Tomorrow is the big day!!!

Well tomorrow is the big day: my ordination! I've only been waiting for this day for about 7 years now. It has been a long strange road. 7 years of higher education. Living in new places. Meeting new people. Doing things I never thought I would or could do (witness CPE). And finding ways that I thought were possibly wrong, but turned out to be so right (witness Fredericksburg).

And now I am at the end of one long, strange journey, about to begin yet another long (possibly strange) journey. These past few weeks have been so thoroughly busy and hectic that I haven't had time to post. I've been running hither and yon all over Ohio trying to find things for the manse. I have a huge house and so trying to furnish it without going broke has been a real adventure. On Tuesday of this week I will be packed up and move (again). This time to Pennsylvania, which I am pretty excited about.

So, anyhow at 6pm (EST) tomorrow the hour will be nigh. Hopefully many folks will show up, maybe even a few surprises! I will post more later, even pictures, after the move.

Thought o' the day: Yay!!!

Some Very Good News

Dear Readers,

Many apologies for keeping you in the dark these past weeks in regards to my life. I don't like to do that, but I was in a precarious sort of state, limbo for my RC readers (if you will).

First the sad news: last Sunday (April 20) was my last Sunday at Fredericksburg. It was a bittersweet day all around. I (surprisingly) made it through the sermon without weeping, and I even managed to make it through the closing hymn (a particularly moving rendition of God Be With You Til We Meet Again) without so much as a tear. I thought I was on a roll because I was able to keep my emotions in check so well. But then the choir sang the postlude and I lost it. Yes, I am quite embarassed to say that I wept openly when they sang Friends by Michael W. Smith.

Not my finest moment.

I have since reviewed the lyrics, and while they are a little hokey, they do provide a basically good message. Perhaps the cynic in me just cringes, especially with the stories about summer camp and this song that abound in so many places. But when they sang the chorus, well, I'm not too proud to say I wept.

And I wept again Tuesday, my last day in the office. I've never had a secretary before, but I don't think I could have found a better one. Since we had worked so closely for 10 months it was very hard to leave. I cried a good bit of the way home, and had a royal headache for the rest of the day.

The rest of the week was spent preparing for this weekend. I have been in conversation with many churches, but most of the conversations floundered for some reason or another at some point in the process. Either I got a bad report or I said something that they just didn't like. So things have been narrowing down over the course of about two months with one church. We met for a face-to-face interview and then a neutral pulpit was arranged, and then a meeting with the COM sub-committee on credentials. And then the PNC asked me to be their candidate (which was eerily remeniscent of how I asked my date to go to the prom with me in HS, but I digress). So two weeks ago I was examined by their presbytery's COM (Committee on Ministry, sort of the administrative committee of a presbytery) and approved. Then last week I was examined by my home presbytery and approved for ordination pending the formal receipt of a call.

And today was the big day!

I went to Mercersburg Penn, and met the congregation, and this morning preached and was officially called by The Mercersburg Presbyterian Church, a small congregation in Mercersburg, Penn, a rather charming and historic town in south central Penn.

I am rather very excited by all this. So now I will be ordained in my home church on June 1, and begin work in Mercersburg later that week. And I will hopefully blog a bit more!

Blessings!

Though o' the day: Just when we think we have it all figured out...

Spring is in the air...

At least it was today. The Robins are back in town, crocuses are blooming, and our daffodils are beginning to peek through the ground. Temperature was about 59 today, which is a vast improvement. Since tomorrow is April first, I will predict that if we can get through the next two weeks without any snow then we will not have any more at all until the fall.

Now you might ask how I could make such a bold prediction, especially given the adage "three snows after the forsythia blooms." Well this is all true, but I have never seen snow in Ohio past April 12th. One year we had about a foot of snow on April 12th, but after that date, it seems that the snow will be gone. We can only hope.

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day and I am trying very hard to come up with a good trick to play on my secretary, but it doesn't seem to be working. I guess I'll have to think a bit more about this.

I'm in a bit of a strange position right now. My current job ends in April and I am in the process of searching for another job. I won't go into details, but please continue to pray for my future employment. I am very excited about an opportunity, and I am really hoping and praying that all goes well. I will keep you updated as events develop.

Easter was last week, not that I bothered to post about it. We had a pretty good Easter worship experience. The Sunrise service was at 7am at the East Cemetery, which met I had to get up at 4.30am to drive an hour and be prepared for the 7am start time. Then there were two identical worship services at the church at 8.30 and again at 10.30. Needless to say that by the time I arrived home, I was out of it. But it was a grand and glorious day. A bit cold, but a beautiful morning to remember the resurrection of our Lord!

Peace out!

Thought o' the day: Christ is Risen!

Pictures of "The Day After..."

Above you see my front yard after we started to clear the driveway. You can see the snow piled up about a foot and a half around our front light pole. Then you can see our backyard, and though it is covered it is hard to tell that the snow is about 14-15 inches deep.

We haven't had this much snow in a very long time, especially in such a short amount of time. Conditions were even more severe further west, with official blizzard conditions declared in Columbus and the surrounding area.

Needless to say, I'm ready for SPRING!!!

The Really Big 200th Post!!!

