Friday, March 15, 2013

7 quick takes: church

one
I happen to be reading Exodus and Romans at the same time--not a bad combination. Boy I really do feel for Moses. His whole life sounds like one endless dinner hour with cranky kids. Yesterday my kids decided not to really eat their lunch and so by dinner the cry was, 'I'm dying!' Except that then when the dinner was served (my week at Shepherd's Bowl so lentil curry a la kennedy) they found they were really only hungry for the bread and cookie and I was suddenly entangled in three or four whiny and complicated negotiations. After a while I did really feel like shaking my fist at the heavens and saying, 'why have you given me this ungrateful people....' On another partially related note, I'm deeply interested in the idea of an Egyptian Meat Pot. It sounds delicious.
two
I had thought I would be laboring over my curry kennedy with a numb and painful mouth but in a happy twist I was sent away from the dentist with a powerful antibiotic and arrangements to try again next week. Wanted to ask the dentist if she was at all concerned by the terrifying super bacterias coming along and What Would We All Do Then, ha ha, but just kept a lid on it and said thank you.
three
As the afternoon wore away and the curry melded in to the onion, garlic, peppers, sweet potato, lentils, chickpeas etc. I glanced at my phone and discovered that this relationship is finally over. So grateful. Evil, don't you know, always seems to over step. Really, John Crosson is the outside limit. So grateful.
four
Have also been reading lots of catholic blogs trying to discover if this new pope will be A Good Thing. Can't really tell yet. Boy some people are already really upset. On the other hand it is so great that he looks so much like the new ABC...and Woody Allen.
five
It's nearly Holy Week. Did you know? Have you been making plans? Yeah, me neither.
six
Matt thought he'd be at the passion in Mark by now (in church, he's preaching through Mark). Isn't that funny? Funny funny funny. Srsly, if you are struggling to love the bible or had the book of Mark destroyed for you in seminary, I can't recommend enough his whole series so far. Week by week he unfolds the scripture and brings the person of Jesus into such clear focus. If you have nothing else to do in Holy Week you could lie flat on top of a lot of sicko John Crosson/Jesus Seminar books and listen to Matt preach and be healed of all your various infirmities. For, as Alouicious noted earlier, 'preaching heals the greatest wound, which is not knowing Jesus.'
seven
Don't you just love church? I think I love Holy Week so much because there's just so much church. So much preaching, so much liturgy, so many times to set up the altar, so many things to veil, so many details, so many extra days to see people. In my wildest deems, if you had asked in high school or college what I wanted to do if I could do anything in the whole world, I would have thought (though not said it out loud, because that would have been freaky) 'I want to be in church.' See God can be nice, sometimes.

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