I need help. I’m pretty sure what I’m trying to do is easy-peasy if you know how. I do not know how.
Here’s the sitch:
1) Our church has a good sound system, done in the last 5 years, connecting the microphone and speakers
2) I want to connect a device to that sound system to record the sermons
3) I suspect my 120 gig iPod would do the trick nicely
4) I don’t know how to hook the iPod up to the system
Am I right? If I have a cable/doohickey can I just plug my iPod into some sort of “line out”, press play at the beginning of the service, and then download audio off the iPod when I get home? Advice, please!
I’d like to start out by saying that I am clear that I’m the weird one here. Everyone else SEEMS to be in line, and I’m the one who just doesn’t fit in.
That said, I simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND why people like depressing media. For example, through a miracle of babysitting, my husband and I got to go see “Where the Wild Things Are” on Friday night. (I would post a spoiler warning, but sheesh. If you haven’t read the book, which spoils the plot, then go get it right now!) The movie is sad and depressing, and does not cease to be sad and depressing. You have a lonely kid, an all-too-human and overstretched mom, a teenage sister in a loving but rather grim world. Then you get taken to a fantasy world where …. things are just as bad. In fact, bad enough to make the real world where people break your igloos and your sister ignores your pain and your mom is dating some guy seem much better than your fantasy world. So we conclude feeling just as crappy as we started. Actually crappier — I was in a good mood going in. But hey, it was visually lovely.
It’s a box office hit.
Why?
I get it: other people really like reading books and watching movies that make them feel horrid. I know I’m the weird one because I don’t. I just fail to fathom what about it feels good and makes you want more?
See, I understand WHY it is important to tell and hear stories about real things that are awful. I will sit down and read about the holocaust to understand how humans can be so brutal to each other and work to prevent it. I understand why it’s important that we know and see that humanity is capable of great evil. I listen to the news, even when I’d rather never heard again how some person strapped in a bomb-vest blew themselves up in a crowded marketplace full of sons and mothers and beloved uncles. But I turn on the news anyway and look at the world as it is, to the best of my abilities.
I do it with the same amount of joy and enjoyment that I have for dental hygiene, without the sparkly teeth afterwards. I do it because it is important and necessary and part of being a good citizen. I do not enjoy a minute of it.
So why on earth would I choose to watch movies that inspire the same sense of impossible despair? Why would I want to read books where people are horrible to each other and hurt each other and terrible things happen and at the end of the book, it’s still horrible and no one has learned and the sun will die someday? Why do people spend so much time imagining ways that we could be awful to each other that don’t really exist? What about this is satisfying? I read those books, and am usually glad I have, but I never desire to read them again.
It makes it very difficult for me to find media that suits. It’s hard to explain to friends. I often sum it up by saying that I don’t like violence. (I nearly vomited at the Serenity movie — I actually left shaking and crying.) But that’s not actually it. I’ll get through violence (as long as the folks writing it/showing it don’t seem to enjoy it too much) to get to redemption, learning and hope. I found Firefly generally fantastic. The body count in the Lord of the Rings is high, but so is the hope-count. One of my favorite books of the last decade, “The Curse of Chalion” by Bujold starts with a beaten, broken man who has experienced utter betrayal. But it ends up with redemption, healing, hope, love and victory. There are very bad things in it, but the people who ENJOY doing horrible things to other people are a minority, and they get theirs in the end.
I guess I feel that the world is sufficiently grim without imagining more worse things in it than actually exist. I choose to spend my imaginative time on seeing the world as, perhaps, a better place than it is, and humanity as generally loving and redeemable.
If you love those kind of movies or books I’m talking about — the dark depressing ones where it all seems futile — can you please explain to me why? What it does for you that makes you want to come back?
Today is the day that ought to have been my birthday, by all rights. Today is the first day of fall. More importantly, to my young self, today is Frodo and Bilbo Baggin’s collective birthday. Do you have any idea how much it would’ve mattered to me to be the SAME as those two notable halflings in such an important event? I used to try to work out with the time zones and Zaire (my place of birth) whether I had REALLY been born on the 22nd and this incontrovertible FACT was masked by my impossibly-distant place of birth. Or maybe bad record keeping. Or SOMETHING.
