Set Free

100 Miles Per Hour

In January, I went to see my doctor to check in on my "Don't Let's Call It a Diet" progress. I told her I feared the possibility of reaching a mental plateau and felt it would be a good time to make some sort of change in the program. I wanted to join a gym, but I also wanted to continue my commitment to doing this process in a healthy and non-injurious way. You see, I have a tendency to go 100 miles per hour at everything in my life, and I have a history of injuring myself, and injury tends to tank an exercise program, and you get the picture, I'm sure.

My doctor recommended a highly-supervised gym at which I was likely to find myself one of the youngest participants. After a few weeks of failed attempts to fax the doctor's permission form, I finally went in for an evaluation January 31st. For several weeks, I followed the slow-moving progression of the weight-lifting program. It coincided with a frustrating weight loss plateau, but I reminded myself that I was in it for the long haul, a life change, not a race. No need to go 100 miles per hour, right?

Then came a week in which several things happened to coincide. We had two big snowstorms, and I had to do all the shoveling since Pure Luck was away. The snow was very heavy, and we got rain at the end of the storms, making the snow wetter and heavier. Next, Molly hurt her shoulder running in the snow and needed lifting into and out of the car. She weighs 95 pounds. That's a lot of dog. Finally, feeling heroic and immortal, I pushed myself at weight-lifting.

You can hear what's coming, can't you?

I hurt myself. It's hard to say whether any one of these situations was the culprit; it may have been a combination. It probably was. I didn't have a choice about lifting Molly, nor about shoveling the snow (and I did take help where I could get it), but I did have a choice about the weight-lifting and must admit I hurried myself unnecessarily.

So, for the past five weeks, I've been suffering a range of symptoms starting with back strain/pain and quickly involving numbness, tingling and at times, pain, in my arms and hands. During the Big Event Cruise, I added hand and wrist edema to the bouquet of symptoms. That swelling, which I hoped was related to the heat, has not diminished since I returned home. I guess I'll be going back to the doctor. I have to wonder if going to a chiropractor (one of the doctor's suggestions, in addition to massage and seeing an osteopath) was not the best idea.

For the moment, I have limited strength in my hands and wrists. Knitting is out. The gym is out. And I have an overall feeling of having pulled myself too hard, the shock of recognition that the 46-year-old body is not as strong as the 46-year-old spirit. And perhaps the spirit needs a break, too, needs to not go 100 miles per hour, needs to relinquish the attempt to be as perfect as possible at work, at life, at motherhood, at discipleship, at all the things that feel most important.

And I just hate that. It's hard to let go of the idea that I need to continually prove myself. When I played the Six Word Autobiography meme in other people's comments, I found myself writing something like "Proving I Am Not a Mistake." I do know this goes back on some levels to my history as an adopted child, but it has become a habit of mind.

It's much harder to break free of our own mental constructions than to break free of circumstantial constrictions.

I have tried to do it by getting that running start, by going 100 miles per hour, but right now I think it may be time to sit still and do nothing, to simply sit still and be.

Book #13: In Chancery

I've returned home to finish Part 2 of The Forsyte Saga, "In Chancery." The theme of this second book is the nature of marriage as a form of ownership. Galsworthy explores Soames Forsyte's continuing desire to possess the wife from whom he has been estranged for many, many years. The book covers the turn of the century, from 19th to 20th, and the shift in society's values. Soames considers divorce to be the end of his public career as a lawyer and makes plans accordingly. We are so far away from that, and yet don't we all suffer from a desire to possess those we love? You have to be pretty darn conscious not to do it.
I'm on to the next "interlude" and will begin the final volume soon. I must say, the book continues to be, as we say in Vacationland, wicked heavy, and that is impacting the speed with which I read.

Doing their best to bring about spring

  Doing their best to bring about spring 
  Originally uploaded by revsongbird.

These little crocuses want you to know, even in Vacationland, spring is here!

Or at least they are trying to bring it about, all on their own...

It's still cool here, especially compared to Cozumel, but I am seeing crocuses around the neighborhood, even where the snow continues to cover part of the ground. I'm amazed and delighted that bulbs I planted my own self, and others with help from my sister-in-law, look like they will make it.

What's it like at your house?

A Thousand Words

It was dress-up night on the cruise ship, and I was regretting the size of my carry-on luggage and wishing I had brought something a little more spectacular to wear, when Mid-Life Rookie offered me her gold shawl to throw over my black dress.

And she did more than that. As we gathered on our last afternoon, MLR and DogBlogger spoke to the group and said they had something for me. Perusing the photos from the formal night, they found this picture of me and wanted me to have it.

I am rarely speechless, as those who spent time with me on the cruise will attest (especially those who fell asleep to the sound of my voice). But in this case, a picture really was worth a thousand words.

(More to come.)

Mark of Experience

Considering that in the weeks leading up to Easter I managed to weaken my back, arms and hands significantly by overdoing exercise geared to make me stronger, and considering that it made me have to stop and think about what a striver I seem to have become in the middle of my life, you won't be surprised to hear I was prepared to take the program portion of the RevGalBlogPals Big Event seriously.

At the first meeting of the gathered group, our facilitator asked us each to draw a word from a deck of cards she had prepared. I thought of the Angel Cards I keep in a dish in my office and the words I so often draw, particularly "Responsibility." I shuffled the deck intently, determined to be open to whatever word the Spirit would move into my hands, earnest beyond belief.

I took a card and passed the deck along to Ruby, who had been watching me shuffle them so gravely, and I gingerly turned over the one in my hand.

The joke was on me.

My word was "Play."

So if you should hear I got up to shenanigans of one kind and another while off in the Gulf of Mexico, I hope you will remember that I was only following instructions.

And it's only temporary.

(More to follow.)

Book #12

At Auntie Knickers' suggestion:

I am in the midst of The Forsyte Saga, but since it was originally published as three books plus various short intervening pieces, I'll give myself a little extra credit. I have finished the first book, The Man of Property, as well as the following interlude, Indian Summer of a Forsyte. This is a re-read, as I read The Man of Property many, many years ago (1982 or so) and then read this volume about five years ago around the time the series appeared on Masterpiece Theatre.

I don't want this to turn into a review of the TV show or the long-ago movie, but let me just say that although Gina McKee is a wonderful actress, she is no Irene Heron Forsyte Forsyte. And, no, it's not just because I first saw Greer Garson play the part.

John Galsworthy wrote the books, and I love his subtle humor and social commentary. But at its core, the book is deadly serious. Soames views Irene as property, *his* property, and it's scary to think that even today, some men think of their wives/girlfriends as property. I point you to this story at Shakesville for a view on contemporary partner-as-property dynamics.

I'm afraid there is no time to write more, as I must finish packing. I have been packing all day, first to leave my office at Main Street Church (my boxes are now safely in my new office, where I will unpack them next week), and then to come home and pack for my journey to Nawlins tomorrow, where I will head out on the Big Event cruise with 20 other RevGalBlogPals on Thursday. I have a book packed, but it's considerably lighter than the gigantic Forsyte Saga.

Back early next week!

Books #10 and #11

These have to be the two most unrelated books ever, but since I had no book-blogging time, I'll catch up today.

