A Baby!

April 26, 2015 - At home in SE DC
Photo by Amanda August - www.amandaaugust.com

She's here -- Husband and I are so happy to welcome our little daughter into the world a few weeks ago. It's been quite an overwhelming adventure so far, that's for sure. Many thanks to everyone who has sent love and prayers our way, they have been welcomed and needed. There's much to think about and to say, but we're up to our eyeballs in new parenthood. Wish us luck!

Due Date

As some of you know, today is the day Husband and I been told to generally expect the arrival of our daughter. (Yes, April Fools, and yes, in the middle of Holy Week. She's already a corker.) But of course, she's nowhere near ready to make her debut, so we'll continue to watch and wait.

I just wanted to post an update, and to let you know what to expect during the next few weeks from the Vicar of H Street. I'll post some sort of birth announcement, but then I'll likely take about six weeks off before I start blogging regularly again -- look for me in the middle or end of May. If the past few weeks have been any indication of what's to come in terms of mental, physical and emotional fatigue, we're in for a real doozy. 

We're very thankful for all of the love and support that has come our way, and are looking forward to introducing her to the world soon. 

Commentary

You know you've got a problem when Amazon recommends three biblical commentaries and two books about biblical apocalypticism.

There are some days when I'm just amazed that I have friends that are willing to hang out with me. This is one of those days.

"Beliefs"

Two weeks ago I posted about Laura Session Stepp's series in the Washington Post, which now has a name: "Beliefs." Last weekend, a column highlighting my own journey and beliefs was published. Many, many thanks to everyone who reached out to talk, or to say thank you -- I hope that if you liked how it was written, or appreciated the fact that the Washington Post took some time to delve into spirituality, you could find some time to tweet to @WashingtonPost, leave a (positive) comment on the story, or share the link on social media. There should be at least two more columns, but with support, there might be more, which I think would be a very good thing. As a society, we're not good at talking about spirituality and faith in a way that contextualizes them into a real life with real ramifications; too often it's a shouting match about abstract ideas. The simple power of a story goes a long way. 

Also last week, a light piece of mine was published in Building Faith. It's very shop-talky, so if that's not your thing, no need to read it! (If it is, Building Faith is a great resource for Christian formation that you should know about.) The article is about "hacking" all of those neglected bible curricula hanging around in church Sunday School closets. Here's a very brief Guide to Hacking Curricula.

Doing and Being

I'm a priest, and I love my job. In fact, I can't imagine myself being anything else other than a priest in the Episcopal church. I get to write, learn, teach, talk, celebrate Eucharist, baptize, marry, listen, laugh, strategize, preach, pray, sing, dream, solve problems, share meals and cups of coffee, and read my favorite book. I love these things; I also do things I don't particularly love to do, but I understand that they are part and parcel to the work.

And while not all of this comes easily, everything I've mentioned here is something that can be done. You can learn to do almost anything, even if it turns out you aren't particularly good at it. We all can't be good at everything, that's why we need each other, I get it. The hardest part of my job though, the one that keeps me up at night, the one that makes me feel like a colossal failure, is not anything that has to do with doing, but rather with being.

In the last two weeks, I've been having a series of really hard conversations. The kind of conversations where there's nothing really to say, nothing to do, nothing to offer. The kind of conversations that are about true injustice in the world, about the death of immediate family members, about ruined hopes, about utterly justified fears. These conversations are raw with emotion, and raw with hard truth. Together, we stare at the ugliness.

I won't tell them it will be all right, because often, it won't be. I won't tell them that when they get to the other side, they'll be stronger, better, transformed, because I don't know that. I won't tell them that "God won't give them more than they can handle" because that's bullshit. First of all, did God really make that happen? Really? and secondly, I've seen people break. That platitude is just not true. In the moment, sitting with them in the church, or on a late night phone call, the only thing I can do is be. More specifically, be with them. Be with them, and promise that right now, the God who suffered knows, and is suffering with them. Small comfort in the face of such big tragedy. But it's all I've got.

