It Happens to Me

This afternoon I was in my study finishing my sermon for tomorrow. Since it's Pentecost, I was writing on the Holy Spirit and His role in our lives.

I wrote that to call the Holy Spirit the Comforter is not to make Him into a spiritual duvet that makes sure nothing bad or sad or awkward ever happens to us.

No. He's our Comforter in and through our troubles. He's the one who unites us to Christ in His sufferings and therefore to Christ in His resurrection.

So I finish my sermon early in the evening, about time for supper. But first, I decide to finish the job properly and print it out before I go downstairs.

Now, I use WordPerfect. WP61, to be precise. I use it because of the beautiful Reveal Codes, and I use it because it's so easy to format and print out my sermons in booklet form, which is nasty and hard to do in Word.

So my text is done and I go to Print, Options, Booklet Printing, Print Odd Pages. All very simple and straightforward. I've done it hundreds of times, on this computer and its predecessors.

But for some reason, this time, instead of printing four sheets worth of odd pages (that I will reinsert to put four pages worth of even page text on the flip sides), I get eight sheets of everything.

My blood sugar is low, but I take myself in hand and try to see if I can put those sheets back in and print on the other sides and get two good copies.

No.

I try turning off WP, then turning it back on and printing again. This time I'll try Even pages first.

No. Same eight pages. Blood sugar still crashing. Frustration level mounting.

Damn, she says theologically. If the new computer and the new printer are doing that, let's save the sermon to the thumbdrive and print it on the old computer and the old printer.

I boot up the old laptop. Defective patch cord comes loose and machine goes down. I try again, open WP, and bring up my sermon off the thumbdrive. Print, Options, Booklet Printing, Print Odd Pages. Message appears on the screen: "Printer cannot print on paper size chosen. Printer will choose paper size." Or something like that. No option to cancel print. Happily, I've only chosen "Print current page," in case the old cartridge needed priming.

Test page comes out vertical instead of horizontal, with the text cut off on both sides. With the low blood sugar, I can't remember how I worked around that in the past. And why am I getting a window telling me to reinsert the sheet to print on the back? That's only supposed to happen in Word, not WordPerfect!

I try the new computer again. Warning message: "Black ink cartridge is low!" What? I only bought it a month ago! It can't be low! I don't have a spare!

I don't believe the warning. I try printing again.

Damn again! The new cartridge is out of ink. Wouldn't have mattered anyway. It's the same useless eight sheets coming out in the tray.

By now I'm getting very annoyed and very frustrated, and it ain't just the low blood sugar. It's been a good two hours since I started trying to print this blinking thing, and blast it, it won't behave! Why do things like this happen to me!? Why do things seem deliberately to set out to sabotage me?!? It's not fair!!! It's JUST NOT FAIR!!!

Then it hits me: You idiot. Tomorrow you're going to preach that people should depend on the Holy Spirit to get them through death, dismemberment, and disaster. Don't you think He's capable of lending you patience enough to put up with technological glitches? Don't you think He can give you serenity and wisdom enough to figure out how to get your sermon printed out?

Yes. Rebuke taken, and applied.

So it was back to the old computer and its printer. Got the page orientation problem figured out. At the cost of a few more sheets of paper, worked out the implications of the Word double-sided printing issue that had somehow found its way into WordPerfect.

But at last I got my sermon printed out.

And I got my own sermon for the night.

Yes, it does happen to me, the temptation to think everything should always go well in my little world. The temptation to depend on myself and get fractious when I can't make things work instantly. The temptation to preach at others when I should be applying my sermons to myself, first.

But the Holy Spirit and His wisdom happens to me, too. And it's God's own gracious blessing to me that He does.

The Best Laid Plans

Gosh, that was a noble resolution in my last post, wasn't it?

What grand plans go crashing to earth under the influence of a few million viral germs! When I wrote it I was experiencing a little innocuous congestion, by the following Tuesday I was losing my voice, by Wednesday, I'd been to the doctor's, and by the next Friday I put myself to bed till the Tuesday thereafter. I haven't got back on schedule yet.

By today, the bronchitis is almost gone. And I did get some work done in the interval. I've completed the contract I had with my former employer. Last weekend I did a lot of digging in my garden. And I've started two new blogs: one, "DogMogBlog," about adventures with my four-legged kids, and the other, "The Sow's Ear," which is supposed to shame me into getting the needed repair and remodelling work done on this, my boring beige house. I've put some reinforcement behind that by signing the new house web log up with Houseblogs.net.

