A Job and a Half

Life is exhausting these days. Every workday I get up, drive across town to my Census job, put in 8 hours there, race across town to my second job (scoring tests at Pearson), put in 4 hours there, and then I hurry myself home (before I collapse) and unwind for about one hour before going to bed. This schedule has made me so tired that I spent 12 hours in bed on Saturday night.

Don't get me wrong, I like what I'm doing at Pearson. I'm just not as young as I was the last time I worked a string of 12 hour shifts. But scoring tests is fun and I feel like I might be making a difference in a child's education. The pay isn't bad either. It's temporary work. This project is till mid May, so about 4 weeks.

When I originally agreed to take a night shift at Pearson I was told 2 weeks. That changed on the first day of training. For a while I thought about only doing the 2 weeks I'd agreed to, we have that option, but then I heard from HR at the Census job that we may be down sizing the office where I work in a month. So when I told Sandi not to let me talk myself out of the 4 weeks of extra pay, I guess God was listening in. Four weeks working 12 hours sounds pretty good right now. It also means that I'll have possible day projects to fall back on if the Census job lays me off for a bit.

Because all my weekday evenings are filled I've missed 1 choir practice and will miss several more. That bums me out because I like having something social and vocal to do once a week. The choir director just added in several new pieces to our notebooks. I don't know when they are going to be performed and we move through them really quick. Hope I have several weeks to practice on them but probably not.

Sunday I did the bare minimum at church. Usually I go early to see if I'm needed for anything at the early service, have breakfast in the fellowship hall, make choir practice prior to service, and then church and home, after a short stop in to coffee hour. This time I cut the early service out. I've also asked for a sub for this Wednesday night when I'm on the schedule to be Lay Minister at the Healing Eucharist. No can do when income calls. I wish it were the other way around as I get much more from church, but I really think God has put this job in my life for a reason, so maybe it's time to learn a bit of time management.

When my friend, JS, sent me a blank time schedule out of some book she was reading it had something called "sharpening the saw" on it. She explained that was for rest or training. What ever it took to get you back on track and working better than the long hours had dragged you down to. Sunday could have been such a day and to a certain extent it was, but not as much as I wanted it to be. When I entered the sanctuary for choir practice I looked out the back windows. There were two guys walking around the labyrinth towards the gardens. That was when I noticed that they were in full bloom. Suddenly I no longer wanted to be inside. Instead I yearned to be outside getting down close and personal with those flowers. Sigh! I elected to be responsible and stayed inside for choir. Then I went home to call Mom and do the house keeping chores. What a loss! I won't have time to go back there till this weekend. I'm going to have to remember to pack my camera in whatever I use to haul a journal and purse around in because I definitely want to capture those blossoms. Last year I took some pics of the garden at the back of the church. I think it has expanded and someone has planted different flowers this year. If I'm supposed to learn something from all this more than busy time, maybe one of the things I need to learn is how to take those moments when they happen and also keep a fast and furious pace when necessary. That makes me look forward with joy and also the feeling of being challenged. All prayers gratefully accepted.

Peace! Hope! & Joy!

Running Like Mad, then Screeching to a Halt

Most of last week seemed to be spent at church. Preparations were underway for a huge weekend of activities and momentous events. We were gearing up for the ordination of our Assistant Rector and the celebration of our 40th Anniversary as a church. Volunteering for the liturgy planning committee for the 40th Anniversary festivities got me the job of coordinating a fellowship walk to be held on Saturday and a streamers in the garden activity to be done after the celebration service. This was my first time being involved in something like this. It was exciting! It was also stress filled! I gained a lot of awareness of how things work around the church and how much work goes into some things. For all the help I got I'm very thankful!