Honestly, it sucks. It makes me feel helpless. But I wouldn't be anywhere else.

Life Cycles

In seminary, I took a class called "Spiritual or Religious?" with the ever-fabulous Lisa Kimball. We discussed sociological trends away from organized religion, but also how spirituality and religion is not going away, either. In this class, we talked a lot about what a mature faith looks like in a world increasingly comfortable with no religious affiliation at all.

One of the big take-aways I had from this class was the cyclical role of spiritual crisis for people of faith in and outside of organized religion: faith is tested and honed through life events and questioning. Only by moving through a crisis, by moving through all of the despair and anger and hopelessness can we come to love more deeply, understand more fully, and become adults in our own spirituality. Of course, there's not just one crisis; throughout life a journey of faith is continually a cycle of pain, growth, joy, and lying fallow. Always we begin again, but from a new place.

For the next few weeks (and hopefully longer) the Washington Post will be running a series of columns about this very topic by Laura Sessions Stepp, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist. Through a series of interviews with people from all over the Washington area and all walks of life, she'll be presenting a series of Studs Terkel-like articles exploring how the secular intersects with the spiritual, how crises large and small shape a life, and how life becomes infused with meaning, religious or otherwise.

Over the last few weeks, it's been my sincere pleasure to talk with Laura about these topics out of the experiences of my own life. I've found her to be a wonderful listener, funny, and very wise about very many things. Above all, I discovered in our conversations that I was learning quite a bit about myself and my own cycles of faith, which has been sheer gift to me. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who found that to be true.

The first article, about the spiritual path of a tailor on U Street, appeared on Saturday. I hope that you'll read this series and make some time to think about the cycles and turning points in your own life. It will be well worth your time.

Too Afraid for Joy

On Saturday, I was thrown a lovely, lovely baby shower by the ladies in my family and extended church family. It was beautiful. I was surrounded all day by those who love me and are so very excited for Husband and I, and the collective wisdom and generosity of women who have been sisters, daughters, aunts, mothers, grandmothers, and even great-grandmothers were palpable to me as we talked and laughed.

Feeling very full but tired, I came home late on Saturday with a carload of things to make our lives with the baby easier, which all went into the nursery. Sunday I worked all day, and when Monday afternoon came, I started trying to make a master thank-you list and setting up the nursery. I managed to make the list, but I couldn't bring myself to open anything that we had been given. Cognitively, I know the clothes and blankets need to be washed, the closet organized, the furniture set-up, the curtains hung. And cognitively, I know that everything is going to be fine, in just a few weeks we'll be bringing home a baby girl, who will need all of these things, and we will need them to be ready, not scattered around the nursery in their boxes. Far better to start the process now and keep working at it over a few weeks than to do it after the baby arrives.

But I realized after having to go in there on Monday, that I've been avoiding the nursery since we designated that room the nursery. I haven't set anything up, I haven't been able to cut the tags off of the cute little outfits that have been accumulating from friends, I haven't been able to commit to a paint color. And on Monday, I realized why.

I'm afraid. Actually, I'm really afraid.

I'm afraid about what happens if I set it all up, and our hearts are broken. I'm afraid of trying to return things that we don't need, knowing that everything can be lost in an instant, or over the cruel progression of weeks or months in the NICU. I'm just plain old scared, even though as I write this I'm getting kicked by a healthy daughter, who at thirty-three weeks is not just fine, but feisty. And this fear that's been ruling this pregnancy, at least since we moved and it got real, has been blocking me from getting excited about becoming a mother and meeting her. Even more than that, this fear has sucked the joy out being where we are now. Everyone around me seems to feel joy for us; but while I wait in fear for the other shoe to drop, I can't feel that joy myself.

Brene Brown writes in The Gifts of Imperfection that the opposite of joy isn't sadness, but fear. Being afraid of losing what we have closes down the ability to be grateful, right now, for what we do have. And the practice of gratitude, Brown points out, is a prerequisite for joy. The presence of fear drives away gratitude, and as such, fear drives away joy.

