Song of the Week

Ani Difranco this week, after a friend pointed me back to the phoenix the other day.

32 Flavors

squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
and I'm beyond your peripheral vision
so you might want to turn your head
cause someday you're going to get hungry
and eat most of the words you just said

both my parents taught me about good will
and I have done well by their names
just the kindness I've lavished on strangers
is more than I can explain
still there's many who've turned out their porch lights
just so I would think they were not home
and hid in the dark of their windows
til I'd passed and left them alone

and god help you if you are an ugly girl
course too pretty is also your doom
cause everyone harbors a secret hatred
for the prettiest girl in the room
and god help you if you are a pheonix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying past

I never try to give my life meaning
by demeaning you
and I would like to state for the record
I did everything that I could do
I'm not saying that I'm a saint
I just don't want to live that way
no, I will never be a saint
but I will always say

squint your eyes and look closer
I'm not between you and your ambition
I am a poster girl with no poster
I am thirty-two flavors and then some
And I'm beyond your peripheral vision
So you might want to turn your head
Cause someday you might find you're starving
and eating all of the words you said

Song of the Week

This song has made it into both my theology of music class and a recent post this week. It's the song of the week.

Language or the Kiss - Indigo Girls

i don't know if it was real or in a dream
lately waking up i'm not sure where i've been
there was a table set for six and five were there
i stood outside and kept my eyes upon that empty chair
and there was steam on the windows from the kitchen
laughter like a language i once spoke with ease
but i'm made mute by the virtue of decision
and i choose most of your life goes on without me
oh the fear i've known
that i might reap the praise of strangers
and end up on my own
all i've sown was a song but maybe i was wrong

i said to you the one gift which i'd adore
the package of the next 10 years unfolding
but you told me if i had my way i'd be bored
right then i knew i loved you best born of your scolding
when we last talked we were lying on our backs
looking at the sky through the ceiling
i used to lie like that alone out on the driveway
trying to read the greek upon the stars
the alphabet of feeling
oh i knew back then
it was a calling that said if joy then pain
the sound of the voice these years later
is still the same

i am alone in a hotel room tonight
i squeeze the sky out but there's not a star appears
begin my studies with this paper and this pencil
and i'm working through the grammar of my fears
oh mercy what i won't give
to have the things that mean the most
not to mean the things i miss
unforgiving the choice still is
the language or the kiss

Songs to Make Me Cry... For the Wrong Reasons

AKMA has a post today linking to the AV Club's list of songs that make them cry. As a lifelong crier, I don't want to denigrate any such list too much. I'm moved to ask, though, why they all seem to be by men.* Really? even when it comes to tears, men are the only ones worth citing? I thought that was supposed to be women's special domain.

It took 25 comments even to get Joni Mitchell in there at all. Hello? River? the remake of Both Sides Now? her cover of Hallelujah? pick any grouping of Joni's music and you'll find a tearjerker.

Here are my 18 tearjerkers, then, to counter the men's. Yes, they're mostly women. Yes, there are repeat artists. Yes, all that is partly on purpose and partly because that's what I actually listen to.**

1. She's Saving Me - Indigo Girls. This is the song that has most consistently made me cry over the longest period of time.
2. I'll Miss You Till I Meet You - Dar Williams. I'm never sure whether she's singing this for an ex, or a dead friend, or a dead ex. I don't really care - it's heartbreaking either way.
3. Don't Lay Down - Catie Curtis
4. Tangled-up Puppet - Harry Chapin
5. Leavin on a Jet Plane - Peter, Paul, & Mary. I wept for months after leaving camp one summer, listening to this song over and over.
6. Hallelujah (I don't care whose version, really - mostly I listen to either Joni's or Rufus Wainwright's)
7. Fields of Gold - Eva Cassidy's version
8. River - I came to this song on the Indigo Girls' version, but Joni Mitchell's version works equally well
9. Hurt - but again, I don't really care whose version. Cash's and Reznor's are heartbreaking in different ways.
10. Fighting Chance - Melissa Ferrick
11. Don't Cry Anymore - Catie Curtis
12. Fields of Athenry - my version is by One of the Girls, but I'm sure there are more commercial versions out there.
13. Fatherless at 14 - Kendall Payne.
14. Hold On - Sarah McLachlan
15. And So It Goes - Billy Joel
16. American Tune - Paul Simon
17. Untouchable Face - Ani Difranco
18. Language or the Kiss - Indigo Girls

*Admittedly, some of these aren't bands I know at all. Maybe there are women in them; maybe one or two is even primarily/exclusively composed of women, though I doubt it. I still don't see anything that makes women artists visible.

**And, no, I'm not even letting myself use musical theater tunes, which could be their own 18 songs.

Temporary Sanity

Sorry, those of you who don't read this on a feed.

I'd meant to change the colors here for a long time. But since I really never look at my own blog, I kept forgetting how awful-looking it was.

So, I decided that if I was going to put off doing anything with the template, I'd at least pick one that was standard and boring rather than unsightly in the meantime. I'm hoping to remember to play around with it more soon, because I actually don't like this much, but there we are. Also, I'm going to have to reconstruct the links, and that will take me a bit of time to do - but then, my links were out of date anyway.

Friday Five: What are you...

1. Wearing - Dark cuffed jeans and a nearly-lime green cable knit 3/4-sleeve sweater, green and brown argyle socks, and brown clogs.

2. Pondering - my favorite saints

3. Reading - the book about preaching and powers theology that some of my friends had in their preaching class last term, the name and author of which I cannot remember, because people just called it the powers book.

4. Dreaming - I had a dream last night that one of the same hymns was used at both evening worship and noon Eucharist today. Not exciting, I know.

5. Eating - Right now I'm really hungry and envying Tripp's Aztec hash, but soon we're going to dinner, at which point I will probably be eating either sushi or green beans with bok choy at Koi, or bibim bop or cashew tofu at Mandarin House. Except now that I've mentioned bok choy, I'm craving the vegetable risotto from Wild Mango. Which is in Cleveland. Sad.

Saints of Favor

Name your four favorite saints, your favorite blessed saint, and the person you think should be canonized.

Thecla - both a favorite and one who should be canonized, since she's a saint in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches but not in ours
Mary Magdalene
Augustine of Hippo
Mary, the mother of Jesus

Mother Theresa is really the only blessed I know, unless you're counting all the people the Anglicans have added to our calendars but who aren't Catholic saints. I've included them in the regular saints, though.

And I tag Tripp, Lauren, Ryan, and Susie.

Song of the Week

Or maybe Tuesday will just become the new song-of-the-week day. The song for the last week comes from the musical version of The Secret Garden, and it's been on my mind through a couple of conversations with different friends in the last week.


Hold On

What you've got to do is
Finish what you have begun,
I don't know just how,
But it's not over 'til you've won!

When you see the storm is coming,
See the lightning part the skies,
It's too late to run-
There's terror in your eyes!
What you do then is remember
This old thing you heard me say:
"It's the storm, not you,
That's bound to blow away."

Hold on,
Hold on, there's someone standing by.
Hold on.
Don't even ask how long or why
Child, hold on to what you know is true,
Hold on 'til you get through.
Child, oh child
Hold on

When you feel your heart is poundin',
Fear a devil's at your door.
There's no place to hide-
You're frozen to the floor!
What you do then is you force yourself
To wake up, and you say:
"It's this dream, not me,
that's bound to go away."

