Happy New Year!

It's Monday, and I am sliding back into the saddle,
but dang, it is a bumpy ride.
I am "working from home"   and there are workpeople here,
Beloved is home,
and the wild life is dogging me, literally.

The foster dog has found his voice--it's loud and booming.
My youngest dog is wrestling him and being an overall brat.

There is so much I need to do,
which means, probably, that I have a lot I just need to let go,
and let be,
and just take one step at a time.  

Working on that, God.
Amen.

nursing homes

This morning I was belting out Christmas Carols at the nursing home communion service I do once a month.  As we were singing O Come All Ye Faithful, I thought to myself, "now it feels like Advent".
Most of the residents really don't sing,
but they kinda do.

I found myself wondering if I will ever be in a nursing home, and if I am, will a nice pastor come and sing Christmas Carols and offer the Lord's Supper to me?   Will I care?  

I find the nursing home a lonely, stark and holy place. 
People at the stage of life where their lights are flickering softly, instead of being in the fire of life.   The wrinkled skins, the faint smell of urine, the dried up pea soup on a shirt...
the bad teeth...
the minds that wander back and forth through  the past to the present. 
Will I be there someday?

Since the service is ecumenical, all sorts are rolled in, slumped in their wheel chairs.  Many of them have a look of surprise when I offer them the Bread of Life, and the Cup of Promise--as if they just noticed I was there in their sphere.  Some of the people open their mouths for me to place the host on their tongues (not my tradition at all, but over the years I have gotten pretty good at keeping it sanitary and not actually touching their tongues....) or they hold the host in their hands and stare at it.  The tiny cups of God's promise is more popular--some sip it like a fine wine, some gulp down the sweet juice, smack their lips, and say "yummy!"    I never know what to expect.  

At the end, after I have given the benediction, I go to each resident, and bless them.
It's humbling and empowering.
God bless you.
God loves you.
They respond, "Thank You"
or today, "God loves you, dear."

I think receiving blessings from elders is almost sacramental. That holy.

As I said, the nursing home.  It is a stark, lonely, and holy place.

Look at who is hanging out with me in my office today...

I just found an hour.

I just found an hour.  Well, I have wasted about half of it, already, but still--you know when you think a meeting is at a certain time, and then you check your calendar and realize it's an hour later.  Sometimes this is good.  

So, I ordered candles for the Advent Taize service. 

I ate some jellybellies.  Yum.

My desk is a wreck, but I didn't straighten it.  

I filled out some receipts. 

I wished I had my new toy, a ukelele, so I could practice Christmas Carols.  No, really, for real.

And now, I think I will simply sit in the rocking chair in my office, and be still for 15 minutes. 
Because I can.

Carry on!

this past Sunday...

you know, you have those Sundays...
when you think you have a pretty good sermon,
feeling good about it, and then as you are preaching it,
your realize it pretty much sucks?

yep.  had one those this past Sunday. 

which is fine, we all have those, right? 

but you see, I don't preach every week, so I always want to nail it--knowing of course this isn't about me at all--but I want to be faithful to the writing and the preparing and praying and musing--and so I kind of went into a tailspin about it. 

oh, we are so hard on ourselves sometimes....well, at least I can be hard on myself. 

sigh.

onward.  

so this dream I had last night....

This is my last night's dream:

I started a part-time temporary job steps away from the T-stop in Davis square (that looked nothing like Davis Square, I might add.)

I was wandering around gathering information, names, phone numbers, and apparently this was quite helpful.   My therapist  had her office on the second floor, mine was on the third, although I had to visit the top floor.   The company nurse came in to show me how to take blood pressures, and I said, I would be happy to learn, but I need to go and introduce myself to Heidi.  This was the second day of work, and Heidi was the CEO.   I ran down to her office, and she was this elegant, quirky, artsy person who had three women in wheelchairs in her office, who were also quirky and artsy and the first floor was like a beautiful library....

We had a staff meeting, where everyone read bits of poetry for their reports.  Then we all took out our clay and started creating.    Everyone left whenever they were finished...and there was clay art and jewelry and fabrics in the "store" for sale.  Musicians started showing up to play for a 5:00 wine and cheese gig....one played the harp amazingly.  

I didn't have anything for the show, but I had a lot of pots to glaze that were pretty stunning.

They offered me a salary package of 80,000 to become permanent.  It wasn't ministry, but I was so happy and relaxed and empowered there.   When I awoke, I was in the process of discerning this possibility.  

The End. 

Friday Five: FiveFreeGifts

Over at RevGals, Sally writes:  "Following on from Thanksgiving, and picking up the "Black Friday" theme of boycotting the Christmas rush for bargains I thought it would be good to set a simple Friday Five yet one to get you thinking. I am sure that you'll agree that some of the best gifts we receive do not come in fancy wrapping paper but might be the gift of an unexpected afternoon with a friend or coming across a long forgotten photograph, or- well the list is endless...

So take a bit of time to think back over the last year and ponder the gifts it has offered to you, then list five of those gifts, in no particular order- there is only one rule- all of these gifts must have been free, neither you nor anyone else should have spent money on them"

So here is my play.  If I could figure out how to place photos in my post which seems to be impossible, this would be so much more interesting.   

1.  Watching the sunset from my lanai on the Big Island of Hawaii for 6 nights in a row. 

2.  Swimming with wild dolphins on the Big Island

3.  The momma and litter of kittens we fostered this fall.  They were so much work, and yet so much fun. 

4.  Deepening friendships that will last a lifetime (you all know who you are!)

5.  Middle-aging which has offered me the ability to to settle into my bones and self in a gentler, more loving way.