What I realized, standing in that nursery full of baby socks in packs and cloth diapers still in the plastic, was that unless I do something now, I'm always going to be too afraid for joy. A healthy delivery means I'll be afraid of measles and SIDS. Reaching a year will mean I'll be afraid of her choking on something that fits inside a paper towel roll, and when she's beyond that, I'll still be afraid of leukemia, car accidents, drowning, school shootings, sports-related concussions, and rare side effects of communicable diseases. There will always be something more to fear.

So, tomorrow, I'm taking a tiny baby step and cutting the tags off of everything, seven weeks early. I'll wash what needs to be washed, assemble the mobile and the bouncer seat, rearrange the furniture, and work on being grateful that we are where we are today.

Taking Issue

"What frustrates me is the way we talk about [the social media issue of the day] from an Episcopal standpoint. Too often, it feels as though we’re taking the trendiest issue, tacking on some vaguely religious (and sometimes outright self-righteous) thoughts, and sending them on their way before turning to the next hot topic. When I read these thoughts, too often I get the feeling that collectively as a church, we’re putting the cart before the horse. We take an issue and add a dash of Jesus or the prophets, when in reality, what should come first is our enduring faith, rooted in love and action, rising up into words. The former is easy, fast, with a quick turnover. The latter is hard, slow, and a life-long commitment."

Thanks again for the folks up at Church House for allowing me to borrow their megaphone. You can get the whole piece here. 

RiverSmart Homes

Just a brief PSA for those who live in the District: Husband and I just got on the waiting list for the RiverSmart Homes program offered by the city. In a nutshell, the program offsets costs for installing rain barrels, trees, bayscaping, pervious pavers, and rain gardens, up to $1200. It took us five minutes to apply online, and the waiting list is only two to four months right now (the website cautioned up to six.)

We're looking into rain barrels and a rain garden for practical reasons -- namely, our backyard turns into a swamp whenever it rains -- but we're also participating because doing the best we can to preserve our rivers and environment is ultimately an ethical obligation, and one that I act upon as a part of my personal faith. Everything I've been given, everything, even my very breath and the water I drink, is a gift from God. To respond to these gifts with carelessness is to not live in gratitude for them. And living in gratitude is a cousin to living in grace, as they are two sides of the same coin. Both come from Latin's gratus, which means pleasing, or thankful.

And not to be flip, but seriously, the Anacostia River needs all the help it can get. Every little bit matters.

Gunshot

Last weekend, I heard the closest gunshot I've ever heard in the city.

It was really close. Less than a block away or so? It didn't sound like someone was shooting off of our porch, but it was close enough to reverberate. And it was definitely a gunshot; I grew up with guns, I've got a cousin who spent most of high school training for the Junior Olympic shooting team, and a gaggle of brothers, a dad, grandfathers and uncles who are enthusiastic outdoorsmen. Part of turning twelve at my house meant being taken to hunter's safety classes with the PA Game Wardens. (Which, by the way, instilled a healthy respect for firearms and wildlife management, but due to the most frighting educational video in the world, also years of nightmares about getting lost and hyperthermic in the woods. Kids, tell people where you are going, when you'll be back, bring a snack,  a whistle, fire-starting equipment, and a black plastic bag! I still do.)

And so, I know it was a gun, not a backfire, not a firework. And not shooting a celebratory clip into the air after a sports victory, like we sometimes heard on H Street and have heard here. Just one, really close shot. I looked out the window, but didn't see anything, and then a few minutes later a cop car slowly trolled by. Silence.

Maybe I should be more frightened, but really, I was just unsettled and reflective. Until I moved into DC, my experience with guns has been mostly "gun as tool" -- a dangerous tool, but so are power saws and pickup trucks. Guns in the city are tools, too, but they seem to be tools for intimidation and violence. Which really, really bothers me.

