Ai Haz uh Confused

I passed my PTK multiple choice portion today.  Nowhere near acing it, but good enough, considering how much I (didn't) study.  Now I'm beginning the four to six week wait for the score on my memo/essay.

I probably did myself no good this evening haunting the ABCTE Writing Component forum, because everything I read there confuses and discourages me dreadfully.  So many people there, who like me have been writing, supposedly effectively, most of their lives, lamenting about flunking the essay over and over.  So many writing professionals, who somehow fell short of the mysterious, esoteric standard that divides a pass from a fail.

So what hope do I have?  And if I fail (maybe because I didn't spend enough time proofreading), could my fault be a paranoid fixation on content?

Content.  The one point that none of the rubrics and none of the forum comments seem to address.

Content.  An essay or memo can't be written without it.  But as embryo teachers, we PTK examinees are really winging it on theory when it comes to actual classroom practice.  A typical prompt for this exam asks the candidate to write a memo suggesting a solution to some hypothetical school problem (I can't say more than that-- confidentiality issues).  Well, suppose my grammar, spelling, vocabulary, etc., are all fine, but my ideas are way out in left field?  What if I'm in error about a matter of fact?  And what if I in my inexperience omit some "obvious" supporting detail?

I suppose I'm worried about this because I was taking pains to avoid it.  And therefore ran out of time on my final proofread.   I felt compelled to cover the subject realistically and thoroughly, and at the end I thought of a detail of this sort and went back to insert it, totally convinced the graders would think I was an inadequate fool if I left it out.  But maybe I'm wrong.  I wonder what those who pass the essay would say about this.  Can you write piffle with good mechanics and still sail through?

Something else.  The experienced souls on the forums keep saying one should avoid being "eloquent" in one's PTK essay.  Why is that a bad word, anyway? It means fluent and persuasive! What's the difference between the dreaded "eloquence" and having a strong, diverse, communicative vocabulary, as called for by the rubric?

I read on the forum that to pass, one should write like a fifth grader.  I'm sorry, but I've substitute-taught fifth graders, and I doubt the scorers want us to write as incoherently and clumsily as that.  Frankly, I can't write like that.  Maybe the advice should be, "Write as if your correspondent were a fifth grader."  Fine.  But what principal (a typical addressee) would put up with being talked down to in that fashion?  And how does fifth-graderism result in writing that is "fully develop[ed, with] elaborate[d] ideas," where "[t]he writer . . .  uses great variety and complexity in sentence structure"?  The very rubric seems to militate against anything so simplistic.

Or is the rubric so much piffle and they really score these essays by using them as targets at the corner pub darts tournament?

I hope that in a few weeks I'll be embarrassed because I've passed and find out I've been ranting for nothing.  But given what I read on the forums, I doubt it.  I doubt it very much indeed.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Twenty-eight

Monday, 2 January, 1989

WIEN-- Got up for the Kaiser rolls and jam. I asked for my tee "ohne Milch" but apparently my accent is really lousy-- the waitress brought the pitcher anyway.

Caught the streetcar that heads southeast from the central part of the city, to the Zentral Friedhof. It goes along the Simmeringer Hauptstraße. I don’t know why, but it felt very homely, in a good sort of way, to see this other part of Vienna, as well as the touristed places. The buildings and shops reminded me of places in Kansas City, like along Troost (though not so rundown) or up at 63rd and Brookside. One thinks of all these people going about their lives here, where Vienna isn’t important because it’s a world-famous city, but because it’s where they live.

The object of the morning was another musical pilgrimage . . . Not as easy to accomplish as at the Cimetiere au Montmartre. The Zentral Friedhof seems pretty orderly, in that there’s a monumental avenue leading from the entrance, to a great green-domed church. But as for finding anything . . . I asked a uniformed attendant, in my best fractured German, where Beethoven’s grave was located. He said, or at least I think he did, that it was along the first (or was it the second?) avenue "links" past where a white car was parked. All this in German, of course, so I wasn’t sure if I’d understood correctly.

The whole thing became moot, though, when the white car’s owner drove it away and I lost my point of reference before I got close enough to ascertain where it had been.

Went up and inspected the outside of the church and its flanking wings. There’s a kind of gallery along there, with memorial tablets along the wall. I wonder how one rates that, since I didn’t recognise any famous names.

One interesting feature near there is a plot set off for the graves of Red Army soldiers. It looked, from the dates, that these men hadn’t died in the war but rather were stationed here afterwards (as an army of occupation? Oops!) and it hadn’t been possible to ship their bodies back to Russia. The really sad thing was the near-certainty that most if not all of these men would’ve died as atheists. What a terrible thing, to have no hope!

I knew Beethoven’s grave was supposed to be east of the church, so I tried again to ask someone. Seems they should have section numbers or something. And I think they do, except my German isn’t anywhere close to being able to understand numbers (except for "zwanzig"-- 20-- on the streetcars when they call out the stops. I’ve gotten really good at that). And I could not make the man understand my request to write the number of the row and section down. So I was in for another hour or so of blind wandering.

Found Arnold Schönberg’s grave, though. It’s kind of a Cubist marble monument, very apt. And I came across Josef Hoffmann’s. He and his wife Karoline have a plain tall shaft with their names and dates inscribed in tall gothic lettering.