Of course now, thinking about it, I’m pretty sure my mom wouldn’t have minded. I was three weeks later than expected. My due date was Labor Day. I used to think this just meant my mom was bad at counting, until I myself went a verifiable two weeks late with Grey. Sorry about that, mom.
Frodo, Fall and I all twine together for a brief period this time of year. If you’re unfamiliar with the Lord of the Rings, this birthday on September 22nd is a critical milestone throughout the books. It’s during a grand birthday that Bilbo disappears in a puff of smoke from Hobbiton. Years later, on that birthday, Frodo grabs his walking stick and three best friends and heads off on desperate, epic quests that make dragons look like child’s play.
Um, it’s possible that these books were just a TOUCH influential on my growing self, ok?
But this time of year brings out the itching in my feet, too. My drive in apparently got the memo about it being the first day of fall. The low places – the mist-covered swamps by the sides of the freeway – have already put out their scarlet and vermilion banners, in anticipation of hordes of tourists coming to admire. The trees are heavy with their fruits. Apples and pears weigh heavily on pregnant limbs, hoping for eventual homes in pies and pastries. The boundaries of my mind get less definite, and I’m mindful of Bilbo’s warning: the road in front of your door connects to all other places in the world. Who knows, by stepping on it, where you will end up?
I admit to inflicting Tolkien on my son at the youngest possible opportunity. His fourth birthday is still eagerly anticipated, but already you can hear him sing, if you listen carefully:
The greatest adventure is what lies ahead
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said
The chances the changes are all yours to make
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.
The greatest adventure is there if you are bold
Let go of the moment that life makes you hold
To measure the meaning can make you delay
It’s time you stop thinking and wasting the day.
The snot-plague is lingering, watching, just outside my peripheral vision. While Grey seems pretty ok (apparently he was fine yesterday – I overreacted. It’s hard to gauge when your kid throws up at the drop of a hat), Adam is not. No, he has a very sore throat. With white spots. And a fever. Alex, I’ll take “Strep Throat” for $200, please. He sees the doctor today.
But Thane is snotty and coughing. Grey is snotty and coughing. I… well, my throat just started hurting. Hmmmmm….
Now this is important. If you think taking Vitamin C, or Cold-eez, or Airborne is effective for helping prevent or diminish a cold, STOP READING NOW. Just stop.
Have you stopped? Good.
Anyway, the plague afflicting my house got me thinking about an article I read recently. Right here: Placebos are Getting More Effective. Go read it. I’ll wait.
It’s a great discussion on how the positive effects of placebos are getting bigger — really significant!
I really, really wish that I could have a placebo right about now. Just one problem, of course. I’m too skeptical/over-educated to get one. I’m pretty sure that those cold prevention items: Airborne, Vitamin C, Cold-eez (although maybe NOT zicam) are placebos. Which is to say that if they’re your thing and you trust ’em, they’re actually very effective against the cold. Quite possibly, they’re the most effective thing we HAVE against that wily virus. And I can’t take them, because I really don’t believe they’re effective except as a placebo. Which, I’m pretty sure, means that the placebo effect will be at best muted and at worst non-existent.
Wouldn’t it be great – and true! – if they actually sold a pill that was a well-marketed, universal placebo? One that was shown to reduce colds and flu by XXX%. FDA approved. Look it up on the internet and check out the active ingredients. Basically, a big ol’ benevolent scam so that people like me could take a placebo and not know it was a placebo. That got me to wondering how I would know that exists if it already does. And that got me thinking about the cold remedies that have been all the rage lately. What are they if not well-marketed placebos? Right. Well done, self. Way to talk yourself out of a whole therapy option.
Well, I totally plan on using the placebo effect for the gullible young people in my control. They’re actually not bothered by much, but if a sick day ensues I’m sure a few of these here pills (Pez) will fix it right up. Trouble sleeping? Here’s a nice glass of milk that has been scientifically proven to assist in sleep! And thanks to big pharma, I won’t be telling my sons lies. I’ll be telling them truths made so by their own minds.
I’m also planning on doing a complete cease and desist on expressing skepticism about anyone’s little wacky remedies. You think that what you’re doing makes you feel better and makes you healthier? You’re right. It does. Glad you’ve found something that works so well for you!
What wondrous things our bodies are!