I'm still wondering how to respond, but the one thing I know I can do is get to know my neighbors to the best of my ability. Even though the ones that have seen me must think I'm a crazy person; wearing clergy blacks and seven months pregnant, most days I feel like the walking punchline to an unfunny joke. But slowly, we're working on getting to know our neighbors by name. And I was delighted when Husband sent me this article in The Atlantic which backs up what we had figured intuitively: that knowing your neighbors matters in ways that cause invisible ripple effects for good.

Life Updates

Well, it's been a while. I owe everyone an apology for not properly signing off and letting you know when I'd be back, but honestly, I didn't think it would be that long myself. I'm not one for excuses, but maybe we have a good one:

A wiggly baby girl (that's why the profile pic is so blurry)
Jan. 12, 2015

Of course, Husband is just thrilled and has been absolutely wonderful through everything, with the exception of the sudden proliferation of dad jokes. He says he's practicing. I say it needs to stop.

We're expecting on April Fool's Day, which, appropriately for a clergy person, is Holy Week this year. If you're not familiar, Holy Week is the week leading up to the celebration of Easter, and is hands down my favorite week of the year as we move through Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, the Easter Vigil, and Easter Sunday. It's a time of intense reflection, and joy, and somehow being due that week is the most perfect and most terrible timing possible. I'm blessed to work for a wonderful (and flexible) priest and parish, so we're playing it by ear.

I promise not to turn Vicar of H Street into a mommy blog, although I'm sure becoming a mother will change me, because pregnancy already has. For one, I have new appreciation for anyone who lives with chronic pain, insomnia or nausea, and how hard it must be to actively participate in all the demands of living. I had no idea how much energy it takes to not feel healthy for an extended period of time -- for me, it's been difficult to think, be social, to function, and tend to my important relationships for months now, and I keenly feel those shortcomings. Even being on Facebook took more energy than I had, and honestly, I'm sure I've only experienced an extremely small piece of what many people live with, day in and day out, for years. Now I know just a little better, and hopefully this understanding will make me a better priest. I'm also reminded of how much control is an illusion, how embodied my self is, and how time rushes ahead and then stops still. In all, it's been a very bewildering seven months, and I'm sure my remaining eight to twelve weeks will hold more surprises in store. And then, you know, there'll be a baby, so there's that.

One other thing that I should mention -- because the apartment we were renting on H Street was a baby death trap, we decided it was time to move. Finding a two bedroom apartment suitable for a family and that allows dogs was like looking for a unicorn. And if we did find something, it was far too expensive for a priest and a civil servant. We discovered that buying a house in Ward 7 would be way more affordable than anything that would meet our needs near the H Street corridor, so, we did. More on that later, I'm sure. But for now, I'll still be blogging as the Vicar of H Street.

I'm hoping to blogging through what has been promised as my seventh and eighth month wind -- but I'll keep you all posted this time.

Just say "Thank You"

One time, in my life before being a clergy person, I was working at Large International Non-Profit, training to be a fundraiser. A corporation had called, wanting to know if someone could help set up online giving to our organization. Because no one thought anything much would come from it, I was assigned as their relationship manager, and worked with them to get the paperwork straightened out.

Well, disaster strikes as it always will again, and in response, this corporation calls their contact -- me -- and informs me they will be donating (literally) a million dollars. I remember getting the phone call, being absolutely shocked, covering the phone, and mouthing to my coworkers "They want to give us a million dollars! What do I do?"

To which my lovely co-workers replied, "SAY THANK YOU!"

Oh! Say thank you.

Sometimes, the only response is "Thank you."

I've been feeling like that a lot lately. My life has been very full with different life events, family weddings, church work, friends, family visiting from Seattle, and big life changes for Husband and myself, and yet in all of the chaos, it's been really, really good. Not always easy, but good. And the only thing to say in response has been "Thank you."

Practical A/Theism

A piece for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington's blog, in which I contemplate the power of the alpha privative. (Just kidding. No one would read that.) Really, I'm asking the question,  "If someone cannot discern your beliefs out of your actions, do you really believe your beliefs?"