Finally, after more blundering about, I found what I was looking for. They have a kind of musicians’ Poets’ Corner there, with Brahms, a Strauss or two, little Franz Schubert, and Beethoven all interred in kind of a horseshoe arrangement, with a monument to poor Mozart in the center. Von Suppe had sneaked into the formation, too, though how I don’t know.

I’d been wondering if I should’ve brought Beethoven some flowers but I saw that plenty of other people had adequately supplied the gesture. And it really wasn’t the same as it was at Montmartre. Here, with Beethoven, I was paying my respects to a great man who lived a long time ago. But there, with Hector, it was like visiting the tomb of a dear and sorely-missed friend.

A gaggle of Japanese tourists were marshalled through as I stood in the little clearing. They disturbed my contemplations to a degree, but not to the extent they would’ve with Hector in Paris.

I sang "An die Musik" for Franz. But other than that, I hadn’t much time to tarry. Though I’d arrived at the Friedhof around 10:00 AM it was nearly 12:30 by now, and my Wien transport pass had expired at 12:00. And I still hadn’t figured out how or to whom pay paid your streetcar fare if you were using money.

So feeling rather guilty about it, I bootlegged the streetcar ride back to the Ring. Wasn’t made any more comfortable by the stickers in the windows that said, in German I could understand, that the transport inspectors would be around checking passes today and that yours had better be in order. I suppose I could’ve put some money in the little box, but I didn’t have the correct change and was feeling too straitened to overpay.

So I sat tight, deciding that those stickers probably are on the streetcar windows all the time-- I can’t see them sticking them on and scraping them all off just for one day’s worth of warning.

However it is, as soon as I got back to the Schwarzenberg Platz I walked down to the Stadtpark station and bought a fresh two-day transit pass. And the fact that I’ll only be able to use one day of it should amply make up for my contraband trip of the past half hour.

Went back to shoot a picture of the Konzert Haus where I heard the Beethoven last night, but returned to the Stadtpark U-Bahn station to catch the train for Heiligenstadt. One might suppose I was going to see the house where Beethoven wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament, and someday perhaps I shall. But the afternoon was to be devoted to Architecture, specifically Hoffmann’s Sonja Knips house.

Heiligenstadt is the end of the line. I made myself a satisfying and highly nutritious lunch of pastries there in the station, then set out to find Nußwaldgasse.

Very near the station is a housing project which interested me for a number of reasons, most all connected with its name. It’s called the Karl Marx-Hof (!) and has all these heroic Soviet-Realism-style statues over the major entrances. The amusing thing is that these figures are still enchained. The other irony was that, in the wide front garden of this memorial to the progenitor of Communism, two small boys, on this second day of January, were playing the good old American game of baseball. It was great.

To get to the Sonja Knips house you have a good long pull up the Barawitzka street before Nußwaldgasse veers off to the left. One can’t go into the house, of course, it being a private residence. But the gray exterior is all studded with a regular pattern of diamond-shaped castings, which look as if they should be structural, like the star-shaped tie rod heads on houses in Lawrence. Probably aren’t, though. These are set off by the diagonal mullions in the windows and the diamond coursing of the slates on the roof and the three chimneys. It’s deceptively simple but rife with subtle details like the scooped-in embrasures of the windows.

I managed to catch a bus back down to the station but had no intention of getting the train back just yet. Something important to do first. Made my way down the very warehousey-looking Mooslacken street to the Nußdorfer Lande, which runs along the Donau Kanal.

But canals don’t make it. I wanted the real river. And after awhile of getting mucked up in a small spaghetti-bowl of an interchange I found myself on the Nordbrücke, crossing the actual schöne blaue Donau.

There’s a lovely view of the church on the Kahlenberg from there. And I’ll have you know that in this afternoon’s bright sunny weather the Danube really was blue, if with a slight grayish tinge to it.

The river there splits into two parallel streams, with a long narrow island or something between. There’s a way down to it from the bridge, so you can stroll along the paths as many others were. It was so nice to see the people out enjoying their river on this bright January day: This taking, in the case of some young boys, the form of skateboarding (on their tails) down the smooth pavement.

I walked along the river awhile myself, admiring the fishing boats and the ducks and the views of the city far away to the south. I sometimes wonder what sort of travelling companion I’d be: I’m such a fiend for rivers and tops of towers and hills and things. Would anyone else understand? But it seems to me that if you’ve got a town on a famous river, you haven’t been there properly until you’ve visited the river as well.

Left there around 4:30 and caught the train back to the city. Changed at Schwedenplatz and ended up once more at the Stephensdom. You should see the absurdity that Hans Holler is putting up opposite it on the Platz. It’s called the Haas Haus (Rabbit Hotel?) and looks like a series of cans with their lids half off. Took a picture for Myron Davidman’s* [architectural employer back in the States] benefit.

Near there is a shop that sells some Wienerwerkstätte type things; I bought a deck of cards in that style as a Christmas present for Lynne* [my elder sister].

