iphone syndrome

I have joined the new decade--just a little late, I know, but hey--I've been busy and I work for a non-profit. It's just the way it goes!

But as I learn how to check my three email accounts, and facebook, and pandora and the super cool weather app-- I have realized what's been happening in the volunteer support portion of my job.

iphone syndrome.

People say to me: "I didn't see that email". "We've got a meeting tonight?" "You tried to reach me?" "You're not going to be there?" "When?" "Where?" "How?"

I thought I was absolutely losing my mind. Really? How did I get so extremely flaky? But then I realized that half the people I thought I'd communicated with, knew about the meeting or the plan or whatever.

Then I got my iphone and the rest became clear. If you read a message in the parking lot between the grocery store and the car--you may not remember either the details or the whole message, you probably won't reply, and you certainly aren't going to take time to put it on your calendar.

But there's more than just iphone syndrome. People are not checking email--opting for texting and facebook instead. They're probably active on twitter, but that's on my list for July, so I'm not even aware of what I'm missing there. And when they see "church" come up on their caller id, they let my calls go to voice mail--I know that's true!

It's good to know I've not lost my mind. And it's good to know that some of the lovely volunteers and parents and teens I communicate with aren't just dismissing me out of hand. I think I just need to adjust the way I manage communications. I need a twitter feed that posts to a facebook page that you can sign up to receive text messages from. And I need to learn to communicate in 10 word bursts. "like" the status and I'll consider it a done deal.

Or I'll just build a bonfire and learn to send smoke signals. Or semaphore. Or drumming. Or maybe I'll just pare down the schedule a little, post the information on a bulletin board and call it "retro" scheduling! Ha.

So all that said, when I blow off your cute facebook post on my wall, hit me back--I probably just read it on my iphone while buying huge vats of hummus at Costco. Ha!

Almost summer. Almost summer. Almost summer.

Austerity, oh yeah!

I went grocery shopping this morning like I always do on Monday mornings. That's the really good thing about working on Sundays, my weekend is everyone else's "Back to work" day.

I really needed to go grocery shopping. There had been no bread in the house for about three days, the milk was probably OK but it was a little past it's expiration date. We had no fruit. There were still carrots but you would absolutely have to peel them before eating to get all the hairy bits off. We could have made few more meals out of the lentils and onions in the cupboard, but no one wanted to eat like that any more.

Nope, we didn't lose a job. We didn't have a tragedy.

We had....AUSTERITY WEEK!

Our family is pretty good at shutting down the spending when we need to. We can all wait to get hair cuts or new shoes or fancy shampoo. The living room carpeting is more than thread bare and we love our 10 year-old-couch.

But this was a mission. I was ready to clean-out and clean-up and to live on what we had in our house. No money. No shopping. No buying. Time to make due and make it work.

It was like going to a nudist colony! Freedom! Well, if I had ever been to a nudist colony and if I thought that being nude was a freeing thing. I don't. I'm from Minnesota. There is nothing freeing about being nude. No. Who would even think that anyway? But living on what we had in our house was extremely liberating!

Wheee!

We ate the food that was already in our house. We baked muffins and rolled out creative pie crusts. We made a quiche with chives from the garden and fake sausage and buttery pie crusts. There were some strange lunches. And some kids standing in front of the fridge, well...pondering. But we made it through. We had to buy bird food and dog food of all weird necessities. And there was one point when we had to decide between sanity and coffee. Coffee won.

But for all the weird meals and interesting combinations of food, I'm really glad we did this. Our fridge is clean, our cupboards lean. And with the money that we would have spent on groceries for just one week, we bought a share in the garden-farm of a friend of a friend....a CSA. We've got a share, we're part of the food chain! It's amazing.

And now we have the prettiest eggs, ever!

Thanks to our good friends who connected the dots and helped us have beautiful eggs! I can't wait to see what comes in our big bag next week!

A family that camps together doesn't get eaten by cougars....

We had a wonderful weekend. The weather was gorgeous.

The whole family was in town, and we got to spend a weekend with our good friends who were kind enough to have four daughters to match our three sons.

We burned a lot of things, some of it even food.