(Hmmmm I wonder if the semi-magical aura I’ve applied to coffee counts. Darn it! Stop thinking about it! Ooooooohmmmmm…. coffffeeeee……. oooooooohhhhmmmmm)
I am here to tell you that the second age of personal computing is over, and the third has begun. This week, we bought a netbook. (Pauses for gasping intakes of breath!) (Is disappointed by heckler in the imaginary crowd shouting out “So what?!”)
“So glad you asked. Let me explain.”
My family got our first personal computer in 1982 or 1983. I was four. Mom and dad took the plunge in a very financially hard time, I believe because it was good for dad professionally. Also because my father is the earliest of early adapters (let us discuss the LD player, shall we?). That was the first breaker of the first wave of personal computing. That computer had a word processor (was it Wordstar 2000?). It booted from a 5 1/4 floppy. It hooked up to an electric typewriter as a printer. (We called them Doc and Olive — Olive was an Olivetti whose usefulness far outlasted Doc’s.) I remember a banner spelling out my name in huge letters, with each letter made up of smaller letters. We got this computer before I could read.
That first wave of personal computing involved dumb machines. There were no connections to anything. Files were moved (rarely) by floppy disk. Computer games were played by yourself at the computer. This went from 1982 until, in my world, 1995.
In 1995 we got a modem and AOL. It was a long distance call. I got an hour a week. I would carefully craft a bunch of emails, connect, send them out and get new ones in, and then spend the rest of my time in (relatively tame) AOL chatrooms. All this was still done on the big tower computers that dominated backrooms and offices — nests of cables slung heavy against dusty backboards.
This second age of computing — the connected but dedicated machine — is the one now passing.
We have an office. We’ve had an office since we first got married. This office has always had two big computers. (We share our finances completely, but we DEFINITELY have his and hers computers!) One of the computers always has a big monitor, a cutting-edge (read: extremely costly) video card and a lot of processing power. The other had these things five years ago (that would be mine). Lately, though, we haven’t been spending a lot of time in the office. It’s ALL THE WAY UPSTAIRS. It’s also not a very kid-friendly room. While Grey is entertained on his own computer (err… what?) Thane thinks the room is delicious. It is not a Thane-ok room. So the upshot is that when we go upstairs, it’s usually late at night and when we feel like hiding.
This poses lots of problems. There are now a bunch of things we can’t do without internet access. “What are we doing this weekend?” “Where is the party?” “Just what does ‘Onogaeshi imasu’ mean anyway?” “What can you do with kohlrabi?” These are all questions that we reflexively turn to the internet to answer. Google docs has most of our documents. Picasa has most of our pictures. Google calendar has the master data about our schedule. Gmail usually has several things in it that require action. Mapping is online. We do not have an encyclopedia set. So either we tromp upstairs, we wait, or sometimes we’ve brought our work laptops home.
Enter the netbook. It’s small. It’s light. It’s portable. It was relatively inexpensive. (If it gets damaged, we will be sad but not devastated.) It connects to that great googly cloud of information we need. It can run games. It has more hard drive space than my current tower.
I have a sneaking suspicion we will never buy another tower. Their day is over. We’re both programmers. But you know what? Both of our work computers are LAPTOPS. My laptop has enough power to run Eclipse and Flexbuilder and Coldfusion server and SQL Server Management Studio and WinCVS simultaneously without breaking a sweat. It’s not even specially tricked out — it’s the same laptop specs that our business folks have. Why would I want an immobile tower? I’ll turn our office into a peaceful craft space — a real retreat. Maybe I’ll even get an armchair for reading up there. I’ll banish the cables.
There was really only one reason we were hanging on as long as we did: gaming. My husband likes to play video games. But the video card on his last computer cost, I think, $600. The monitor wasn’t cheap, either. If our only reason to do this is games, we could probably buy TWO game consoles for what buffing up his computer cost.
Thus begins the third age of computing. This age will be small and mobile. Many devices will be able to access that part of the cloud they need. Instead of one big device intended to serve all purposes, we’ll have many smaller application-specific devices. We won’t have “my computer”. We’ll have the netbook, the laptop, the gaming console (which, if we aren’t there already, will handle your MMORPG too), the phone (which, God willing, will have our calendars and to-do lists on it). Many of our devices will do more than one of these. The netbook, for example, has a built in webcam and does Skype far better than the hard-to-reach upstairs tower.
Have you made the switch from the second to the third age? Do you see it coming? Is there a compelling reason for that tower that I’m not seeing? What do you think?
