Beth, Beth, and Derrick Get Their Heads Spun Around

... but may have them put back on again.

Yesterday, as advertised, Beth, Beth, and Derrick met with a ministry developer and a local deacon, drove back from Evanston to Lander, and went to a party. Some of what we heard yesterday turned us around but good - if you're actually interested in knowing more about that, I can tell you later. Certainly we're all pondering the nature of the priesthood anew. We did not stop for the best milkshake in Wyoming - I conflated two places. We stopped in Forsin for World Famous Ice Cream, but they seemed to be closed, at least for the season. The best milkshake in Wyoming is on the way to Powell.

Today, Beth, Beth, and Derrick went to Sinks Canyon and a ministry developers' meeting. Both were fantastic. Sinks Canyon is a place where the river goes down into a hole, then comes back up at the banks half a mile down the road. They haven't yet figured out exactly how it does that - dye tests have proven that it is the same water, but it takes 2 hours for the dye to move that half mile, and more water comes up than goes down, and they don't know why it does that either. It's beautiful, though, and the pool where it comes up (remarkably gently) is a dead end for trout, who just live there then, because you can't fish at that pool. You can, however, feed them pellets, so they're huge fish.

In the afternoon, we had a meeting with (nearly) all the ministry developers in the diocese, along with the diocesan coordinator, the canon/deployment officer, and the bishop. That was a fantastic meeting - it was great to hear about mutual ministry from other people, a couple of whom are actually not men over 60 years old. (There's one woman about 45 and one man about 35.) It also helped me, at least, to reorient myself a little bit and get some better perspective on how mutual ministry works in this diocese. I really appreciated hearing those different viewpoints, and from different people. (And if anyone doubted that the Episcopal Church is small, one of the ministry developers lives in Sundance, and his wife, who has been discerned to be a local priest there, knows my great-aunt from when she lived there.)

Tomorrow, we continue to meet with the ministry developers until noon, and then I think we might actually have the rest of the day free. That implies to me that I might be able to blog tomorrow, though nothing's guaranteed. If not, look forward to hearing about the meeting, a meeting with Lander's senior warden and parish coordinator, a tour of the National Outdoor Leadership School, and a worship committee meeting (yes, Thursday will be a busy day). We're very interested to see what the worship committee meeting will be like - they're supposed to be planning Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany.