Against the Wind

H
ome repair issues have me thinking again about whether I really want to be living in my home much longer. Lots of moving and shaking around here. The doctor and the boys are leaving town, and I’ll be for the first time since before I was married some 40 years ago living in a town with no direct relative. That’s an odd thought. But I’ll fix the plumbing under the sink or pay to have it done. And be glad for the girls who live in New Orleans. Close enough. I still can’t imagine that the days of having boys pop in before and/or after school are over. But it is over.

A year ago, during the final four in New Orleans, my cousin Sara came down, and we had a lovely picnic in the park between all the game festivities. Tania’s babies were a year younger. Hard to see me slipping, slipping into the future. But there it is. Tartleys are a busy as it is possible to get. So I’ll spend some time next week with the little girls I think… same time as Tara will be in NC house hunting. Circle of life.

So, Miranda and some City Park Ducks.

The Artist’s Way impressed me with the idea that as your art grows, you will notice that you get truly out of sorts if your time is cut into severely. Let’s be right up front here; I’m out of sorts.

It’s spring time and titillation is in the air. I had an x rated dream last night or the night before. Rather surprising, but I just fell right back to sleep after waking up to some scenes I’d never witnessed with my physical eyes! So I was blogging about, and ran into a reference to Plato’s Phaedrus, a dialog “about whether tis better for a pedophile to love” his boy, or keep it simpler. Now widipedia says it’s about rhetoric. There’s a significant disparity there. Who would you put your money on?

Written several days back…. it’s a picture sort of day. Carolyn and I did our walking out on the boardwalk through the swamp this fine morning.

Gail, as to what’s up… you asked. Church is taking ever increasing bites of the time that the family and bridge don’t get. There’s been some miraculous changes there. But we’re not out of the woods yet. The Spirit moves among us. We’ve still got issues to deal with.

Not since the twin towers fell, have we all been watching to see what the narrative will become about the New Boston Massacre.  I cannot watch the wall to wall coverage because I’m at my daughters, and if I watch, my dog will likely jump on her new sofa… a no no.  So I follow social media, and try to make sense of it.  Wretch at Belmont Club writes about the meta story.  He concludes

Publicity is expensive. It’s only instances like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombing that demonstrate how expensive it can be.

So if the story goes somewhere unexpected there will at least be some poetic justice in that. If social media succeeds in recasting the narrative in ways its authors never envisioned; if the emerging story turns out to produce the opposite effect of what the propagandists of the deed intended, if the truth emerges then maybe yes, the victims will not have suffered in vain.

It’s called waiting. That was the name I used for the photo file, December of 2010.

The photo was taken as the sun set one Sunday evening waiting for the youth who sometimes showed up. We’ve done a lot of waiting. We waited until we were forced to the wall to do something about the obvious stuck in decline condition of our congregation. So, the call that was placed in the bulletin Easter Sunday (because I forgot to get them into the Week End reminders or any other more appropriate place)

It’s Beginning.

Talking about a New Beginning.

Pray in support of our congregation.

Let’s join together Wed, April 3 6:00 pm. Gumbo and fellowship.
Discussions begin after, approx. 6:30

We will discuss characteristics of vital congregations, and what our congregation best at, most passionate about, and how to deploy our resources. This will serve as an overview of the road ahead. After the discussion, the assessor’s report will be distributed, with more specific information which will guide our discussions as we go forward.

This morning the first/organizational house meeting has happened. It’s over, and I’m just glad to be started. Several who expressed interest couldn’t come, some who came had to leave before we finished, but I left with hope, with optimism intact. The dirt has not been shoveled over us yet. We have not fought our last battle in this place. RD has found a new passion. GP made wonderful deserts and then her back went out. The tables and chairs were not configured optimally. And so on and so forth. But, we have new leads on interim leadership. We have several members who have joined in to fight the fight against enthalpy, the wheel of fortune rolls downward, but last night it looked like we’ve grabbed onto the side that rolls up, where the Spirit of God moves in the world, overcoming, reigniting. Thanks be to God. His breath moves among us.
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Sun is up, the boys didn’t stop here before school. Tara is home, probably slept in her own bed. Must call her before she falls back in…. The new day has dawned. Bless us all!

Cameron is seven going on eight now. He’s our miracle baby. On miracle that is Cameron is his infectious enthusiasm. Today, I may need some of that.

* Did you know that enthusiasm’s etymology is, “from Greek enthousiasmos “divine inspiration,” from enthousiazein “be inspired or possessed by a god, be rapt, be in ecstasy.” That’s Cam! But Quentin needs his video games. I’m going to miss the daily contact with these boys so badly.

I’m up early, and figured I’d blog a bit rather than write in my notebook. The moon was shining full into my west facing bedroom window, so I enjoyed the moon shine til I decided I could take a nap this afternoon if I wasn’t going to sleep well this morning.