My state lost its senator this morning. You might have heard. I believe there were a few glancing mentions in a news organization or two.
I live in Massachusetts. I have lived in Massachusetts for 9 years now. But I’ll likely never be a Massachussan. I speak with an indistinguishable accent. (My husband and I were raised 12,000 miles or so apart. We have the same generic American accent.) I drink Starbucks, not Dunkin’ Donuts. Growing up, I thought the mob was about as real a threat as Bigfoot and the Windigo. I arrived when the Big Dig was a fait accomplis. I never expected to live here so long. I vote regularly in both local and state elections, but I feel a bit like an outsider looking in. I must’ve voted for Ted Kennedy, but I don’t remember doing so. To me, he was a politician with a national profile who had a bunch of good ideas and plenty of prior personal issues. The name Kennedy is no magic to me.
Some of the politicians in our commonwealth seem to be more like me, or at least less like the old-New England types. For example, our governor Deval Patrick has no accent and has lived in places outside “the hub”. I’m quite fond of my current state representative Jason Lewis, who is local enough to have spent five minutes selling his candidacy to me 1 on 1 and seems (in the local parlance) wicked smaht. I can connect with the Harvard/BU/Tufts folk who, like me, came to New England for college and stayed for the jobs.
But there’s the other Massachusetts – the thick accent, old boy, Irish-Catholic Massachusetts. For example, I can’t for the life of me figure out why Boston accepts a mayor who can barely string together a coherent sentence. Mayor Menino is an excellent example of this kind of New England politician. His power base is built on unions and knowing everyone, as far as I can tell. And for all this stumps me, it appears to be a very strong power base (although thank heavens he has real challengers this year – more power to them).
A friend of mine told a story about running for city council many years ago in Boston. Some of the “good ol’ boys” took her aside told her to be a good girl and not upset the boat. They told her that she had no chance and mentioned that friends of theirs ran the polling stations. Were there actually polling irregularities? Who knows. But the “interlopers not welcome” ethos behind her story rang very true. There seem to be areas of politics that are reserved for the third generation and connected.
Now, I am no better than a casual observer of local politics. It’s entirely possible that my perceptions are out of date and untrue. But I find myself wondering which side of this divide our new senator will come from. I worry that the choice of who we’ll get to vote for will be made in a smoky room filled with men from large families. I worry that the Democratic candidate offered to us will be the one whose “turn” it is. A special election does not have a primary. There is very, very, very little chance that Massachusetts will send a Republican to DC instead of that critical 60th Democrat.
I wish that Teddy Kennedy, who had plenty of time to think about his last days, had resigned in such a way that we could have found his successor in a more orderly fashion. I am glad that he didn’t name an heir, but I’m concerned that the decision will not be one that I, or ten-year outsiders like me, will have much to say in.
Edward Kennedy was the last scion of a great family. But in America, power is not intended to be inherited, father to son, or brother to brother. I hope that the Senator who next represents our Commonwealth will be a person of great intelligence, persuasion and integrity, and will somehow manage to represent ALL the Commonwealth. And I hope they will have earned the post on their own merits.
Last night was a perfect night for baseball. It had been hot during the day, but cooled as the sun touched down over the Coke sign as we arrived at Fenway Park. There was a sultry, warm-beer-and-humidity haze to the air, as is appropriate in July. A half moon went through shimmering colors as it rose just above the horizon and fell again. And I was in the bleacher seats, hands sticky with Cracker Jacks, watching the action unfold between attempts at the wave, the constant “I believe you’re in my seat” refrain, and Adventures With Beach Balls.
Fenway Girl
For 8 innings I thoroughly enjoyed myself, with my husband by my side keeping me company. Then, the 9th inning, a blown save, a bunch of errors, and a game suddenly tied at 10:30 at night. We stayed through the 10th, but as the night got later and the algorithm for getting home got worse, I had to weigh my conviction that Thou Shalt Not Leave A Game Until It Is Over with the reality that somewhere between 5:30 and 7 am, one or both my husband and I would need to get up to tend to small people. We left after the bottom of the 10th, missing nothing I wanted to watch.
For the record, small people opted for 5:30.
Watching the game was mostly awesome. I really enjoy baseball. I really like getting to watch it live. We even had a babysitter in the person of my brother. My text-message-baseball-buddy was accommodating in making sure I knew why ‘Tek wasn’t playing and that Buehrle was setting a record for consecutive batters retired.
