Not on my list anymore...

• soy milk
• organic mac and cheese
• miso soup
• ice cream bars
• diet rite
• everything bagels
• spreadable cream cheese
• frosted mini-wheats
• frozen meatless lasagna
  
• cheese tortellini
• pirate's booty
• doritos
• vitamin water
• poptarts
• cheese pizza
• angel hair pasta
• mini chocolate chips

Like, why even bother going to the store?

As the fog rolls in

We are settled up in a really nifty refurbished old hotel, just a block or two from where WG will be staying. I don't know how long she will stay in the place we have set up for her--it is small. Very small. I think her plan is to look for an apartment or a room to let somewhere near the school, but this place will have to do for now.

The flight was very smooth, getting here was made smoother by my putting my foot down on the case of getting a cab to the hotel. There is no way we would have handled it all on BART. We can travel to the aiport on BART on Saturday, but we'll have only half as much luggage.

We had lunch at a delightful vegetarian restaurant in the neighborhood, then walked to the school, just to check the distance. We walked through a few sketchy blocks, which convinced me that she will need to take public transit to school. Tomorrow we will get her some long-term transit passes to make that easier, and faster.

Then we rode the ferry. I like riding the ferry, and I know Blue Eyes thought it was boring but did it anyway. She of course was riding up to meet her boyfriend, then we two rode back without her and found dinner at a small diner across the street from the hotel. Later her boyfriend will bring her back to us, I surely hope.

Tomorrow will be a very long day of getting her settled, spending quite a bit of time and money getting her moved and equipped for school, then dinner at our favorite Chinese place in Sausalito. Luckily, the first day or so of going east to west are easiest for me. West to east is hell, and I'm sure this will be for many reasons.

I have been very, very appreciative of everyone's wishes, hugs, hairpats, blogstones, and prayers. I don't think I could have kept my sanity without you. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

::sigh::

Today is Sunday.


She leaves on Tuesday (and we go with her, thankfully). Right now she is obsessed with spending time with her friends. She will not do her laundry or pack or organize anything. I have given up on asking, nicely or otherwise. I guess I do get to spend time with her over the next several days, but once we get there, her boyfriend is also on the scene. I know my place.

I talked a wee bit about it during joys and concerns today, got a wee bit watery-eyed as well. I warned everybody that there will be more of that next Sunday. (But thankfully that sermon is done and printed.)

At coffee hour, people were kind. Really kind. Kinder than when the dog died. That really, really, truly surprised me.

And that there is the saddest sentence in this whole post.

Church! (good God y'all) What is it good for?

After reading an excellent post over at Kim's place, I felt compelled to write my own.

Wednesday night I had a meeting with the personnel committee of St Stoic. Without blogging too much unbloggable, let me just say that there was a lengthy discussion about this question:

"Where the heck is everybody?"

There is a perception that attendance in worship has dramatically dropped off since April. Now, please understand that many of those making this claim are retirees who are MIA from church for five months every winter (*cough* novembertoapril *cough*), but even so, there are some people on our rolls who only attend once a year and write one offering check, in order to stay on the rolls, which the session honors, regardless of the "responsibilites of members" our polity outlines. Plus, there are those who have left the church.

These are the reasons people give (when they will do so) for leaving/staying home from St Stoic, as I've compiled them over five years:

• Too busy with kids' sports on Sunday morning. (sadly, this is legit and not going to change)
  
• Sunday is our only day to be together as a family/sleep in. (9:30 is that early?)
  
• We go to grandma's house instead. (invite grandma)
  
• You have no youth group. (True.)
• Kids in church are too damn disruptive. They need to learn to be quiet. (um...too sad to answer)
  
• So-and-so snubbed me at the church fundraiser umpteen years ago. (grow up)
  
• Too many new people. Not like the old days... (we can only hope)
  
• Church is boring. (yes, from a grownup)
• The church just wants my money. (yes. except for the "just" part)
  
• I'm on the rolls so my grandkids can get married there for free. But religion is not important to me anymore. (guess what--your grandkids agree about religion)
  
• You don't sing the old songs anymore. (we use the standard hymnal)
  
• I put in my time when my kids were young. I need a break. ("kids" are my age)
• My family built that church. Don't you dare take my name off the roll! (too sad to respond)
  
• You don't display the candle sticks that belong to my family anymore. (um...except they are on the communion table every Sunday)
  
• When mother died I knew I was off the hook from church. (so this is how you celebrate your independance?)
  