I saw a coffee mug at a shop along my route to Beethoven’s flat on the Mölkier Bastei the other day, one I thought might be fun to get for Daddy. Went back now but that shop was closed. But as long as I was along there, I stopped at one bakery-deli for something to do for supper, then went to Julius Meinl’s to stock up on bread and cheese and other provisions for the long train ride tomorrow. Stuck it on my Visa and probably spent a fortune.

Though I was cutting it close I tarried in the Opernpassage trying to find the shop where I saw those needlepoint-topped pill boxes. I thought it’d be a nice gift for Janie* [friend who was subleasing my Kansas City apartment]. But I couldn’t find the place again. Gave it up and dashed back to the hotel to change for the opera.

The Wiener Volksoper is the Viennese equivalent of Kansas City’s Lyric, meaning the works are done in the local vernacular; in this case, Deutsch. German, Italian-- in the case of Don Giovanni, it made no difference to me, especially as I’ve heard it in English at the Lyric and basically know the plot.

As I approached the theatre along with many others, I heard a boy of eight or nine a little way ahead of me notice the posters and cry out to his parents something like, "Oh, gut! Ist Don Giovanni!" I couldn’t tell if he was glad it was that opera in particular or if he was simply relieved to see the play was going on as advertised. Either way, it was charming to see the child’s enthusiasm.

I had been told day before yesterday that I’d been sold the last seat in the house. And now I could see why. It was a little stool in the corner of one of the stage right boxes. To see anything at all I had to balance on the very edge of my stool and crane my neck around the lefthand frame of the box. The other people there had real chairs.

But I noticed that there were plenty of empty seats in the balcony center and resolved to employ a little of my Folly Theatre ushering chutzpah during intermission and move.

It’s really hard not to compare this performance with the one I saw at the Lyric in ’79, so why try? In that one, Stanley Wexler played the Don as an overwhelmingly attractive cuss, the kind of man who wouldn’t need to seduce women, he’d have them lining up in the street of their own volition. The Giovanni tonight, a Boje Skovhus, played the role as a dark-minded cynic. You got the idea he seduced women not for the physical pleasure of it but for the vile sake of dehumanising them and messing up their lives. A valid approach, and I don’t think it was to blame for the fact that the performance of the ensemble as a whole never did catch fire. It all seemed rather secondhand.

There were some interesting pieces of business, though-- e.g., Giovanni and Leporello escaped from the avengers at the party by lowering a ladder into the orchestra pit, scrambling over the musicians, and out the other side. And they came back the same way, ladder and all, at the start of Act II. The backlit scene at the graveyard was very effective (and yes, I could see it decently since I did move between the acts). And Giovanni slid into Hell on his own supper table, which went into the depths with him.

I noticed that, as with last night, people were taking pictures all over. So I ventured to follow suit, not using a flash, of course, and waiting for loud portions of the music to cover the shutter noise.

Afterwards, it was truly a strange sensation, standing at the streetcar stop, waiting there at the Währinger Gurtel for the #40 streetcar to take me back to the U-Bahn at Schottentor . . . and over the street one could see signs directing drivers to the highways for Budapest, Prague (Praha), and Brno . . . my God, those cities are all in Warsaw Pact countries! Am I really that far east?† It seemed very mysterious and exotic, as if I were brushing shoulders with something I hadn’t quite believed in up to now. But those cities certainly exist and could be announced by something as straightforward and prosaic as blue and white highway signs!

Back at the hotel, the idea was to get packed up and in bed as soon as possible. 8:00 AM train out of the West Bahnhof tomorrow.
_______________________________
†Yes, I'm aware now that my geography was shaky and that Czechoslovakia (as it was called then) is just to the north of Austria. But the point is the same.

Uh, What Was It That I . . . ?

Last night I was getting ready for bed and I couldn't find my nightgown. It wasn't hanging over the footboard of the bed. It wasn't under any of my clothes lying on the bedspread. It wasn't on the floor.

It had to be there somewhere. So I looked. But no, not under the pillow, not under the covers, not under the bed, not in the basket with the dirty clothes.

Well, it was late. I was half undressed and cold. I have other nightgowns, nice clean ones. So I put one on and went to bed. I'd find the missing garment someplace obvious in the morning.

So then, early this afternoon, I was bringing a clean sweater up from the laundry room. I folded it up nicely and opened my sweater drawer to put it away. And there, lying on top of my sweaters, was my carefully-folded flannel nightgown.

What the . . . ?

Please understand, this was not a matter of my putting something somewhere reasonable and forgetting I put it there. My nightgowns don't belong in that drawer! They don't even belong in that dresser! In fact, technically-speaking, they don't even go in that room! Besides, this one wasn't clean, it had been worn! Whatever would possess me to put it in the sweater drawer? Where was my freaking mind when I put it there?

Oh, gosh. Am I headed for premature senility?

Kitteh sez, Du nawt want!!

But suppose that's what I'm headed for. I guess that means before it's too late I'd better exert myself and finish up all the half-completed projects I've got lying around the house. I'd better hurry up and do all those wonderful things I always wanted to do. I mean, Schubert can leave unfinished symphonies lying around, but not me!

If I'm on the way to losing my marbles-- what I have left of them-- I'd better get moving and start and complete my masterpiece, my magnum opus.