Book #10 was by Judi Hollis (also author of "Fat is a Family Affair"), called Hot and Heavy: Finding Your Soul Through Food and Sex. Um, yeah. The book has been on my self since the late 90's, when it was first published, and I know now why I didn't finish reading it then; it's poorly written. Even a self-help book can be interesting to read, can't it?

Her premises are essentially these:

• People who are heavy enjoy sensual pleasures.
• Eating mindfully (the technique she describes is called "Divine Dine") will change your relationship with food.
• If you really wake up, your capacity for enjoyment will be immeasurably high, so high you won't be able to settle for less than extraordinary sex.
• And why should you?

Well, there might be any number of reasons, as I'm sure you can imagine. Maybe the world would be a better place if all women sat and ate slowly (that's the same advice being given on the new TLC show "I Can Make You Thin," by the way), as well as having loving partners who provided them with mind-blowing attentions. I have a feeling we'll never know. My concerns about the book where sex is concerned are two (the mindful eating portion makes good sense). First, it is an exclusively hetero book, which she admits right up front. That just seems so 70's!! Second, it's hard for me to understand how a book about intimate relationships published in the late 90's could be so unconcerned about sexually transmitted diseases and the general peril of sex for the sake of sex. If that makes me a prude, well, we're using the wrong measure, I think. When you've set yourself up in an advice-giving capacity to the masses, and sex is one major portion of the program, it's unconscionable to be reverting to the pre-AIDS world view.

Enough said?

Book #11 was Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter, a collection of essays by writers from many eras. I must admit to nominating this one for RevGalBlogPals' monthly book discussion, and I am the host of today's discussion over there. It's a mixed bag. The beginning section is filled with what I think of as bad Atonement theology, but because I had the hosting duties ahead of me, I pressed on toward the goal of finishing the book instead of flinging it aside. There were some essays I found thought-provoking or moving, and I've written about them over at RevGals.

Meanwhile, Book #12, The Forsyte Saga...

Well, it weighs a lot, so I don't think I'll be taking it on the cruise later this week. I wish I had the individual novels in a more convenient size, but that was not to be. I'll write about it in toto when I've finished.

If you have any suggestions for a good cruise novel, let me know in the comments! I'll have time to run over to Borders tomorrow.

Easter 2008

  Easter 2008 
  Originally uploaded by revsongbird.

Here we are after church: Songbird, Snowman and the Princess. It was a beautiful morning. We're at home enjoying the fragrance of basil as an Italian Easter dinner is in mid-preparation, under the skilled hands of my dear sister-in-law. We tried to stand the other way, looking into the sun, but that didn't work out so well. Kudos to Pure Luck for getting any pictures at all where all our eyes were open.

It's cold out, but the sun is shining.

Hope your Easter is beautiful, too.

He is Not Here

A sermon for Easter Sunday A     March 23, 2008     Matthew 28:10

Yesterday morning I arose early to commence an important shopping trip. My destinations: Standard Baking Company and Micucci’s Italian grocery store. I had a list in my purse and made the second of three early morning calls to my sister-in-law to be sure I would remember everything we needed for today’s festive meal.

At Standard, I was excited to see three stacks of white bakery boxes, and the card on the left hand stack which said “Hot Cross Buns.” After my failure to find any on Friday, here was a second chance!

I don’t really like Hot Cross Buns as I’m not a big fan of fruit in baked goods, but my mother served them when I was a child, and as is true at every holiday, we get ideas in mind and we want to do things a certain way.

I took a box off the right hand stack, which was lower, and went to the counter to pay for my things.

“These are hot cross buns?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering why the clerk was asking.

I didn’t discover the reason until I got home. Are you ahead of me? Some of those boxes held precious little cheesecakes instead, beautifully garnished with a round slice of lemon.

Easter is all about the unexpected.

28:1 After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

Long ago, or so the author of Matthew tells us, two women, both named Mary, rose to perform an act much more elevated than the sort of errands I took on yesterday. Each gospel gives us the details a bit differently, but today we have Matthew’s version, and we follow Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary” to the tomb. They wanted to grieve at the place where their friend’s body had been laid, at the entrance to a tomb covered by a large stone. Because the previous day, Saturday, had been their Sabbath, they could not go right away but had to wait from Friday night until Sunday morning. The rituals of their religion had been performed by the men who carried him there. We presume they went to be sure all had been done well, and we remember a detail from another gospel, in which the women wonder how they will roll the stone away to get to the place where Jesus’ body rested, lifeless.

But there would be no need to wonder such a thing in this version of the story, would there?

28:2 And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

28:3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.

28:4 For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.

Ah. A word about the guards. We don’t hear the whole story of the guards in the verses we are reading this morning, but they are important in Matthew’s gospel. It’s their job to guard the tomb because the Roman authorities fear a riot. All these events took place around Passover, so the guards had a bit of a break on Saturday, when no devout Jew would have visited a tomb. But Sunday, oh Sunday! Who knew what might happen?

And just as the women arrived, suddenly there was a great earthquake!!

There have been a couple of Sundays recently when, during the service, snow suddenly fell off the roof of the church, making a loud noise and generally shocking us all, particularly on the day it happened during our prayers! Multiply our surprise a thousand times and we might begin to feel the shock of the women. For not only did the earth shake, but an angel descended from heaven, and rolled back the stone of the tomb, and sat on it.

No wonder the guards were afraid! They expected enemies they could fight with conventional weapons. Clearly they had nothing to use against this amazing foe! What did this all mean?

The angel spoke:

"Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.

28:6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

What a terror this must have been! What could the angel mean? And where could a dead body have “gone?”

He is not here. And if he is not here, where is he?

That is the Easter question, isn’t it?

Here our story continues in two different directions. Let’s follow the soldiers first. They represent the status quo, the authority figures in town, the ones who want to keep peace not for the sake of peace but for the sake of security. The Roman military forces occupied Jerusalem, and it shouldn’t surprise us that the Jewish people weren’t pleased about it. Jesus was not the only revolutionary figure in the mix. The chance of a riot or an outright revolt seemed high.

As nice, church-going people, it may be hard for us to remember The Powers That Were saw Jesus as an insurgent.

“Life is on the loose and cannot be restrained.” Those of us who participated in the class, Living the Questions, may remember these words from the scholar and pastor, Walter Brueggemann, about the Resurrection. The soldiers could not follow their orders because heaven intervened. “He is not here,” said the angel. Indeed, Jesus was on the loose and earthly powers could not contain him anymore.

We make a lot of attempts to contain things through our rules and our customs and our expectations. In fact, the establishment of institutional religion, the building of churches and their maintenance, runs the risk of taking all that life and promise, and even the fear and great joy, and entombing it in an air-tight container.

He is not here, for Easter breaks through death and rolls away the stone, even when we would rather keep things the way they are.

28:5 But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified.

28:6 He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

I have to wonder how it felt to peer into the tomb.

Did Mary Magdalene and the other Mary hold each other’s hands as they walked gingerly through the opening, perhaps bowing their heads to fit in the doorway to death and decay? Did they hold their breath, both wanting to see their friend’s body safely in its place, at the same time they hoped he might yet live?

The angel went on:

28:7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.' This is my message for you."

28:8 So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

He is not here, said the angel, and sent them off to find the disciples.

But what could they tell them? What did it mean that he had been raised? Was he alive, his body walking again?

They had only a moment to wait, and then they saw him.