TO DO List

1. Make or buy a brisket or ham to take over to Mike & Artie’s. Beth died Monday night, funeral is tomorrow. I am getting too old, and must have too many friends. They’re dying off. Oddly, today, I’m chipper and ready to face the day.

2. Get the first of the nine scrub caps completed. The rest of them will go factory style… like my aunties sew. Serendipity! I was walking with Carolyn Monday, and interrupted her line of thought with, “I need to go buy a serger.” “Do you want to use mine?” She has an old Baby Lock (HEAVY…built for eternity) that LB passed on to her when LB bought a new one. So now I have a loaner and if I like it I may yet buy another. I threw the last one out because I never used it.

3. Walk with Carolyn. Thank God for walking buddies. Makes it so much harder to say, “Oh well, I’ll walk another time.” Carolyn gets up and walks when she hasn’t slept well, when all her joints are whining, and she stays cheerful.

I guess last is to try to remember Beth’s cheerful ways, and know that she is in the hands of Our Savior. When someone I care for very much dies, I always wonder what’s on the other side. Faith assures us that it’s more than falling into the earthly pit.

Tomberg, a Christian esotericist is quite sure that similar to the Hindu belief, there is reincarnation. Contrary to Hindu belief, we don’t reincarnate in non human form. That might be some sort of a mechanism to work out our destiny if we don’t get it right. And frankly, how many people do you know that have “gotten it right?” I know a few who seem absolutely true to “who God intends them to be.” But most of us muddle along. So maybe we do get another shot. If my nephew hadn’t been born before my Father died, I’d swear he was the reincarnation of Daddy. And if Miranda isn’t Mother returned, she is VERY much like her. Mother and Tania always had a special bond, so it’d be appropriate. More likely, we’re born among strangers in a different time and place, and have to refigure it all out.

The most convincing evidence I’ve seen for such a view is the incredible way my newborn Tara looked around when after she was born, they lowered the lights in the delivery room. She was very alert, and calm, taking in the surroundings, seeming to say, “ok, now what?” There’s a special wisdom in a newborn. It is as if they have to do a lot of forgetting as they are relearning to use their body, a new weak one.

Oddly, as I age, I fear death much much less. I fear dependency much more. Growing in faith makes some very real changes in our heads, and mostly our hearts.

Now, let’s go make a wonderful day!

O
ur faith is to be lived out in a community of faith. But I must say, hanging out in the garden on Sunday would be a lot easier!

I’ve spent some time in front of the pews this last month. The least effective was when I was trying to reference something that happened during Paul’s ministry. This was in reference to our process of New Beginnings, which is going to split us wide open again, or maybe I have too little faith in the congregants.

I had way too little faith in the Session when I wanted to get them to take up the New Beginnings process. I actually took a motion to session that we not spend the $600 (which we needed for other things) and continue praying for a miracle. I wrote up the background to the motion in such a way it must surely have been obvious that my heart was in the opposite. Still it does seem a bit disingenuous to propose not responding positively to the opportunity in the hopes that someone in the session would push back. They did, and we have moved to the present point in the history of FPC.

As we move into the small group discussions, trying to discern God’s will for our church, I was to announce that the first meeting would be Tuesday a week, and you’d better come! But I wanted to say something else. God’s truth is with us, he will not be mocked. And if we insist on our own will, we inevitably will have to shut the doors on our congregation.

Back now to the biblical story. Acts 16

Paul’s Vision of the Man of Macedonia

6 Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Paul, Silas and Timothy were trying to return to the churches in Asia, but their dreams and the Spirit prevented them. What resulted from the turn toward the West? The mission into Macedonia brought the church into the Greek philosophical traditions, and the cross fertilization of these two strains, the Hellenistic and the Hebrew gave rise to a church with an underlying philosophical tradition that has endured even unto the present. Benedict wrote of the philosophical foundations of the church and how they must be preserved.

What I was trying to say to the congregation was that we can work with God’s will, or we can resist and do those things that fit our own agendas. The second path is destined to at best short term success. We need to do the hard work of praying and listening to the voices in our dream lives. We need to seek the movement of the Spirit. For if God is with us who can be against us. But if we insist on our own paths, we lose the Wind at our back.

Today my moment in front of the congregation was altogether different. The grand boys came to church, and we passed out palm branches, percussion instruments and got the entire congregation out of their seats and into parade mode. I couldn’t help myself. I had to use the “Frozen Chosen” canard about Presbyterians. They didn’t look a bit like the frozen chosen. They had fun marching around the seats. Anyway, in a couple of weeks, we will see what the small group discussions look like.
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I promised to show what the strange designs were on the plaza in Downtown Memphis.