But oh, did my projected schedule get shot!

Well, let's unshoot it. The executive presbyter of my presbytery told me last night that the Committee on Ministry is considering me for a Designated Pastor position. That'd be a nice fulltime responsibility--fulltime-plus. And then I'll wish I had the leisure to take care of things around here that I do now.

Crash Test Dummy

Everybody knows the job description of a crash test dummy. It sits in a vehicle being tested while that machine is subjected to impact and collision from whatever direction. The idea is to see how the dummy-- and by inference, a real human being-- will be affected by the forces applied.

The classic test is the head-on into a solid wall. Get the car, van, truck, whatever, up to a good rate of speed, send it on its rails straight to the concrete barrier, and BAM!!! see what's left thereafter. It's a useful test for the researcher. It's also (let's face it) rather satisfying for the random observer. There's something definitely cathartic about watching destruction that hurts nothing but things. And it's very good that the crash test dummy is nothing but a thing, NHTSA's Vince and Larry notwithstanding.

Because if the crash test dummy were a human creature with thoughts and feelings, he'd be about where I have been the past three weeks.

The 2nd was our deadline at the architecture office for getting out the revised bid set for the classroom/museum space I mentioned last August. Never mind now why it had to be rebid; the date was set so perhaps bids could be in in time for construction to begin on the date originally set; i.e., tomorrow, the 30th. My colleagues and I were working hard to meet the deadline. I in particular, as project architect, was going full bore, putting in fifty, sixty hours a week, doing whatever was necessary to get the drawings to the university for review and issue.

On top of this I had a full schedule of services at various churches for the end of Lent and Holy Week to plan and carry out, with two baptisms to do counselling for and a special Tenebrae service to lead. This was a wonderful privilege and blessing, especially since I don't have a regular parish. But you can see how things were going ninety miles an hour for me.

Well. We got the drawings done around midday the 3rd (okay, it happens). Late that afternoon, my boss comes back from a meeting with a new client, about a job for a master plan for a large local church. Now, I knew I was on the project team for that. The church leadership had told me to my face that they were going to recommend our firm to the trustees, because they wanted to work with me on it. So when my boss invited me into the conference room to "talk about the new job," it seemed perfectly natural.

But what he had to say was that now that the classroom/museum drawings were done, this new master plan job wouldn't be enough to keep me employed full time. Nor was there anything else on the immediate horizon to keep a hand-draftsman like me busy and profitable for the firm. So, he announced, they were shifting me to contract work.

Oh. Which has turned out to mean a few hours on the church master plan contract. Maybe some time with construction administration on the classroom/museum job, depending on what the client says and how the second round of bids come in. But goodbye fulltime work, goodbye colleagues, goodbye accustomed routine--Since the 9th what little architecture work I've had to do I've mostly done via a virtual network link in my office at home.

A crash test dummy could tell you how it feels, to accelerate faster and faster and then to hit the wall with pieces and parts flying everywhere and then, when the dust clears-- nothing. Or virtually nothing. No routine, no set schedule-- just lots of useless residual guilt. After weeks and months of putting so much time and physical and mental energy into the work at the architectural firm, the work isn't there anymore.

But the inertia of the shoulds and the oughts remains. Whatever I feel I should or could be doing in this interim time, it's trumped by the feeling that I should be fulltime at my downtown job! Even aside from finding a new job, there's so much I've put off, so much I need to do!

But the car's off the rails. The momentum is gone. So I haven't been real effective these past three weeks. A little of this, a little of that, a lot of catching up on my sleep after weeks of three to five hour nights . . . As the Tinman said to the Scarecrow, "That's you all over!"

But Spring has finally come (she says optimistically) and I must take myself in hand. So how's this: Eight hours for work (including looking for a new post, architectural or ecclesiastical), eight hours for sleep, three hours on the house and/or the garden, and five hours for meals, laundry, and anything else. Starting tonight.

If I don't at least try, I really will be a dummy!

A Little Incarnation

Came across an intriguing posting this evening by my old friend Mike Kruse, at http://krusekronicle.typepad.com/kruse_kronicle/2007/04/stolen_goods_te.html#comment-67891776, on originality and plagiarism in preaching. Added a couple comments of my own, which see.

In Christian ethics, it's never a matter of the lesser of two evils, but the greater of two goods. So which is better-- preaching a doctrinally-sound sermon that is not one's own? Or coming up with something original that may be poorly-researched, badly-organized, and maybe heretical?