28:9 Suddenly Jesus met them and said, "Greetings!" And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him.

Matthew wanted us to believe that the body had been raised, that Jesus appeared to them in a form they could touch and feel, a form they could take hold of and worship. That may be the hardest part of the story for some of us. We like the mystery of Easter, the “Aha!” moment of the Resurrection, but we may not want to focus too long on the question of what kind of form Jesus took after the Resurrection.

We’ve all played those games or answered that party question, if you could meet one person from history, who would it be and what would you ask him or her? I think this is the one for me. But he is not here, and we are left to our own devices and conclusions.

And Jesus himself did not dwell long in the moment, instead sending the Marys out to deliver a message to the disciples, echoing the angel’s words.

28:10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

Go to Galilee.

Don’t stay at the tomb. He will not be not here.

Don’t go to the Temple. He will not be there.

Go to Galilee.

According to Matthew, the soldiers left this scene to return to the city not to report to their superiors, but to ask for advice from the Chief Priests at the Temple. Advised to tell a story about the disciples stealing the body of Jesus, they take money and agree to keep quiet about what really happened. The women meanwhile deliver the message to the disciples, and they go to Galilee to meet Jesus, where he gives them the Great Commission, the instruction to go out into all the world and make disciples. And then they do not see him again.

He is not here.

He is not here, but we are. In the nearly two thousand years that have gone by, we have moved from being people on the margin to being people in the majority to a strange new place where our practices are a little quaint to some and threatening to others and simply obscure or unimportant to many. It may feel like a very long time since Jesus has been here, but as long as we remember, he is with us. As long as we remember, we are under the same instructions, to go into the world and share the Good News of his life and death and resurrection, to share the Good News that God’s spirit is alive and the Christ energy resists containment, and that Life and Love with a capital “L” are among us and in us!

With fear and great joy, the women left the tomb, and if we really stop to think about being carriers of that Life and Love, we may experience just such a strange combination of feelings: fear AND joy, together again, and not for the first time. We feel them every time we take a step into the unknown, believing God beckons in a particular direction and hoping we have the right map to follow.

He is not here. We are not called to stay in one place and simply remember but to spread out into the world, into our world, and share the Love, and share the Life.

Why come to church, then? What’s the purpose of this place?

I believe its purpose is to nurture us into being the sort of people who can believe in the mystery, the sort of people who can courageously peer into an empty tomb and reach a conclusion about it that may make no sense to the rest of the world but means everything to us.

This is the Good News: He is not here, for he is risen. He is not here, for the stone is rolled away. He is not here, for no one and nothing can contain him. Alleluia. Amen.

Something I've Missed Today, Something I'll Miss Tomorrow

My sermon finished (or at least drafted), I find I'm avoiding home Easter preparations in favor of nostalgic musings.

One of the things I loved at Small Church was going over to the church on Holy Saturday in the morning to check in with the ladies arranging the flowers. Unlike Main Street Church, where the flowers are uniformly lilies, Small Church included all sorts of spring bulb flowers: narcissus, hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, even a few hydrangeas which the nursery school ladies and I struggled to keep alive until Sunday.

I miss them.

I am too far away from MSC to make a special trip, and anyway, it's not quite the same. The lilies will be plentiful and beautiful and, for some, allergy-inducing, and it will be Easter. Over at Small Church, there may be some worry about who will show up with flowers this year, and at both churches there will be some stress over whether the list of names will be properly printed for the bulletin, because it's always the person whose feelings will be most hurt whose name is inadvertently left off or misspelled, isn't it?

I won't hear about any of that this year, unless a word comes to my ear while I am packing up my office on Tuesday.

One of the other things I loved during my time at Small Church, and the centerpiece of my Easter experiences there, was the Sunrise Service at a gazebo in a city park overlooking the Bay here in City By the Sea. My Sunrise exposure was limited before I became a pastor, but I am a convert now. Main Street Church does not have one, and, again, I am too far away for it to be feasible. Next year in Retail Mecca...on behalf of the Church Without a Blog Name...I will participate in one again.

It's the sort of thing that makes me look ahead with eagerness, knowing the sun will rise again.

When the World Seems Out of Sync

It's too bright for Good Friday and too cold for Spring but exactly as windy as March at its worst.

We sprang ahead too soon, I believe it's true, and at a moment when I am ready for the day to begin drawing in, I know there are hours of light, though diminishing, still to come. At church last night we wondered if the Tenebrae service could run long enough for the sanctuary to fully darken?

It did.

I can remember Holy Weeks when I had much deeper things to contemplate than the light, the impending loss of a baby one year, my own despair in a profound postpartum depression in another. I've spent this Friday recovering from "a procedure" and phoning the mental health number on the back of my insurance card.

The echoes of those two Fridays, so bad despite being Good, ring down through the years and some times touch me softly and other times shake me hard.

Today I led worship for a small group, and we heard my son play his clarinet. Its wistful quality suits the reading of that long gospel passage from John, after the dramatic readings of the night before. We are shocked and culpable at Tenebrae, but we are deeply sad at noon on Good Friday, helpless to stop what has happened. What wondrous love, aren't those the notes to that hymn he is playing? And what is this one? Do I know it?

And am I born to die?
To lay this body down?
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown.

Those are the words, from the Sacred Harp, of the least familiar tune. He was, and we are, and although it is the most natural thing in life to leave it, we resist our departure, unless we embrace its possibility too closely.

Does it strike the right note? Do I? It's almost finished mattering. With these people, at this church, there is but one more service to lead. I looked around the Chancel, where we all sat, noticing the architecture, realizing that on Sunday, in the bright lights and amid the lilies, some features will be unnoticed. For those who did not hear the story, the grief may go unrecognized, the truth of our mortality may be denied for another year, or so we may hope.

But you don't get the cycle of Resurrection, the Circle of Life, without Death. You don't get the joy of anything, really, without the effort of attention to it.

At dinner before the Maundy Thursday service, a Deacon said, "I wanted to know what happened to your bulbs, to know if they came up."

As our ways diverge, I wonder, too, if the planting I've done at Main Street Church will lead to new growth. I pray the real Spring, when it comes, will be beautiful.

The Next-to-Last Supper

Matthew 26:1-16

It was two days before Passover when Jesus became explicit with his followers. He had just finished a lecture to the crowd, the kind of talk a person gives when he knows there may not be any other opportunities, a talk full of last-minute reminders such as a person might give to the babysitter on the way out the door, the sort of instructions that mean the difference between eternal life and unremitting death.

There was urgency in his voice and in his message as he told the stories of the good and faithful servant, of the separating of the sheep and the goats. He hurried to be as clear as possible in his storytelling way.

And then it was time for dinner, time to collapse at the end of the day, to leave the crowds behind and gather with his friends around the table. This Jesus who so treasured his time away came to the end of his ministry surrounded by inescapable crowds, teaching non-stop with no time to simply retreat.

They must have had more questions for him. The disciples always did. Teacher, we didn't quite get that story's meaning? Who exactly are the sheep? It's us, right?

While they continued to thrive on the excitement and danger of the day, a woman came to the table, a woman whose name we do not know according to Matthew's gospel. She came to the table with a jar of perfumed oil, and she poured it on his head. It was the sort of perfumed oil handed down from mother to daughter over many generations, a family heirloom, and the only way to open the jar was to break it.

