Avdat

Happy Independence Day!

A visual update to a post I put up on The Ivy Bush three years ago:

Three things that make me feel like a radical othodox apostate patriotic:

This piece of music:

This sports moment:

And this speech:

News

This letter went out to the members of my congregation a week ago:

Dear John Calvin friends and family,

I have some very important news to share with you. I have been accepted to the Master of Theology program at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. This one-year, full-time degree program is in preparation for doctoral studies. I have asked the Session to call a congregational meeting to dissolve my call effective August 15. My last Sunday in the pulpit will be July 27.

It is hard to believe that we have been doing ministry together for ten and a half years now. Time flies when you’re having fun, and it has flown by for me. Being your pastor has been my joy and delight, one of God’s most special graces in my life.

And yet, so much has changed that it does seem like a long time. Some of our brothers and sisters who worshipped with us in 1997 have graduated to the Church Triumphant, and many more have united with us in membership. We have built and nearly paid for a new fellowship hall that provides shelter and nourishment, both physical and spiritual, for our members and the community. We have laughed and cried together, argued and made up.

I’m most thankful for the love and patience you’ve extended to me and my family over this past decade. Ethan was three months old when we moved in, and Andrew was born in Salisbury. You’re the only church family they’ve known, and you’ve been so good to them. We are better people for having been cared for by you.

A change in pastoral leadership can be a time of anxiety for the congregation. But it is also an exciting time of dreaming new dreams for the future. The staff of Salem Presbytery will assist the Session and the congregation in this time of transition. You have a good Session. They are men and women of faith, hope and love. Give them your support, and remember them in your prayers. In the near future you will receive more details about the nuts and bolts of calling a new pastor and providing for pastoral leadership in the interim.

If you have any questions, feel free to call me, or drop by the church office to chat.

Grace and peace to you,

Marvin

Psychotherapy by proxy

I can't get Gershom Gorenberg's book on the birth of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza off my mind.  My review is here.  In short, the settlements weren't the result of any government policy.  They happened in the absence of a government policy as politicians, bureaucrats, military officers and citizens acted in an ad hoc manner to colonize the Occupied Territories.  Eventually there was a showdown between the government and the burgeoning settler movement, and the government blinked.

It can be read as a damning indictment of Israeli political cowardice.  But for me it increased my sympathy for the impossible situation Israel finds itself in 41 years after the Six Day War.  Like the Labor governments of Levi Eschol, Golda Meir and Yitzak Rabin, I would rather let things ride, avoid conflict whenever possible, and postpone hard decisions until the last possible minute.  I can see so many sides of an issue that I become paralyzed by its multifaceted allure.  I didn't expect that a work of contemporary Middle Eastern history would become a tool for my own personal self-assessment, but it did.

Funk

I'm in a post-pilgrimage funk.  Yesterday I returned from a ten day trip to Scotland, the bulk of which I spent on the island of Iona, attending a conference on early medieval spirituality.  I met some fine people from all over the English-speaking world.  And the 20 hours of daylight lent itself to long and very satisfying conversations.  It was a lot like the youth conferences I attended as a teenager, minus the hooking up on the last night.  You meet people from all over, bond with them, and then it's over.

Well, it's not over!  I'm going to bombard them with emails and picture attachments (which we didn't have back in the day).

It doesn't help that I've returned to discover that the drought has returned.  There are dead trees in the neighborhood, dirt patches where grass out to be growing, and a general listlessness in the community.  Where are all the people?  All the cars?  Has everyone fled to the beach?  The flooding in the Midwest adds a hint of absurdity to the scene. 

Or is it just that I've gone from living in close quarters with folks and jostling with crowds in the crowded streets of Glasgow to a small, southern town?

I think it's me.

Mother's Day tributes

• The story of this autistic child's mother is one we can identity with.
• A stay-at-home Mommy's economic value:  $117K!

Friday "How does your garden grow?" blogging

There's not a lot to show of the verdant gardens of Che Lindsay.  But I was inspired to go out and snap some photos of what is growing this time of year.  And speaking of snapping pics, these sugar snap peas should grow up to yield plump, sweet pods!

