Three Beautiful Things 07/04/10: More Ordinary Tears, Church Hot Dogs, T-Bone Perfection

1. Something about this long season of Pentecost is moving me to tears during worship at St. Mary's. It's the Pentecost season, the season of The Ordinary. No big events. Jesus doesn't get crucified. The resurrection is over. No ascension into heaven. No birth of Jesus. We are living in the aftermath of the Holy Spirit's visitation at Antioch. It's a long season of ordinariness in the church. And, inexplicably, it's getting to me. I just sat there quietly weeping during worship -- quietly weeping during this long, uneventful, quiet time in the rhythm of the Anglican year. It's as if I were watching the Red Sox play the Rangers on a Wednesday evening in May at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington in a slow game and in the fourth inning of a game where nothing was happening, with one out, Josh Hamilton hit a routine chopper to Dustin Pedroia who fielded it cleanly and threw out Hamilton by fifteen feet, and I was moved to tears by such a routine baseball moment. I'll quote SK: Go Figure.

2. After worship concluded, Bishop Thornton invited us up to the Parish Hall for a July Fourth lunch of hot dogs, cole slaw, four bean casserole, watermelon, cold drinks, and dessert. I got to chat with Beth Booth, Harry Hance, and Les Breidenthal, making this July Fourth lunch a deep pleasure.

3. Speaking of deep pleasures, Anne and Russell and Allie invited me over for dinner. On the third, while out shooting photos, Russell and I went to the Market of Choice meat counter and I bought a perfect T-bone steak and this evening Russell charcoal grilled it up just right and along with sweet corn on the cob, a fresh salad, Hawaiian sweet bread, some Broken Halo IPA, and relaxing, generous hosts, I enjoyed the Fourth of July, as we used to say, to the max.

Three Beautiful Things 01/04/09: Home at Church, Fat Sausages, Zero

1. Church feels like home. It always has. I'm happy to be back again and welcome. I don't know what to say when I'm asked where I've been. My struggles with depression and fatigue are difficult to explain. So is the necessity of allocating my energy, not to mention how church, which feels like home, was wearing me out.

2. Those fat organic pork breakfast sausages I bought at the Kiva were really tasty after church.

3. I played hours of live music performed by Zero and let Steve Kimock and Martin Fierro and the rest of the boys carry me away and my imagination and memory transported me back to all those great shows at WOW Hall and the Hilton Ballroom. I miss feeling the satisfaction and sublimity hearing Zero live used to give me. Recordings are a decent second best.

Three Beautiful Things 12/31/08: Shine On, St. Mary's, Ham Soup

1. I'd been riffing a little on Pink Floyd's song title, "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond" as a New Year's greeting during the run up before going to the Floydian Slips show tonight. And wouldn't you know it! The Floydian Slips opened their show tonight with "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond"!

2. I had business to take care of at St. Mary's Episcopal Church today and realized that it's been months, maybe over a year, since I went to the church during the day to take care of something or go to a meeting. It's a funny thing to say, but I feel much more like I'm really getting back into life at the church just by having gone there today and asked Louise for help and then dropped in on the church bookkeeper.

3. Marla fixed a flavorful and comforting ham and potato soup and she and Randy and family invited me over for dinner before Randy and I went to the McDonald to hear the Floydian Slips.

Three Beautiful Things 12/28/08: Worship, Old Friends, Keener

1. I am making an increasingly earnest effort to attend church service on Sunday morning and now the newness of having returned is dropping away. My spirit is becoming attuned to the order of worship again, so I'm experiencing the order of worship the way that works best for me. It's not fresh. It's not new each week. It's not spontaneous. The more I attend services, the more I can slide easily and fully into the regularity, familiarity, and predictable rhythms of the service and within the framework of this repetition, I meditate, pray, contemplate; I feel the wonders of the Trinity more deeply.

2. Since some of my friends from high school are friends of mine on Facebook, I decided to create a photo album of pictures from over the last four or five years that feature friends we went to high school with.

3. I watched the 40 Year-Old Virgin tonight. I recognize how artfully Steve Carell played the role of Andy, but I didn't think he was the heart of the movie. He may have been its center, but he wasn't its heart. Catherine Keener (Trish) was. In contrast to all of Andy's friends and in contrast to the other women he tried to date, Trish moved through her world with maturity, wisdom, intelligence, and without pretension. She's quick to love, quick to smile and laugh, and wise to the ways of the world. She's experienced a lot. Keener played this role perfectly. Until she appeared and slowly began to be more prominent in the movie, I was growing tired of this story, its characters, and the redundant humor. Keener jolted the movie alive for me and her characters' generosity, understanding, insight, and playfulness had me, by the end of the movie, ready to throw on a tie dye (if I had one) and sing and dance to the "Age of Aquarius".

Three Beautiful Things 12/21/08: Squirrel Dude, Still, Back in Touch

1. Snug's trainer recommended that Snug exercise more ingenuity and mental exertion when he eats his meals and suggested that feed Snug with Squirrel Dude. I introduced Snug to Squirrel Dude today and it appears that Squirrel Dude abides. Snug figured out how to shake the kibble out of the purple rubber rodent, work for it a bit, and have his dinner.

2. My experience in church worship tends pretty strongly toward the quiet and the mystical more than toward the joyful and the animated or toward the cerebrally theological. My most gratifying worship experience is stillness. I felt still this morning at the 11:00 Eucharist and again at the Lessons and Carols service at St. Mary's Episcopal Church. I wasn't always quiet, though. We sang a lovely series of Advent hymns and belting them gave me a satisfying spiritual and nostalgic release.

3. Diane and I graduated from Kellogg High School in 1972 and this evening she contacted me through Facebook. What a lovely surprise! I last saw Diane at a reunion either 11 or 16 years ago and I look forward to being back in touch and finding out what's been going on.