Hold on,
Hold on, the night will soon be by.
Hold on,
Until there's nothing left to try.
Child, hold on, There's angels on their way.
Hold on and hear them say,
"Child, oh child!"

And it doesn't even matter
If the danger and the doom
Come from up above or down below,
Or just come flying
At you from across the room!

When you see a man who's raging,
And he's jealous and he fears
That you've walked through walls
He's hid behind for years.
What you do then is you tell yourself to wait it out
And say "it's this day, not me,
That's bound to go away."

Child, hold on.
It's this day, not you,
That's bound to go away!

Limited Time Offer

Today in class, the guy behind me leaned forward and said, "Hold still, there's a sticker in your hair." He pulled it off, handed it to me, and said, "You're 30 cents off."

My class was relatively amused by this alone, but way more amused when I looked at the coupon sticker and said, "Yeah, but only if you buy two packages of butter."

Thanks, guys.

Two Thoughts

One: Tofu dogs go well with avocado. Tofu dogs go well with mac & cheese. All three together is a little weird.

Two: On Thursday, one of my friends turned to me and said, "When are we going to see One of the Girls again? I wanna be a groupie! Can we be groupies?" This seriously totally made my week. It's so much more fun to be a groupie when you're doing it with fun people as opposed to alone.

Friday Five: Joy

It's probably been months since I've done a Friday Five, but I actually have time to blog this Friday. Here we go:

Tell us about five people, places, or things that have brought surprising, healing joy into your life.

Hmmm.

Preaching. I expected preaching to challenge me intellectually, creatively, and emotionally. I didn't expect it to love it so much, and I definitely didn't expect to find healing in crafting my own sermons the way I have with several of my better ones.

My roommates. When I first met my current roommates as prospectives, one seemed sweet and nice but I wasn't sure how much we had in common, and one seemed kind of overeager to come to Seabury. (Yes, they know this already.) I didn't mind being placed with them, but never expected them to be the incredible blessing in my life that they have been this year.

My internship with ECM. I honestly didn't know ministry could be that incredible. I learned a lot from that community about what joy and healing even meant. (Their new chaplain is a lucky man.)

Falafel. I know it sounds strange, but it's true. When I moved to Germany, I didn't think I liked falafel. Discovering that there was this delicious, readily available, affordable, protein-rich, vegetarian meal all over the place, coming off a year of not being able to eat very well, provided an intense joy and a lot of healing for my body and spirit, even if it may not have been the very healthiest option to eat that much fried food. I still love it, though it's hard to find really good falafel over here.

My little "corner" just inside the altar rail in the Seabury chapel. It took me a couple of years to find it, but it's just a perfect space - for prayer, for napping, for praying while napping, for solitude.... It makes me sad to have Easter, because we take down the rails until Pentecost, which is more or less the rest of the year.

Song of the Week

It's the wrong day of the week to be posting this, but I've slipped out of the habit. This one is meant for last week, but could go for this week too. It's the second movement of the Brahms Requiem; I'll post the German original first and the English below.

Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras
und alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen
wie des Grases Blumen.
Das Gras ist verdorret
und die Blumen abgefallen.

So seid nun geduldig, lieben Brüder,
bis auf die Zukunft des Herrn.
Siehe, ein Ackermann wartet auf
die köstliche Frucht der Erde
und ist geduldig darüber,
bis er empfahe
den Morgenregen und Abendregen.
So seid geduldig.

Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras . . .
Aber des Herrn Wort bleibt in Ewigkeit.

Die Erlöseten des Herrn
werden wiederkommen,
und gen Zion kommen mit Jauchzen;
Freude, ewige Freude wird über
ihrem Haupte sein;
Freude und Wonne werden sie ergreifen
und Schmerz und Seufzen wird weg müssen.


For all flesh is as grass,
and all the glory of man
as the flowers of the grass.
The grass is withered,
and the flowers fallen away. (I Peter 1:24)

Be patient, therefore, brethren,
unto the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waiteth for
the precious fruit of the earth,
and hath long patience for it,
until he receive
the early and the latter rain.
So be patient. (James 5:7)

For all flesh is as grass . . .
But the word of the Lord endureth forever.
(I Peter 1:25)

And the ransomed of the Lord
shall return,
and come to Zion with songs
and everlasting joy
upon their heads:
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
(Isaiah 35:10)

Weird Person #5, Reporting In

Ok, Ref tagged me for this a couple of days ago, but I've had trouble completing the assignment, so here it is finally:

Rules: 1) Post six weird things about yourself; 2) Tag six weird people to do the same.

1) I'm not a huge chocolate-peanut butter fan. Now, I do like Reese's cups, on occasion. But most chocolate peanut butter stuff - ice cream, easter eggs, whatever - is just way, way too sweet for me. I'm told this is really, really weird.

2) Phobias. I'm unnaturally afraid of both marsupials-resembling-ROUS's and tickling. I know admitting to that second one makes it look like you should now try tickling me to see it in person, but I promise you it will cause lasting damage to both your person and our friendship if you do.

3) I have an apparently weird memory for certain details, especially dates and spatial arrangements. I can tell you my high school boyfriend's birthday, or where in my food crates the canned ravioli is, because they just stick in my head, taking up space that could be used for other things.

(Ok, figuring out what's weird about myself is hard. I've been thinking for two days now and I'm still having trouble.)

4) Oh, I tend to cover my stomach with my hands or arms almost no matter what position I'm in. I'm told that's a little weird.

5) I actually prefer room temperature drinking water to cold drinking water. I don't like my drinks too cold. I think this may come from my time in Germany, but I'm not sure.

6) There are probably people somewhere on this planet who think it's weird that I feel compelled to post this meme. If you don't think that counts as my sixth one, you can count my phobia separately, or comment and tell me what I've missed!

I'll tag: the Archer, Emily, Marisa, Nicole(though I'm not sure she reads this), and Marie.

Happy Bengali New Year

In celebration of which I just had some really yummy aloo gobi, spicy potatoes, and some sort of paneer dish. Oh, and some rice pudding. And they were homemade. And did I mention they were yummy?

In other news, if anyone runs across the sermon that's begging to be preached in Seabury's chapel for the feast of James Lloyd Breck this year, please send it my way. Barring that, I'll be spending most of my free time between now and Monday noon scavenging for it.

For the record

I don't listen to it that often, I know - but I'm once again convinced that if I could have only one musical work for the rest of my life, it would be Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem. It's extraordinary.

Resurfacing

I'm - well, not diving back in, if I'm titling this post resurfacing. I'm starting back up again, I guess, with another song of the week. The last couple of weeks where I missed them, I had songs of the week that I didn't really want to explain, so I didn't post them.

At any rate, I missed a significant amount of Holy Week due to illness (which was also responsible for my not blogging). I went to all the services, but I still missed large chunks of them. So I'm in a weird place now where we seem to have skipped from Lent to Easter without hitting the Triduum. And today, I've been listening to Joni Mitchell's version of "Hallelujah" on repeat. It just seems appropriate to make it the song of the week for the last week.


I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time you'd let me know
What's real and going on below
But now you never show it to me do you?
Remember when I moved in you?
The holy dark was moving too
And every breath we drew was hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there's a God above
And all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Stations of the Cross

If you're not already, I strongly recommend that you head over to the Archer's place this week and follow with him as he posts ArcherComics stations of the cross. They're quite well done.

Edited to add: Oops. Forgot the link. The link now there is to the Archer's intro to the stations - click around from there.

Another shuffle meme

if your life were a soundtrack, what would the music be?

