Tulsa. The theme of the conference was "Behold, I do a new thing."
“Behold, I do a new thing!”
The theme of our conference was a message to the people of Israel in exile in Babylon. Dragged off from their homes in Judah, the exiles didn’t know what to
expect on their arrival in a foreign nation. To their surprise, many found it comfortable. Many found prosperity. So many them thought, why worry about the covenant with God and the poor folk left behind when you can take daily power walks in Babylon’s hanging gardens, park your two chariots in the driveway, and buy the latest in fashion in the marketplace?
So there was tension in the community of exiles. The question at the heart of the matter was this: do we stay and adapt, taking on not just the trappings of Babylonian life but worship of the Babylonian gods as well? Or do we hang on to what makes us a community, strengthen our identity, build cohesion as the people of Israel in exile?
And then, breathtakingly, Cyrus the king of Persia conquers Babylon and offers the exiles an opportunity to return home. It is that offer that Isaiah refers: “Behold, I do a new thing!” God working through the politics of the time to restore God’s people to their home.
But what is this new thing? What are the people returning to? The land of Israel is shattered. The fields are laid waste. The temple, the visible sign of God’s presence among the people of Israel, is gone. Returning home, rebuilding the community—it’s going to be hot, dusty, dirty, smelly work.
On the surface, this “new thing” looked dismal. It looked like the dumbest idea ever—well, maybe the dumbest idea since Moses listened to a burning bush and dragged a ragtag group of slaves away from their comfortable well-fed captivity and around the wilderness of Sinai for 40 years.
Isaiah continues, “I am doing a new thing—do you not perceive it?” The exiles were challenged to look with their eyes of faith—to see freedom and homecoming instead of desolation and poverty.
Exile might seem comfortable—but it’s not with God. Our call is to be with God, no matter what the external circumstances.
All of the signs around us point to the fact that God is doing a new thing in the Episcopal Church. We are being called out of our comfort zone. Like the exiles of Isaiah’s time, we know we are being called to rebuild the community of God in new ways and in new places. It’s hot, dusty, dirty, smelly work.
I can’t tell you how often I’ve been at retreats, Cursillo closings, or other recent events and heard people get up and say—people I knew to be lifelong Christians, pillars of their church—“this is the first time I’ve experienced true Christian community.”
If that’s what’s been comfortable for us, then we have truly been in exile.
On the surface, the future we’re being called into looks uncertain, and the outward trappings might be a bit the worse for wear. But if we perceive with the eyes of faith, we might find ourselves emerging from exile, coming home and set free to do the work that God asks us to do to be the body of Christ for each other, and for the whole world.
in which I do not get to see Dick Cheney
So I've returned home from our annual ECW Conference over in Tulsa (and over the weekend I learned where the phrase "Tulsa time" comes from, so now all those billboards make a whole lot more sense. Or more accurately, I should say I was introduced to the song that the phrase "Tulsa time" was used in.)
Being part of the board that puts on the conference, I'm always aware of the under-the-surface paddling that allows us to pull these things off. But this year was made more complicated by the fact that it also included the appearance of the Secret Service.
I've been a little nose-to-the-grindstone lately between episcopal visitations and the usual end-of-the-program year stuff so that most news of the day had entirely escaped my notice. I was checking into my hotel room the afternoon before the conference, and in typical Oklahoma fashion found myself chatting with the person in the room next to me. She asked what I was doing there, and I reciprocated. She said, "I'm here for the Vice President's visit."
It took me a minute to realize she meant
the Vice President, and I stared at her. "The Vice President's coming here?"
She stared at me like I was the local village idiot. "Yes, he'll be here tomorrow."
Again, clueless to the fact that when she said "here," she didn't mean "Tulsa" but at that very same Large Downtown Hotel. (Which one might also refer to as the Large Downtown Hotel of Slipshod Service, or LDHSS for short).
Of course, no one at the front desk of LDHSS had bothered to inform me of this fact when I had checked in mere moments before. Or informed me that access was going to be restricted in and out of the hotel the following day. Luckily, the cashier at Very Large Downtown Parking Garage where hotel guests parked was more forthcoming with, you know, actual information. When the board compared notes on Friday morning, we discovered many of us had been given conflicting information by hotel staff on what would be accessible and what wouldn't during the magical hours of 4 - 7:30.
(LDHSS also failed to clean our hospitality suite before we got there, so we were greeted by sticky tables, balloons left over from a baby and a moldy ice bucket. In addition, the check out material stated that "enclosed was a service questionnaire". There was no service questionnaire in the packet. The irony was not lost on the conference board).