She poured out the whole jar, since there was no way to put a stopper in it or save it to use another day. She poured out the whole jar, because she somehow knew that Jesus needed it.

At that next-to-last supper, the room filled with the fragrance of the perfumed oil, intoxicating, overwhelming, lavish and unrepentant. You could not put it back in the jar, this display of love.

Jesus tells the disciples that she has done him a good service. She has prepared his body for burial, he tells them, and we don't hear that they say anything else to him. How could they? They needed to pause and take in what he had said, to try and understand what he meant. They still did not understand.

And do we? It can be hard to hold onto the whole story. There are too many parts that makes us cringe and want to turn away. Judas would turn to earthly powers. Peter would draw a sword and later deny even knowing Jesus.
We don't know this woman's name. We don't know if she followed the group with Jesus into Jerusalem, or if she stood at the cross. We only know she gave her all in that act of care and honor and devotion to the one who devoted himself to all of us.

"Wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world," said Jesus, "what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."

We all know people, women and men, who pour themselves out for others in the name of Christ. Most of them would rather we didn't acknowledge or remember them. So it is perhaps not surprising that her story is hidden away in Holy Week, never to be heard on a Sunday except in its more embroidered version, where the house belongs to Lazarus and the perfume belongs to Mary and is poured onto Jesus' feet.

A woman who we do not know, a woman without a name, stood behind Jesus and broke a jar and poured out the riches of her life on his head. She anointed him as king and prepared him for burial in the same act. She showed the love that others feared to show, at that next-to-last supper.

A Brief Note about Things I am Doing Today

Dear friends,

Here is what I'm up to today:

• Writing tonight's meditation which I hope to post later
• Performing my Admin's tasks (including finishing Maundy Thursday bulletins and answering a million phone calls) because her son went to school this morning then promptly threw up
• Rejoicing that his father can take care of him tomorrow when there are two more sets of bulletins to run
• Talking with the organist
• Dreaming of the famous cake Easter eggs from my childhood
• Finalizing plans for Good Friday service
• Finalizing Good Friday and Easter bulletins
• Calling the spa where I have a massage scheduled Monday and turning it into a "Half Day of Self Care," including mani-pedi, massage and facial
• Continuing to say good-bye to people
• And, last but not least, wondering why an active church member who mistakenly schedules a Tupperware party for Maundy Thursday doesn't re-schedule it or let invited church members off the hook?

Not sure why I'm bothering,
Songbird

Holy ____ Week

I'm pretty busy this week.

I'm trying to keep up posting over at Reflectionary. Seems like the best thing I can to do get ready for Sunday.

If this is your Holy How Can I Do It All Week, how are you holding up?

It feels like an important question on the day between two 12-hour days.

I'm working from home today, planning on a long walk with my husband, and looking forward to a meeting with my semi-monthly clergywomen's group this afternoon. In between, before and after, I'll draft some thoughts for my Maundy Thursday message, discuss Good Friday music with Snowman and make a hospital visit.

In a quest for maintaining sanity, or perhaps a display of the absolute opposite, I'm trying to finish the second sock of a pair won in the church auction by a member of Main Street Church. I have been hampered by my numb and painful hands, but I think I can do it before Sunday, or certainly before next Tuesday, my moving day.  Hope they dry fast when I block them.

There is something soothing about a hand task when I am engaged in so much church this week, the personalities and the details and the thinking of deep thoughts. My favorite part of yesterday had to be figuring out what to do with the bare birch tree that has been part of our Lenten sanctuary and deciding to use it as the focal point for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Were you there when they nailed him to the tree? I hope the tree will help make it palpable.

(We won't even mention navigating the choppy waters of parenting a 12-year-old who is "going out" with someone for the first time.)

Feel free to share your strategies or disciplines in the comments.

Snow? Please, No More. Snowman? Why, certainly!

Snowman arrived home late last night from Land o'Lakes Arts Academy for his two-week Spring Break.

After we hugged, he stood at arm's length and said, "You look great!"

Sweet.

Use Your Words

During the children's message today we talked about words we use to show we are excited, words we use to cheer others or celebrate something. Of course we were heading toward shouting "Hosanna" but along the way we discovered some generational differences. The oldest among us responded heartily to "Hip Hip" with "Hooray!" The next generation down suggested "Yippee!" The middle-aged geeks among us thought of "Huzzah!"  My oldest supplied the suggestion "Woohoo!"

We talked, too, about how it feels to be on the receiving end of applause and cheers. We were all quick to say it would feel good or exciting, but I was looking for more. I knew #1 Son, as an actor, would have some thoughts about this, and although he is a bit past being one of the children, he answered from the pew. I looked his way and asked the question again, "How would it feel?" and he answered, "Humbling."

Yes.

It's humbling to realize how much other people care, or that they admire you or rely upon you.

After the service they gave us a going-away luncheon; so many people attended that they needed to set up an extra table. Pure Luck turned up, and Molly attended, too. They gave us gifts. They stood and applauded me. But most importantly they used words to express feelings of appreciation.

At the luncheon, the Diaconate Chair quoted a somewhat daunting piece of scripture:

" People who do know their God will do strong exploits." (Daniel 11:32, haven't figured out which version)

Wow. Exploits? Huh. Exploits.

I think of myself as softer than exploits, and perhaps that explains why the word struck me, especially in combination with "strong." Over the past year I have identified strengths that matter to my ministry, and I'm grateful to the people at Main Street Church whose affirmation confirmed them.

Huzzah and Hosanna!

Returns of the Day

Here are the returns for this Saturday at my house:

• Pure Luck, returned in the wee hours from that state famous for crabs
• Walking, which I have been avoiding due to the ice; go, slush!
• Flowers, or a hint of them, little green shoots of hope on the side of the street where the sun shines most
• Snow, because you really can't have enough
• .2 pounds, as I continue to navigate a period that I hope will be a blip on the long term arc of weight loss rather than an actual plateau; not being able to exercise may have a lot to do with it, and I have been forbidden the gym for now (or at least the weight lifting part)
• Pizza from City By the Sea Pie Company, which has not been ordered here since all the boys were home
• Painful recognition that pizza, at about 6 points per slice, is not worth it to me
• Enjoyment of laptop use, because I am typing on my new, pink Dell
• Our webring administrator, making the previous item possible (yes, that's Pure Luck; he holds the Key to the Kingdom)
• Me to the newspaper, but you had a chance to read it here first on Thursday

But mostly I want to mention that this is the fourth anniversary of my blog. I wrote three posts in 2003, but my regular pursuit of blogging began on March 15, 2004, and by the following year it had become a very important part of my life. I've said it before: I had no idea blogging would bring face-to-face friends into my life. I'm thankful for them, and for the friends I haven't yet met but know through their writing or their pictures.

Tomorrow's returns will include #1 Son to school and Snowman from school, their Spring break plans causing them to miss each other by just a few hours. And so it goes. I'll keep writing about it, I'm sure, and I hope you'll be here, too.

Paws (and Shoes) of Bloggage

Today, Molly and I traveled to a not-quite-neighboring state for a meet-up with a "retired" blogger we had never met before, and a blogger-on-hiatus-at-the-moment who we know very well. Molly would like you to know that dogs really ought to be allowed in restaurants, but other than that disappointment on her part, it was a lovely experience all round.