1. open your library (iTunes, winamp, media player, iPod)
2. put it on shuffle
3. press play
4. for every question, type the song that's playing
5. new question-- press the next button
6. don't lie and try to pretend you're cool

opening credits:
Language or the Kiss - Indigo Girls

waking up:
Perfect - Children of Eden

first day at school:
It's a Fine Life - Oliver!

falling in love:
Unforgettable - Natalie Cole

breaking up:
Teenagers, Kick Our Butts - Dar Williams (seems to me this would go better in some other place...)

prom:
Candle in the Wind - Elton John (not a very happy prom, I guess)

life's okay:
Sin Wagon - Dixie Chicks

mental breakdown:
The Temple - Jesus Christ Superstar (Savior complex, anyone?)

driving:
Spin, Spin, Spin - Jim Croce

flashback:
One Headlight - Wallflowers

getting back together:
Into the Groove - Madonna

wedding:
Touch Me Fall - Indigo Girls (Rock.)

birth of child:
Spring Street - Dar Williams (Interesting...)

final battle:
The Cobbler - One of the Girls

death scene:
Goin' Up - Great Big Sea

funeral song:
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Deep Blue Something

end credits:
In Lonesome Dove - Garth Brooks

Apologies...

... to my roommate. Apparently I stole ("borrowed," I like to say) Kay's soul today. I spent the morning cleaning the chapel. Then I came home around 1, and since I had momentum and it was my weekend, I cleaned the bathroom. Only first, I thought I'd clean the pile of dishes I had, before I cleaned the sinks. And then, I realized the fishbowl needed cleaning, so I figured I should definitely do that before I cleaned the sinks, so I did. And since I was in a cleaning mode, I did the floors in the common room. And then Jenny Jo got really excited at the idea that I might finally wash the exploded champagne off the coffee table, so I did that, and while I was at it, I washed the doily that lives on the coffee table. And then I realized that the bathroom sinks were really clean, so I did some hand wash. And then I took a shower myself. And I came into the common room and found a piece of dust on the floor that I'd just cleaned, and, sadly, took it across the hall to Jenny Jo, jumped up and down, and said "I JUST CLEANED THAT!!"

Thankfully, then it was time to go get dinner and watch basketball.

Spring Quarter Gender Balance Award

Welcome back! It's that time again... I'm back in real classes, and have more or less a sense of what books we're likely to use in each class. So without further ado, here's how this term pans out:

Hebrew: Still using the same books as last term - a grammar by a man, lexicon by men, grammar handbook by two men and a woman, and the Hebrew Bible. Still only nearly acceptable, though it's not like I expected any change of books mid-course.

Theology of Music: Two books. Both are by men. (These don't count, but all the photocopies are by men too). Rating: Unacceptable.

Practicum in Liturgical Celebration: As you'll note in the original post on gender balance, I only count required books here. This class requires on the syllabus several of the recommended books, but they still don't count. I'll check when I get home, but as I recall, there are six or seven required books, and I think they're all by men. If so, that rates another unacceptable.

Pastoral Administration: No books. Ineligible.

Meaning and Ministry: Granted that the reading list isn't absolutely set, our likely list includes three men and three women, I think. Maybe four men and three women. Rating: Excellent!

Unhappily, there are once more several unacceptables. Happily, I can at least give the Gender Balance Award this term - clearly, it goes to Meaning and Ministry. I think that'll be true even if I get home and discover that Practicum has something by a woman, since M&M is a pretty even split so far.

from Cecily

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd   Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Drama Nerd
Social Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Musician
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

In an effort to induce sleep...

I know I should go to bed, because I'm exhausted and it's 11 pm. But while I'm exhausted, I'm not at all sleepy, and since I've been sleeping poorly lately, I'm trying the tack of "not getting into bed until I'm sleepy" for a little while (though in about half an hour I'll give up and try the "maybe I'll sleep if I lie down" approach). And I felt like a meme, so I poked around on the internet and found this one that I've done before, but not for a year-ish, so I'm resurrecting it: the iTunes meme. (Put iTunes on shuffle. Answer the questions with song titles as they come up. No cheating.)

How does the world see you?
In the Name of Love - Mary Chapin Carpenter

Will I have a happy life?
Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge Lovely.

What do my friends really think of me?
Smile - Natalie Cole

Do people secretly lust after me?
Once Upon a Dream - Jekyll & Hyde Oh, my.

How can I make myself happy?
Lullaby on a Christmas Chorale - Smith College Chorale Not really sure how that translates to method...


What should I do with my life?
Free in You - Indigo Girls So I should... fall in love? Again, not so concrete.

Will I have children?
Teen for God - Dar Williams I guess that's a yes, though that's also a fate I'd like to spare any future children...

What is some good advice for me?
The Longest Time - Billy Joel This is advice how?


How will I be remembered?
what better said - k.d. lang nice!

What is my signature dancing song?
You Learn - Alanis Morissette Sad, really, since it's not much of a dancing song. Maybe my signature dancing style is supposed to be modern... you could do a decent modern or lyrical piece to that, I guess.

What do I think my current theme song is?
Get Out the Map - Indigo Girls Sure, why not?

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
The Hudson - Dar Williams Because everyone else is confused and thinks I'm a native New Yorker?

What song will play at my funeral?
Hark the Herald Angels Sing - Various Artists I'm assuming that the various artists at the funeral will be the congregation, and that I'm going to die around Christmas - which makes it really a pretty decent pick for a funeral. Well done iTunes.

What type of men/women do you like?
Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield I swear I didn't fix that answer. Really.

What is my day going to be like?
Benedictus - Simon and Garfunkel A girl could do worse. Can I call that in for tomorrow instead of today, since today's now over?

Not My Life

Seen today somewhere on BlogHer:

"I suggest, though, that you pair your yoga pants with a nice casual sweater; I wear mine with my cashmere crew neck and a tee that's longer than the sweater, to keep my midriff covered."

Ok, except for a few people who have family in the cashmere business, I don't know anyone for whom cashmere counts as "casual." And I'm quite sure I don't know anyone at all who wears yoga pants with cashmere. I'm just saying - if you're trying to advise the general blogging populace about how to wear yoga pants without embarrassing themselves, maybe you want to pair them with something most people own?

Edited to clarify: I guess by casual, I don't mean "informally, with jeans or khakis" so much as "with yoga pants or pajama pants." I think that within the realm of things sweaters can be made of, cashmere is not at the casual end of the spectrum. And even there, I guess I mean "standing in front of a drawer wondering what to throw on with yoga pants" rather than "happening to have both on at once" which I
find less weird. I'm also thinking of pure cashmere, which tends to
be pretty pricey, rather than cashmere blends. It's possible that the author has in mind something more affordable than 100%. It's also been pointed out to me that there's a difference in men's wear and women's wear, which I think is true. I hadn't really processed that piece, since the article on BlogHer was specifically for women.

That may or may not actually clarify things - I'm pretty exhausted and not entirely coherent today.

Gratitude

Tonight, I'm grateful for my friends. Thank you all for your patience, your fortitude, your bravery, your humor, your tenderness. I love and admire you.

Coffee...

As it turns out, watching one's way through Gilmore Girls while giving up coffee for Lent proves very difficult.

How far have we really moved?

I'm sitting in class (yes, in class), and we're talking about how music is involved in our being missional. I'm hearing people suggest that what we need to do to engage missionally with secular music is to listen to secular music; to speak the gospel in the language of that culture; to be daring enough to wear clericals to a rock concert, etc.