The idea of streamers came during a planning meeting and it's purpose was to let people share what they found of value and happiness by being a part of our church. They would write a word or phrase on a brightly colored paper ornament and hang it in our prayer garden. Our Sexton, Esther, helped me set up the streamers in the garden activity. We picked out colors of paper, decided on 3 shapes (circle, rectangle, and star), chose decorating materials, and then saw to the printing of some of them. Our Parish Coordinator, Priscilla, got the rest printed. Esther also gathered the ribbons needed for hanging them; our other sexton, Eduardo, hung string between trees so that we had somewhere to hang them (we'd just trimmed the garden trees losing all the lower branches in the process). But the work of assembling them still needed doing. So, on Friday, the wonderful folk of the bulletin folding crew and I, cut out the ornaments, punched holes in them, and attached ribbons. I showed up at the start of bulletin folding and helped with that too. On Sunday the garden was very festive looking with colored paper ornaments fluttering throughout.

Friday afternoon's folding and ornament set up finished at 4:15 PM. Since I am in the choir I needed to be back at 6:00 PM, so I raced home, cleaned up, dressed in celebratory fashion, and headed back to church. The service was at 7:00. We robed for this event and looked pretty good in our red and gold. Extra choir members from other churches who wanted to share in honoring Matt arrived. With the extra voices we sounded better than ever. We sang a huge Handel number, Zadock the Priest, which had lots of vocal challenges to it.

The whole service was so exciting our attention hung on every moment. Matt's best friend from college gave the sermon and it was wonderful. He kidded Matt, and made good points about being a good priest in the process. The point of the sermon was that Matt was called to extra ordinary measures in his service. The camaraderie exhibited by them gave the whole service a warm friendly feel. The attendees got to step out of the normal role of congregation as we were invited forward to join with the priests as they placed their hands on Matt while the Bishop was ordaining and blessing him. When the service was ending Matt's first official function was to say the blessing. Then we went to Brown Hall for a really great reception. When I got home about 10:00 I had no problem falling asleep even though I was keyed up from all the excitement.

Saturday morning I was scheduled to celebrate Morning Prayer, so I got to the church about 6:45 AM. This is a wonderful way to start your day! You get scheduled time alone with God in the place where you worship him and do things that really focus you on Him. I'm thinking I'd like to do that more often.

After Daily Office was finished, I went home and made my sack lunch for the 10:30 events. A Fellowship Walk, picnic lunch, and Remembrance Altar build that had been Paschal's ideas were the events for the day. Those of us who showed up had a good time walking to St. Mary's Hall, which was where we held services before we had any structures on the 5 acres we bought to build our sanctuary on. Janet came along and told us all she could remember of the early days. Our church was started back in the 60's, a decade filled with turbulence, but our founding members had a vision of the future that included everyone that wanted a church home. So we deemed ourselves "reconcilers to the world" and became the Episcopal Church of Reconciliation.

Here we are on the Fellowship Walk, strolling down Starcrest. The day was nice and the company was the best!

This is the sign at the back gate of St. Mary's Hall's campus. We'd hoped to go inside and look around, but that would have needed more planning and coordination than we did.

When we got back we started right in on the altar build. That was a lot of fun, and we now have a lovely arrangement of memories on tables in our South Narthex. There are pictures of past priests and members, things from the children's classrooms, and too many symbols to list. I've only been at the church for 6 years and the only thing personal I'd thought to put on the altar was my Book of Common Prayer which I'd received when I was received into the church in 2003. I didn't because when I looked there were already two very appropriately historical versions already on it. Thinking about what I love about this place I realized that most of all I value the fellowship I've found there, so I went to the kitchen and borrowed a coffee cup and spoon to add to the altar.

Here's the Remembrance Altar in all it's glory. The painting on the side was done by Gordon West, a long time member of our church, for our first rector. The one behind the alter is the work of Tina Karagulian, wife to Paschal.

We ate our picnic lunches in the church library and enjoyed getting acquainted with Tina's family, playing a game with Paschal and Tina's son, and hearing more stories about the church and our newest priest. Both before and after these events I noticed lots of activity in Brown Hall. The dinner/reception committee and many volunteers were setting the tables and making the hall ready for Sunday's dinner. It was absolutely amazing! I headed home mid afternoon, and relaxed as much as I could, knowing that I needed to be back at church early for the choir practice and any additional setup needed for the streamers activity.