That is, if I could only remember what it's supposed to be . . .

Plugged In

Classical Presbyterian fans will like to know that on this beautiful autumn evening we got the Reverend Mr. Brown well and truly plugged in at the Jeff Center Church.

And here's my perspective on the matter.

This was my first time serving on an Installation Commission, though not, of course, the first time one was served on me. One thing I can never figure out-- why does the moderator (of presbytery) dissolve the Commission before the service?

(Because that's the way it's done, silly!)

The installation sermon was based on Ezekiel 33:1-16-- the responsibility of the prophet as a watchman to warn people of the consequences of sin. And by temporal extension, it's now the responsibility of the pastor and the church as a whole. Not the most popular ministerial duty, but if the traffic cop, say, fails to warn the motorist that the bridge is out, it's certainly that policeman's fault if the car goes into the river.

("But I don't wanna warn people that the bridge is out! If I tell 'em it's dangerous to go down that road, I might offennnnnd somebody!")

Only thing, only thing . . . I wish we'd been given a generous dose of Jesus Christ and how He works in us and through us in grace to enable us to discharge our watchman duties . . . I mean, I needed it . . . please?

The former interim pastor of the church gave the Charge to the Congregation, introducing his remarks with how he gets his jollies cheering against the football teams all his friends are for. It may well be a sign of the irenic nature of Toby's new congregation that they didn't rise in ire at this implied disloyalty to dem Stillers and bury the old IP in the nearest cornfield.

On the other hand, he was their Interim. Interim pastors are supposed to be obnoxious and shake things up-- right?

There was a point to his provocation, however. Instancing how he recently cheered for an Ohio college team with a freshman quarterback against the Pennsylvania college team favored by a family member, he drew the analogy that while the church's new pastor wasn't quite a freshman, it has its mission and service plays down so well it might be tempted to forget they have a new quarterback on the field. "Let your new pastor call some plays! When I was here, I practically only had to show up on Sunday to preach! You took care of everything else, and I could hardly get a word in edgewise!" Laughter from the congregation! Music on the organ console shaking, from the organist unable to contain herself!

Me Toby asked to give the Charge to the Pastor. This past week or two, contemplating what the Holy Spirit might want me to say, the frivolous part of me couldn't help having a giggle or two at what can come these Internet-driven days from leaving comments on someone else's blog.

Never fear: My mind was in Earnest Mode when I wrote it. Considering the chargee, it was natural to take a quotation from J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings as a jumping-off point. And the scheduled hymns-- all with martial elements-- provided more framework. After that, the appropriate Scripture passages seemed to crowd in so thick I could barely find my keyboard.

Well, wouldn't you know it, the first hymn got changed in the interim and I'd quoted it three or four times! No matter. By the grace of God, I believe what I said was appropriate and to the point.

(And worth remembering, I hope, more than the charge I got at my ordination, when my preaching friend advised me per the water when doing baptisms, "A little dab'll do ya!" Every time I recall that, I want to yell, "No, it won't! God attached physical signs to His grace in the sacraments for a reason! People out there in the pews gotta see and hear the water!! They have to feel like they're getting wet!")

Funny thing is, the Charge to the Pastor, which I worked on carefully ahead of time and delivered more or less according to plan, apparently hadn't as much impact as another part of the service I thought I had under control, but didn't.

This was the Prayer of Confession of Sin and its Call to Confession and Declaration of Pardon. I determined to use a form of Romans 3:21-26 as the latter. I even wrote the verse number down. So why I didn't put a bookmark in my Bible at the passage, I do not know. The Call to Confession, I had a few ideas for appropriate verses for it, but decided I'd settle on which when I got there.

Oh! (I settled this evening) I'll split the Romans 3 passage, and use part for the Call, and part for the Declaration! But when I got into the lectern, I discovered first that I'd left my bulletin with the Prayer of Confession on it in the pew. I had to confess my own fault and ask another member of the Commission to hand me one. Then something seemed to possess my fingers: fumbling with the thin, slippery Bible pages, I could not seem to turn to the place in Romans I needed. Flip-slip, flip-slip, flip-slip! Oh, gosh, this is taking forever! Everyone is staring at me! When I finally found it, there was no way I felt I could take the time with my dratted presbyopia and study which verses should go where.

So I gave up. I summarized Romans 3:23-24 ("All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . . ") for the Call to Confession, and fell back on my heart verse, Romans 5:8 and surrounding, for the Declaration of Pardon. I don't know exactly what else came out of my mouth. But I guess it was what the Holy Spirit wanted, since two different people (both of them men, if it matters) came up to me at the reception and said, "When you gave that Declaration of Pardon, I just wanted to jump up and get going! I felt totally forgiven, and now I wanted to go out and serve!"

Oh. Really? God used me like that this evening? In spite of my klutziness?

Hmmm. Maybe I should remember this for those times when I'm making a hard job of forgiving myself. Because if there was any absolving power in what came out of my mouth this evening, it wasn't from me. But it's certainly available to me, if I'll just believe God and ask.

But now, here's what I'm thinking: That it'd be really, truly nice if very soon I'd be in a position to invite the Rev. Mr. Brown and some of the members of his Installation Commission to do the same service for me. Having gotten Toby plugged in, I would be grateful and gratified to find my own place to be plugged in, too.

