Hello, dumplings.
What a busy time!
It has been that kind of time when you get home, dump your purse on the floor, take the dog outside, change your clothes and head back out.
It’s a big deal to get a load of laundry done, and you’re doing it on an Emergency Basis only: keeping up with undies, black pants, a few tops that you can count on and that one load of delicates.
You’re grocery shopping like a European, picking up a few fresh things every couple of days to make specific recipes. Today: Lithuanian borscht to take advantage of all the lovely dill and green onions in the garden!
I’ll be out of town a lot in the near future. Two (more) out of town funerals and a wedding. What I did was book an extra night for myself at the wedding hotel and schedule a spa treatment. I’ll bring my bathing suit and live in the pool that day. My motto: extend luxury whenever possible! If the parents of the bride are putting me up in a lovely hotel, why not add a vacation day to that? Done!
Sometimes it’s wisest to put whatever financial gifts you receive for officiating weddings and funerals directly into your own self-care. Go right from the church to the massage table. Drive right from the sadness of the funeral to the salon, or the manicurist, or the health club and buy yourself a few sessions with a personal trainer. Cash the check and splurge at the Farmer’s Market. Buy a big basket of fresh fruit and veg and make jams or tomato sauce. Freeze them for future busy times when you’re too tired to prepare nourishing food and are tempted to open a can of Chef Boy-R-Dees.
I’m in crummy health. There’s no ignoring it. Lots of chronic pain and avoiding the doc, who will just tell me things I already know. Like: um, do you seriously think you can drink ANY kind of coffee with the kind of stomach problems you’re having? Yes, dear readers, I though that cold brewing would remove the acid in my beloved iced coffee (I don’t even drink it iced, I drink it cool). My stomach is a mess. One cup of fresh ginger tea at night isn’t going to cure me. I need to see a specialist and probably succumb to all those horrid tests and walk out of the doctor’s office with that list of stuff you can’t eat, which includes all the things you most like to eat.
I’ll follow directions for awhile and I’ll heal, but it will be summer vacation, daily swimming and deep breathing that does it, not any medicine or food plan.
I wrote to a dear friend and said, “I’m whining.” She said, “I don’t think you’re whining, I think you’re suffering.” Wasn’t that sweet? Sometimes Christians know just the right thing to say.
June 14th was the fifteenth anniversary of my ordination. I was too busy to really mark the occasion but I did stop and give deep and real thanks for the — I refuse to use the word JOURNEY — so let me say, “for the whole ministry thing.” I thought about the three congregations I have served, about the lonely early years, the crises and challenges and amazing moments of connection to God and others.
I remembered that when I first started preaching, I found it impossible to go directly from the worship service into greeting people, and would leave the sanctuary at the conclusion of the Postlude and walk directly to the garden where I would take a moment to ground down before standing at the door and shaking hands.
Can you believe that wonderful congregation indulged me that? Give me a break, Miss Holiness! What an affectation! But quite honestly, when I was a fresh newbie I simply couldn’t function as a social person immediately after preaching. I had to have a few minutes to transition before I could manage to look into someone’s face and greet them without stammering and feeling stoned and spaced-out. The fact that I can do this now is either a professional improvement or a spiritual deterioration, I don’t know which.
I haven’t blogged much lately but we have been having a wing-ding of a discussion in response to my previous post, so I hope you’ll follow the comments. I’ve responded at length to some of them, and I hope the conversation will nurture you. Augh.
“Nurture” is another one of those gooey words that we’ve got to stop over-using in religious community! JOURNEY. NURTURE. Blech.
I’m kind of faking my cheeriness tonight because I just learned that a wonderful friend of mine died on June 14th. He was Italian, and I love that it just so happens that I bought myself a bottle of Italian perfume that day. I’m doing a musical this summer and I needed a fragrance that I could wear and not stink out my cast mates backstage or during rehearsals. There’s nothing worse than waltzing with someone who’s wearing one of those shrieking chemical fragrances that makes your nostril hairs curl. This shouldn’t: it’s a beautiful blend of green tea, rose, and soft musky yumminess. Soft, summery and subtle. Bianca by Tocca.
Peter, Buona notte e sogni d’oro.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
So sorry about your friend! ….and your tum!! I do hope you feel better and soon so you can enjoy the things you have planned. I used to alternate how I used those gifts and take my cue from the giver. Sometimes in the discretionary fund and sometimes into my fund to help pay for the added childcare for an event or to help me physically and emotionally cope with additions to an already busy week. At the new job I was told I had to sign all checks in my name over to the discretionary fund. Is there a basic standard on this? I have followed instructions but now wonder if I can be required to sign over something written out to me personally. Not waters I want to test necessarily but I am interested.
PB, I’m writing about the coffee thing. I too have acid stomach problems. There is one and only one coffee brand I can drink: Douwe Egbert. I order it from http://thedutchshop.com/
Try it, dearie – life without coffee would be like, um, life without coffee. [DO I DARE!? Maybe I will when this current hideousness really clears up. For now, I had best avoid all coffee products but THANK YOU! I wonder why this works for you? – PB]
Our dear daughter is in only her second call, and it’s been a revelation how differently she was treated in the two places. It has forced me to look at my own relationships with our church’s pastors, and to realize that I wasn’t always as supportive as I could be, even though I thought I was!
The result of this is that when our church called a new pastor, a couple of people questioned whether or not we were going to pay him too much, and I simply shut them down. I explained how I had watched her live in poverty during eight years of school and exactly how large her student loans are that will keep her in poverty. I then called the question to cut off any further discussion, and the salary passed.
My thanks and blessings to all who serve.
In response to Joy: maybe you should ask your congregation exactly what they mean by “discretionary.” That could lead to an interesting conversation about whose discretion…
Seems to me if a check is made out to you, it’s up to you to decide what to do with it. Gifts into the discretionary fund are a good idea now and then (maybe even most of the time), but your situation sounds unfortunately rigid. Good luck with this…
[Yes, indeed! Judy is right, Joy – you need to know what that account is expected to be and to do. A gift to the minister is a gift to the minister. You cash the check, you decide what to do with the money. If the gift is to the Minister’s Discretionary Fund, that’s where it goes. You can erase any doubt about this by specifying when you talk with the family, the couple, or the funeral director where you’d like them to make the check out to. It gets easier with time to talk about money, although it’s almost never entirely comfortable. – PB]