There were many boats, and many children in many boats. Many boats tipped, I am sure no one had any role in any of these swampings and that it was all just the wind. Oh yeah, the wind.

We hiked and climbed and had adventures in the water. Some of them began with "I'm sure we can get across the river over here...."

The Olympic Mountains are amazing.

The water, too.

The little dog got to go on her first camping trip.

And we think we brought enough stuff for two days, maybe. I guess we did.

And little dogs, supervise them closely too. And have them supervise the small children, too. Buddy system. And park rangers with big guns, that too.

I have no idea what this means, but we brought no stock, and no overstocks, either.

What a great weekend. I want to go back, right now. Who's with me? We can race. Ready, set......GO!

These moments

A part of my plan to find the spaces for breathing in life is to plan fun. Fun fun fun. Like "you children, we're gonna go to the beach and we're going to have fun, darn it!"

We had planned to load up our kayaks and head to the local lake with sandwiches and chips this afternoon. But then I saw this picture in my favorite city blog. Octopus, on the beach! Tide so low, all the little critters are out to visit! So that, added to the holes in our kayaks that are supposed to be there to allow drainage, but also would let in cold May lake water, did it. We decided to head to the sound. But we had to hurry, it was almost low tide.

Puget Sound has great tides, they go way up and way down, the further into the sound you get the more extreme they are. So we decided to head south a bit to one of our favorite spots. We called some friends to see if they wanted to make a last minute run to the beach, grabbed every bag of half eaten pretzels and left over matzos and one loaf of bread with one jar of peanut butter and headed out.

I'm so glad we did. We saw sea stars,

and little crabs,

and big crabs

and our little Miss Noodles got to explore. Man, did she need a bath. Stiiiiiiinky!

"Noodles! Don't eat the sea star!"

It was a beautiful day, with great friends, a sweet little dog and even though not everyone expected it to be........it was--fun.

Just breathe.

Twice Twenty-One

I was in the fast line at the grocery store yesterday. My basket had three kinds of acne medication (I really do live with teenagers) and a bottle of wine. The cashier scanned the bottle of wine and looked up at me. He and I had been chatting, rain, mid week. bla bla bla. But he had to look to see if I was old enough to buy the wine. Now I don't really get carded any longer, and when I do it's usually a function of 'have to' or really young people who have no idea what the difference is between 30 and 40 an 50.

"Hey!" I said, "You had to look at me to see if I was old enough to buy wine!"

"Yep."

"I'm 42, that's two times old enough! You made my day, you totally made my day."

He shrugged, handed me my reciept and said "you look good."

Poor deluded man. But, I'm still smiling.

Earth Day.....what, today?

Oh it's been so busy in our life here lately. I totally forgot that today was actually Earth Day. I mean, yes, we had the whole Earth Day service at church on Sunday and all. And yes, I read the blogs and facebook this morning, and Earth Day was all over the media, too. But wait, surprise, it's actually today!

Oh well. I meant to have a vegan day in the house, but I ate an egg for breakfast and one of the boys had cheese. And I sent a spaghetti bake for lunch for the younger two, with sausage. I don't eat meat, and this "clean week" that I've been having with food doesn't include a lot of cheese, but eggs are one of my "stick to your ribs" sources of protien. Tofu and all the meatz-like-substitutes are actually kind of processed, so eggs fit well in a clean week.

In fact I guess "clean week" fits well with Earth day. But still, I was hoping to help my kids know that you can eat without meat--and be fine.....but on my calendar, right under where it says "Earth Day" the menu says "tacos". I already defrosted the ground beef. So, maybe next time. Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe on this one, we can say--got it covered. Check. Good enough. We are continually downsizing our meat intake as a family, all of us, not just the vegetarians.

Now that's an idea. Say "OK, good enough, we've got this one covered."

Shocking.

Something I may be doing just right. Or right enough. Or enough.

Happy Earth Day!

and thanks to Katy for this lovely visual companion of Blue Boat Home

Busy Week

Oh what a busy week we had. So busy. Very busy. Really busy.

Busy.

There was the board meeting. Working for a dear, just barely mid-sized church with no building and big hits to our members in the financial scene made for a long, deeply moving but very stressful board meeting. I tried to stay focused on my little role in the church by filling 100 plastic eggs for the egg hunt on Sunday.