And I just had a memory of a Saturday night worship service when I was in high school, at a youth conference. During testimonials, two peer ministers got up and confessed to the rest of us that when they'd left the night before for a rock concert, they'd decided to put their peer ministry crosses inside their shirts. (Peer ministers wore big wooden crosses so they could be identified - actually they looked a lot like pectoral crosses that bishops wear.) They talked about why they did it, their shame in wearing the crosses and then their shame in hiding them, and then wondered about the witness they might have given if they'd had the guts to wear them outside their shirts. (We probably also talked a lot that weekend about using rock music for Christian messages, about seeing the spiritual messages in rock music, etc. Those conversations were really common at these gatherings.)

And now I'm wondering: What does it mean that ten years later I'm sitting in seminary having almost exactly the same conversation? Are we coming up with decent ideas that we're just still not acting on (and then why not)? Or are we coming up with the same ideas that sound fresh but just aren't working - and then what else is there instead? Either way, it sounds to me like the conversation has gone stagnant, and I'm very aware that I'm not helping that at all.

Hmm.

It's probably not in my long-term best interests that I can have no idea where my checkbook is and then find it almost immediately on my desk. Probably I ought just to clean the desk and do the actual filing. And yet, finding it so immediately doesn't really motivate me to do the cleaning and filing....

A Very Good Day

I probably shouldn't post this until the day is over, for fear of jinxing it. Maybe I'll save as draft and post it later. But today is a very good day. For the first time in about a year and a half, I got to go to church where I wanted to, with friends, and have brunch at Lucky Platter afterward. I've missed doing that. Now my floor is clean, and in about 20 minutes friends will come over bearing dinner, and we will watch RENT (at which point Kay will finally have seen it). Then we will get on a train and go see One of the Girls play, which I have not done for a year. I may not have gotten much of a spring break this year, but condensing it all into one day makes today a pretty good one.

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

Song of the Week

Last week's song of the week was not, in fact, a Dar Williams song. Not that far off, perhaps - it's an Amy Ray song - but not Dar:

Put It Out For Good

I hear the rock show winding down at the high school
Kids out on the sidewalk, waiting for a ride
All the punks and the queers and the freaks and the smokers
Feel like they’ll be waiting for the rest of their lives

Alright I hear what you’re saying to me
Alright I hear what I just can’t do
But I got this spark I got to feed it something
Or put it out for good

The stadium lights were breaking through the bleachers
I spent all day pushing tissue roses into chicken wire
Hey S.G.A., I’m an overachiever of the wrong persuasion
A pep rally kid, a new gender nation with a new desire

Alright I hear what you’re saying to me
Alright I hear what I just can’t do
But I got this spark I got to feed it something
Or put it out for good

Rub up against it till you it gets inside you
Rub up against it till its understood
Those aren’t your friends talking shit about you
We’ve had it bad, we’re gonna make it good

Alright I hear what you’re saying to me
(rub up against me till its alright)
Alright I hear what I just can’t do
(rub up against me till its alright)
But we got this spark, we got to feed it something
(rub up against me and)
Let it burn for good, let it burn for good

Song of the Week

Ok, this is last week's song of the week, but I didn't get around to posting it on Saturday. I know it's another Dar song, but really, last weekend all I could think is that every seminarian should be so blessed, even if I could have thought of other things I'd rather have been doing.

If you're gonna get your heart broke, you better do it just right,
It's gotta be raining, and you gotta move your stuff that night,
And the only friend you can reach isn't a good friend at all,
And you know when he says "Now who dumped who?" that you never should
have made that call.

I had the blessings, there's nobody there, there's nobody home,
Yeah the blessings, at the moment I was most alone
And aimless as a fulltime fool, the joke was on me,
I got all of those birds flying off of that tree, and that's a blessing.

And the blessings were like poets that we never find time to know,
But when time stopped I found the place where the poets go.
And they said, "Here have some coffee, it's straight, black and very
old,"
And they gave me sticks and rocks and stars and all that I could hold,

I had the blessings, a moment of peace even when the night ends,
Yeah the blessings, can we meet? Can we meet again,
At the crossroads of disaster and the imperfect smile,
With the angel in the streetlamp that blinks on as I walk on a mile, the
blessings.

And the best ones were the ones I got to keep as I grew strong,
And the days that opened up until my whole life could belong,
And now I'm getting the answers, when I don't need them anymore,
I'm finding the pictures, and I finally know what I kept them for.
I remember, I can see them, see them smiling, see them stuck,
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings.

I was fast asleep at three in the morning when I got the payphone call,
And she said, "Did I wake you up," I said, "Hey, no, not at all."
And she said, "I got this suitcase and I don't know what to pack,"
And I said, "You can take anything you want, just wait and see,
It's not a release, not a reward, it's the blessings,
It's the gift of what you notice more,"
And I walked out and I watched her kick the big pile of the night,
And we sat down and we waited for that strange and empty light.
Yeah the blessings...

See them smiling, see them stuck,
See them try, I wish them luck and all the blessings.

The Everything Test

I'd paste in the actual code for this quiz, but one of the things it rates is your level of sexual experience and your hotness rank, and while I'm willing to be open with almost anyone about much of my sexual experience, I also don't think it's an appropriate thing to display on a blog that my parents, bishop, COM, youth group, campers, etc. might read. I reserve the right to monitor that particular discussion, thanks.

I'd be interested also to know how they came to their conclusions. Mostly, I think internet quizzes do a pretty good job of assigning the labels, but this one has me somewhat off. Certain things are right on: more religious than atheist, more emotional than logical, more idealist than cynical, politically about 68% liberal, stereotypical mix of yuppie and hippie, fairly high on intellectual and religious, more artistic than engineering, little experience with chemical substances. Then there are some that could go either way: more lazy than workaholic, more rebel than traditional, more leader than follower, more concerned about self than concerned about others. But it also says that I'm 100% adventurous, and I think we know that's not true, so I'd be interested in how they came to that (specifically, how much of my adventurous score comes from the fact that I identified as bisexual?). And, it says I'm more extroverted than introverted. Yeah - I refer it to last week's 80% introvert score (not to mention my super-high Myers-Briggs I number).

My favorite box, though is the "socioeconomic" one: "Your attitude toward life best associates you with the Upper Class. You make more than 0% of those who have taken this test, and 77% less than the U.S. average." Yeah. That's got "overprivileged grad student" written all over it.

Back

Home. Safe. Exhausted.

Imperfects and Imperatives and Infinitives...

I'm in Ohio, diligently misunderstanding Hebrew, and cursing the powers that have conspired to keep me from being in class to learn it this morning.

On the other hand, the dry cleaners are going to turn around my gray pants today.

Yeah. This is a really boring post. This post is about nothing except procrastinating on more Hebrew. I'll go away now.

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?

An Episcopalian's Dream Combo...

From the Archer... Catholic and Protestant all in one post.