It also made me wistful. When you add another child to your life, for sure, something has to go away. The difference between having one son and having two has pushed a lot of the things I enjoyed off the cliff – my fingers sore from clinging to them so hard. One of those was baseball. In 2003 or 2004, on your average day I could tell you what time the game was, against which team, where we were in the standings, who the starting pitcher was and what the starting lineup was likely to be. I’d be able to handicap our chances against that night’s opponents and I’d have a strong opinion on the most recent trade.
Right now I catch headlines on what’s going on: Diasuke is taking the mantle of team snob from Manny, ‘Tek is beaten up and blaming Beckett, Papelbon is no longer automatic, shortstop is a problem position … but I can’t tell you how the Rays are doing without looking it up. Some of the names in the lineup are unfamiliar. I’m not quite sure where we are in the standings.
I just haven’t had the time or attention to pay to something I have loved. There is a wistfulness that comes from briefly touching on an activity that once consumed you to a greater degree. It’s like going out for a friendly “how ya doing?” cup of coffee with an ex-boyfriend you once loved passionately.
I can hope that this is just a breather in a long and ardent baseball relationship. I can hope to use my wiles to convince one or more of my sons that they really really love baseball and that we should listen to it on the radio alla time. I can hope that this, and other beloved pasttimes pushed off the same cliff of need, will return to me renewed for their fallow time. But right now? I miss my hobbies. OK, I miss my hobbies more when they're not breaking my heart
There’s a huge debate going on right now about Mommy Bloggers (a literary genre if ever there was one) and product placement. To sum up: lots of people read Mommy Blogs. These blogs are about daily living. If the blogs mention useful products in daily living, lots of people are introduced to the products in a positive, authentic way. This is hard to do in conventional media. Advertisers have figured this out, and started sending free products (and more!) to the mommy bloggers. Readers of Mommy Bloggers now get suspicious every time a brand name product is mentioned.
I’m personally suspicious that Amalah is on the payroll of Pactiv Corporation, a manufacturer of fine airplane plastic cups; a company clearly looking to branch out into a toy division.
It’s all just another salvo in the war between those who want to sell things and those who want to use their money for fripperies like college tuition and retirement.
I should mention, for the record, that this blog is no way supported by the “Blogola” industry. Accusations that I’m on the payroll of the Miss Wakefield Diner, White Lake State Park or Starbucks Coffee Company are entirely slanderous and I vehemently deny any such thing. Sadly.
Dear Starbucks,
Please consider sponsoring my blog. I have been praising you to the skies for, uh, about 15 years now. I drink your coffee every day. I mention that I’m drinking your coffee in every other Facebook update. If you send me a pound of Sumatra (ground for a flat bottom drip) and a coupon worth two mochas (Grande, two pump, non-fat, extra hot no whip mocha) a week, plus an allowance for one travel mug every two months, I’m you’re woman.
You should definitely consider my blog an amazing opportunity for you. I have a readership of roughly 5 unique hits a day, three of whom are related to me. Sadly, my mother and husband do not drink coffee, but maybe reading about it all the time in my blog will wear them down. My blog traffic has been steadily growing. In 6 months I’ve gone from an average of two a day to six a day! That means by retirement age I should have a readership of at least 30 a day. You can’t pass up numbers like that!
Really, think about it. I’ll be over here drinking Starbucks brand coffee while you do.
I had one of the scariest 5 minutes of my life on Thursday. I have failed to mention it because, well, I went camping and it faded into the background.
It was a typical last-day-of-the-week when I finally headed out the door to go pick the boys up from daycare. As I turned onto their street, I saw the flash of lights ahead. No big deal. There’s always quite a police presence in Lawrence, and daycare is right next to an ambulance dispatch facility, so lights and sirens are extremely common. As I got closer, though, I noticed that the lights were largely blue. And that there were a LOT Of blue lights.
Closer yet, and I discover the entire block is sealed off by cop cars, lights blasting. Six or seven cop cars. Sealing off the block where my sons are in daycare. I start to panic but reason that it’s a long block — it could be anything.