And there was the RE Council meeting, with half of us missing, but still a lovely meeting of the minds and hearts. Lots of good work, but also lots of sharing and friendship and even a nice big plate of sushi that someone's kids woudn't eat for dinner. Yum.

And there is the Earth Day service coming-up--all ages, all kids, parts to learn, parts to assign. Music to cover, readings, leaders. Truffula trees to create!

Now if you've looked at the calendar or the Target ads you know---it's EASTER on Sunday. More busy. Eggs, lots of eggs, eggs dyed with natural dye and little brown half egg-shells that will be planted with grass seeds. And those hundreds of plastic eggs filled with little trinkets and marbles. And 5 dozen eggs to hard boil so the kids can dye eggs in our little community while they eat soup and bread and chat. And a story for all ages with one little girl and one Goddess Oestara and dear sweet girls who are happy to act out the parts.

Oh and don't forget all of the curriculum prep for all of Spring. And yes, it's only 5 weeks worth of classes for 3 age groups, but it took so many, many, many hours to get it ready to be easy to implement. There will be dry ice and worms and aloe vera plants. And each teacher will have a tidy little notebook all ready to go with each Sunday carefully mapped out so they don't have to worry about what they're going to do with the kids, they can just relax and enjoy teaching.

I am deeply thankful for the Associate DRE I work with. She is am amazing woman. I love spending time with her, and working together. She works so hard and gives advice and knows what the boys will like and offers perspective when I want to throw in the towel. I don't think I would be looking at another year if she hadn't stepped in to work these wacky hours in this wacky job. Thank God she did! I love my work, and I just might have lost it.

I'm tired. Weary even. But it's a good tired, like you feel when you've run a long way and you're finally at the end of the path. For Religious Educators Fridays are not really the end of the week, in fact one of the little pitfalls is that there isn't really an end of the week. But it feels so good to have come to the end of this week. I'm still standing. Still smiling.

Must be that all is well.

Slicing Potatoes

It helps,
putting my hands on a pot, on a broom,
in a wash pail.

I tried painting,
but it was easier to fly slicing
potatoes.

Rabia of Basra

The years march by

Sophia Lyon Fahs writes in the introduction to her book "From Long Ago and Many Lands" "...the marching line of yesterdays reaches back and back into centuries and millenniums."

So, we add another yesterday to the line.

And we add another year to the yesterdays.

What did we learn from the year? What can we take forward to the tomorrows?

1. Families are so pulled by the demands of busy family life, church almost never makes top priority.

This isn't a bad thing, but it is a good thing to learn as a Religious Educator. For years I felt that if I could just help families understand how important it is to the life long development of their child to just simply show-up at church most weeks, that they would show-up. But for our families, church feels like an elective in the demanding line up of required family activities. I know what those soccer commitments are like, those swim team demands, those busy weeks that scream for a quiet morning. I've been there. I hold no judgment for the choices made. During the next calendar year I will try to craft a whole program that lends itself to the hit-and-miss nature of family attendance.

2. Shared Leadership is the sacred white light that shines from the heavens and makes all well and good in the world.

The Religious Education Council that I serve emerged from our REC retreat supercharged to lead as a group. And have they! They also made a miracle happen in working hard to create a Associate DRE position and even fund it. I will keep passing out the duties, even the ones I love, to other folks called to take them on.

3. Youth involvement is special, and requires advanced hatha yoga.

Or, you must be flexible. Our youth group started off with a bang and more teens than ever before, then crashed to the smallest it's ever been, and now has decided to attend a local big church for youth group meetings, while maintaining the service work and one dinner-worship a month with their tiny group. And while my heart is in pieces on the floor to think we have farmed out our youth group, it is what they need and want and what is the best for them. I will follow their lead, and serve them in the way that is needed.

4. Boundaries are good, but they can't be a barbed wire fence.

A Religious Educator who loves their work will love their congregation. And the people of the congregation. I learned this during our memorial services this fall. It didn't matter that my job is focused on the children and youth, I needed to be there to work and help during our trauma because I love these folks. Of course I do. Boundaries are good, necessary, required, but love pays no attention and goes on wrapping your heart around these people you serve. I will work to hold boundaries, but let go of holding myself back.