What have I been doing with my life?

On October 6th, I had a 9:00am meeting in Northern Virginia, and I offered to drop Husband off at work on my way by. We were passing a federal courthouse when all of a sudden I saw something that made me question what I had been doing with my life for the last seven years. 

In 2007-2008, I spent a year closely connected with a non-profit called Torture Abolition and Survivors' Support Coalition International -- TASSC, for short. And TASSC was closely aligned with both the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House, located in Petworth, and another small intentional Christian community called the Assisi House. The people who lived in these houses were teachers or activists, some in religious orders, some not, but all saw the world differently from most people, and for that matter, most Christians. It was here I was introduced to William Stringfellow, to Dorothy Day, to the Berrigan brothers, to Peter Maurin -- a strain of Christianity singing a countermelody to the sleepy protestant mainstream I grew up with. Those who lived in these houses were transformed by the witness of these authors, and they lived lives of witness. 

I loved those quirky folks, and those authors inspired me, too. But after a year of witnessing with them through TASSC, I felt compelled to effect, to plan, to change the world through my own sheer will. In other words, I felt called to do, while their mode of life is organic, to be. I went on to learn fundraising at top ten charity, the most planning-oriented and "effective" mode of helping that I could figure to do. You can't feed or shelter people without resources, or planning, or support staff. You can't make real change without worldly influence. In a nutshell, I was here to do what nearly everyone in Washington comes here to do -- to be smart and to change the world. So I better go about doing it. And I worked my small part. 

But on that Monday morning on October 6th at 8:45am, when I saw that group of Catholic Workers and TASSC people standing outside of the Federal Courthouse, all of that work seemed to be dross. Here they were, this ragtag crew of ten folks or so, holding anti-torture signs long after the national debate about "enhanced interrogation" has moved on. Seven years later, I recognized almost all of them. One wore a "Shut Down Guantanamo" t-shirt. I have that one, too. It's in my drawer, still bright orange. His was faded to the point it wasn't orange anymore, and kind of hard to read. By the way, if you were wondering, we still have prisoners in Guantanamo. 

Seven years of faithfulness. Seven years of steadfastness in the face of the world who at best doesn't care, and at worst despises them. And seven years was the only seven years that I saw -- the Catholic Workers of DC have been at it much, much longer than that. I've been thinking about them for weeks now, what it must take to do the same actions over and over again, never seeing substantial change. At the moment I drove by, I thought to myself, "That's what faithfulness looks like." And then I thought, "What have I been doing with my life?" 

Outbreak

I've got a friend who writes really good books about really interesting topics -- his name is Kerry Walters, he teaches at Gettysburg College, he pastors in Central Pennsylvania, and he writes prolifically. From time to time he also kindly puts up with my crazy in person or over Facebook (and to his eternal credit, he has been doing so patiently for over ten years now).

Anyway, Kerry just wrote a book about something local and pertinent: local, because Kerry writes about DC in the 1850's; pertinent, because it's about the National Hotel Epidemic and the panic that ensued. With the first patient to contract Ebola on US soil up the road at NIH,  epidemics and how we react to them are top of mind lately. 

But more than that, as this Post article by Clinton Yates points out, Kerry speaks thoughtfully about what really hasn't changed since 1857 in DC. Unfortunately, that includes gentrification, law enforcement issues, and racial injustice. If you're interested in thoughtful reflection about these topics, it will be a book worth delving into, especially if you live in DC. The book comes out October 21 -- I've just ordered a copy, and you should too. 

New Creation!

October 1, 2014 -- Episcopal Church of the Annunciation, Memphis
Photo by the Rev. John Burruss, who takes good pictures even if he's in a bee keeping suit.

Usually I try to avoid posts that are about church itself, but I'm going to break my own rule for just one post. But with all of the noise about "the end of theological education as we know it" because of the crisis at General Theological Seminary (if you haven't heard about this, good for you!) and the fact that I've been in contact with dozens of my classmates over the last two weeks, I feel like I need to say something a little more pointedly church-oriented. So, if you're brave, keep reading. If you're smart, tune in next week.