As I logged into my blogger account just now wondering what I might blog about today I noticed that this is, indeed, my 200th post!

This is not as big an accomplishment as you might imagine, given that I started this blog during my junior year in college. I have since graduated from college and completed a three year masters degree, and worked for the better part of a year in a parish already.

Nevertheless, this is the big 200th post, a momentous occasion if ever there was one!

If you didn't know, Ohio was socked with a massive snow storm this weekend. My experiences follow. Friday morning I did not have to work. I slept in and when I got up at 8.30 it looked like a perfectly nice day. I noticed it wasn't too warm, in the mid 30s but there was no rain and a few peaks of sunshine. Then around 10.30 all hell broke loose and the snow started. By the time the snow stopped on Friday we had about 5 inches. This was the lull before the real storm. Early Saturday morning, before I was awake, the really heavy snow started. The Saturday morning storm was also a particularly rare form of winter storm, a Thundersnow. Now I did not actually witness the thundersnow, but my dad said it was one of the strangest things he's ever seen. Lightning and thunder in the middle of a snow storm! By the time I got out of bed Saturday morning the thunder had subsided, but it was still snowing ferociously. Most businesses were closed, roads were extremely hazardous, and most people stayed home. I only went out long enough to pick up a few groceries at the local market.

Today, Sunday, almost ever church service in the county was cancelled. I got to stay home, and didn't go to church because of weather for the first time since I was an intern at Princeton. It was okay, but I guess I would just rather go to church on Sunday morning.

The sun came out today as well, and some of the snow started to melt. We still had to clear the driveway, and the end of the driveway where the township plows had come through was especially difficult to clear, but we made it through!

I realize that I haven't updated this blog for awhile. I have had two neutral pulpits (for you non-Presbys that is where a candidate preaches a sermon for a Pastor Nominating Committee in a church that is neither the one being served by the candidate nor the one looking for a pastor.) They both went well, but the first PNC and I decided not to pursue our discussions any further, and I do believe it was for the best. The second neutral pulpit went better and we are continuing our conversation. I'm really hoping and reasonably confident that this is where God is calling me. More on that later (hopefully).

I hope you enjoyed the big 200th post, leave a comment if you did or didn't - I don't really care either way!

Peace!

Thought o' the day: Spring starts soon, maybe then we won't have snow, or at least this much...

The Lord's Day...

And here I am posting again. We had a good deal of snow, ice, and rain this week. Before this afternoon I had only seen the Sun once in the past two weeks. It is, to be brief, winter in Ohio.

Now I know what you're all saying, "But Buckeye Chuck didn't see his shadow two weeks ago, spring should be here any minute now." Well, it isn't. And I'm not convinced that we'll have an early spring this year. It has already snowed several times, but we really haven't had our fair share yet.

I'm sure the highway departments would love to see and early spring. I was reading a newspaper article today about how many towns, townships, and other municipalities have already or nearly exhausted their snow removal and salt budgets for the season. Additionally it is harder and more expensive to get salt in the winter so now many departments are mixing road salt with sand or cinders to make it go farther. Makes me feel safe.

But I do love snow, I love to watch it fall, I love to shovel it, I love to watch my dog run around in it like a chicken with its head cut off (which is very funny I might add). I do not so much love driving in snow, but I can think of worse or more dangerous things to do.

So here's to snow!

Today was a good day. Church was very good, an excellent sermon. We had communion for like the first time in a thousand years (okay since Christmas) and it was very meaningful. That is one thing I do miss about Princeton, we had communion every Friday, rain or shine, and that was very meaningful for me.

I also had a great visit with my grandma tonight. I was with her as she ate her supper, then we played bingo together. She loves bingo. Her roommate thinks it's gambling, but she played too! They played about a dozen games, and grandma won three times and even received some prizes! She had a ball, but was tired and ready for a nap when all was said and done. I'm glad I was there with her today.

Next week I leave for a neutral pulpit, and another one the following week. I won't be back in my regular pulpit until Palm Sunday, which is hard to believe!

Thought o' the day: SNOW!!!

So.....

Apparently I'm really bad about updating my readers.

In no particular order:

Welcome Melissa to our reading community!

I'm headed to Pennsylvania tomorrow for an interview.

Lent has now begun. I'm not much in the mood to give anything up this year, and I haven't decided what sort of discipline I might add, so I may not do Lent this year.

On Wednesday I led my first Ash Wednesday Service. The crowd was slim, but I was totally surprised when almost everyone came forward to receive the ashes. I though I might get a couple at the most.

I just finished watching a show on the travel channel abouot Edinburgh Scotland, and it made me want to go back so very much. I've been thinking a lot about Scotland lately, and if I knew what I was doing I might just see if I could get a job there, but I doubt it. I will go back and visit though.

Last night I sat through a 2.5 hour session meeting. 2.5 hours is about 1.5 hours too long, especially when most of it was spent discussing money. I don't like talking about money.

I visited a parishioner this week in the hospital who was absolutely sure I was not the person I claimed to be. He thought I was a very nice person, but he was also sure I was not, indeed, his minister.

At least I know who I am. I think.

Thought o' the day: Whisky!!!