The designs were constructed from road signs. Today, everything has melancholy echos. I’m praying for a miracle for Beth. She was in Memphis, and enjoyed that tournament so much. Now she fights for her life as her marrow has pretty much quit resupplying her with blood cells. When I left New Orleans, she was having no pain, but could do nothing, barely conscious. Pray please. Visualize the area within her bones and pray Christ’s healing touch works in there and she can heal.

B
ig plans today, and I got a few things done. The end of the month is coming so I was getting into a tizzy to get tha back made and the quilting begun on my scrappy blue quilt top. Today I finished the center of the back between and among other activities. One activity was picking up a quilted piece from Sew This! where Mona will do the long arm quilting for me for a price. The last round robin has come back home, now needing only binding. THAT will be March’s finished quilt.

Here is the center that I finished for the back of what will now be April’s project.

In the spirit of having a bit of a political blog, I’ll send along Michael Ramirez’s daily cartoon.

I’m finally figuring out why so much of MOTT is difficult to read. The issues and a lot of the language are straight out of philosophy. The card, The Hermit contains a long discussion of philosophical antitheses (Nominalism <–> Realism, for example) and the synthesis through the methods of Hermeticism. I think if I kept reading the book on Gnosis, Hermes Trismegistus would show up… and the site I found on Gnosis suggests that this is no historical character, but the Greek god, Hermes. MOTT treats Hermes Trismegistus as a thinker and writer of the early Christian era.

The arcana of the Hermit points to the virtue of prudence.

He walks alone with his stick and lamp, faithful to truth. I find him very attractive.

T
his is likely the last little Mulligan. She’s no longer treating me like massive stranger danger, but the girl is pensive. I just love the way she thinks things over, and if you listen to the cadences of her babble, what she means to say is discernable. She said her sister’s name, Miranda, and she said Grandma. But it was very much like Quentin’s “Ti Ti Ya!” which had the inflection and cadence that his mother spotted it immediately for “To Infinity and Beyond!” from Toy Story.

The longest two days of child care ever! I’ve arrived home at last. Tired. I don’t know how their parents do it. Fortunately, Carlo was amazingly willing to help… more like doing the child care some, so I’m still staggering. The kids are cute beyond belief, but 3 and 1 for a two day stretch are quite a handful for aged grandparents. I hope to hear soon that the shoot was successful.

Processing emotions takes me a long while. So busy days leave me numb.

This morning I rise the the sure knowledge of #3 daughter’s new residency/internship. Yesterday was match day with the incredible tension (and noise) of the whole deal! Tara, her family, in laws and sisters all gathered to find out where she was going to do residency. Some tough challenges ahead. The family spent the day celebrating that she got her #1 choice, UNC Chapel Hill. I on the other hand, enjoyed my crawfish and hurried home to finish preparing to head to BR to start a New Beginnings process for our congregation.

Last night they distributed the assessor’’s reoorts, and all six of us retired to our respective spaces to digest and mull.

I received and edited part of the report previously, so I’ve already had my first reaction. At this point we/I can only hope in the action of the Spirit to bring us to an ability to break out of our need to cling to a past that is GONE.

I am reminded of my surprise to find a woman in her car driving and crying the day after Katrina. I was glad there were no fatalities in the area where I was, and wanting to get out and do some of the work of getting trees off of the roads. Crying didn’t occur to me at all. Unfortunately I was little help then either! So I will move forward in faith, and see what this day brings. Time now to pack to get out of this hotel room.

Yesterday was a Session (Bd of ruling elders of the church) meeting. We finally got the newly installed elders on board and we are 6. Looks like we’re going to have a rocky start getting this new bd to be effective and cooperative. Many votes last night were 3-3 motion failed. (no majority.) We have no tie breaker! This year we are to dig in and try to refocus on the ministry and mission of our congregation, but we’re unable to agree on whether to continue meeting in the fellowship hall or go into the Sanctuary again. This totally scares me. How can we focus on Christ’s calling when we are squabbling over minutia? We are strapped financially so the heating and electric to use the sanctuary are huge expenses, so I’m for enjoying the break on utilities by meeting in the fellowship hall. But maybe through the spring, until air conditioning is absolutely required we can meet the the huge and mostly empty sanctuary. Our older congregants want to have the back of the pew ahead of them to help them stand up. Glad we’re not Orthodox. They stand through the worship! We have to streamline the ups and downs so most can manage them!

Last year at this time I was in Memphis for a National Tournament. B and I wanted to play in a nationally rated event, and spread our wings a bit. The changing of diabetes drugs was very ill timed. I got sick as a dog… and I think I was basically poisoned by the most common drug. In our national event, I managed one session on auto pilot, but the second I was dead sick. Couldn’t think at all. Spent the next two days in bed. B has never forgiven me. She’s gotten another partner to go this year. Hope they do better.

Before I got so sick, I’d go out and walk around the hotel a bit. A plaza of a government building just outside our hotel featured these murals on the walls. You know I loved it! What are they made of? I’ll show you tomorrow.