We took some traditional Blogger Shoe Photos, but when Molly started "wrooing," video did seem appropriate. Hope you enjoy a snippet of our day.

Friday Five: Time for Palms

As posted by Mother Laura at RevGalBlogPals:

here's a Friday Five about time and transitions....

1. If you could travel to any historical time period, which would it be, and why?

Ah, that's a big question for a retired English and History double major. But at this time of year it would have to be first century Galilee, in a hope of finding out more about what really happened. Would I have the courage to take the walk to Jerusalem?

2. What futuristic/science fiction development would you most like to see?

Anything but time travel.

3. Which do you enjoy more: remembering the past, or dreaming for the future?

Definitely dreaming for the future.

4. What do you find most memorable about this year's Lent?

The factors beyond my control that affected my Lenten practice, and a retooling to learn from them (weather, back problems leading to numb hands, changes in the family schedule among them).

5. How will you spend your time during this upcoming Holy Week?  What part do you look forward to most?

I'll spend a lot of it at church! This will be my last week there (I'll return to pack up on the Tuesday after Easter, but Easter Sunday will be my final real day of work.) I also have a meeting directly pertaining to possible new church locations, so there is an element of looking ahead as well as finishing up.

I'll also try to find time for my incoming husband (due this evening, but I'll feel better when I receive confirmation by phone this afternoon), my homecoming 17-year-old, say goodbye to #1 Son as he returns to school and say my goodbyes at Main Street Church. There will be a lot of emotional transition, and while I don't want to compare myself to Jesus, it will be on my mind that he went through that week with the subtext of oncoming farewells and the new relationship on the horizon.

At the Core

Yesterday I found myself lying on a table in an unfamiliar examining room talking about how I breathe, how I use my body to accomplish the tasks of living.

A man I had known for 30 minutes or so extended his arms and made circles with his hands, saying, "You use these muscles to do everything instead of moving from your core."

It's easy to reduce a core to the piece of the apple we throw away, or the part of the nuclear plant we fear will melt down, or the term from Pilates we've heard people use but isn't that a weird expensive form of exercise for wealthy Californians having nothing to do with middle-aged pastors in New England?

Busy and troubled about many things, like my Biblical namesake, Martha, I feel a moment of resentment at this suggestion, but I quickly recognize its essential truth. I learn that I have a big, broad muscle at the center of my body that I have not only underdeveloped, but ignored, failed to recognize, despite pressuring it by carrying developing children in the womb and growing children on my hip. I have stressed it by weighing too much and by exercising too little and by depending on something I did not know existed.

And we all need attention, don't we?

I came home with breathing exercises that take me back to the vocal training I had long ago. I expand my diaphragm, but this time I inhale and exhale through my nose. Five minutes a day, he says, five minutes a day for the rest of your life, these will be your exercises.

I try it in the car, for like so many of us I seem to live in the car most days. I am on a mission to stop eating in the car, even though it sometimes seems to be the only opportunity, so I decide to breathe instead. And I soon understand why he has instructed me to do this for a minute at a time. My body is not used to so much oxygen! My head begins to feel light!

I breathe at the gas pump. Lord knows we need to breathe there, to look away from the numbers spinning past and pay attention to our breath, to the life force of our breath.

What will I find if I keep breathing, if I strengthen those muscles at the core of my physical being?

I arrived in his office due to a complaint about back pain and numbness in my hands, and he asked me, "When does it NOT bother you?"

"Ah," I said. "When I am sitting still, doing absolutely nothing." Except breathing, theoretically.

All my life I've carried the image of the Biblical Martha, frowning in the background while that nice Mary sits at the feet of Jesus. Wearing her name felt like a burden. Surely I was not really like her? Or surely she served in her own way? I've written sermons and essays about it, about how much it meant that she is the one to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah in John's gospel, a job performed by a man in the other three. Martha must have mattered a lot, even if she was blunt and practical.

And I am not all that practical, really, I'm not.

But the image of my new adviser standing beside me waving his arms in the air is a strong one, and although I have always pictured Mary as soft and maybe even a little bit useless, I now have an image of the kind of strength it takes to sit upright, and attend to someone, and to breathe.

In my bag today there is a beautiful Crispin apple, one from a bag given to me by a church member. When I bite into it, I will look at the core differently. I will not see the useless part, the inedible segment, the rough bits and the seed to be discarded. Instead I will see the center of what is, the source of being, the promise of health and the potential for new life.

And I will breathe, deeply, expanding that muscle I did not know about yesterday, finding my own center and paying attention to what God might have to say about it all.

(This is my piece for Saturday's paper.)

Medial Instability

Our Molly went to see the orthopedic surgeon for a consult this morning.

Molly appeared in my first and second blog posts ever, more than five years ago. Back then she was recuperating from surgery on her right hip, awaiting the day she could have arthroscopy on both elbows. She came to us that way, with hip and elbow dysplasia, although the symptoms did not begin to present until she was 6 or 7 months old.

Ever since a weekend at our favorite kennel last fall, Molly has shown signs of increasing lameness. We rested her and boosted her arthritis medication, and she seemed to get better, but a few weeks ago, running in deep fresh snow, she fell, and since then has been awfully lame.

Our vet contacted the original surgeon at Tufts, who felt that if the elbow was the problem now, the only surgery to be under consideration would be elbow replacement, which sounded like too much for us on all sorts of levels. Our vet was not satisfied to drop her inquiries, however, and suggested we get a second opinion. She sent Molly's x-rays to an orthopedic surgeon who practices here in Portland. He did Sam's OCD repair three years ago, and we were happy with those results, so I was glad to take her to see him.

After examining Molly, who was at her most charming this morning and offered him a paw immediately, the surgeon determined that the elbow was no more problematic than the average arthritic elbow of a 6-year-old dog. The real trouble, he said, was medial instability of the shoulder. This is probably the injury she sustained while spending the weekend at the kennel last September and re-injured a few weeks ago.

The good news: the injury is not painful and the treatment is restricted activity with gradual increase. We know how to do that! The surgeon's theory is that limited exercise to the point just shy of what causes lameness builds the shoulder up again. He thinks we can back off the Tramadol she has been taking, since the reason she was lifting her paw was likely not elbow-related but just to avoid putting weight on the front leg to "favor" the shoulder.

We have also made an appointment with our former vet, who is a veterinary acupuncture practitioner. We'll be going for the first appointment next Wednesday. This is the vet who taught us all about puppies as an 8-week-old Molly, all 13 pounds of her, dozed on the examining table between us, and I trust her implicitly.

Our current vet has been wonderful. I am deeply appreciative of her instinct to get someone else to look at Molly and her generosity in referring us to a former member of her practice for special care.

I read that "medial" can mean, in addition to other things, "average," and I have certainly been in an average state of instability as I contemplated the possibilities for Molly. The fact that her breed has an average lifespan of 7 to 7-and-a-half doesn't mean I'm prepared to believe we've run out of possibilities for her. To say I'm relieved tonight is understating the case, but it's about all I dare to say.

Molly has been away from blogging given her sore shoulder, but she will probably get back to it soon. Meanwhile, click on the animated Berner, and she will wag her tail!

You Be the Judge

Do you watch our favorite shows?

#1 Son is home and tonight, while The Princess is off at a choral rehearsal, we are watching an old episode of Battlestar Galactica.