5. You must don your oxygen mask before assisting others.

It is very easy to see this important work of being a Religious Educator as so vital that all else must wait. But if you can't think about one more bin of sculpey or case of glue sticks without screaming you will not be able to continue this good work. I have learned to work my hours, and pretty much only my hours. I must let some good ideas fall on the floor untended. I can go pick them up from under the dusty couch later. There is a feast and famine to this work. Some weeks we work double or even (gulp) triple our hours if we are very part time. And then some weeks we don't work as much at all. It evens up, most of the time anyhow. I will continue to seek balance in this work so that I can keep doing what I love.

What else?

I love to play my guitar and sing with the children and the congregation.

People care very deeply and are happy to be asked to help.

The right person often shows up at just the right moment.

I am the luckiest person in the world to know these children and youth, and to have their trust.

As the years march on, I hope most of them have lessons as good as these.

Spring Melt

I got up in the middle of the night with the dear old geriatric dog because once she shakes her ears around, we've got about 90 seconds until she's really, really got to go out. As I stood at the sliding door I could hear the water flowing off the roof, down the hills, into the storm drains and off to the sea.

It's melting. The Solstice Storm lasted through Boxing Day, but now, I think it's over.

And my Christmas feasting is over too. No more splitting a bottle of wine over dinner. No more rice dream egg nog and rum. No more cream and butter and shortening and cheese on everything.

No more wearing the only two pair of jeans that fit!

I'm going on a tare. I'm not doing it here, but over at my regular person blog. Everyone is invited to come to the "eat real food, move a little, remember to love my life" story going on over there. And if that's what you're doing too, well then let me know that I'm not alone and I'm not completely off my rocker. Please!

In Minnesota the melt always brings a little weirdness to everyone who has been cooped up. Bring it on, baby! Bring it on!

Prayers for a parting of the clouds

Our weather in Seattle right now is really weird. They're calling it "terrain driven" and if you look at the radar picture, you can see a big huge clear spot in the middle of clouds. I think that there is an enormous glass bowl over Seattle. It's really the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains, and it's working for the snow right now, too. But now tell me, don't you think some folks are going to think that this is the answer to their prayers?

For me prayer is not such a physical thing. I don't think I'd pray for a clearing in the clouds. I don't think I'd want people to the north and south to get MORE snow so I wouldn't have any. Like in "Bruce Almighty" when he pulls the moon closer in and there are catastrophic waves all over the world. Geez, that is a scary thing anyway, Jim Carey as God. (shudder)

Well, there is the prayer for strength. "Please, God. Let me not eat another piece of that almond fudge, please!" "Oh God, how is it that there is so much laundry!?"

But the real prayers, when I'm still and quiet are so much more like St. Francis of Assisi. Or Rumi.

Right now my prayer is to remember that this snow day with my boys is a little truffle of heaven. Wonder. I'm lucky. I should not make them work the whole day. We should read together, and play scrabble and bake cinnamon rolls. We should end the day remembering that we love each other.

And OK, maybe we'll take a little time to make some presents and you know, tackle some of that pile that looks like an offering to the gods, but is really just a laundry pile.

And we'll do our work with almond fudge on hand. For sure.

Gloomy Tuesday in Seattle

It's a gloomy day here in the Pacific Northwest.


The gardens are all put to bed for the winter--only a few herbs still grow. The leaves are almost all off the trees.

There is a chill in the air, in the houses, in the floor. In me.



Even the crows look hunkered down. It is a very gloomy day.


It's the kind of day that might lend itself to going to a coffee shop to work. A good coffee shop, with wi-fi and a view of the water. You could wear the cute jeans and the new sweater and the leather jacket. And lipstick.

But we're down a car. And there are places other people in the family need to go. I'm on the big work day of the week, anyway. Working from home should be good.

It's more like pulling an all-nighter.

And then, just when it looks like the sun is going to set at 2pm in the afternoon, the light shines. Not from the sky, but from lesson prep.

World Prayers.