There's a narrative about mainstream Protestant churches which claims that the churches are slowly dying. Churches are merging, or being closed down, and selling their buildings. Millennials are suspicious of institutions, the median age of church goers is older than ever, and more people than ever before don't affiliate with any religion at all. I understand that.  But that's not what I'm actually hearing from my friends who are one or two years out of seminary.

A friend who graduated with me is starting an ecology initiative with the church's land that will eventually support ministry to sex-traffiked women in Memphis. This year, they had their first crop of honey, and are working on preparing the soil for planting a huge garden that will grow herbs for tea and herb rubs. The community took what had been a burden to them -- acres of land to keep -- and made it into an asset for good. Now they stand for something. The church had been shrinking, but it's growing now.

Another priest friend is starting a print shop with his church community in Kentucky that will teach printmaking skills to those in hallway houses and prison, and will be a place where those people can be employed until they can find other employment. This project is in its very beginning stages, but it's exciting to see it get put into motion.

Another friend moved to Texas, and is teaching American Civics classes in Spanish at his church, to help immigrants pass the citizenship test. That church is growing, too.

I heard story after story from friend after friend -- and even if people weren't working on entrepreneurial and self-sustaining projects, they told stories about neighborhoods coming back to life in Baltimore, of growing youth groups in South Carolina, of creating safe havens for the LGBT community in Arkansas, of dinner churches for young adults being established in Southern Maryland, of public and liturgical witness all over the country, of laundromat ministry in DC, and some really amazing outreach in bars and coffee shops.

We choose the stories we tell, and I choose these stories over the narrative of the decline and death of the church. When we allow these sort of creative ministries to happen, even if it means having priests who don't look or act like the parish priests of the past, or priests who are one foot in the secular world and one foot in the church world, we tell the story of our faith in a way that speaks to others. In the news the past few weeks, and from the older seminary alums I was working with in meetings this week, I heard the death and dying narrative repeatedly. But what others see as death and dying, I see as an opportunity to prune back the branches, and to allow new growth to flourish.  Besides, it's already happening.

God Doesn't Want You to be Happy

Two Saturdays ago, I was invited to plan and facilitate a retreat -- I love this sort of work, so I gladly accepted. The theme of the retreat was finding a way through the tension that is inherent in being both a young professional (perhaps especially in DC) and a Christian. Anyway, deep in one of our discussions, we were talking about hopes -- and what God hopes for us.  The first thing someone shouted out from the back of the room was that "God wants us to be happy."

And at that moment, I realized that I believe that God does not want us to be happy.

Now, I'm not saying that God wants us to be miserable, or to suffer, or to cause pain -- I believe God redeems misery, suffering, and pain, not causes them -- but I am saying that happiness, our cultural chimera, doesn't seem to be one of God's projects. First of all, there's not a lot of God making people "happy" in Scripture. Show me a prophet, and I'll show you someone who is fundamentally unhappy. God doesn't call Samuel to be the last judge to make him happy, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, certainly had some very bad days. More recently, I wouldn't claim that MLK Jr, Oscar Romero, or Dorothy Day were particularly happy folks, either.

Secularly, I see this played out as well. Doing meaningful work often means doing sacrificial and hard work, which automatically disbars what we think of as "happiness." For instance, when I worked at the Red Cross and disasters would hit, we were working twelve hour days and weekends, were exhausted and were so stressed we were either gaining or losing weight, but the meaningfulness of the work was somehow so much more than "happy." (This description of disaster work also seems to apply to parenting.)

Anyway, provoked by this thought, I did a little digging -- and "happiness" comes from the root word, "hap," which means "luck." So someone who is "hapless" is literally "luckless" and "happenstance" is a mashup of "lucky circumstance." So, happiness is nice, but it's something fleeting that happens randomly -- nothing you can control.