The kingdom may be already and not yet, but not the asparagus!  After three years of patience, mulching and watering and modest harvesting, we've been chopping at it with reckless abandon:

The drought really took a toll on the Piedmont flora.  You can see that this dogwood in our front yard is not nearly as spectacular as dogwoods usually are in these parts this time of year:

But these unknown bulbs are lending some spring cheer underneath our still dormant grape vine:

And the azaleas are lovely:

That shade of pink is not what I would have planted against a red, brick house, but thankfully there's some white in there as well, and the green acuba in the back to offer contrast rather than clash.

And while I am aware of the existence of a whole other hemisphere who greets the resurrection in the fall of the year, spring nonetheless renews my faith as no other season can:

Tis the spring of souls today

Christ hath burst his prison

And from three days sleep in death

As a Sun is risen

Now rejoice Jerusalem!

And with true affection

Welcome in unwearied strains

Jesus' resurrection.

April 15

I owed the state of North Carolina one dollar.  I think that mailing in my form cost nearly as much as the value of the check therein.

I'm Skybison's sugar daddy

I want you to know that I have standards.  I have yet to buy a lottery ticket because I ain't going to hell for no lousy fifteen million bucks.  Nope.  I've drawn a line in the sand.  $300 million is the minimum jackpot that will coax me into the Stop 'n' Go and soil my soul with a Powerball stub. 

And we're getting close.  The jackpot is up to $230 million.  If Wednesday and Saturday come and go without a winner, then I will have to cross the Rubicon.

And when I do, I will personally pay for the good Democrats of Michigan (Skybison included?  It's hard to tell where the loyalties of such an articulate Devil's advocate lie) to have their little do-over primary--provided that George Soros or somebody else antes up the money for Florida.  AND, provided that Powerball cuts me a check in time.

What will I do with the rest?  Dunno.  Re-roof the house.  Upgrade my ticket to Scotland to first class.  Trade in the '96 Accord for another Prius.  After that, I run out of ideas. 

One thing I won't do is create my own foundation.  Every Sunday in the Celebrations section of the Observer there is a ball or a gala benefiting some foundation I've never heard of devoted to God knows what kind of charitable activity.  Of the making of foundations there is no end, nor is there any end to the tedious tying of bow ties and mandatory sipping of Chardonnay that accompanies such institutions.  I'll give the rest to some already existing foundation.  I don't think I could live with myself if it were my philanthropy that were the straw that broke the camel's back of the area social calendar.

I'm special... So special

Here's a handy site for finding out how popular your name is. 

"Marvin" has lost a lot of ground since my parents christened me thus in 1969, but can you believe that it's still in the top 400? 

But that's not nearly as precipitous a drop-off as my sister's name.  "Suzanne" isn't even in the top 1,000 for the last year on record, 2006. 

Does that seem right to you?  I've always thought that Suzanne had a rather contemporary ring to it, while Marvin was already outdated the day I was born.  I think of George Costanza having lots of Marvins in his grandparents' generation.  Then again, I only know two other Suzannes.  One's in her 80s, and the other's my mother's generation.

So who out there will buck the "Madison" trend and ignite a "Suzanne" Renaissance?

Something else.  We named our firstborn Ethan in 1997 because it was biblical, it sounded pleasing (like Shaker furniture--sturdy and elegant, even though the furniture chain of the same name is getting away from that a bit), and it wasn't all that common.  Or so we thought.  "Ethan" was #62 that year, and in the middle of an meteoric rise starting around the late 80s that would land it in 4th place in 2006. 

But in the first half of the century, it wasn't even in the top 1,000.  Duh?  Ethan Allen?  Where was the love for a great patriot? 

So you really are more affected by cultural trends than you're aware of.  Like when I went on retreat at the monastery in 1996, and I think, I must be some kind of freakazoid Presbyterian, and then Kathleen Norris publishes Dakota and I discover that monasteries are where all the cool Presbyterians hang out.

Eureka!

On Monday afternoon (President's Day) I dropped my movie in the mailbox up at the pharmacy.  On Tuesday morning I got an email from Netflix saying that they've received it.  From this I deduced that while there is no residential pickup and delivery of U.S. Mail on federal holidays, some mail is nevertheless moving.

I did not know that.  But now I do!

And if you didn't, so do you now!