Michelle Richards has written this great curriculum for middle schoolers called "Popcorn Theology" everyone in my church is jealous of the middle schoolers and their weekly movies. And the resources are wonderful. The prayers are wonderful.

Here's a "Keep it in perspective" for me today.

Blessings All!

Wage peace with your breath. Breathe in firemen and rubble, breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds. Breathe in terrorists and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields. Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees. Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact. Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud. Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers. Make soup. Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages. Learn to knit, and make a hat. Think of chaos as dancing raspberries, imagine grief as the outbreath of beauty or the gesture of fish. Swim for the other side. Wage peace. Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious: Have a cup of tea and rejoice. Act as if armistice has already arrived. Celebrate today.

wage peace - judyth hill - september 12, 2001

Funny World

I am not avoiding my NaNoWriMo writing, just in case anyone who might have promised me a pastry if I write 1,500 more words thinks I am. No, well maybe a little. Just a little though.

Last week I got a facebook friend request from a guy I went to high school with. Well, more that that, Jr High too. And we went to the same church, not always at the same time, but he was UU too.

After a few days of back and forth on facebook we got to talk by phone today. He has a lovely wife and a beautiful little daughter with another baby on the way. And he's had a life that flows along like so many of our lives. Flood and drought. The times when all goes just along over the rocks with a song and times when it crashes down over a cliff.

It was so nice to talk with him. There was no pretense, no pretending. I guess we come from the same place, the same home church in a way, the same place in time, so why not just tell it like it is? There's no reason to hide. In some ways it felt like looking back over the last 20 years together and saying "Yeah? That's how I saw it too, always wondered if I just made it up."

Not that the last 20 years were awful or bad. Just that it's good to have the view confirmed.

"Yep. Me, too."

In some ways I think those of us who grew up in the fellowship movement congreagations all might have at least slightly similar experiences. Many of us yearn deeply for more from our churches. We want that deep holy spark that moves us. And, for most of us, we find it.

All the more reason for me to work hard in the church I love and make it a place that fills that hole without question. All the more reason for me to work hard for the children I love to give them the spiritual grounding and the spiritual wings they deserve.

It's good work, if we can get it. I'm thankful to have it.

OK, OK, back to writing, only 2,000 words to catch up to the goal for the day. Ah! Yikes!

Writing a Book, of course

I have a friend who I know in one of those quadruple ways that sometimes comes along. I knew his wife from a parenting group I led when we first arrived in the Seattle area, then I met him at a Renaissance Module for UU Religious Educators; he's a UU Youth Coordinator here in the Seattle area.

Then he showed up at our little local homeschool school with his kids! My youth group went to the con he planned. My son babysits his kids. It's just all over the place, and he is also a facebook friend. Especially during busy writing times, I natter at facebook a lot.

When you change your status message on facebook all your friends see it. I try not to record my every move (Kari is eating breakfast, Kari is working hard, Kari is a facebook geek.....) but I change it more than necessary. Like anything is "necessary" on facebook!

Anyway, during this wild NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, I refer to NaNo in facebook status a lot. The other day at school my friend said "what is this nano thing you're doing?" with a kind face but you could tell he wondered if I was just a little you know... off. Maybe.

I was sitting at a table in our family room with my writing buddy--we write together every Thursday morning, all year and during nano last year we wrote together any chance we could get. This year we got smart....we're going away for a two day write-a-thon mid month. She answered him "NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month, we're both writing a novel in November."

He looked a little relieved. We weren't totally losing it. "OH, so you're trying to write a novel?"

"Oh no, we will write a novel, we both will." she said. Oh yeah.

It reminds me of what the midwife told me when I was pregnant with my first born. She said not to say I'd try to breastfeed. That sets the expectataion that you might not make it. She told me to just say "yes, I'm going to breastfeed."

Works for lots of heroic commitments, I guess!

Happy writing!

(Kari's NaNo word count....12,188--and counting)

Proof

If my dear old pal Ivan has enough hope to actually quote Bob Dylan, well then, this leadership change must be the real deal.

Hope.

Anxiety....