"We Have Heard the Joyful Sound!"

This morning I had the fun of supplying the pulpit of a little church over the border in the wilds of West Virginia. Their regular pastor was away, they needed a Real Ordained Minister to preside at the Lord's table on World Communion Sunday, so they brought me in from miles away, under hill, over dale, to be there.

I arrived in good time, met up with Ralph*, my elder contact, and began get settled.

The organist is an elderly and honorable lady who knows not a great many hymns and is no longer capable of learning many more, so the selection is always left up to her. The hymn numbers were on the board at the front, but not in the bulletin. Hmm . . . what do we have? First one was an unmemorable but innocuous devotional number . . . second was "Beneath the Cross of Jesus," a good one, though in my experience it's generally used in Lent . . . . But the third and last . . . oh boy, here's my jolly old hymnodic bête noire, "In the Garden." On World Communion Sunday, we're going to sing, "And the love we share, as we tarry there, none other has ever known"? I do not think so.

I said to Ralph* (who also happens to be the son of the organist), "Do you think your mom might be willing to substitute a mission hymn for "In the Garden"? It's World Communion Sunday, and that hymn's a little inward-looking . . . I'd like to send us out with something a bit more mission focussed . . . "

He thought that could be done, but as we moved towards the sanctuary doors to get a hymnal, we were greeted by the members of the adult Sunday School class, just dismissed, including a very ancient old gentleman leaning on a cane.

"So you're to be our preacher today!" he exclaimed, grabbing my hand with his free one. "I'm a retired Church of God minister, but I've worshipped in this congregation for over twenty years! You know, the Church of God has a mission in Kenya, and there the Church of God and the Presbyterian Church are like twins in Egypt! They get along so well! Just like twins in Egypt!"

As he spoke I spared a piece of my brain to rummage around for the source of the "twins in Egypt" analogy. No luck; maybe he'd give me a clue himself? Nope, and I couldn't wait for the happy event-- we still had the hymn issue and other arrangements to deal with. So as I excused and extricated myself, Ralph* handed me a hymnal and steered me to his mother, Ilene*-- though not before I was once again waylaid by old Rev. Goodheart*.

Ilene* and I looked through the "Mission" section of their hymnal: Neither she nor the congregation knew any of them. (Oh, dear!). "Let's try 'Evangelism'," she said. Not much more success there. But she knew "We have heard the joyful sound! Jesus saves! Jesus saves!" though she doubted all of the congregation did. I told her I knew it-- mostly-- and it was a good, rousing, outward-looking hymn to finish up with, so let's do it. I'm thinking, "Anything to escape C. Austin Miles' rank and unweeded 'Garden'!"

With one thing and the other, we didn't get everyone in and seated till twenty minutes past time, but nobody seemed to care. Ralph* began with announcements, and as he spoke, it hit me, "My sermon's too conceptual as I've got it written. These people are going to need some specific, bright-colored application, or I'll fly right over their heads. Holy Spirit, help me have the right words when the time comes!"

I didn't have to come up with the right words for the children's sermon-- it was taken in hand by a woman of the congregation. Bearing a globe, she called the large band of kids to shifting and tenuous order at the edge of the platform. Two or three erratic toddlers found the platform more interesting than the talk, so I came and joined them to lend a steadying presence, sort of.

Teacher asked if anyone could find the United States on the globe. One girl about nine or ten tried and tried and tried . . . Good grief, don't they teach Geography in the public schools anymore? Teacher finally put her out of her misery and showed her where America was.

Our own nation fixed and established, the teacher asked, "Can any of you name any other countries?"

"WalMart!" volunteered one tyke, and of course the congregation just howled. As the teacher tried to recover from that one, the discountenanced little boy turned his back on the assembly, trying to draw a couple of his little friends away with him.

Ilene* the organist and I tried to get him to turn around and pay attention.

"No!" he said, "I'm not going to! They're all mean!"

Oh, dear, again. The child probably thought the teacher had asked if the children knew the names of any companies, he'd given a perfectly good answer, and he got laughed at! That was mean! I can just see it, years from now: "I gave up on religion when I was four years old and the congregation laughed at me during the children's sermon!"

(Well, I've heard equally silly excuses for turning one's back on Christ and His salvation!)

The children's talk proceeded, and was wound up with the announcement that the Peacemaking Offering they'd been contributing to for the past few weeks would go to help poor and needy people around the world. So now would they bring their offering boxes to a certain table below the platform, the one where the flowers are?

The boxes were already there on the front pew, and the children picked them up and took them . . . back to their seats . . . to the edge of the platform . . . around and around the sanctuary . . . and finally, to the designated table. And may the denomination be half so effective and organized in getting the money to the people who need it!

My sermon began with lines like, "It's all up to us to bring peace to the world, right? God's sitting back in heaven waiting for us to do it. So we'd better get busy!" And from the congregation I'm hearing, "Amen!" "Yes!" O noes! That was meant to be satirical. Good grief, we human beings fight over the best way to bring peace, and that includes us in the church! No, people, not Amen, not Yes! That is a great big NO! Only Jesus Christ the Son of God can bring true peace, not us, not even our human version of His peace. Christ alone!