You scored as Radical Catholic. You are "Radical" in its Catholic sense -- from the Latin word radix, or root. You are not just a "church person" but you are a disciple of Christ, making a total commitment to the Gospel, to voluntary poverty, and self-sacrifice for others. You give without counting the cost. You need to be sure that you remain obedient to the Church and your superiors, and do not consider yourself a prophet or become elitist. Try to make good examinations of conscience and to be humble. http://saint-louis.blogspot.com - Rome of the West Liberal Catholic 57% Radical Catholic 57% Evangelical Catholic 52% New Catholic 45% Traditional Catholic 38% Lukewarm Catholic 36% Neo-Conservative Catholic 31% What is your style of American Catholicism? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as High Church Nomad. You were raised as some kind of evangelical, but you've started to appreciate other forms of Christian piety. Specifically, you're starting to think that Roman Catholics aren't as crazy as you once thought they were. You probably won't end up going home to Rome, but Canterbury has piqued your interest. High Church Nomad 75% Moderate Evangelical 65% Evangelical Presbyterian 50% Baptist 45% Conservative Evangelical 25% Reformed Baptist 25% Presby - Old School 20% Fightin' Fundy 0% What Kind of Evangelical Are You created with QuizFarm.com

1 Lent

This is the sermon I preached at field ed yesterday. I haven't usually posted Sunday sermons here, because I think most of my parish sermons haven't been as good as my Seabury sermons (regardless of which parish). But I think I've improved some on that this term, partly because my field ed parish doesn't expect 15 minute sermons, so I don't have to keep writing after the sermon is done. Anyway, here's yesterday's.

************************


One of the things that’s hardest for me about the Christian life is that I can’t look Jesus in the eyes. Looking people in the eyes is a big part of how I come to trust people. There’s a line from the musical of Jekyll & Hyde that always strikes me, where the woman who Hyde beats and Jekyll heals sings “In his eyes, I see a gentle glow, and that’s where I’ll be safe, I know.” I always think that if I could just look into Jesus’ eyes, then I’d find that kind of safety, the kind that makes the danger not matter, because it can’t touch me. But Jesus isn’t standing physically before me, day in and day out, for me to learn his eyes that way.

So I look into other eyes instead, looking for Jesus there. And I usually do find Jesus there in some guise. I look into a mentor’s eyes and see a promise that he won’t give me up if I happen to fail. I look into a friend’s eyes and see a fierce protectiveness for women’s bodies, her own as well as other women’s. I look into another friend’s eyes and see unguarded playfulness.

But then I’m often also troubled by much of what I find in my friends’ eyes. I see things there that I don’t want to see there. I don’t want to look into a friend’s eyes and see that he’s learned not to trust his own body. I don’t want to look into a friend’s eyes and see that the church I love so much, and that she loves too, is basically eating her alive. That’s not what I meant when I said I wanted to find Jesus. That kind of pain makes me want simultaneously to pull back, protect myself from, and to make it better. Of course, I know that I can’t make it better, and that it would be selfish to pull myself back – and, as it turns out, not even helpful to me, really.

I’ve seen these kinds of things in my friends’ eyes for as long as I can remember. But I’ve never been able to name what I was seeing. This week, though, I read a story in Nora Gallagher’s book Things Seen and Unseen that helped me understand a little better. She says that one Maundy Thursday, she went to a footwashing service where it was so dark you couldn’t see who would wash your feet, or whose you would wash, until you got to them. She says that when it was her turn to wash, she looked up and saw her friend Ben, for whom she was caring as he was dying of AIDS, and that after she washed his feet, she lifted her head to kiss the foot, and caught his eyes.

And she says, “I saw in him not the best that was in him, but what made him uniquely Ben, what made him not any other person in the world: his memories, his imagination, his tenderness, and his hope. And I saw something else, Good Friday’s shadow, way in the back of his eyes.”

Good Friday’s shadow. That’s what I’ve seen in all those eyes. And today, I’m wondering if those who had been with Jesus before he went into the wilderness saw that same shadow in Jesus’ eyes when he came out. I think it was there. I don’t know whether Jesus always knew what was going to happen in his life, even in a broad sense.

But whether Jesus knew going into the wilderness that the cross awaited him, I think he knows coming out that Good Friday is the inevitable end to this path that he’s on. He walks out of the wilderness with the shadow of Good Friday in the back of his eyes. Even Jesus can’t have this kind of encounter and come out of it unchanged. The wilderness gets into who Jesus thought he’d be.


But Good Friday is not all there is. And if, as I suspect, the tempting in the wilderness gave Jesus a clearer sense of who he was meant to be on earth, then I suspect that piece was more clearly visible in his eyes after the desert too. I’d guess that his companions saw there a new power to cast out demons, born of his recent victory in the wilderness. Maybe they saw a new depth of compassion, probably beyond any compassion they’d ever known before. Even before the cross, I think his eyes must have held not only the shadow of Good Friday, but everything that made him uniquely himself. And I believe that that included the shadow of Easter as well. Not in the sense that Jesus knew exactly what would happen after he was crucified, though maybe he did – but I think there was a new, unquenchable hope in God, that whatever would happen on Good Friday would not be the final word.

For now, though, Jesus’ face is set toward Jerusalem, where prophets go to die. And if we want to observe a holy Lent, we have to set our own faces toward Jerusalem, toward the cross. We have to accompany Jesus into the wilderness today, and then once we walk out of the wilderness, we have to set our faces toward Good Friday. We need to keep looking into each other’s eyes, right at that Good Friday shadow. Not trying to fix the shadow or make it go away, even out of genuine love for each other. Lent is not about fixing the darkness, but about sitting with each other in the depths, moving deeper and deeper together. And that’s how we find Jesus – not by trying to scramble up the slick sides on our own, but by following him down into the deepest parts, trusting that he’ll lead us out into the light on the other side. Each Sunday, each day of Lent, we strip away another layer that stands between us and our acceptance and experience of Good Friday, until finally we stand before the cross, undefended. Not because we’ve pretended our way through the story, but because we’ve lived our way into its heart.

It won’t all happen this Lent, for any of us. It will probably take us all our lives really to be able to stand at the foot of the cross totally undefended. But the point isn’t to get there this year so much as to take the next step. Today, it’s our job to walk into the wilderness – intentionally, knowing that it will be hard. Tomorrow, maybe, it will be time for us to face the devil, even though we’d rather not. And the next day, God willing, we’ll walk back out of that wilderness and start moving toward what’s next, toward what’s going to be even harder.

I should warn you – if you cross that threshold today, and let the Spirit lead you into that wilderness, you will come out changed. And that change will not remain secret. It will show in your eyes. Your friends will look into your eyes and see a new shadow there, a deeper knowledge of what awaits on Good Friday. The wilderness is not a safe place, and it does not lead to a safe end. But if we can bring ourselves to go out into the wilderness anyway, and to keep looking at the Good Friday in each other’s eyes, eventually there will be a glimmer of Easter – a glimmer and then a brilliant shining, and love will conquer the danger once and for all.

I changed!

I was skimming old quizzes on here for a friend, and found the old Which Devastating Hope Crew Member Are You? quiz. So, since I'm still not on the crew, I thought I'd take it again, and see if I were still First Mate Emily. As it turns out, I'm not:

Which Devastating Hope crew member are you?

Bartender Greta: You are extremely mysterious, but you make a damn fine martini. You fight secretly for your deeply held convictions, and when your duties do not take you elsewhere, you love joining your friends on their crazy adventures.
Take this quiz!








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Which is very interesting.

Also, since I lost my old comments when I switched services last year, you should all go take this quiz, even if you already did, and then leave a comment with your result, because I remember being very amused by knowing which of my St. Louis friends other people were. Ta!

Now that's what you call ironic....

Feb 1, 2007: Holy Spirit hands me a sermon stating that words can't explain the way I know God by the look in your eyes.

