Friday Five: Pilgrimage

1. Have you ever been on a pilgrimage? (however you choose to define the term) Share a bit about it. If not, what's your reaction to the idea of pilgrimage?
Yes. In 2002, I spent Lent traveling around England, Wales, and the Scottish Highlands. I'd had a hard time finding anywhere to worship in Germany and being on pilgrimage in English-speaking countries with Anglican churches everywhere was really refreshing.

2. Share a place you've always wanted to visit on pilgrimage.
There are a few - Ireland, Russia - but always the Holy Land, ever since I can remember.

3. What would you make sure to pack in your suitcase or backpack to make the pilgrimage more meaningful? Or does "stuff" just distract from the experience?
I barely remember what clothes or books I took on pilgrimage - but my Bible, prayer book, journal, and camera were indispensible. I don't think my Bible and journal have ever gotten so much use as they did those five weeks.

4. If you could make a pilgrimage with someone (living, dead or fictional) as your guide, who would it be? (I'm about thisclose to saying "Besides Jesus." Yes, we all know he was indispensable to those chaps heading to Emmaus, but it's too easy an answer)

Like Jane, I can think of a few excellent companions, but for a guide? That's tough - partly because I so enjoyed being on pilgrimage without one.

5. Eventually the pilgrim must return home, but can you suggest any strategies for keeping that deep "mountaintop" perspective in the midst of everyday life?

Nope.

Song of the Week

Yes, I'm back from Ohio, though I don't think I told you all that I had left. Here's this week's Song of the Week, thanks mostly to a pretty perfunctory psych eval while I was home.

And yes, I realize that the last several posts have all been song-of-the-week posts. I'll try to get a real post or two in this week between songs.


Closer to Fine

i'm trying to tell you something about my life
maybe give me insight between black and white
and the best thing you've ever done for me
is to help me take my life less seriously
it's only life after all
yeah

well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
and lightness has a call that's hard to hear
i wrap my fear around me like a blanket
i sailed my ship of safety till i sank it
i'm crawling on your shores

i went to the doctor, i went to the mountains
i looked to the children, i drank from the fountains
there's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
and the less i seek my source for some definitive
(the less i seek my source)
the closer i am to fine
the closer i am to fine

and i went to see the doctor of philosophy
with a poster of rasputin and a beard down to his knee
he never did marry or see a b-grade movie
he graded my performance, he said he could see through me
i spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
got my paper and i was free

i went to the doctor, i went to the mountains
i looked to the children, i drank from the fountains
there's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
the less i seek my source for some definitive
(the less i seek my source)
the closer i am to fine
the closer i am to fine

i stopped by the bar at 3 a.m.
to seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
and i woke up with a headache like my head against a board
twice as cloudy as i'd been the night before
and i went in seeking clarity.

i went to the doctor, i went to the mountains
i looked to the children, i drank from the fountains
yeah we go to the doctor, we go to the mountains
we look to the children, we drink from the fountains
yeah we go to the bible, we go through the workout
we read up on revival and we stand up for the lookout
there's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
the less i seek my source for some definitive
(the less i seek my source)
the closer i am to fine
the closer i am to fine
the closer i am to fine

Back

Home. Safe. Exhausted.

Ohio bound

I'm off today to Ohio for a weekend gathering with the diocesan commission on ministry and seminarians, as well as interviews for ordination. (Or as my roommate puts it, "Go jump through your hoops, and we'll text you things like "sit! stay!" while you're there and have treats for you when you get back.") I expect them to go well, but they're still interviews. I'm also hoping to have my pre-ordination psychological evaluation while I'm there, but there have been any number of obstacles in the way of that, so we'll see whether I can check that off the list or not. I'll probably be online some, but I'll definitely be offline a lot of the time, since there's no wireless at the diocesan camp & conference center. Keep me in your prayers this weekend, or?

Back

I've returned safely to Evanston, and have convinced my wireless to work again. I'm grateful to have returned to a suite that wasn't covered in an inch of dust, and to keys in my mailbox, and to friends who helped move my things in from the car. I've also started Hebrew class, and am hard at unpacking and cleaning and grocery shopping and other tasks of moving back in.