As you can see, it is complicated. Reinventing programs, changing hymnals, adding guitars, worshipping on Saturday instead, projecting the liturgy on a screen, hiring a fancy youth director, none of these are the magic formula. I am convinced that the main reason people stay home is that they have become convinced that church is about them, not God. And the only thing the pastor can do is to continue to be about God. I can do no other.

On Marriage

I am not an expert. I'm just somebody who has slogged through it for 25 years. I've been blessed with somebody who slogged through it with me, but make no mistake, a significant portion of our 28 years together--almost 25 of them married--have been very, very hard.

We married very young and although nobody said it to our faces at the time, nobody thought it would work, except maybe us. And we've had our doubts.

That's why I was so sad to hear this week of another famous couple who called it quits. No, not the one you're probably thinking of, although that's sad too. I'm thinking of these people. They always seemed so normal and sane and non-Hollywood, and they seemed as if, in their public personas anyway, they were crazy about each other. They did charitable works together, which is a very admirable thing. Jane is from the same small village where we lived when our kids were babies, so she's kind of the hometown girl, just another Polish kid from the suburban snow belt. Some of the charities they have worked with were local or locally-related, and they seemed like good, solid folks.

But even good people grow apart, or find they want different things out of life, or fall out of love. I can only hope it is something along those lines and not this current epidemic of infidelity. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Governor of South Carolina, you scumbag. Really?? A politician cheating on his wife. Really?? How original.)

I don't know why my marriage has survived and some others haven't. I'm not better, or more attractive, or kinder than people who have gotten divorced. I am rather stubborn. I don't believe there is a magic formula or that most of us can really evaluate (or understand) somebody else's relationship by looking in from the outside.

My own marriage will no doubt be faced with some changes when we return home next week to an empty house. Shifting the focus I've held on daily parenting for 22 years will not likely happen easily so abruptly. Some of the changes will no doubt be pleasant surprises and some will be challenges.

But I'm hopeful, he's hopeful, and did I mention that I'm stubborn?

Are you a Spring or an Autumn?

It was suggested to me the other day that there are different "styles" of leadership. The person doing the talking actually pointed out two distinct styles, although I'd wager that if pressed the person would admit that there are more than two.

But the two that were on the table for discussion were

• Leadership from the pulpit
• Relational leadership
  

It seems to me that those of us in professional, paid ministry are expected to have some facility in both of these ways of leading, but I think the point that my conversation partner was making is that most of us probably have one way that is more "dominant" than the other.

The way of looking at it makes a lot of sense, and yet the conclusions I have to come to after thinking and considering do not make me all that comfortable. Especially when I contrast myself with the past leadership at St Stoic that I am following.

To be honest, if you were to ask me if I wanted to be seen by the people I love and serve as either smart or kind, I would resist the either/or nature of that question and insist on answering in a both/and sort of way. The truth is that I see value in, and opportunity for, nurture in both preparing and preaching sermons that challenge, uplift, and teach, and in the smaller, quiet one-on-one moments of relating with people. And I recognize that in the context of a place I rightfully call St Stoic, the former often offers more opportunity than the latter. The people I serve very, very seldom seek out moments with their pastor. In fact I do not realize that many of them might be in need of those pastoral moments until I hear about my seeming lack of availability for such from a third party. (If you are in ministry, chances are you have had those "Why didn't you visit Betty Lou in the hospital even though nobody from Betty Lou's family let you know she was there?" encounters. It happens.)

And yet...at the same time many here at St Stoic speak wistfully, longingly of the days when my predecessor showed up unexpectedly in the ICU, seemingly without any notification at all. Or when, in a moment of deep need and sorrow, he was somehow just there, doing and saying exactly what was needed. There are photo albums full of pictures of him in their homes, at family celebrations and clippings of him participating in community events, side-by-side with members. (Of course,when I ask who was carrying around the camera back in the 70s , nobody seems to know how every moment was recorded for posterity. Clearly he was not taking pictures of himself.)

It is painful to watch them in those moments, because I know their longing is real. Equally painful is the feeling that they really do wish my style was different, at least some of them do. But few of them seem to remember that that kind of relating is best achieved when both parties meet half way.

So what say you, my Internets Posse? Are you a Pulpit Leader or a Relational Leader, or like most of us, a leaning hybrid? How does that fit with your flock?

Not Taking it Lying Down

The guys in big hats can

BITE ME.

Srsly. This sh*t can end. Now.