But why should that be a forced choice? Most weeks we don't have three funerals and two parishioner operations and a lost child or (append your choice of pastoral emergency) to attend to. Most weeks, our Sunday sermon is the focus and summation of our ministry for the week. Most weeks, the Lord expects us to put in the work to come up with the words to contain the Word He wants us to give our people, whether by study and writing or out of the sweat of the pastoral trenches. It's like a little incarnation, what God does with us in the pulpit. He calls us to the ministry of the Word and says, "I want to work through you. I want to bring the Living Word to these people in this time and place through you." How's He going to do that if we're cribbing other people's work?

I know it does happen. When I did my parish placement as a second-year theological college student, I regularly visited the elderly widow of a certain clergyman. This reverend gentleman had published two or more collections of his sermons for use by hapless preachers. But, said his widow, "My Eric always put some preposterous statement or other somewhere in the middle of each one, to make sure the preacher looks it over first and makes an effort to make it his own." Some subscribers only learned of those little traps while blithely reading out the borrowed work in the pulpit. Oops! "I'm sorry, dearly beloved, Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, not into a slotted spoon!" But whether that sermon-mining device ultimately works for or against theological candor, I'm still struggling to say.

Now, the last thing I want on my gravestone is "Here Lies an Original Theologian." All truth is God's truth and we share it together. And if some preacher thinks another's words are exactly what his congregation needs to hear on a given Sunday, for sweet honesty's sake, let him give credit to that other servant of Christ! But how can anyone justify using another's sermons as a matter of habit? Wouldn't the water get a little stale?

But maybe I'm committing a worse sin-- going on about a fault I have no temptation towards myself. As an itinerant supply preacher, I feel guilty if I revamp and re-preach sermons of my own!

Wennie Gets Her Fifteen Minutes!

Rhadwen's profile is up on the Meankitty Gallery at Meankitty.com! She says I took long enough getting around to writing her publicity piece, only pounding it out in the waning minutes of 2006. As if I didn't have enough to do! And then the wait for Meankitty's Typing Slave post it.

But now, there it is, and Rhadwen invites one and all to go to http://www.meankitty.com/Gallery/wennie.htm and see what a fierce and selfless cat she is (not). She's not sure how it will affect her reputation, but I tell her, her reputation proceeds her. As with the current cat sitter who creeps in, fills the food dish, and escapes before Rhadders can use her jeans leg as a scratching post.

I've moved the birdfeeder to the side yard outside the dining room window. Wennie asks, since it's so close to the dining room, why don't I just open the window and let her dine? As it is, she gazes at the feathered visitors and dreams . . .

Even so, it's Llewellyn who has scored the latest bird. Obviously, he cornered it on the back porch, scarfed it down, and thereafter upchucked it whole onto the study carpet. Oh, lovely. Thank God for lots of paper towels!

And no, I did not take a picture of that!

The Song of the Hunting Cat

I haven't posted any songs for awhile. Here's a frivolous piece I came up with while raking last year's leaves out of the back yard this afternoon:

Oh, at our house we have a cat,
Picolay, picolay,
Who prowls around this way and that,
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay,
High-di-ho-di, picolay,
Picolay, picolay,
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di!

Out in the garden sat a frog,
Picolay, picolay,
Said, "Whither go ye, Mistress Mog?"
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay . . .

"Hunting go I, as is meet,
Picolay, picolay,
"That I may find my dinner sweet,"
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay . . .

"And what, pray, shall your quarry be?"
Picolay, picolay,
"The bird that flies unwarily."
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay . . .

"And what if Bird stays in her house?"
Picolay, picolay,
"Oh then, I’ll catch the tender mouse."
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay . . .

"And what if Mouse runs down his hole?"
Picolay, picolay,
"Oh then, I’ll hunt the whiskered vole."
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay . . .

"What if Vole gains his burrow snug?"
Picolay, picolay,
"Oh then, I’ll find a juicy bug."
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay . . .

"And what if Bug should hear your voice?"
Picolay, picolay,
"Oh then, a squirrel would be my choice."
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay . . .

"And what if Squirrel runs up a tree?"
Picolay, picolay,
"Oh then, Sir Frog, I’d fancy thee!"
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay . . .

When Mother let our cat inside,
Picolay, picolay,
"Frog legs for supper!" Kitty cried.
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di.

Picolay, picolay,
High-di-ho-di, picolay,
Picolay, picolay,
Hey-di-high-di-ho-di!

