Sad, Mad, Bad, Glad

We had a long, useful, and thanks to the weather and no air-conditioning, exciting and sweat-drenched presbytery meeting tonight.

Some of the business was sad: We agreed to terms to dismiss one of our congregations to another denomination. The process was earnest, but withal gracious and amicable . . . now we get to see if our denominational headquarters stirs up our synod to challenge the decision. It's happened before, to other presbyteries.

Some of the business was mad: Some very bizarre decisions came out of the latest General Assembly, and we're still considering the best way to respond to it all.

The weather, for awhile, definitely got bad. I dashed downstairs to the ladies' lounge right after the Executive Presbyter's report, thinking I'd never get through the hour and fifteen minutes of business scheduled before break if I didn't. But as I started to come upstairs, I saw my colleagues streaming down.

"We're in a tornado warning," they said. "We're breaking now for refreshments, since they're set up down here."

And that's what we did, until word came in that the storm was tracking just three miles north of us. Grabbing cookies and cheese and crackers as we went, we, like a very discursive and not wholly biddable flock, were herded down to a lower level still, to the activity hall below the fellowship hall.

(A lady from the church was upset that such a thing should happen when they were hosting presbytery; I said, no, it's great: Their building gave us a safe place for us to reconvene, and we were using all their facility.)

And with business and happenings sad, mad, and bad, we had some that was glad.

It was glad news to hear that our presbytery is outstanding and first in the denomination for taking up the official 2007 challenge for every church to support a missionary in some way.

And it was glad because we successfully examined two of our own ministerial candidates, a father and daughter, who'll be taking up pastorates in other presbyteries. And we held examinations for three new colleagues who will be coming in.

I was wondering if I'd have to commit an act of ecclesiastical disobedience for awhile there: It was proposed and adopted that given the amount of business tonight, the examinations would be divided up and which presbyters dealt with which candidates would be determined by what color index card you were randomly handed at registration. There were two of the incoming candidates I'd been looking forward to seeing and perhaps questioning, and I didn't want to lose the fun!

One was a fellow blogger, with whom I've exchanged post comments on this blog and on his. Another was a former colleague from the presbytery of my first call. (I was recalling old times to him during the refreshment time, and he kept saying, "Well, cover me with batter and fry me!" Hilarious!)

In the end, I was where I wanted to be. All three of our candidates (for a bonus, we also had a neophyte coming in from another Pennsylvania presbytery) weathered their examinations well, despite the lights going out a time or two. And in case any of them were wondering, there was no debate while they were out of the room: It was AllinfavorsayayeAYYYYYE!!allopposedsamesignokay,examinationsustained.

We got out sometime after ten, a little excited, somewhat nervy, and very tired. The air was cool, the skies mostly clear. I had a drive of an hour or more to get home; it'll be a longer drive into the future before we see what comes of what we accomplished tonight.
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More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/RevdArchitect/BeaverButlerPresbytery. They're the last ones posted; no captions yet.

Steady On

I heard from the chairman of my Committee on Ministry this afternoon. I'm on the docket for the July 7th meeting, hopefully to find out why so many restrictions have been put on me regarding prospective fields of ministry, and to see what can be done about it.

And my response was not relief and gratitude, but gut-level panic.

Steady on, girl. The only reason ever given to me for the restrictions was that I seemed to "need more mentoring than usual." I know what I can and will say to that. But there's always the paranoid fear that There's Something They're Not Telling You, something so awful you'll melt in terror to hear it about yourself.

I lived with that sensation when I had trouble with my presbytery in the Midwest, nine years ago, at the start of my ordained ministry. To make things worse, that COM's attitude was that if I didn't know what I'd done wrong, it just went to prove I wasn't "self-aware" enough to pastor a church. They weren't going to enlighten me!

It made me wonder if, all unbeknownst to myself, I was going out in the village at night and gibbering obscenities under people's windows.

When at last I (and most of my church session) couldn't stand it anymore, I was driven to hire a crackerjack employment law attorney (who was also a Presbyterian deacon) who made the COM chairman 'fess up. My sins? I'd refused to let the retired pastor of the church resume and continue his ministry through me, and I'd proved how "unpastoral" I was by preaching a sermon series on the articles of the Apostles' Creed!

Oh, dear.

That was another presbytery, another COM, another COM chairman. It was the former chairman of the COM here who came up with the "needs an unusual amount of mentoring" rationale. I have to wonder, did this opinion of his come from conversations with the presbytery in the Midwest?

And are they still angry at me because I faced them with that attorney? Angry enough to muddy my chances here?

Good grief, I hope not.

But if I'm going to prove on the 7th that all that-- however much of "all that" there really was-- is in the past, the stomach will have to give the thinking duties back to the brain.

Thank God, I've got three weeks to get my head, stomach, and heart all back where they belong!

Spitting Nails

I've been meaning to get with our HR manager at the architecture firm (I'll call it The Collaborative) to find out what company policy is on blogging. Not having yet done so, and pleading that where there is no law, there is no trespass, I reflect that unlike modern art and most forms of economics, architecture can't be done in a void. It takes clients and contractors and code officials. Sometimes they're what makes for great design and greater buildings. Other times, they're-- well, discretion forbids me saying just what.

Like now. We're doing a museum cum lecture hall renovation project for a certain non-profit, and we're well into working drawings. The concept, the design development-- all that was set months, if not years ago.

Until last Thursday, that is, when one of the members of the non-profit's renovation committee announced that she's worried that the seating required won't fit in the space available.

So at her behest, the non-profit's board agreed to meet at the site, to look at the space again and talk about "alternatives" with me and the project's principal architect. And why did I get the feeling that she's already concluded that "alternatives" will be needed?

The non-profit's people think we're meeting on Wednesday. I can't make it Wednesday; I've already e-mailed them all to that effect. And checking my supervisor's calendar, I see he can't, either. So what are they going to do? Meet without us, decide the design doesn't work, and expect us to donate the time to redo it at this late date?

The design does work. I stayed late this evening to do a mockup with some chairs in the office. Nothing to do about it now but wait till the principal sees the flurry of e-mails in his inbox tomorrow. Hopefully he'll exercise his authority and calm everyone down, or at least make it clear the inspection meeting has to be put off to a more opportune time.

Yes, this matter will likely turn out to be more a pastoral matter than an architectural one. Reassuring clients that all is well is a big part of design. Remember that, I tell myself: the time of teeth gritting will pass.

Besides, there are more formidable obstacles than those raised by anxious clients. There are all the latest nervous Nelly, nanny state code regulations hiding between the covers of various code books, just waiting to throw one's whole design into confusion over one little thing . . .

Yes, yes, we want people to be safe! It's an act of charity to want people to be safe! But when I get the feeling that certain regulations were passed to give an appearance of safety more than the reality of it, or when a client is made to spend thousands of dollars to meet an eventuality that may never occur in nine decades, it makes me want to spit nails.

But no, spitting nails probably isn't permitted under the prevailing building codes.