Lord, help me turn this ship around before we end up on the rocks! Whew! by the end-- with the help of the added applications-- they were Amening the sound doctrine, not dodgy cultural misconceptions. Though it's not because I cut any impressive figure in the pulpit. Hey, I had to make things more interesting by having assembled my sermon text booklet with some of the pages in backwards and in the wrong order! That long awkward pause? I meant to do that!

At this church the Communion table is very small, and their set of Communion ware is very large. There was simply no place to put my Book of Common Worship, as I had noticed when I arrived. So for (I think) the first time since I was ordained eleven years ago, I said the Eucharist impromptu, from memory: Great Thanksgiving, Sanctus, Words of Institution/Consecration (always do that from memory), Epiclesis, Acclamation, Attribution, and all. Who knows, I may do it from memory the next time and the next. Saves me fighting with the small print in the worship book!

Some of the same peripetetic toddlers roamed the sanctuary during the administration of the Lord's Supper. I being a stranger, they wouldn't come to me. Sob!

The time came to sing the substituted final hymn, and Ilene* was right-- Maybe half the congregation knew it. It doesn't help that the tune features some very wide and acrobatic intervals that not even I was nailing. But we muddled through with little or no damage to the ship, and I dismissed the people to a fine fellowship hour featuring a large repast of leftover pastries contributed by a local bakery. Enough and to spare to take a few home.

And back in the little narthex-hall, I was again accosted, taken by the hand by my old friend Rev. Goodheart*. He'd loved my sermon. He was so glad I had come to be with them. The Church of God and the Presbytery Church are like twins in Egypt! The Church of God has a wonderful mission in Kenya! He was so happy to hear my sermon! Twins in Egypt! Etc., etc.

I listened to him patiently. There is honor due his years and calling, and when-- if!-- I ever reach my ninth decade, I hope people in the church will listen patiently to me, too.

But then he looked at me and said, "God gave us the night time for a blessing."

Yes?

"God wants us to use it to rest."

Uh, yes?

"You should take the blessing God gives you. The darkness is for rest."

Uh, what? Sir, I perceive you are a prophet! How did you know I was up all night Friday night-Saturday morning working on my sermon! And up till 2:00 last night making Welsh cakes?

Very strange! Sermon preached; will it now be applied?

Another member of the congregation invited me home to lunch with his family, but I couldn't take him up on it and still make a previous commitment I had for this afternoon. The invitation is open for the next time I come, however.

Which may be a long time, since I live so far away and it costs the church a lot in mileage to bring me. Still, it was a fine thing to get back down there to the little church way down at the bottom of the Presbytery Over the Border*. And if I got them thinking a little ways past their hilltop in West Virginia, past the once-a-year Peacemaking Offering, that would be a fine and worthy thing.

We have heard the joyful sound: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Spread the tidings all around: Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Bear the news to every land, climb the mountains, cross the waves;

Onward! 'tis our Lord's command; Jesus saves! Jesus saves!

Irony

I'm thinking the Holy Spirit-- or someone-- has an ironic sense of humor.

First of all, I had a gen-u-wine, official, dizzy spell this morning when I was ironing my shirt to get ready for my continuing ed event. Had a sudden, irresistible inclination to sit right down on the floor. Whoa! I was thinking it might be even more suitable to lie down on the floor, but my dog disagreed. He shoved his body under me and made me get up. So I finished ironing the shirt, got ready, and arrived safely at the conference site-- but my head felt like someone had shaken everything out of it and pumped it full of dirty air. Not the state I wanted to be in to impress my peers with my Marvellous Potential.

Then I saw the small group lists posted on newsprint on the meeting room wall. What kind of a sick joke is this? I'd been put in with a group of some of the most intimidating people in my presbytery, some of whom have been effective in restricting my progress to a new solo call. What kind of chance would I have of proving my competence with them?

And then-- you'll love this-- I looked in the folder they gave us at registration, and there in the front pocket was a copy of the Pastor Competency Model. Yes, I wasted three hours or more last night looking for my own copy. How ironic is that?

The Pastor Competency Model was talked up by an official from Big City Presbytery* (this conference is a multi-presbytery event). She cheerfully and enthusiastically told us that they require all the churches looking for pastors in their presbytery to use it and its questions. O woe! O depression! I've got my resume in to some churches down there looking for associate pastors; what hope can there be for me under these circumstances?

But the sessions began. And my head began to clear. And though the discussions concerned the competencies dealt with in the Model, we didn't consider the interview questions at all. In fact, when we convened for our first small group session, the very pastor who'd led the general discussion over the first competency commented that any pastor who could honestly come up with good answers to all those questions would be totally amazing. And is maybe (the implication was) nonexistent?

But wouldn't you think that she, of all people . . . ? Ironic.

As is the fact that maybe in the end being in that group gave me a chance to sound halfway intelligent around some high-powered people. And to consider and treat them as I would like them to treat me.

Which might do me some service next time there's openings to be recommended for.

At least, I hope so. In this, I'm definitely not trying to be ironic.