The closer I got, though, the closer to daycare the center of the action seemed. By the time I got to the barricade, I was in full-out panic. I thought of all the horrible things it might be: a drive by shooting, a terrible accident, a murder. It could be my sons. They could not be ok. I hastily parked the car and ran (in unseemly for running shoes) to the nearest police officer I could spot. I explained to his back (he was watching ahead) that my SONS were up the street at the daycare. He waved vaguely at the other side of the sidewalk and told me I could walk to get them.
About halfway up the street, I spotted their daycare provider, on her front porch with all the other gawkers. She waved at me, dandling Thane on her knee. I took a deep, deep breath of relief. My boys were ok. Shaky, I went to claim them. She had no idea what was going on either. I nervously escorted my sons back down the block to the car, hoping that the fact the police hadn’t shooed the passers-by meant that they weren’t expecting a shootout anytime soon.
My hands shook as I clipped them into their carseats. I momentarily contemplated taking a picture of the fuss, but decided that was dumb. Police don’t block off entire city blocks for parking infractions.
One of the strange things about our modern era is that you never know what will make a big stir. The cops arrest one guy in Cambridge for (they say) throwing a fit and it makes the national news for like a week. 10 cop cars barricade a block in Lawrence, and it might disappear from the record without mention ever being made. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find out what all the hubbub was about.
I did finally find out. A teen mom and two male thug/accomplices went to her baby-daddy’s house and drew a gun on him, threatening to kill him if she didn’t give her the child, who she then made off with.
Police said a woman, 19, showed up at her ex-boyfriend’s Canal Street home Thursday night with the three men.
“Give me my kid or they’re going to kill you,” Santiago allegedly told Elvin Rosado, as two big men loaded and pointed guns at him and a friend.
She lived in the house the police were surrounded. Apparently they were waiting for her? (What fugitive from the law is like, “Gee, there’s a jillion cops surrounding my house. Guess I’ll go check my mail and and then see what they want!”) It ended not-tragically, with her showing up at the police department with the child in tow.
It was serious. There were deadly weapons involved. A child was in danger. But it wasn’t a drug bust or something that makes me scared for the neighborhood.
It also comes close. I’ve seen that child’s toys in the trash on the curb on Mondays, as I walk to daycare. I’m quite sure I’ve seen the kid, even if I don’t remember. (On nice afternoons, the entire neighborhood is usually out on the front porch.) And it’s very hard to get over that moment where you wonder if your children are dead or in danger, and whether you’re 15 minutes too late to save them.
I’m very, very grateful this was a false alarm, and hope never to come so close to any alarm again.
My husband and I started attending Burlington Presbyterian Church the Sunday after we got back from our honeymoon, back in 2000. We were members by that winter, and I think my husband got conscripted to session, er, nominated to the high honor of monthly meetings within a year. (I ended up serving on Deacons.) Since then, we’ve gone pretty much every Sunday that we weren’t travelling, with a very few sleeping-in exceptions. The only other church we ever go to is the church I grew up in, when we visit my parents.
I love my church. I love the people. I love the pastor. I’ve been to the baptism of most of the cute kids on the front steps during Word for Children. Coffee hour ranges between good and excellent on a consistent basis.
But this last weekend, my brother was preaching at the church he’s interning at: Fourth Presbyterian in Dorchester. So we upended our familiar Sunday routine and took 93 south through the city to watch him.
What an interesting experience. I hadn’t realized how used I was to the way we do things. For example, the order of worship was different. They do all their announcements and prayers and concerns in the beginning. I actually really liked that — once the worship part started it was all worship. The music was great — they did interstices between parts of the service, and even played quietly during some of the prayers and readings. They did a fantastic job of integrating their children into their service. And the preacher was great too. (Heh.)
I also really liked the feeling of connectedness. One of the big reasons to be Presbyterian, instead of something else, is that we are tied through a connection and community to each other. Fourth and Burlington belong to the same Presbytery. I’d met several of the people at previous Presbytery meetings — in fact our September meeting will be held there. I felt a bit like an ambassador between two distant colonies of the same home country. It was all familiar but distinctly different, as well. And I felt just a touch of that church universal to which we aspire.
I love my church dearly. I have no desire to worship somewhere else week in and week out. But this makes me wonder if it might not be a blessing to me and to my service to BPC to periodically see how it’s done other places, and come back with new ideas and energy. I also think it is a joy to create connections between the communities. Matthew’s sermon was on the strength that we gain from working together, instead of alone. He’s right. That goes for churches as well as people.
My Truant Pen 