Feb 24, 2007: Holy Spirit says, "Bwahahahaha! Now preach about how you know Jesus by the look in people's eyes."

I am not amused. (Though my roommates are.)

Song of the Week

I'll Miss You Till I Meet You - Dar Williams

I tried again, I went last night.
Another day was just not right.*
And as I drove myself back home,
A little voice said just be alone,
But sometimes I think I see you in a crowd,
It's not picture perfect, you're just meant for me somehow,

And I'll miss you till I meet you,
I'll miss you till I meet you,
I miss you all the time.

I love the world just as it is.
And I won't lose my faith in it.
But there are days I think of you
Saying, 'hey, that's beautiful,
Yeah, I see it too.'
It all goes by so fast, like waving hands
You want to capture things,
find someone who understands,

And I'll miss you till I meet you,
I'll miss you till I meet you,
I miss you all the time.

Can you keep me awake?
I thought you could help,
Just to feel my way,
Find my better self.

I'll miss you, I'll miss you, I miss you all the time.

The morning's gone, all dreamed away,
But that's all right, it's Saturday,
When people think that they might see
The next chapter, their destiny.
And when Monday morning comes around,
I'll get the work done, but I'll listen for the sound.

And I'll miss you till I meet you,
I'll miss you till I meet you,
I miss you all the time.

*Yeah, I know the lyrics say "date." I hear "day."

For what it's worth

I really thought that a nice benefit of not being an undergrad anymore (at least not officially, Les) would be that I wouldn't have to deal with 3 am fire alarms any more. 3 am fire alarms are among my least favorite things in life. They do very little to make me well-rested or to reduce my general fears that Bad Things Will Happen to those I love.

For those of you who are sleeping comfortably in the apartments, get a nice few hours. You're about to wake up to no heat again, in which we dorm-dwellers will be joining you this time. Hurray for pipes bursting.

Having voiced these objections, I'm going to try for a few more hours before I have to finish writing Sunday's sermon. Which will apparently be something I do from a coffee shop or something. (Here's hoping that the pipe break/heat shutoff at my field ed parish is fixed before Sunday....)

[Later: Ok, there seems to be heat after all. Apparently they were wrong about it killing the heat, or they fixed it really fast, or I imagined it all in a sleepless haze. I don't much care - I'm just glad to have the heat.]

Books, again

I should be writing a sermon. What better use of time, then, than a meme?

Instructions: in italics=have read the book; with asterisks=want to read the book; with crosses=own the book; with question marks=unfamiliar with the book. And I'm adding: with slashes (/)=have read part of the book (Via The Little Professor - except I changed the font stuff because bolding doesn't show up well with my terrible colors.)

1. †The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. *Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. /Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. †The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. †The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. †The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. †Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. ?Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. ?A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. †Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. †Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. †Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. /A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. †Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. ?Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. ?The Stand (Stephen King)
19. †Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. †*Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. †The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. †Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. ?The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. *Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. †The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) (ok - I used to own it - I'm not sure where it is)
27. †Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. †The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. †1984 (Orwell)
35. *The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. ?The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. ?The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. †The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. ?The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. †/The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. ?Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. †The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. †Bible
46. †*Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. /The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. /The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. †A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. ?The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. †Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. ?The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. *The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. *The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. *War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. ?Fifth Business (Robertson Davies)
66. *One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. *The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. /Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. *Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. /Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. ?Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. †The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. ?The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. /A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith) (I actually can't remember if I've read this or not)
78. ?The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. ?The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. †Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. ?Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. †Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. ?Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. †/Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. ?The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. ?Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. ?Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. ?In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. †The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I love you all...

... one or two at a time.

You Are 20% Extrovert, 80% Introvert

You are quite reserved You aren't afraid of social situations... But you very much prefer to go it alone And why not? You're your own best friend!

Are You An Extrovert or An Introvert?

A hat!

Pippa has made me a hat - a warm-looking one at that - in Ohio State colors. The hat is red and sturdy, with gray flowers on the front. It's quite impressive. (It's also an especially kind gift, considering that Pippa is convinced I have about 3 times as much clothing as I need.) I'd show you a picture of it, except, I don't do that here. Also I haven't photographed it. But hurray for hats - and go Bucks!

valentine

I just took a half-hour nap in the chapel after evening prayer, curled up in a patch of warm light between the altar rail and the altar, facing the tabernacle.

It was seriously fantastic.

happy happy

So, I admit that when Seabury and Garrett worship together, I usually attend out of a reluctant commitment to ecumenism. That is to say, ecumenism's fine and good, but if Garrett students aren't required to attend Garrett chapel, I don't think I should have to give up my own chapel service to go to theirs. But I go, because I (generally) do what I'm told.

Today, however, it was so, so worth it. Today, we sang praise music. Without murdering it. It's been a while since I got to do that, and I'd missed it a lot - especially since my most recent worship experiences have turned me pretty well against the high church stuff for a while. (I'll come back to liking it - but not for at least a couple months more, maybe not until the fall even.) I haven't been that happy in church for a long time. I didn't even care that I didn't know most of the songs. (Of course, the beauty of praise music is that you don't have to - they're musically predictable enough that you can just hear the intro or first line and have a pretty good sense of how the rest of the song will go.)

Now, of course, those of us who went "ooh! ooh! praise music!" are trying to figure out "wait - when do we get more of that?" Still - I got to sing praise music today! Yay for that!

Disappointment

In preparation for heading off to Ohio in a few weeks and being duly examined for ordination, I have to do a psych eval. (In my diocese, you do a psych eval before postulancy, and then again before ordination if it's been three years since you got postulancy.) This is fine, though it certainly doesn't thrill me.

Prior to said evaluation, you have to sign a release. Again, fine. I understand that the bishop will get this report, that they'll follow legal guidelines for not sharing it, etc.

Except.

I also have to agree never to try to see the results or get a copy of the report.

This bothers me greatly. If we're trying to create a process that's open, that encourages honesty and self-disclosure and gives people the confidence that that won't be used against them, we need access to reports of the state of our minds. I'm disappointed that my diocese, which mostly has a really good and safe process, requires us to waive this privilege.


On a happier note, I have just learned that I will not have to meet with the diocesan Board of Examining Chaplains to discuss deficiencies in my academic preparation and the possibility of remedial work before ordination. Thanks be to God for that.

Sunday afternoon

I'm pretty sure I live in the only suite anywhere where the conversation about the purpose of the cleaning rota goes like this:

Beth: Kay, did you clean the bathroom this weekend?
Kay: Well...
Jenny Jo: Kay?
Kay: I only cleaned part of it.
Beth: Kay! It's not your weekend!
Jenny Jo: That defeats the purpose of the rota!
Kay: But I had a few minutes on Friday, and I had these new Mr Clean erasers I wanted to use.
(Beth and Jenny Jo exchange looks.)

Hmm.

Yesterday, I mailed the letter to my bishop asking him pretty please to ordain me to the transitional diaconate in June. Soon the dean should be sending a letter from the faculty telling him that's a good idea. Soon after that, I'll go home to be psychologically and spiritually poked and prodded to determine if the diocese agrees. Soon after that, I'll go to the clinic and get physically poked and prodded to determine if there's blood in my veins and air in my lungs. Soon after that, I'll be getting a degree. Soon after that, God willing and the bishop and people consenting, I will kneel before the bishop and have hands laid on me.

Five months are going to go by very fast....

Accountability Post

I need to remember to be off caffeine for probably the next week or so altogether. I also need to drink less decaf and more water. I'm pretty sure I've let myself get dehydrated this week, and that simply won't work. (Probably eating something before 3 pm most days wouldn't be a bad idea either.)