He says, "This is SO much better than Lost."

I say, "Is it?"

He says, "Yes!"

I say, "At its best, maybe."

He says, "It's more consistent."

I say, "I'll tell you if I agree with that when they wrap everything up."

Then there is a flashback to Gaius and his interior 6 in the "previously" and I am into it once again.

So, what do you think? Is Battlestar Galactica better than Lost?

Back to Sleep

I'm still fretting over my sore and tingly back and my numb and now sometimes painful hands. I'm told that overly tight muscles can pinch a nerve and cause the sort of trouble I'm having.

I feel very middle-aged.

Oddly, I'm sleeping pretty well, I just wake up feeling weird and numb.

Last night I tried to sleep without a pillow. I'm one of those people who builds a mountain of pillows and squooshes them around until the right set of qualities has been achieved: height, softness, receptivity, firmness, yes, I realize some of those are in conflict with others.

Pure Luck finds my affinity for multiple pillows rather hilarious.

But remember when babies were allowed to have pillows and sleep on their tummies? I must have been one of those babies. My children seem to sleep flat on their backs, because, guess what? I put them down on their backs. (That whole "Back to Sleep" thing came in when #1 Son was a baby. I remember re-training myself, since my impulse was to put him on his tummy. Probably what my mother told me to do. Probably what she did with me.)

I discovered that I feel like I can't breathe when I'm flat on my back. I also think you have to relax completely to sleep in such an open and vulnerable position. Even so, I'll be trying again tonight, to see if that might help.

Meanwhile, numb and painful hands are not lifting weights. This past week has been a disaster where physical activity is concerned, between the attempts to walk on icy surfaces and the eschewing of the gym. I am trying to remind myself that spring will come, and I will walk outdoors in temperatures that don't hurt my bad ear, and that no person can do everything, every day.

Right?

Here's a little Rumi for what ails me:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.

I really don't want to go back to sleep, to slip into a lethargic food-induced coma. I want to be awake. But apparently that conscious wakefulness involves dealing with the disappointment that comes with a middle-aged body or a temporary (hopefully) strain or injury, finding a way to walk through it even when you can't walk out of it or walk it out.

I hope walking through it can still contain a little whining.

Once again your Queen for A Day,

Songbird

Ain't No Cure For Love

On a dark fall afternoon a few years ago I sat in my garret office at Small Church, figuring out iTunes and how to make a playlist.

Pure Luck was away, and I was missing him, and I picked all the soppiest songs I had, and even bought a few more from the iTunes store.

I think I was feeling a little Emo. But I may be using that wrong, since I am "getting on in years," as Rufus Wainwright puts it in his very, to my way of thinking, wistful and, yes, Emo song "Vibrate." It's on the list. As is as much Leonard Cohen as I could justify, since Pure Luck is a Cohen fan and has a deep, attractive voice himself.

Over time I've added and subtracted songs from the playlist depending on my mood. There are songs from "our" era and from this one. You can find Bread and Queen and Meat Loaf right next to Fatboy Slim and Madeline Peyroux.

I remember having an idea that love at midlife would be different, more conscious, less painful.

Ha!

Love is love. When you miss someone, no matter how complete a person you might be without them, there is a different kind of piece missing, a subtle combination of thrill and edge and safe space.

Maybe Leonard Cohen says it best:

I'm aching for you baby
I can't pretend I'm not
I need to see you naked
In your body and your thought
I've got you like a habit
And I'll never get enough
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure,
There ain't no cure for love

You may wonder why this blogger is so incurable when he's coming home tomorrow.

It's because he's not coming home tomorrow. The countdown clock has been reset as is so often the case at the end of a job. We're looking ahead to Saturday now.

If you'll excuse me, I'll be listening to James Taylor and Carole King and even Uncle Kracker (who swims through your veins like a fish in the sea), because I'm Emo-clectic.

Sure hope that's one of the things he loves about me.

Sprung Ahead

Sprung ahead like an elastic band airplane and feeling as fragile as balsa wood, I give thanks that:

• although Vacationland Public Radio has apparently been knocked out by the wind this morning, I woke up anyway;
• even though I can't remember how to reset the thermostat timer it does have a manual override;
• despite the fact he's wearing a cast for his boxer's fracture, #1 Son got home safely;
• although The Princess knows a great deal more than I do, apparently she is just as superior to her father as she is to me;
• even though she feels sensitive about having won the heart of Guitar Boy when his best friend still likes her, I get the advantage of having them compete to perform feats of strength at my house such as carrying in giant bags of dog food from the car;
• despite the fact that I am having back pain and hand numbness, I managed to do several hours of knitting last night and the end of one of my two unfinished projects (mittens for The Princess to match her Gryffindor scarf) is in sight;
• and although it is windy this morning, as reported above, the sun is coming up over the horizon, and I have a feeling that someday it really will be spring and most of all, Pure Luck will be home tomorrow night. (Expect me to mention that again tomorrow.)

Are you thankful for anything as we spring ahead?

Where is My Calendar?

For the past several years, *every* year someone in the family gave me a Bernese Mountain Dog calendar for Christmas. This year, though, no calendar appeared. I meant to get one, but I kept forgetting. Now it's March, and I have finally recycled the old one (not an easy thing to do; those dogs are cute!).

On our refrigerator there is a big, blank rectangle where beautiful dogs ought to be on display, but if there were a calendar hanging, it would look something like this:

March 8 -- #1 Son due home, rehearsal for tomorrow's worship drama

March 9 -- Spring ahead, darn it! Also afternoon meeting of advisory group for Rock and Roll Church

March 10 -- Give the Opening Prayer for the State Senate; anticipate Pure Luck's arrival home late in the day. (!!!!!)

March 11 -- Take Molly to specialty vet for consultation about acupuncture.

March 12 -- Take Molly to orthopedic surgeon for consult; Interim Ministers meeting to the north, Mission Committee meeting to the South; lots of driving all day long.

March 13 -- Appointment to have hair "conditioned," as a friend puts it, because despite all this effort to grow out my hair, I find I'm depressed by being grey. (Maybe we ought to file this one under midlife crisis.)

March 14 -- Blogger Meet-Up of Major Importance to Me!! One of the bloggers has already become a real-life friend, but the other, Oh! I've wanted to meet her for at least two years now.

March 16 -- Palm Sunday -- need I say more?  #1 Son goes back to school; Snowman arrives home for his break.

March 17 -- Another blogger meet-up, this one with Christine from Abbey of the Arts!

March 18 -- Final meeting with Main Street Church's Council

March 20 -- Maundy Thursday; 2nd appointment with new Massage Therapist who is trying to sort out my back issues.

March 21 -- Good Friday

March 22 -- Desperate attempt to vault from Good Friday to getting the guy out of the tomb

March 23 -- Utter disbelief that Easter is so early. Desperate attempt to avoid Easter Candy and cakes in shape of eggs.

March 24 -- Pedicure

March 25 -- Pack up office and move books to new church (no nickname yet, give me time)

March 26 -- Fly to New Orleans!!! Convince will smama there is no reason to be afraid!

March 27 -- Embark on RevGalBlogPals' Big Event cruise! Meet up with friends old and new! Room with childhood friend, Ruby!

March 29 -- Pure Luck leaves for next job, while I visit Cancun. I hope he won't be thinking about that.