Because I was still learning my singing parts for Friday's choral evensong, I did not try to venture back to LDHSS. I heard later that the Secret Service blocked off the garage and the 2nd street exit of the hotel, and some of our women were not able to get back in time for Evensong because they couldn't get their cars out of the garage.
So I missed Dick Cheney and the Secret Service, although some attendees of our conference hung out and people watched as people came into the ballroom. I'm kind of sorry I missed that part, but since the opportunities for public embarrassment were manifold with the setting for evensong, I chose rehearsal over affairs of the day.
But I am kind of sorry I didn't get to see what all the fuss was about.
redemption on the diamond
Words cannot express how much I loathed high school PE.
The only sport I actually ever enjoyed playing in PE was soccer, and if I knew then what I know now, I would have tried out for it, but I was at a high school where everyone already seemed to be an expert at everything, so it didn't feel like there was a lot of possibility for trying something you might not be good at.
So sports and I have an ambivalent history. On the one hand, I actually enjoy watching sports. I even subscribe to Sports Illustrated. On the other hand, there's that ghost in my head.
I got rid of the ghost in my head for awhile by playing basketball with friends in graduate school. Great fun, and I have a decent eye for making shots.
But the two sports I loathed most were volleyball and softball. To this day, I still resent the high school PE teacher who failed me in volleyball and made me come in early one morning for makeup work, which involved setting the ball ten times in a row and other equally informative exercises. Softball? Just miserable.
Later in life I had some friends give me some gentle coaching in holding a bat and keeping my eye on the ball, so I've actually made it on to a base for awhile, and once, in a seminary intramural game, scored a run.
Today St. C's had a game against another church in our deanery. The church is larger and their team has been together for awhile (they had t-shirts!) We hadn't even played together once.
When we first got out there, I wasn't even sure I wanted to play. I hung out in the dugout, but I was too scared to get out there. Then after awhile, seeing the broad spectrum of quality of play, I knew I had the courage to go out and at least take my hand at swinging a bat.
I made contact and even though I hit into a double play, it felt good.
It totally helped that I had watched "Bull Durham" last week. I kept thinking--"it's a simple game. You hit the ball, you throw the ball, you catch the ball." And of course, Kevin Costner at the plate, thinking "Bring me that weak-assed $%@#, meat."
Before the game was over, I had hit a sacrifice fly ("I advanced a runner! I advanced a runner!) and made it to 1st base on the error of a guy who was giving me some smack because I was a priest (deeply satisfying). I eventually scored a run. It. Felt. So. Good.
Hey, maybe this week we'll even practice. Cause we totally--well, we totally sucked in the first couple of innings but by the end we were--better.
In the immortal words of Nuke LaLouche--sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes--it rains.
Red Scarf at Night . . .Sailor's Delight
Another knitalong for Seamen's Church Institute got underway this month. We have been challenged to knit a red scarf and matching hat to celebrate the upcoming liturgical feast of Pentecost (May 11).
More information can be found
here.
Black Cherry Chutney
Doesn't that sound like a yummy yarn?
I went for a manicure today, a gift from a parishioner to a local salon. The nail tech sent me to the wall of nail polish to select my color. I have charmingly red toes at the moment, a nice dark red color that was applied at the pre-Maundy Thursday footwashing pedicure the women of St. C's engaged in on Holy Wednesday. (Don't tell me that's theologically suspect--it was fun).
I was looking for the matching nail polish at the salon, when my eyes were drawn to a display of a particularly au courant set of colors. "Black Cherry Chutney," read one. It was a deep, dark purple. How fun, a part of my brain insisted. Too out there, the other part responded. I set it down and went back to the red.
As the pre-polish portions of the manicure went on, administered by the charming Amanda, I kept thinking about the dark purple of the "Black Cherry Chutney." How it would be fun to have that on my nails. What would people think? that little voice inside my head continued to say.
I'm 41. I think it's time to wear the nail color I want.
When Amanda got up to get some lotion, I asked to switch colors.
I have Black Cherry Chutney nails. They make me happy.
Thank goodness Lent is over.
The final total for Lent:
22 hats.
And this:
My Lenten discipline was knitting for others. I would take a break from the hats with the log cabining.
Did I mention I was glad it was Easter? It was a good discipline and I'm glad I made myself stick it out, but I'm glad to be doing other things now.