--24 March 2007 (copyright St. Blogwen's Well)

"Be Ye Holy . . . . "

Here I am, two-thirds of the way through Lent. With Christ's help I am keeping the Lenten abstinence vow I began on Ash Wednesday. But I don't feel particularly holy withal.

No, I don't expect to go floating six inches above the pavement, my head wreathed in a shining halo. That's not what I mean by holiness.

Holiness is doing what I know God wants me to do, whether I want to or not.

Holiness is keeping a charitable mind towards all I encounter, including the boss who takes my work for granted or the benighted soul who drives 35 mph in the 45 mph zone.

Holiness is using my time wisely, instead of mindlessly surfing the Internet or rereading novels I've been through three times before.

Holiness is not swearing when it hits me I've left my reading glasses up in my 3rd floor study-- again.

Holiness is being cheerful at the office, even though lately I've had to put in an obscene amount of (uncompensated) overtime, I'm not getting enough sleep, and my boss takes my work for granted.

Holiness is looking out for what I can do for others, instead of grabbing for what they can do for me.

Holiness is knowing I can't manage any of the above without Jesus Christ working in me and through me.

Holiness is the constant awareness of Jesus Christ working in me and through me.

Holiness is enjoying the constant awareness of Jesus Christ working in me and through me.

(Which, I suppose, would result in the sensation of floating along six inches above the pavement . . . )

And this holiness is just what I don't have!

But that's the good of Lent, isn't it? That it makes us face what a bad job we make of things when we're left to ourselves, and how we always, everywhere, at every time have to keep turning and turning and turning to face that stark, judgmental, life-giving Cross.

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.

Long Time, No See

Top Ten Reasons Why I Haven't Blogged in Over a Year

10. I'd backed myself into a corner mostly using Bible verses for titles. But I couldn't always think of one that was appropriate.

9. I got tired of my entries always ending up positive and philosophical. What if I wanted to kvetch for a change?

8. I thought my blog would be a good place to post my Sunday sermons (whenever I got a supply preaching engagement). But I could never figure out how.

7. Some of my most intriguing potential blogging subjects would come from um, observations on the doings of my friends-- who were my best and, often, only readers. The good in such reflections lies in what they would tell me about myself. But still, would my friends feel I'd betrayed them?

6. It worried me: What if I were honest and ironic and a pastor search committee tripped over my blog, and found out about the Real Me?

5. How anonymous could I continue to be? How anonymous did I want to be?

4. I got a new dog in April: young, male, and very untrained. But adorable!

3. I don't get enough sleep as it is, without sitting up all night writing blog entries on a very slow computer.

2. I'm up to my neck in local St. David's Society activities (see www.stdavidssociety.org).


And the Number One Reason Why I Haven't Blogged in Donkey's Years?

A YEAR AGO JULY, I GOT A JOB!

No, not a church job. An architecture job, as in my pre-theology career. Which, now that I've broken fifteen months' worth of ice, I may or may not talk about. But the ice is broken. Crash, brash! The ice is broken indeed.

"And the home of the brave!"

A photo or two before and after our successful rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Pirates' game this afternoon. The acoustics were actually pretty resonant there around home plate of PNC Park. And happily, the stands blocked the wind. Pretty chilly for the 1st of May.

This was a grand experience, but it raised a question that's been bothering me for quite awhile: Why doesn't the crowd at sports events or at patriotic observances ever get to sing the National Anthem any more? It really isn't that hard to sing. If you can't hit the high notes, don't hit the high notes. The tune started out as a drinking song, for goshsakes. Let the citizenry jump in and have a go at it, like we used to in dim ages past-- oh, around five years ago.

It's as if we expect some professional artist or special group to be patriotic on our behalf. Kind of like sending the troops over to do our fighting for us. Yes, they are specially-trained, and we can't honor their dedication and sacrifice too highly. But it doesn't take the rest of us off the hook. It doesn't make us into spectators. It doesn't mean we can sit back and watch as if their fight has no claim on us. If--(God forbid) when-- the terrorists strike on our shores again, we're all combatants. That's how we need to think of ourselves, even if we never strike a physical blow in freedom's cause. Even if we only respond with courage and determination and resourcefulness in the face of atrocity. But how are we going to get ourselves into that mindset if we can't or won't even sing our own National Anthem for ourselves? That is not a job that should be left to the pros!

Mustering the troops

" . . . and Scatters the Frost like Ashes"

"Our Fearless Leader considers whether we'd sound better singing against the wind"

(Here you see what an amateur blogger/HTML formatter I am. If I knew how, these photos would be in the same post.)