Thursday, February 23, 2006

Life is grand!

In the next four months, I will spend significant time (more than a day) in the following cities: Lisbon, London, Rome, and Edinburgh. I am so excited! Lisbon will be with Pedro and my folks, London with my folks, Rome with Jenny, and Edinburgh for the Methodist Conference (yes, I'm a nerd)! I am very lucky to be in a place where all things things are (relatively) close by with the means to get there. It's all very exciting!

More later. Gotta get ready for Morning Prayer and my second funeral.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

I'm awake, I'm awake!

Whew. Duke basketball is gonna be the death of me! These games that start at 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning sure do take it out of a person. Then why do it? Because it is one of the few things that take place during a time when I'm not working that has nothing to do with work. Life in ministry has its perks and its drawbacks, as does many jobs. One of the perks is the flexible schedule...I can pretty much do what I want when I want...during the day. Evenings are a completely different story. I'm in the middle of a stretch where I'm working 4-5 evenings a week. And these aren't evenings where the meeting starts at 7 and you're done by 8. These meetings start at 7:30 and if I'm home before 9:30, it's a good night. Most nights it ends up being closer to 10 when I get home. Not that I mind all that much, but it sure does cut into socializing with people who have normal jobs or getting involved in any sort of club. I guess what I'm trying to say (and you old folks can have a good chuckle at this)...is that life can get quite full quite quickly. I don't know how church members do it. They work full time all day and then give of their time and energy to come out at night for any number of meetings...kinda makes me feel guilty for infringing on their free time. If nothing else, I can be a little more lenient on them. Most days, even if I did have a free evening...I don't want to do anything except stay at home and do something mindless for a while (no comments from the peanut gallery please).

Perhaps I'm just frustrated and exhausted because I'm in the middle of a marathon couple of weeks. I think life can be like a basketball game...there are some points in the game when you're just playing...not overly well, not overly poorly, but you're just playing. Then, and Duke is famous for this, there are bits where the team will go on a run. All sorts of things are happening at once. Life in ministry (and life in general, I guess) is a lot like that. We have our dry spells (I think...I'm waiting for that to come) and we have our spurts, our runs when everything happens at once.

Anyways, I apologize for the big ramble. Things here are moving right along. I'm in my second round of Church Council meetings. Yay! I've got two funerals coming up and some weddings I need to get started on. Lots happening...I'm doing things I can't believe I'm finally doing. It's amazing really.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Spyware sucks

Does anybody else find it weird that there are some people in the world who sit around all day and try to come up with ways to ruin other people's computers? Simply blows my mind. So yes, I have some adware, some spyware, and other stuff and my computer is now in the hospital. I spent about 10 days fighting with it...even took it to a local guy who works out of his house, but that didn't do much. I had a hunch that it wasn't going to be overly productive when a) he didn't know how to type (other than the hunt and peck method); b) he tried to plug a USB cable into my ethernet port; and c) he was quite advanced in age (I know, I'm horribly judgmental, but I was suprised how old he was when I met him). Anyways, he was very sweet but didn't do much for my computer. So now I'm using the circuit's laptop...which is handy, but it isn't mine. A minor inconvenience in the whole scheme of things, but still mildly annoying.

For those of you who haven't heard, I will be extending my stay in England for another year. Hopefully, I'll also be moving to a bigger house so I have more room to work. It's been quite a relief to be able to settle down and not worry about squeezing it all in to such an impossibly short period of time. Plus, now I'll have more time to travel!

I've got some other things I want to post about, but not now. Remind me later to talk more about ecumenism. Until then...Peace!