Feast of St. Brigid

I preached tonight at Seabury, which I love doing, even if it scares me. This one certainly scared the hell out of me, mostly because I preached it without notes (something I've only ever dared in class before) but a little because it's more vulnerable than most of mine.

I'm not sure that I've ever had such a powerful experience preaching before. The whole service was really powerful, actually, in a lot of little ways. I had an especially hard time distributing communion - a couple of times I had to try twice to get the words "the body of Christ" to leave my mouth. But the preaching was a lot of it. Preaching always takes something out of me, and at Seabury it always takes a fair amount, but this one really took almost everything I had. From the feedback I got, the sermon seems to have worked for the congregation also.

I did write a text for organizational purposes, and I'm putting it below, though I'm not sure this sermon works as well in text form as it does spoken. It's obviously not exact, since I didn't use the text, but particular words stick in my mind, so it's pretty close. Oh - the biblical text is 1 Cor. 1:26-31.

*****************************

Last week my roommate stopped writing, looked around her room, and said. “Every flat surface in this room has a book on it. I think I’m looking for the words I can’t seem to find in my head.” Boy, did that ring true for me. My gut reaction to most problems, certainly most writing and thinking problems, is to look for another book to fix it. Someone asks me, “What do you know about…?” and my first instinct is that I know I have a bookshelf. I start thinking about what I’ve read that I could give them, not what I know about x. In fact, if someone asks me about my own experience, I’m likely still to reach for a book. I’m likely to ask someone else to explain it for me, to flip through pages until I find someone who has.

Words hold wisdom. In words, the wisdom of one time can be pinned down and passed forward to future generations, and we can pick it up again a hundred or a thousand years later. Words are what let me in on all the marvelous thinking that people far more insightful than I are figuring out. Words are how I figure out what I’m thinking. That’s a lot of why I feel so at home in this place. The seminary often wants to tell us that words, especially written words, are of immense worth – are, in fact, worth more than experience. And I already tend to hold words over experience as a source of wisdom, so that becomes a pretty comfortable place for me to live. I get to hide out in my love of books, and call it wisdom.

But the things that mean the most to me, the things that show me God most clearly, are not, in the end, books. In fact, maybe part of why I look so quickly to books is that when it comes to God, words don’t come easily to me. I want to hear how someone else has taken a smell, a glance, a texture, and translated it to the written word, because I need to put it into words somehow in order to preach it.

The closest I can come to articulating my desire for God is very often to open the hymnal and sing “Lord of all gentleness, Lord of all calm, whose voice is contentment, whose presence is balm, be there at our sleeping, and give us, we pray, your peace in our hearts, Lord, at the end of the day.” The closest I can come to articulating what I believe, what the Church believes, about God, is usually to quote Scripture or Augustine or Madeleine L’Engle. For the same reason, I was never much good at writing Happening affirmations or psych notes or love letters. I was always better at collecting quotations for my friends and lovers than writing out my own sentiment.

But even there, even with the most articulate words I can find, they don’t go far enough. No words can convey to you the way that I know God by the touch of your hand, by the taste of fresh chamomile, by the smell of my grandmother’s perfume. Maybe some of you know something about what that’s like – maybe words can take us far enough to meet in the middle between our experiences of God – but they’ll never take us all the way across. How can I tell you about the particular glow of a torch on the lake, when it’s not really about the glow at all but everything that brings me to the place where I see that glow? How can I tell you?

I can’t. But I find a little comfort, and a little clarity, in wondering whether maybe God couldn’t either. Whether maybe that’s why the Word became flesh; as Paul says, “became for us wisdom from God.” I’d like to think that God can shape words to do exactly what they ought to do; that God’s eloquence far outshines any of ours. But after centuries of speaking to us, maybe even God couldn’t explain God’s love for us without coming himself and looking us in the eyes.

Just curious

Is anyone else surprised to see that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is scheduled to be released only a week after Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix comes out in theaters?

Sermon prep

8:55 AM: Roommates to class.
8:56 AM: Decide to drink the last cup of coffee. Open fridge to find soy milk frozen.
8:57 AM: IM Tripp to ask about the wisdom/possibility of microwaving frozen soy milk for my coffee.
9:00 AM: Microwave frozen soy milk for coffee.
9:01 AM: Power blows on my side of the suite - a first.
9:02 AM: Pour coffee.
9:03 AM: Convince computer to restart on battery power.
9:04 AM: Wander downstairs to find receptionist.
9:05 AM: Call maintenance from receptionist's desk, since own phone is plugged in to charge.
9:06 AM: Maintenance promises to check breaker.
9:08 AM: Return upstairs. Open sermon file.
9:12 AM: Power comes back on.
9:13 AM: Wireless comes back on.
9:14 AM: IM Tripp to apologize for cutting out mid-conversation.
9:15 AM: Close conversation in a civilized manner.
9:16 AM: Begin to learn sermon.
9:17 AM: Maintenance and buddies come upstairs to test suite's fire alarms.
9:18 AM: Fire alarms begin going off.
9:20 AM: Fire alarms stop going off.
9:22 AM: Fire alarms go off again.
9:25 AM: Fire alarms stop, maintenance leaves.
9:27 AM: Yodabeth blogs to ask, Does this mean God doesn't want me to preach without notes tomorrow after all?

Because you care deeply about these things...

I have been instructed to inform you that our trash now contains three or four Starbucks/Peet's cups in addition to the half-pound or so of coffee grounds.

You Might Be a Grad Student If...

at least 50% of your apartment's trash is coffee grounds.

Best. thing. ever.

I so took a ballet class tonight!

I finally got up the nerve to go here tonight and take a class. I was a little freaked out by trying a new studio, and a little more freaked out by the fact that the woman on the phone told me to take a level II class,* but she turned out to be right. Level II is exactly the right class for me right now. It was fantastic. I can't wait to go back - the trick now will be keeping myself from spending too much money on classes now that I have them to take.

*The studio has five teen/adult levels: I-IV and Adult.

Are you sure?

I just got a parish survey from my sponsoring parish, with a note from... someone whose name I can't really read, maybe the chair of long-range planning? which thanks me for responding. I had already decided not to do so, since most of the questions don't really apply to me:

*How many of your five closest friends are members of St. Paul's? Well, none of them, but that's to be expected when I haven't attended regularly for the past 8 years.

*Please indicate the primary reasons you attend St. Paul's. I don't.

Etc.

But now I feel like I ought to do the survey, since I've been personally asked to, so I guess I'll just skip some of the questions....

My Aristocratic Title

Via Tripp

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Grand Duchess Beth the Flavoursome of Giggleswich Lanken Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Note to self

Even when typing quickly, "purity" and "putridity" should not be confused.

Meme? Meme? Ok!

Go to your music player of choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud, and press play. Use the song title as the answer to the question. NO CHEATING

How does the world see you?
"Silence on the Line" - Chris LeDoux

Will I have a happy life?
"Moment of Forgiveness" - Indigo Girls (Is that a yes or a no?)

What do my friends really think of me?
"Good King Wenceslas" - Church of the Ascension (um?)

How can I make myself happy?
"Strange Fire" - Indigo Girls

What should I do with my life?
"At the Zoo" - Simon & Garfunkel (well, that's a no-brainer. few places more zooey than the church)

Will I ever have children?
"Someday" - Flipsyde (Does that mean "someday, on the flip side?" I'm hoping for someday this side of death....)