Does anyone else from the MTV 1.0 generation remember that old Pat Benatar song with the video where she was all freaked out? No offense to folks with real mental illness, but I'm kind of spinning on the Pat Benatar MTV kind.This election had better hurry up and get done. Oh my gosh. I swear I'm about to rip my TV off the wall.

And how are all you Nanowrimo folks doing? I can tell that Facebook has been busy! That's what I do while I'm mulling over a sentence or a shift....I flip between email, facebook and whatever else I can think of! But this year's writing has been faster than last year. And more folks I know are on the bandwagon--both new and old friends. So it feels like a whole "Breakfast Club" of us out there pulling together in our own Nanowrimo induced detention.
But it is clearly not enough to distract me from the election or the Halloween Candy. Maybe a part of the ritual after Nanowrimo is over, is joining Weight Watchers! Just like last year.

OK, everyone. Almost done. Oh my gosh I just caaaaaan't wait.

"Anxiety, can't get nothin' done. Anxiety, spoils all the fun....."

Happy Halloween!

How can it be that it's Halloween, and Nanowrimo starts at midnight, and my kitchen is full of a washer AND a dryer?

Whirlwind life.

And just how did it happen that even though I still have a 12-year-old, that my Halloween days are over? I remember being a young adult, dressing up in fun mom-like costumes, carving pumpkins, doting over my nephews....and just downright pining for the days when I'd have my own children to share Halloween with.

My youngest two have amazing contumes, Neo from The Matrix (Keanu Reeves, of course, is also Hapa) and The Phantom from Phantom of the Opera. But now they have friends and go to a big teenagery party every year. On Halloween. Poof, over! No more Halloween for mom.

Well, I get the big one with his fog machine and scary music and remote camera to notify him of trick-or-treaters. And one little girl always comes trick-or-treating dressed as a Sprite and I get to say "Happy Samhain!" to her, and she lights up with a big smile.

But my kiddos are gone. Poof.

Oh well, so it goes. And really, I'm not too sad. Somehow I think the whole UU Blogger community is happy today, because it's Halloween and today, for L.W., cancer is over. Her last chemo is done, and she should be home in time for her sibs to go trick-or-treat. And if what matters is our love and prayers, well then there is no doubt that cancer really is over.

Take the quiz: The Ultimate Church Community

I got an email yesterday "Gini Courter has confirmed you as a friend on facebook". Such a funny world, we zap information back and forth across cyber space like it's a Jetson's cartoon. Oh no big deal, the moderator of the UUA is on facebook asking for feedback from everyone on the UUAs "Ends". Core values, what do we really want. No, really want. Whatever, now I'm gonna go poke my friend and see what my kids' status messages say.

That deserves a little head tilt. "Hunh?"

Well, Gini is of course, using her facebook page not just to poke religious leaders across the globe, she's asking good questions. I gave my little bit of feedback on her note, but really what happened is that it got me thinking.

What do I want? What difference should UUism make in the world.

Well, like the youth at our cons here in the PNWD yell when someone yells "what is it for us to do?" they yell "It is for us to heal the world". Good. I like that. But I'm old and my brain then goes to the details, goes to the "but... how?" with a whine like a three-year-old who just gave up naps.

So, last night as I worked in the church office with the slowest computer on the planet, and it's brother molasses-head, with the lovely company of one of the kids who had tagged along for a meeting. I nattered away at the copying and new sign-in forms and turned in expense reports. This "ends" business kept looming.

I want to grow. I want more people to find that in their hearts they really do just happen to be Unitarian Universalists. And I want them to come into community with us and drag along all their gifts and talents and their in-laws. I want more of us to lean on each other and to pick up the shovels and picks and to get on with this work of healing the world. It's a really big job. We need more helping hands and loving hearts.

We'd better get on to being an expecting congregation, expecting everyone. Ready to welcome them. We need some people sized spaces in our congregations so that when folks show up, there's a spot just waiting for them. We need to just be ready. Once when I was a new Religious Educator I was walking through a room where there was a new member meeting and the president was talking about growth. I think someone had mentioned that they liked our cozy size and wouldn't want us to get much bigger. I tossed over my shoulder that I thought that growing was a moral imperative; that we need to be ready for new people just like this place was ready for us when we peeked in the door.

