The Second Sunday of Advent, 2018
Good grief, December is half-way over.
The week began with another excellent sermon by our esteemed Deacon. Like the last one, it combined a Gospel passage with an intensely personal experience. Saint Luke's evocation of the Old Testament "Voice crying in the wilderness" fell on the anniversary of the sudden death our deacon's brother. He did not elaborate on how he died, only that it took place while he was in the full bloom of youth. And, that here and now, on this Sunday morning, his heart still ached.
Of course, this is the time of year during which it is easy to feel in the midst of wilderness. I curtail as much traveling as I can and was dismayed to learn later in the week of how much snow had fallen in North Carolina. My father, according to Big Bro', had always warned against impromptu trips Down Home during the winter because one never knew when it might be hit by even the lightest of snows and suffer gridlock. This week, it had been hit by over a foot of snow, something my Cousin Reva had not seen since she left New York, over twenty years ago.
I was on Altar Guild for the weekend and had to ride out a bad patch with Juanita who sort of co-leads things with Marilyn. It all started with what should have been a simple question, "What's this used for?". But, because I hadn't yet learned the proper word for the "this", no one could answer my question until I actually took it from the Credence Table and showed it to Juanita whereupon the question had undergone a slight course correction from "What is this?" to "Why are we using this?"
To me, asking what something is differs only slightly from asking why something is. It's really just two ways of asking the same thing. But, to Juanita asking a "why" question is like questioning the basis for the Universe. Her answer is invariably some version of "Because that's the way it's always been." And, it is said in the tone of an exasperated parent who has spent a little too much time answering such questions from her three year-old.
I get it. I am the son of a woman not too distantly related to Juanita who up until the hours preceding her death, was still fully capable of letting me know that I was asking a stupid question.
So, for that reason and for that reason alone, I stepped back from the brink and demurred taking a "refresher course" from her at the end of a long morning. Nothing she was saying was making any sense and seemed to involve the exchange of notes with numbers on them, a jerry-rigged process she had clearly devised on her own - and, which worked so long as she didn't have to explain it to someone else.
So, I took my fellow guilder's advice and "shut up about all that."
Later, toward the end of Coffee Hour, I was able to regain some of my sunny disposition by purchasing the last remaining quarter of a sumptuous white cake at the ECW bake sale. I was standing in front of one of the tables when I got into a conversation with The Rector, clearly contemplating something her two children might like. I realized I hadn't spoken with her all year.
When she asked my how I was doing, I explained, with a little embarrassment, how much time I was spending fixing up the apartment. To which, she replied, "Well, that makes sense. You're spending more time in it these days." And, I realized how right she was. I was retired. My home had suddenly replaced the nine or ten hours a day I had devoted going and coming from work and whatever all that business was that I did in-between.
"You're nesting!", she said brightly.
The week began with another excellent sermon by our esteemed Deacon. Like the last one, it combined a Gospel passage with an intensely personal experience. Saint Luke's evocation of the Old Testament "Voice crying in the wilderness" fell on the anniversary of the sudden death our deacon's brother. He did not elaborate on how he died, only that it took place while he was in the full bloom of youth. And, that here and now, on this Sunday morning, his heart still ached.
Of course, this is the time of year during which it is easy to feel in the midst of wilderness. I curtail as much traveling as I can and was dismayed to learn later in the week of how much snow had fallen in North Carolina. My father, according to Big Bro', had always warned against impromptu trips Down Home during the winter because one never knew when it might be hit by even the lightest of snows and suffer gridlock. This week, it had been hit by over a foot of snow, something my Cousin Reva had not seen since she left New York, over twenty years ago.
I was on Altar Guild for the weekend and had to ride out a bad patch with Juanita who sort of co-leads things with Marilyn. It all started with what should have been a simple question, "What's this used for?". But, because I hadn't yet learned the proper word for the "this", no one could answer my question until I actually took it from the Credence Table and showed it to Juanita whereupon the question had undergone a slight course correction from "What is this?" to "Why are we using this?"
To me, asking what something is differs only slightly from asking why something is. It's really just two ways of asking the same thing. But, to Juanita asking a "why" question is like questioning the basis for the Universe. Her answer is invariably some version of "Because that's the way it's always been." And, it is said in the tone of an exasperated parent who has spent a little too much time answering such questions from her three year-old.
I get it. I am the son of a woman not too distantly related to Juanita who up until the hours preceding her death, was still fully capable of letting me know that I was asking a stupid question.
So, for that reason and for that reason alone, I stepped back from the brink and demurred taking a "refresher course" from her at the end of a long morning. Nothing she was saying was making any sense and seemed to involve the exchange of notes with numbers on them, a jerry-rigged process she had clearly devised on her own - and, which worked so long as she didn't have to explain it to someone else.
So, I took my fellow guilder's advice and "shut up about all that."
Later, toward the end of Coffee Hour, I was able to regain some of my sunny disposition by purchasing the last remaining quarter of a sumptuous white cake at the ECW bake sale. I was standing in front of one of the tables when I got into a conversation with The Rector, clearly contemplating something her two children might like. I realized I hadn't spoken with her all year.
When she asked my how I was doing, I explained, with a little embarrassment, how much time I was spending fixing up the apartment. To which, she replied, "Well, that makes sense. You're spending more time in it these days." And, I realized how right she was. I was retired. My home had suddenly replaced the nine or ten hours a day I had devoted going and coming from work and whatever all that business was that I did in-between.
"You're nesting!", she said brightly.