Joy, on the other hand, is a different beast entirely. And those folks I mentioned above? While they weren't necessarily happy, they were joyous. Joy is an inward disposition, rooted in knowing who you are and whose you are, and living in faith and trust. Joy grows if you cultivate it, if you can clear out enough of the gunk stuck to your soul so that joy can flourish. Joy is more than happiness, joy is more than luck. I can't help but think that God wants so much more for us than just "happy."

Happy Fall!

September 21, 2014

Snapped this pic on my way to church on Sunday. Happy first week of fall!

Wedding Time

I love weddings, which is good, because I'm up to my eyeballs in them. In the last few weeks, I've done premarital counseling for two couples, attended a bridal shower, navigated the protocol for a same-gendered blessing from a different diocese, and helped out as a liturgical deacon* during a high mass wedding; in the next few weeks I'm officiating at two weddings, and tonight I'm going wedding dress shopping with my future sister-in-law.

Like I said, it's a good thing I love weddings.

But what is it about them? Well, first of all, you've got the regular reasons -- weddings feel hopeful, and full of love. But more than that, weddings are a liminal time, and everything that happens around them feels meaningful. In the time between being single people and being married people, there's a feeling a movement, transition and living with deliberateness. Loved ones take time to say things that go usually go unsaid, and to tell family stories that haven't been told in years. Loved ones who are gone are remembered, and their impact on the lives of those gathered are marked in formal and informal ways. Overall, weddings are one of the few times that sincerity is welcomed in our irony-laden culture, and I find that refreshing.

Being a priest at wedding is a unique experience -- you get brought into the sphere of the family, and you have a specific task before you. Not only do you teach the couple the rituals to becoming married, and guide them through it, prompting vows and the taking of one another's hands, but you have the privilege and the terror of saying something meaningful about it all, how God is working in the lives of the couple, and the lives of the families gathered.

The other piece, though, is often navigating through a whole wedding full of people you've never met before. Some people really hate this part, but once I get my feet under me, I enjoy it. Even though at the last wedding I was at, I had an animated ten minute discussion with a six-term retired senator before he had to spell out that he was a senator, after I asked what projects he was working on, oh, running a hugely influential lobbying firm... even though he had told me who he name, and I really, truly, should have connected his name to the senate. (Seriously, as an avid NPR listener, I'm still appalled at myself, but I wasn't really looking for a senator to pop up, you know? I thought he was a great uncle or something. I had been talking to his wife all afternoon. She was lovely.) But despite that huge failure as a Washingtonian, I still managed to have some other really meaningful conversations with people, the down-in-the-trenches-I've-never-talked-to-a-professionally-religious-person-before sort of conversations.  I love the curiosity and the diversity of world views, and the willingness of people to step up and talk to a stranger. If you're one of those people who talks to the officiant at a wedding, thank you.

And today I'm gearing up for the next wedding, with a rehearsal tomorrow and the wedding itself on Saturday, getting ready to dive into a time of sincerity and love, with all the privilege (and, sometimes terror) that entails.

I love weddings.




*liturgical deacon: a priest that does what a deacon does during a specific service, which for a wedding means, read the Gospel lesson, pray the prayers, and help out during communion.

Back to School

It's been a crazy few weeks for me; there's been lots of family stuff going on, and I've been flying solo at St. Thomas's since August 3rd. I haven't been as diligent as I should have been getting posts up, but that should change soon since my boss is back in the office today, and I'll be handing over the fire extinguisher.

A few weeks ago I did two Easter People podcasts with the delightful Easter People out of the CMT at Virginia Theological Seminary, and late last week, the second podcast dropped. It's about back to school, school rituals, and our favorite educational programs. I hope you'll listen, even if it means that all of your suspicions about just how nerdy I really am will likely be confirmed (my favorite back to school ritual: buying a planner and putting in the assignments. Enough said.) but you'll also get to hear from some really amazing and smart folks that I was lucky enough to talk about joke around with for 45 minutes.

You can listen to Easter People 21: The Back to School Extravaganza here.