Domestic Comedy

This evening I was at the local WalMart to pick up a few things. Even at 9:30 PM, the place was a madhouse, with not enough cashiers to check out the long lines of customers.

But oh, look! The "10 Items or Less" line was pretty short! Only one customer between me and the person being served! And I had . . . let me count . . . five, six, only seven items! Bingo! Should be rung up and out of here in no time!

Uh, maybe not. Just as I approached, two young women pushing a cart filled to the gills with food, household supplies, flowers, and clothes pulled in right ahead of me.

Oh, good grief, I thought. Two precious products of the modern-day American educational system. For obviously, they could neither read nor count.

I was wrong. Let us say, rather, two shining examples of modern-day American ethical education.

Young Woman 1: Here we go!

Young Woman 2: It's "10 Items or Less" . . . but hey, there's three of us, right? That's like if we had three carts, ya know?

YW1: Yeah! We can each do ten items at a time! You do ten, I'll do ten, and when Charlene* [the third member of their party, presumably; off somewhere in the store still shopping] gets here, she can do ten!

YW2: Great!

While the customers ahead of them were checked out, these enterprising young persons passed the time changing the prices on a display of DVDs. This diverted them so well that a great gulf opened up between their cart and the cash register, while behind me the line was extending back and back and around into the walkway. Spoil-sport that I am, I stage-whispered "Excuse me!" and YW2 quickly put down the price card she was fooling with and pushed their overloaded basket up and started putting things on the belt.

Cashier didn't say a thing, didn't bat an eye. (She might've been the one who got through twelve grades unable to count or read). Just stood there stolidly scanning the items as they rolled down the belt.

While I had a front-row view of the unfolding comedy. It was amazing. YW2 counted off ten items; cashier rang them up; YW1 paid for them. She counted off another ten items and paid for them herself. Then another ten, rung up separately again, which her friend paid for.

And not just any ten items. They had to be chosen carefully. Wouldn't want our orders getting mixed up, now would we?

Meanwhile, the line is getting longer and the atmosphere is getting tense and restless. I'm thinking, "For goodness sake, could you please hurry up, I'm about to be sick standing here! Come on!"

YW2 was deliberately and selectively pulling another ten items from the communal cart when I noticed something odd about her clothing. She was wearing a white and black sundress over a tee-shirt and slacks, and the top of the sundress was hanging down around her midriff. Is this a new style?

No . . . the tags were still on it. She must've tried the sundress on over her clothes to see if it fit, then couldn't be bothered to take it off. I wondered if she would be bothered to remember to pay for it, or if the cashier would have the wit and perspicacity to notice and get it scanned.

But I didn't get to see this part of the comedy played. YW2 was pulling out the cash for the fourth group of ten purchases, there were maybe fifteen or twenty articles of clothing still lying in the cart, the mysterious Charlene* had not yet appeared, and the natives in the queue were getting not only restless, but downright irritated, when YW1 exclaims, "Oh! I have to get a card!" To the cashier: "Where are the cards?" Cashier gives her directions, while I'm thinking, "Ye gods, they're going to go pick out a card and leave their basket here blocking the line. I know it ! I know it! Now I am going to be sick!" But YW1 says to her friend, "This stuff is mostly Charlene's*. Let's go get a card and find her." With that, they pulled away from the checkout and disappeared back into the maelstrom of the store.

Hilarious [she says grimly], just hilarious. Talk about adhering to the letter of the law and stomping all over the spirit! When is it okay to take fifty or sixty items through the "10 Items or Less" line? When you hold up the queue for ten or fifteen minutes paying for your haul in ten- item groups!

Not ethical, but oh my, how clever!

What was it that Jesus said about the children of the world being shrewder in their generation than the children of light . . . ?

Irony

About a half hour ago, I was on Magnatunes.com listening to J. S. Bach's cantata BMV 156, Ich Steh mit Einem Fuss im Grabe ("I stand with one foot in the grave"). At the same time, I was trying to get a fountain pen to write, and amid the whorls and loops, just for fun, I was doodling the names of my maternal grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather.

Then the phone rang. It was my mother. She said, "I have something I have to tell you," and I immediately knew it wouldn't be good.

"I'm flying up to Boston tomorrow."

"It's Uncle Elliot*, isn't it?"

"Yes."

Uncle Elliot, my mother's younger brother. The only son of my late grandfather whose name I'd just been idly scribbling. Uncle Elliot, who last year was diagnosed with lung cancer, and who refused surgery or other treatment because he felt fine at the time and didn't want to compromise his quality of life, not even for five or six more years on this earth. My mother is flying up to Boston tomorrow, because my aunt called to tell her that he is literally standing-- or lying-- with one foot in the grave.

"He's going downhill fast. I'll be there till Saturday, and help Natalie* with whatever she needs."

And so it looks as if I will never see my Uncle Elliot alive again. I may well not see him again at all.

For he and my aunt Natalie, his third wife, are in retirement extremely private people, even towards family. My mother told me that Natalie hasn't informed even Uncle Elliot's children from his first and second marriages. It clearly was a relief to my mom that she at least had let her, Elliot's only sister, know. I told my mother that if the funeral plans Elliot and Natalie had made included family, to let me know and I'd make arrangements and come.