What is some good advice for me?
"Mr. Zebra" - Tori Amos (Does that mean that I should be taking acid?)

How will I be remembered?
"The Gathering Storm" - Children of Eden (oh, dear)

What is my signature dancing song?
"Alive" - Jekyll & Hyde (I hope not!)

What do I think my current theme song is?
"Yes It Is" - The Beatles

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
"A Medley: For Sentimental Reasons, Tenderly, Autumn Leaves" - Natalie Cole (If this is true, y'all, explain)

What song will play at my funeral?
"Freedom Medley" - Peter, Paul, & Mary

What is my day going to be like?
"How Can I Keep From Singing?/Hallelujah, the Great Storm is Over" - Peter, Paul, & Mary (Can I call that one in tomorrow? that wasn't my experience of today, though I suppose the day isn't over.)

and one more question from Ice Floe:
Should I publish this meme?
"To Zion" - Lauryn Hill (I'll take that as a yes...)

Addicted? Us?

Thanks to Barnes & Noble's current 2-for-1 TV box sets sale, our suite has drastically increased our stash. Kay acquired seasons 2 and 6 of Gilmore Girls, completing her set of the series (so far as it's been released.) Jenny Jo acquired season 3 of West Wing, completing her set. And I acquired seasons 5, 6, and 7 of West Wing, completing my set. We're now prepared both to supply our own addictions and feed the rest of the campus's - indeed, my new season 7 has already left the premises, so that Les and Kristin can finish watching the show and join Jenny Jo and me in mourning and overanalyzing. Hooray!

If I had a hammer...

... I'd hit construction workers over the head with it. Except not really, because I don't do that, and they're often wearing hard hats anyway, though probably not the guys who are up here now.

But it's 8:20, and I have yet to get access to my bathroom this morning. I got up and Roommate 1 was in there; then she came out but the Construction Men came up into our hallway, so I decided to dress first instead of going out in my pajamas; then as soon as I was dressed, Roommate 2 got in the shower. I am hoping that she's a very quick showerer, but I suspect I will not get access before Morning Prayer starts at 8:30. I'm not opposed to using one elsewhere in the building, but that one won't have my toothbrush and toothpaste in it.

I am trying to remember that I am glad the construction workers weren't fixing these fire alarms during GOE's, rather than getting angry that they had to start doing so at 7:30 this morning.

Fifty Things

From Hugo Schwyzer.

1. When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought? That's not too bad.

2. How much cash do you have on you? On me, personally? None. It's in my purse.

3. What’s a word that rhymes with “DOOR?” Boor.

4. Favorite planet? Earth is a pretty nice one.

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone? My assistant director for camp this summer.

6. What is your favorite ring tone on your phone? Pier Gynt.

7. Do you “label” yourself? Yes. I think words are helpful that way.

8. What shirt are you wearing? A gray stretch long-sleeved tee with a slight v-neck, over which I can wear my Ohio State fleece vest.

9. Name the brand of the shoes you’re currently wearing? Socks.

10. Bright or dark room? Sort of dark-ish.

11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you? Articulate, interesting, and helpful.

12. What does your watch look like? Two-tone gold, small, with an oval face. Guess.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night? Sleeping.

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell say? "Hope all is going well. good luck. ring if u need something" - from the first day of exams

15. Where is your nearest 7-11? Probably Dempster and Dodge.

16. What’s a word that you say a lot? Indeed.

17. Who told you he/she loved you last? My mom.

18. Last furry thing you touched? Hmm... probably Howie or Tar, coming home from lunch on Saturday.

19. How many drugs have you done in the last three days? Um. I've had a couple glasses of wine... but I think that's it.

20. How many rolls of film do you need developed? One, and it's old and of dubious quality.

21. Favorite age you have been so far? Hmm. I liked the roundness of 25, and it was a pretty good year overall... I'm fairly certain that 3 was excellent... 19 was pretty damn good, actually, as was 22.

22. Your worst enemy? Dunno. I don't really think in terms of enemies.

23. What is your current desktop picture? A collage of Ohio State stuff.

24. What was the last thing you said to someone? "Indeed. I say indeed a lot."

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly what would it be? Flying. No question.

26. Do you like someone? ? Like, have a crush on someone? Does Keira Knightley count?

27. The last song you listened to? The last one I can identify was Great Big Sea, "Lukey"

28. What time of day were you born? 6:09 pm, EDT

29. What’s your favorite number? 16

30. Where did you live in 1987? Berea, OH

31. Are you jealous of anyone? Of course.

32. Is anyone jealous of you? I'm told so, but I imagine they're few and far between.

33. Where were you when 9/11 happened? I walked into the Smith Center in Hamburg just as the second plane was hitting the tower.

34. What do you do when vending machines steal your money? Tell the nearest person that the vending machine is stupid. Scowl.

35. What’s your life motto? Ummm. Don't know as I have one.

36. Are you touchy feely? Preferably, but I restrain myself a lot - people tend to misinterpret touchy feely a lot when it's coming from a single woman.

37. Name three things that you have on you at all times. College ring, glasses, nose ring.

38. What’s your favorite town/city? Hmm. I've come to love every place I've ever lived. For eats, I love Northampton; for roots and nostalgia and opportunities, Cleveland area; for fun, Evanston/Chicago.

39. What was the last thing you paid for with cash? Charging my transit card yesterday. Someday, they'll realize I'm not lying about my zip code and let me have the permanent kind....

40. Can you change the oil on a car? Like Hugo's, my ability to take my car in for an oil change is impressive.

41. Your first love: what is the last thing you heard about him/her? "Teaching too much"

42. How far back do you know about your ancestry? Umm... around the beginning of the 17th century on both sides, I think.

43. The last time you dressed fancy, what did you wear and why did you dress fancy? Depends on how fancy... the last time I dressed really fancy was the black silk dress I wore for Matriculation banquet in October.

44. Does anything hurt on your body right now? Right hip, back, neck, left jaw. The life of a former dancer and current student... also I just bit the inside of my cheek.

45. Have you been burned by love? Yes indeed.

46. What living person whom you’ve never met do you most admire? Madeleine L'Engle, maybe.

47. What character trait would you most like to rid yourself of this year? Arrogance.

48. What one human flaw would you eradicate if you could? Cruelty

49. Where was your first kiss? My parents' front stoop.

50. What actor/actress do you most resemble? I don't, really... though sometimes when I look at myself in my pajamas without my glasses, I look a little like the actress that played the fiancee in 13 Going On Thirty. But I think it's mostly the pajamas and the hair. Also I've been told Jennifer Westfeldt, a little, but I think that's not so much physical appearance either.

Brain dead

How done is Beth?

So done!

So done, yes, that I'm thinking on the level of a 2-year-old. Not really sure how coherent that last answer was, but it's printed and turned in now.

Pre-test test

Find your own pose!

Some of you will not be surprised to hear that question three, about the animals, freaked me out... but otherwise it's a pretty decent quiz.

Soon, soon

It's come to my attention that not only does this blog still have readers, said readers actually prefer that I post. I apologize for my silence of late, and I will aim to fill these windows more often in the coming weeks, as I start my full-time field education here. For the next week, though, I'm likely to continue in absentee mode, because I'll be busy taking the General Ordination Exams. (Church-geeky readers who want to see the exam schedule may go here.) Prayers and good-wishes for all those taking the exam around the country are welcome. After exams are over, though, I'll try to do better about posting.