Here's what all the activity in Brown Hall created for us, a lovely dining room complete with banners hanging above us, to show off the trappings of our sanctuary through the seasons. We were set to handle 250 people.

This closeup of the place settings may give you an idea of the lengths gone to for this service and dinner. Those table runners were made at the church by a member who brought in her sewing machine for the day. By the time we sat down to eat, pine cones had been added, fresh rosemary stems for fragrance and remembrance, and the candles were all lit.

When I walked into the church on Sunday morning I noticed our rector, Robert, sitting on a bench in his street clothes, reading over the service for the day. It sounded like he was rehearsing. That seemed comforting somehow, and I found myself enjoying the idea that he practices like that before every service. I beat the choir director to church, heck, I beat most people in getting there. I had time to look around, find a cup of coffee, and get a hug or two from friends. Hugs seem to help me relax. You put your arms around someone warm and comforting, squeeze them together thus tightening the muscles, and when you let go, your muscles relax further than they had been pre-hug. I grabbed as many as I could.

The service went off beautifully! One of our members, James, had made a multimedia presentation that was awesome! In it, while playing old songs from the 60's, the times were remembered, the mission of our church, and it's history as it has grown. At one point the choir sang, "I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry". The visuals finished with pictures of all the priests who'd been our rectors and the young priests they had helped get through seminary and become full priests at our church. One of our concerns when setting up the service was that we wanted the children to be involved. So Robert held a children's sermon. He got them to think about our beginnings as a church and how the founders were thinking of their future. He finished it by asking them to hug the founders in thanks and then stand beside them as he blessed them all. The sermon was by Sam Todd who was our second rector. In it he tied our first service celebrated on our new campus with the Christmas season (it had been on Dec. 24th, 1968) and our name, Reconciliation, with the advent of Christ and how he came into the world to reconcile us to God.

When the service was finished we all processed into the garden and remembered those of our members who had passed on but been remembered for their help in building up our community. Then we did the ornament activity and went in to eat a very nicely catered lunch. The whole meal was set before us by members who had volunteered to act as servers. We had 250 people in attendance and it was a three course meal so this was a lot of love being given out. While we were enjoying the wonderful food, Robert was up on the stage honoring those who helped accomplish all of this. He received a surprise or two himself, as the community had put together some things on its own. One of our members had gotten the artists among us to put together an album, to be added to through the years, of some of their works. There were some beautiful examples of art in it, including a full page of calligraphy complete with illumination. Our body had also commissioned a new hanging for the church in Robert's honor to be hung behind the altar. There was much symbolism in it. It was a cloth replication of a work of art by an artist he greatly admires. The painting it was based on is called "Finger 2". It's green, navy, and purple swirls looked like finger prints. The symbolism in the finger print is that through action and ministry we've all left our mark. Robert has certainly left his mark on our church and we are so blessed to have him as our rector. He's taking a 6 month sabbatical this year, but will come back refreshed and ready to take up the reins again and help us grow even more. And during his absence, our newest priest will be taking the reins in his very creative and capable hands.

After dinner was eaten, everyone who noticed how hard all the servers had worked stuck around and helped clean up. We cleared tables, stacked chairs, gathered in table cloths, and sorted out ornaments that had been used. When I got home just after 2:00 PM I felt a sense of contentment, but also the fading of the high energy that had been needed for the week. When I'd dropped everything and plopped into my chair, I called Mom and gave her a fairly full report. It's amazing that all of that only took 15 minutes to tell. That evening I talked to JSD and retold her as much as I could remember. Guess I needed the retelling to finish winding down.

Now the feeling of controlled chaos is over. The next week is started. The tension is not quite out of my shoulders, but I'm no longer running back and forth to church and calling or emailing people. After all of the activity high, it is sort of a letdown and I look forward to the next spurt, probably in preparation for the Christmas eve services. The picture at the beginning of this post is of the Fellowship walkers being goofy with our new church sign. Guess no one will ever call us serious now.