But the way things are, I expect no such call.

I saw my uncle and aunt last about eleven years ago, and it did not go well. Uncle Elliot was amiable enough, but Aunt Natalie made it clear that my being there was trouble and interference and a disruption in general. I'd always thought there'd be plenty of time for us to get past that and try again.

But time went by, and duty and pleasure and busyness got in the way, and after all, would it actually go better another time around? So I did nothing positive about it.

You'd think I'd be sitting here now in great sadness and grief, both because my only maternal uncle is dying and because I hadn't managed to see him since Thanksgiving of 1996. The irony is, I'm not. And I can't.

I can't, because even if I had made overtures towards my aunt, it wouldn't have made any difference. Even if I'd gone to Massachusetts and attempted another visit, it wouldn't have drawn us any closer. Because that's the way my family works. We don't feud, we aren't enemies, we do keep in touch from time to time-- we just aren't close.

No, the grief and sadness that lies in wait for me runs deeper and began farther back, before I was born, when currents were set in motion that I can't fathom or explain even now. The grief and sadness are there because I can only imagine the family spirit and togetherness that others seem to enjoy. Their vibrant affection is like a foreign country to me. Most of the time, I let the happy inhabitants of that land enjoy their patrimony, and I do well enough in mine.

But at times like this, I begin to wonder why that heartfelt closeness has been infrequent at best with my kith and kin. At times like this, I wonder if somehow I've been robbed of something it would have been very good to have, something that ought to have been mine.

But robbed by whom?

By the human beings-- including myself-- that conceived and aggravated this state of affairs? Yes, of course.

But above it all, hasn't God in His permissive providence allowed it to be so? Shall I, a guilty sinner, rail at God? Shall I not rather accept my own fault in not at least trying to make things better, and be faithful and still? And know that somehow, God can and has and will take the wrongness of it and make it right?

Even if I can't do anything directly for my Uncle Elliot at his home near Boston, under hospice care, dying?

But one thing I can do: I can pray, by God's sovereign providence, that by whatever means he would reach out for the Lord and Savior he hasn't had time for all his life, and enter the next life in salvation and peace.

That would be a sublime-- and divine-- irony. Soli Deo gloria.

Ich steh mit einem Fuß im Grabe,
Machs mit mir, Gott, nach deiner Güt,
Bald fällt der kranke Leib hinein,
Hilf mir in meinen Leiden,
Komm, lieber Gott, wenn dirs gefällt,
Was ich dich bitt, versag mir nicht.

Ich habe schon mein Haus bestellt,
Wenn sich mein Seel soll scheiden,
So nimm sie, Herr, in deine Händ.
Nur lass mein Ende selig sein!
Ist alles gut, wenn gut das End.

Physician, Heal Thyself

I'm printing out my sermon for tomorrow. I've chosen more or less the Revised Common Lectionary passages from Luke and Colossians, the former covering Jesus' parable of the Rich Fool and the latter, where we are to consider ourselves dead with our true lives hidden in heaven with Christ.

I'd intended to focus on the theme of True Riches, but the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last Wednesday made it right to deal also with the motif of death.

A very sound sermon the Holy Spirit has given me, I think: All about the wrongheartedness of confusing making a living with having a life, and of confusing the temporary life of this earth with the eternal life in God. With a descant on how our attitudes on that have to be right all the time, since at any moment our lives might be required of us, just as in the parable of the Rich Fool, just as with those poor victims of the bridge disaster the other day.

The Holy Spirit is also reminding me what a wry sense of humor my God has. Why does He always insist I preach my sermons to myself first? Why does He so cleverly arrange it so, no matter what the texts are, they and my sermons always are applicable to me?

It struck me in the Luke passage that, by human estimation, the man in the crowd who asks Jesus to make his brother divide the inheritance with him isn't greedy at all. He only wants what's his according to the law. He only wants his means of livelihood.

But my sinless Lord Jesus implies that he's greedy! He's greedy because he's focussing all effort and hope in life on material sustenance and how he can get it. He's not concentrating on God and His will for His life; no, he's willing to drag his brother's name publicly through the mud and ignore God in the process. The poor can be greedy just as much as the rich. They can be just as impoverished in their relationship with God.

And here I am, without a fulltime job since early April, drawing unemployment compensation that will run out before I know it. And I'm worried. I know I'm good at what I do, whether it's in pastoral work or in architecture. And I'm willing to get additional credentials where I'm lacking.

But I'm afraid. I'm afraid a suitable pastorate will never open up for me. I'm afraid that potential architectural employers will only see my age and the fact that I'm a novice in AutoCAD (I'm an ace at drawing by hand) and refuse to speak with me any further. I worry about losing my house and my possessions and coming on the charity of family or the State or ending up a bum.

Or worse, maybe, I'll starve to death and die!

I'm afraid, I worry, I focus on making a living or my inability to make a living and turn my eyes totally from the power and provision of God! I let that fear and worry depress me so much I'm unable to concentrate on finding the labor and livelihood that God has out there for me!

I don't say writing this sermon has screwed my head back on straight. But preaching it tomorrow should help the process a little. And may grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit move it forward a lot.