I was naive and optimistic, but I was right. That's it. We need to find our people out there and welcome them in.

Well, good. Now that we've got that settled I think I'm gonna go take a new likeness quiz on facebook, who knows, I might just figure out the meaning of life.

Seventeen Candles

A ghost. I think there's a ghost in my house. Or maybe it's the lack of a ghost. For the last few days when my whole little nuclear family is together it feels like something is missing. Like some person is missing.

My oldest son turned seventeen yesterday. He's a young man, has been for a while now. He's over six feet tall, going to the community college instead of high school. He flies across the country to do good work for a fantastic denomination that empowers youth to do good stuff. He's been on the verge of young adulthood for a while now.

Turning seventeen lets you go to R rated movies. That and you can, well...um. Yeah, that's about it. Movies. But it's a whole lot closer to eighteen than sixteen was.

One of the great things about our work, homeschool and school schedule this year is our little calm spots. We have a few eddies built into the rush of life. Mondays happen to be one of them. Yesterday we all met up for a burger-fest lunch right in the middle of the day to celebrate the birthday.

As my husband and I walked to the car I looked at our three boys and the scene took on a cinema-zoomed out view. The boys were walking, shoulders together, heads close in animated conversation plotting some overthrow of the banking system or their next song for the band or their next hair color. And zoomed out I could see the men they are growing to be. I could see the strong, confident, handsome men peeking out. Climbing out, really. Emerging through the broad shoulders, good hair and long strides. It made me stop cold in my tracks. Tears came to my eyes. Men, they'll be men, grown men.

So today when we were back to normal family life flow making burritos for dinner all at once I felt it again. "It feels like someone is missing."

My middle son said "maybe you're missing the younger Michael"

Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm missing my little boy. Zap, what a hole. As the young man emerges the young boy disappears.

Like so much of raising children, the hard things are lifted and soar with the wonderful things. It's all good. Grown men are what little boys become. It's wonderful, beautiful.

And it leaves a little boy sized hole straight in my heart.

No or Yes?

The eldest is home from Boston. The Youth Ministry Working Group folks had great fun and no sleep of course. It sounds like there is progress in the vision of Minstry to and with Youth for the future. I got few details, but he's excited, so that's a good sign. 

The middle one had a great weekend on an OWL Retreat, they did five OWL sessions but still had time for a midnight hike, a sunrise hike, a two-hour capture the flag (or PIE) game and an improptu Quidditch match with the brooms from their cabins. 

My church weekend was like some perfect storm of overcommitment. It started out with a pre church meeting with my potential new co-DRE. Then we had the first Sunday forum so we scurried around to be set up by 9:30--an hour early. With church out of a box that means hauling and shoving and lugging and dragging--kinda like moving into a new house every week. Then I got to tell Ruth Gibson's story about Albert Schweitzer for the Story for All Ages. We sang the kids downstairs and then I was on to leading a children's chapel about home. Next we worked hard on a Sunday Service project I organized making entertainment kits for our Family Promise homeless families. (pant pant) 

Somehow, someway everything went well. We had very few disasters. Oh and I made soup for the soup lunch after the service.  Somehow I've really got to learn to delegate and say "no." But I have four evenings this week out for church work. 

It's October. It's supposed to start to slow down now! No more meetings, please! No more "just a quick chat" that goes beyond  one minute! I want my life baaaaaack!

No. Just say no. 

Practice with me. No no no no no no no no no. 

Now I sound like a two-year-old. 

But, on Friday we had a huge Memorial Service for a beloved member who died suddenly last weekend. He was 43. We crammed over 400 people in our little hall. When firefighters showed up I thought the gig was up, but they just grabbed more chairs and helped us set them up right in our packed aisles, and sat down for the service. They were there to grieve. The death was an earth shattering tragedy. I can't believe it, it's just unfathomable. 

And we all, a whole bunch of precious members of our church said yes. Yes I'll bake a banana cake. Yes I'll take a day away from work to help. Yes I'll be there. Yes, what can I do? Yes. Yes. Yes, you can count on me. 

So. There it is. Practice with me. Yes. Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes. 

Well, which will it be? 

Um, yeah. I guess it's yes. Yes.