A Really Beautiful Service

Sunday, November 30th, was the traditional day for the start of the Advent Season and is honored at my church by holding a Lessons & Carols service. Even though there was no communion, it was a fairly complicated service with 7 different readings, 14 hymns and anthems, a flutist for some of them, and full recordings both video and sound. All in all things went really well.

The choir had been preparing for this service for weeks. Some of the pieces were pretty challenging, including 2 in different languages and one in old English. On Sunday morning we were handed copies of all the hymnal pieces to add into our notebooks.

We have a new choir director, Cindy, who did a really good job getting us ready for this. In addition to lots of practice on the more difficult sections of each anthem, she made practice CD's for the altos and basses so that we could make sure our parts were learned. I'm sure that hadn't been her original plan as many of our members are very experienced and some are professionally trained musicians. But I was new, nervous, and holding back when we'd come to a part in a number I didn't feel confident of. So she planned on making one for me. I mentioned my gratitude for her generosity to some of the other members thinking that they would agree and never expecting them to feel they needed one too. Oops! So I made copies of mine and Cindy made another set for the basses. Man, that really helped. I'd play it at home and sometimes find myself waking up with a melody in my head.

The choir wore robes for the first time in my experience. Ours are red with a white/gold stole. The robes had been borrowed by another church and not returned promptly so we had to get them back. Then, because there were several new members, we had to do a trying on and organizing so that each person had their own robe and knew where to find it. It all worked out well and the one really short, almost car coat length, robe turned out to be for our member who is on a scooter the entire service. Being physically challenged is no deterrent to joining our choir.

Saturday I was sitting at my computer practicing with the CD and up popped a slider from Facebook telling me that our Assistant Rector was headed to Lessons & Carols practice. "What practice," I cried? Then being unable to reach anyone in the know I got in my car and raced over to the church to be sure I wasn't missing an important session. Turns out it was for the readers. One of our Adult Education classes these past few months has been "Drama of the Word" taught by our Assistant Rector, Matt, and a new member, Sam Gilliam, who teaches drama at Trinity University. She is the second drama teacher we have now, the other one being Stacey Connelly. Looks like Reconciliation will have a lot of drama in its future. This really excites me because I studied drama in college and love getting involved in things like that.

When I got to the church it was obvious I wasn't needed for the rehearsal, but Altar Guild was also there setting things up. Since I am on that I decided to help. All things work to the good for those who love the Lord! We changed fair linens, put up the altar hangings, changed out candles, and replaced the wicks in the lighters. We even found where the steamer was so that we could get the folds out of the hangings. They'd been in the closet too long.

When Sunday morning came around we hurried to get our robes on, our music organized, and practiced getting up on the stage once. Suddenly it was time and we were in the middle of the performance. I wish you could have been there to see and hear what I was hearing from my chair in front of the altar. The readers were behind us taking different voices during the readings. The acoustics are awesome under the rotunda so the choir was clearly heard and I could hear and match my voice to my choir director's, she sings alto too. One of the readings had this echo affect where every one of the readers echoed each other in gathering succession with a phrase. It sounded like the angels in heaven crying out, praising God over and over again.

Robert told the congregation what "amen" meant and that he knew they wanted to say one, so the entire church said, "amen" and applauded the choir and readers. That was so nice and something I like about my church, they give you a lot of support and appreciation when you are involved in things.

After it was all over and I was headed down the hall, I overheard our choir director telling another member that she, "didn't know any local choirs, not even professional ones, that could do what we had just done." That made me laugh, because she had been telling us over and over again that this was all, "pretty basic stuff." Now that's a good choir director! After hearing that my confidence is up and I'm really looking forward to the 3 big services we have coming up: 1) Matt's Ordination, 2) our 40th Anniversary service, and 3) the Christmas one.