March 31 -- Snowman leaves for school, I return home.

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

There's a chance we'll be adding a surgery for Molly to this schedule, and I can't even think about that right now. Lots to look forward to, lots to celebrate and lots to complete on this list of dates.  Somewhere in here hope to get some exercise...maybe it will finally thaw enough for long walks to be on the list while Pure Luck is home. I am off the weight-lifting temporarily until the numbness in my hands resolves or at least improves, though I'm pretty sure I hurt myself lifting Molly, not lifting the weights.

I'm sitting on a ledge (hopefully not as lasting as a plateau) where weight is concerned, despite drinking massive quantities of water and tracking faithfully. But I will not let that drop off my calendar, even in all this busy-ness.

I have some knitting deadlines, but those projects are coming slowly due to the hand numbness. I did about two inches on a second mitten for The Princess yesterday, and I have a sock to finish for a church member at Main Street Church as well as hat(s) for a Ravelry knit-along.

I'm not sure why I've written all this down. I'm busy. I bet you are, too. Let's wave to each other as we pass!

Friday Five: Signs of Hope, Signs of Spring

(As posted by Sally at RevGalBlogPals)

It has been a difficult week here in Dowham Market, and yet in the sadness there have been signs of real hope, young people, often criticised have shown us how caring and amazing they are. It has also been a strange week; it snowed for almost the first time this winter, and yet many of the spring bulbs are blooming, and the trees are blossoming!

I believe that if we look carefully we can see signs of hope all around us.... as for signs of spring... well you tell me....

Bluebells in my garden, before the snow!

What have you seen/ heard this week that was a :

1. Sign of hope?

Pure Luck has been away for work since February 12th, not all that long but a time filled with storms in need of shoveling and some stress around Molly Dog's lameness and possible medical treatments or lack, thereof. It was a sign of hope to discover I was confused about the length of this job and he will likely be home a week earlier than I had thought.

2. An unexpected word of light in a dark place?

I'm struggling with some of the feelings raised by this life change I'm attempting, and I really appreciated a phone call from my childhood friend (that may have been last week, but I'm still nursing it).

3. A sign of spring?

Not much around here, to be completely frank. I guess there are buds on the forsythia, but there is still so much snow, it's hard to believe in spring. But the boys are coming home on their Spring Breaks, so I guess that would be it.

4. Challenging/ surprising?

We're in the winding down phase of my ministry at Main Street Church, and this brings an odd combination of gratitude/affirmation and anxiety/reactivity from church members, all pretty natural for this point in the process, but at times both challenging and surprising.

5. Share a hope for the coming week/month/year....

Week: happy reunions with Pure Luck and #1 Son (coming in for Spring Break tomorrow), and a week later Snowman.

Month: Enjoying the RevGal's Big Event and then moving on smoothly to my new position

Year: Reaching my weight goals while coming to a deeper understanding of myself

Bonus play... a piece of music/ poem guaranteed to cheer you?

I'm looking forward to the music (and flowers) of Easter Sunday, no matter what the weather is like that day.

Rx

For the past few days I've been waking up with numbness in both hands and a tingly back, though it hasn't been painful at all. Today I decided calling the doctor might be in order, and to my amazement I got an appointment on the same day. (Probably because travel was bad today and other people canceled.)

I explained my symptoms, and my wonderful doctor (a gal a bit younger than I am) got right up on the examining table behind me to check out my back.

"You're a little tense," she noted.

Um, yeah.

"I'm wound pretty tight," I told her.

"Me, too," she responded with a smile.

Her diagnosis: no disc involvement, just tense and tired and overused.

Her prescription: a massage.

Oh, my glory.

My regular massage therapist is in Florida until April 6th, so I called the person my doctor recommended and made an appointment for Friday.

Then I had a thought, a brilliant thought. I called the Day Spa where I go for various beautifying and relaxing activities from time to time. "Could you tell me when you next have an open massage appointment?"

"Hmm. How about 4 o'clock?"

It was 3:20.

Oh, my glory.

Once again, I scored due to the cancellations of others.

I am now following part two of my doctor's prescription: heat.

What have you done to take care of yourself today?

E Gary Gygax!

I came late to D&D, in my 40's; you might say I married into it. This is for longtime gamer, Pure Luck, who can't read e-mails at work:

Gary Gygax's Final Quest

Abstain or Moderate?

It's been on my mind since last summer. There seem to be two roads to weight loss, two philosophies among the programs that generally seem to work for people: abstinence and moderation.

I grew up in a political household, and I often heard my father labeled as a "moderate." I'm not sure what this meant to the people who called him that. I'm guessing he was really pretty liberal for his time and place, but people who liked him wanted to call him something less frightening to those at the other end of the scale. To me, being moderate came to mean being someone who did not jump to conclusions based on other people's opinions; it meant being someone who considered all the ramifications and came to a sound decision.

This was based totally on my dad, so I had no idea whether it had any basis in political reality.

It occurs to me that I might want to look up "moderate" in the dictionary, since that was so often my dad's advice. Here goes:

1 a: avoiding extremes of behavior or expression : observing reasonable limits <a moderate drinker> b: calm,   temperate
2 a: tending toward the mean or average amount or dimension b: having average or less than average quality : mediocre
3: professing or characterized by political or social beliefs that are not extreme
4: limited in scope or effect
5: not expensive : reasonable or low in price
6of a color : of medium lightness and medium chroma

You all know I've been using Weight Watchers as my food guideline and support system since late last June, and it's clearly a program that promotes moderation, as in #1a. (It's also #5 compared to many weight loss programs.) If you pay attention, you learn portion control. And if you listen to the leaders I'm hearing, you get encouragement to figure out ways to still have the things you love, but to learn to limit them appropriately, whether that means having that Dairy Queen Blizzard once a summer instead of every day, or rewriting your favorite recipes to make them fit, or even recognizing that there is some other way to get the effect that food had on you.

Because, seriously, food has an effect on us. As Pure Luck suggested, I'm a different person when I've had a little chocolate. Some people struggle with salty snack desires, but I am more inclined toward sweets. Not that I wouldn't have eaten your corn chips, mind you. But once I saw how many "points" they cost and compared them to other things I would rather have, they ceased to be tempting.

Ah, temptation. What's your tipple? I love baked goods. I love chocolate. I've considered certain kinds of candy to be my best friend at difficult passages of my life; wrap chocolate around caramel, and you have a bar of dangerous bliss.

A moderation-based plan allows for those blissful moments. I enjoyed some Fun Size Milky Ways back around Halloween. I calculated the points, and I did not go crazy, and I did enjoy them. If I had eaten more, I probably wouldn't have felt too great. The trick, I guess, is knowing what that limit is not just in terms of points in a calculator or words on paper, but in how you feel inside.

I'm not much of a drinker. I think I can count on two fingers the number of times in my life I've had more than two drinks, and even two drinks is not more than a once a year occasion.  I didn't drink at all for many years when my children were young, and I didn't miss it. I know what one drink feels like, and I know that halfway through a second drink is a point of silly gleefulness, and at the end of the second drink is a crash through the floor into an uncensored attitude toward the world, which is all very amusing if you are my husband and already planning to drive home, but not so great if you wake up the next day and think, "I wish I hadn't eaten so much dinner" or 'Why did I think *that* was a smart thing to say?"