It's been noted that my entries this summer didn't tell much about what I'd actually been doing. I'll try to remedy that now that I'm back without the distraction of family.

Popping in

I made it through my grandmother's birthday celebration, triple preaching this morning, and the family at our house this afternoon. (Turns out that when my brother and his fiancee leave, I become the coolest playmate available for my cousin's kids, who are 8 and 5.)

There's still a bit of family here, but it's time for me to finish packing my bags and start packing the car now. Tomorrow, Evanston!

Friday Five: Life in the Fast Lane

(Obviously, I'm making a lot of progress on that sermon.)

1. Driving: an enjoyable way to clear the mind? a means to an end? a chance to be quiet with one's thoughts? a necessary evil? the downfall of our planet and its fossil fuels? Discuss. Usually, a means to an end. I enjoy it, most of the time, but I don't usually drive to clear the mind - especially since I believe that driving is best undertaken while the mind is already pretty clear.

2. Do you drive the speed limit? A little faster? Slower? Have you ever gotten a ticket? I tend to drive a little faster than the speed limit - by which I mean, mostly I drive about 5 miles faster and occasionally I drive a fair bit faster.

3. Do you take public transportation? When? What's your opinion of the experience? When it seems reasonable. When I'm in Chicago, I usually take public instead of driving if at all feasible, though I don't mind if someone else drives. When I'm in Cleveland, it's almost never reasonable - there's not much of it, and the nearest park-and-ride is fifteen minutes away in the opposite direction from the city, so taking the rapid to ball games isn't really a strong option for us.

4. Complete this sentence: _____________ has the worst drivers I've ever experienced. St. Louis, no question. Especially in the parking lots of grocery stores (especially the Schnuck's in Richmond Heights).

5. According to the Census Bureau, reverendmother's fair city has the 6th longest average commute in the United States at 29 minutes each way. How does your personal commute rate? Well, at the moment, my commute is pretty short - from my bedroom to my kitchen table it takes me about 20-25 seconds. My commute this summer to work was about 20-25 minutes each way (exactly average for my city, the 31st in the nation at 23.5 minutes). My commute at school is somewhere in between - about two and a half minutes from my third floor suite to the second floor classrooms or the first floor chapel.

Bonus for the brutally honest: It has been said, and the MythBusters have confirmed, that cell phones can impede driving ability almost as much as drinking. Do you talk on a cell phone while driving? Rarely. I do it more in Cleveland than in Chicago, because my parents' house has bad reception, but I think I've still only done it once all summer. I do answer the phone while driving unless it's immediately stupid to do so, but I usually talk just long enough to know there's no emergency and then say "I'm driving. Good-bye."

Time to go

There are things I like to do with people, and there are things I like to do alone. Sermon writing and packing are things I do best when left to my own devices. Unfortunately, they also seem to be things about which my parents want to advise me. I do not blame my parents for the fact that I'm unhappy with several parts of tomorrow's sermon. It is not at all their fault that I seem to be in a rut right now (not a preaching-the-same-thing-every-week one, but the kind where I seem to be utterly unable to fix the mistakes that I know are there). It's also not an invitation for them to explain to me what I should do about it (especially since neither of them has ever actually DONE it. Come to think of it, I'm not sure the last time either of them wrote anything other than an email or a memo.)

It's time for me to get back to Evanston - unfortunately, I've got another week, in which I still have to pack all my stuff, fix this sermon as best I can, write another one for next Sunday, and spend a lot of family time.

Maybe not all the way there...

I've been feeling much more like my parents' house is home than I have in several years. This makes sense, really - it's been a while since I've lived here consistently. Today, though, I was reminded that we're not really all the way there yet.

I had to look up directions to a house within walking distance of my parents' house, only a few houses away from the house where my grammar school best friend lived. I have been back and forth between her house and mine countless times, even on my own. I just haven't done it in over ten years.

Arrived

I've made it back to the Cleveland area, gone to my father's retirement party, and am now settling in at my parents' house.