Post Script: I was hoping to start this post with a nice video of one of the songs we sang for Lessons & Carols. But the one I wanted to post had the greatest voices but a heart rending image of Christ carrying his cross. The painting is probably famous, but I just could not bring myself to post that image on this joyous season. So, with that warning, here are links to 7 of the songs we sang yesterday. None of these videos are of us. If I get access to one I'll try to fix that and post it instead. Until then I hope you enjoy these. And if you want to avoid the video with the Christ carrying his cross image during a season when we are celebrating his birth I totally understand. It's the second one. But the group that sings that one is Vocal Point of BYU and worth hearing. Your choice.

Hanacpachap cussicuinin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w08NPa1Om0&feature=related

E'en So Lord Jesus Quickly Come
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4rZEWlB4hQ

Every Valley (Not Handel's Messiah but same words)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_qzVb8LsAM

Prepare Thyself, Zion by JS Bach
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNZVe16N28I

One Perfect Flower (this is just a clip of the solo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVo3ClM6UFE

Maria Walks Amid the Thorn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZS0h7DZT5M

Ave Maria by Franz Biebl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVBsNUXg_YM

Busy Doings at Church

Thursday of this week my verger training materials arrived. These consisted of a nice notebook with eight sections and a booklet depicting verger robes and virges. I'll probably have to get a robe at some point or the church will order one for me. The Verger Guild of the Episcopal Church (VGEC) provides you with a virge when you pass the test and are officially ready to be a verger. A virge is a staff with a finial on it. According to history it was sometimes used for battle but that was the business end of it. The pomp & circumstance end has a decorative and symbolic ornamentation that leads the way for the procession of the church on some of the more formal occasions. One uses it ceremonially to symbolically "clear the way." Are you wondering if you've ever seen a verger in action? Well, if you watched President Ford's funeral you saw one leading preachers and speakers to the podium.

While my church formally uses our verger in the processions at Easter and Advent he is usually active in the background at every service. I suspect that there are some churches where the verger takes part in every procession. I'm not sure but I think it might have to do with how "high church" your services are. Ours aren't that high, but they are getting more so. We just added in torch bearers to the entrance procession. The first two were very young and SO excited to be involved in a responsible activity. They did just beautifully despite their near wavering with excitement.

Anyway, back to the training materials. The moment I opened them I fired off a letter to Ted, our verger, and Robert, our rector, to let them know they'd arrived and asking when the first training session would be held. Then I sat down and read through the first 3 sections. Flipping through it in preparation for writing this post, I noticed there were some questions at certain points which no doubt require an answer. Between now and the first training I'll probably google for the answers, or go over and sit in the church library for a bit.

There is a reading list for training which we can read or read only sections. Robert and Ted had gotten together and have purchased a copy of the ones Ted said were the most used/useful. Robert emailed us all later that evening and those books are now in the church library. We'll have to take turns with them. Did I tell you that we are training four vergers? That seems a huge leap from one. Robert says there are all kinds of uses they envision for us. I hope so. I can already think of at least one service I want to be actively involved in next year.

As if that wasn't busy making enough, the choir, which I joined recently, is gearing up for several big services. There's our Lessons & Carols, All Saint's Day, the Ordination of our associate pastor, our 40th Anniversary celebration, and Advent. We've added in quite a few songs to our music notebooks recently including the glorious River Song from "O' Brother, Where Art Thou?" This past Wednesday we added in some numbers sung to us earlier this year by SAVAE at the concert they gave in our sanctuary. Those two songs are not in my native tongue so I'm really glad Cindy, our choir director, is starting us on them early. Now if only I had the lyrics printed out so that I could sing along with the songs on the CD I have of them. I couldn't find clips of the ones we are singing, but have a listen to SAVAE on the YouTube video below. They're singing Asi Andando.



We're also starting to hold planning meetings for our 40th Anniversary to be celebrated the week following Matt's ordination. December is going to be a busy month! The conundrum for me is the first planning meeting is being held during choir practice. I want to attend both and sadly am not endowed with the self replicating talents of Triplicate Girl. So I need to decide which is more important, practice with the choir and get socialization at the same time, or attend the meeting and be in on the planning from the start.