I have it figured out where alcohol is concerned. What I want to know is whether I can get to that place with sweets. Because at the moment, although I am all over the portion control, I find myself terrified by the thought of abstinence from sweets, even for one day.

I've been going along telling myself it's okay, that as long as I don't go down the road of a binge, or even if I recover well from bad eating and pull it back together. But my resistance to living without sugar worries me, especially the adamant nature of my thoughts when I wonder about being abstinent rather than moderate.

Abstinence, by its very nature, is extreme, right?

I decided to look this one up, too.

1: voluntary forbearance especially from indulgence of an appetite or craving or from eating some foods
2 a: habitual abstaining from intoxicating beverages b: abstention from sexual intercourse

Voluntary forbearance: it doesn't sound so extreme when you put it that way. It sounds like a discipline.

It's not the big piece of cheesecake or the Christmas desserts or even the Thanksgiving pie that worries me. I think my days for regularly eating big desserts are most likely behind me. It's the daily desire for "a little smackerel," as Pooh would put it. Moderation would say, "Have those little smackerels, dear, just know what they are and how they fit into the overall day." Abstinence would say, "Learn to live without them, dear. You don't really need them."

The underlying metaphorical question is this: what am I trying to sweeten? Myself? My experience of the world? My busy schedule? Or is it so habitual that the root desire is indefinable or even irrelevant?

Books #8 and #9

Book #8  ~~ Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen ~~ While reading an old copy of Persuasion, I came to the sad conclusion that I needed to begin upgrading, or rather upsizing, my Jane Austen collection. The Penguin paperbacks I bought in 1982 are not only browning and crumbling; the print is far too small for me to read comfortably. I want to sing the praises of the Vintage paperback editions, which are not outrageously expensive and have the kindest typeset of the various paperback versions of Austen available at the Borders nearby. I've linked to them in the sidebar.

In the comments here on Persuasion, Kathryn made a reference to Mansfield Park's retiring heroine, Fanny Price, and I realized it had been many years since I read the book. I know it was in this house, but I believe it may have been as long ago as the summer of 1998, when I first lived here. I remember reading it in my bedroom here; funny how books have their sense memories, too. I remember feeling it was a very important story for me, and that I loved Fanny, so Kathryn's characterization of Fanny as a "drip" surprised me. Did I remember her that way? The only Fanny in my shorter-term consciousness was the movie Fanny, who was far too confident and I think intended to remind us of Miss Austen herself. More recently I've read somewhere that Miss Austen claimed to be herself more like the far less drippy Mary Crawford. With all this in mind, I took up my fresh copy of Mansfield Park (the longest Austen novel) and began.

Fanny, I discovered, is exactly what my mother tried to raise me to be: a quiet young lady who takes her lead, morally and intellectually, from the influential gentleman in her life.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, there you have it. I am a changed person. I no longer identify with Fanny. I'm sorry she didn't get to enjoy that bad boy Henry Crawford and break out a bit. But that sort of bodice-ripping is for film adaptations, not Miss Austen herself.

(In defense of the book, the section around her uncle's return to discover the family putting on a play is fantastic.)

Book #9 ~~ The Writer's Diet: Writing Yourself Right-Size, by Julia Cameron ~~ Let me start by admitting that I have not read "The Artist's Way," Cameron's popular book about restoring or discovering creativity. It came into use while I was finishing seminary, and although it was offered as a class at Large Church and then later by a group affiliated with Small Church, I could never fit it into my schedule. Some of the terms in that book have entered the general consciousness, at least of pastors and writers, so I was familiar with the concept of "Morning Pages" and "Artist's Dates."

In a general way, I like her idea. It is her experience that people taking her classes have lost weight while doing the writing process of Morning Pages, and she has written a book about all sorts of ways to use a journal to support weight loss by becoming honest with yourself about what you are eating and why.

I'm finding interesting areas of resistance to what she has written, some of which are no doubt the kind of resistance you feel when you need to actually work on something, but my major concerns are two.

• First, doing the kind of depth work she is talking about, especially where there has been trauma involved, requires therapeutic assistance in almost every case. It is late in the book before she raises the need for therapy alongside writing yourself right-sized.
• Second, although she claims her ideas work with any kind of food plan, there is a definite difference between abstinence-based plans such as OA and moderation-based plans such as Weight Watchers. Her book is definitely more abstinence-oriented. There's nothing wrong with that in a general way, but I'm not sure she's as universal as she might like to think she is.

Reading the book has me writing in a paper journal again. The Princess saw me doing it and asked what I was writing about? I explained, and then I said, "It's weird to be writing something just for myself again." I write sermons and blog posts and newspaper columns, and the whole point of those is to be in touch with others. To write just for me is almost uncomfortably intimate and very interesting. It also hurts, aggravating my old DeQuervain's tendon synovitis. It may be that I can't do what I once did, scratching on paper with pencil, and may need to switch to a more ergonomic pen. That makes me a bit sad.

What are you reading?

The Snow Ball

Friends, I submit to you pictures taken as I left for church this morning.

Wait!! What happened to my giant snowball?

It would seem that some kind neighbor saw me outside in my pajamas sometime before 7 a.m., photographing a giant snowball, and decided such aesthetic offenses must not be permitted to continue.

I have no idea who moved it, or how, but I thank them. I thank them.

Oh the Snow, It Snoweth Every Day

Sigh.

It snowed again yesterday, and I faithfully shoveled to the best of my ability, the heavy snow that contained eventual rain.

There is a tree there on one side of my driveway near the street, limiting the amount of snow one can pile, and since my driveway is shared with my neighbor, D, I cannot throw to the other side. I would also remind you that I am 5 feet tall and the original mound of snow is at least 6 feet tall. So after the plow created a new mound last week, I began building on it, even though it was further out into the road.

Last night the city plow came by and knocked apart the mountain of snow at the foot of my driveway.

Where I ought to be backing out there is now a 3 foot snowball. Or rather, an iceball.

I am grateful for that "other half" of the driveway, as I will have to scoot around this and get to church this morning, then come back and deal with Frosty the SnowBall later.

Sermon over here, for those who like that sort of thing.

And more pictures below:

My New Best Friend?

I've noticed it before.

No one is ever using it.

Pure Luck swears by them. There is no other type of exercise equipment that can get a person ready for hiking as well as this one, he says.

He loves the hiking. At higher weights, I did hike, but I struggled, not surprisingly. Hiking, don't you know, is uphill, and hauling an overweight self uphill requires more than just determination. If you reach the top drained rather than simply well-exercised, you lose some of the joy of the triumph.

Our little hike last fall gave me a glimpse of how much more fun it can be, or rather that it can BE fun. This summer I want to hike bigger mountains and enjoy it. That's my major fitness goal.

With that in mind, I decided to befriend the stair-climber. I had to ask for help because I could not figure out how to make it work by myself! The instructor on duty admitted it was a challenging workout and gave me some hints for making it work better. I coped with the concern that its placement in the gym meant my rear end was facing the rest of the world. We set the thing for ten minutes.

Let's just say I broke a sweat in about 43 seconds. That thing is HARD!!!

Next time my goal is 15 minutes.

(Honey, if I become a Happy Hiker, can I have a new bike for my birthday, so we can be Happy Bikers,