UGH

I'm in Austin at a conference sponsored by the seminary for the College of Pastoral Leaders (one of the Lilly foundation groups). Marva Dawn is the speaker. She is simply awful. She was rude and antagonistic yesterday. This morning, she was simply boring, boring, boring. I had been excited about listening to her, but this was just awful. And way, way too much personal information. She let us know about her constipation. Sorry, I just don't want to know about her constipation. 

So, San Francisco voted against 8-B. Three members of the presbytery are here (that I know of). One member of our group stayed in San Fran to vote. 

I'm off to goof off.

We had visitors this morning. And not folks who grew up in the church and now come only on the holidays they are spending with their parents. A young couple with two daughters. They are friends with our other new couple with two sons. and of course folks were really pleased. We have two people ready to teach Sunday School every Sunday. Until last year, we would go lots of Sundays with no children. And one couple that has two young girls has been coming most Sundays. They used to come about every other month and the husband hardly came at all.

God may intend for this congregation to live after all.

Travel Dreams

I'm sorry to say that the Friday Five from RevGalBlogPals hasn't interested me lately. But GannetGirl asks about travel.

If you could get on a plane right now and fly anywhere for a five-day stay, where would you go?

Oh my, only five days? Only one place? Probably Sulawesi in Indonesia. It's a dive destination with I understand wonderful diving. I'd love to dive and kayak around the island. I think that's what calling me right now. I was diving in January. I hadn't been diving in a while and it was wonderful.

When I am underwater, I am in another world. I float among beautiful flowers that are really animals: anemones, sea fans. The rocks are alive. The corals flower and spit out eggs and sperm to reproduce. (OK, they don't really flower). At night the polyps emerge and sway in the current. Fish like flowers or birds swim or float by me. A huge eel approaches with curiosity. A turtle floats by, feet/flippers paddling up and down slowly. A ray floats by lazily flipping the edges of its body up and down. I float. I weigh nothing. All I can hear is my breathing: the bubbles emerging from my regulator. The pressure of the water hugs my body.

I love to travel. I am dreaming about my round the world trip. Sixteen coupons for flights. 29,000 miles. Where to go? Here to LA to Guam? Palau, Yap and Truk. On to the Philippines for more diving. Then to Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. More diving. Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. Biking through Vietnam? Floating down the Mekong? To India, Nepal, Bhutan to visit mountain kingdoms and temples? To Africa to revel in the wonderful animals God put there: lions and cheetahs, leopards and rhinos, elephants and giraffes. Then to Ethiopia for the rock carved churches. To Sharm El Shiek, Duhab and Taba on the Sinai to dive some more. A diversion to the Seychelles or Maldives for more diving? I'm already over my mileage and coupons. When I retire. I'm selling all that I own (well a lot of it), putting the rest in storage and going to see the world. 2011 or 2012. In September.

I'm filled with stuff I'm not sure I should blog about. Life is hard.

Israel

In four weeks I leave for Israel. I'm going to a conference on Paul at the Tantur Institute. They ran an ad in Christian Century. A Palestinian Christian is on their board. He was awarded Alumnus of the Year from my seminary in 2002. I got to have lunch with him. Anyway, I figured they must be OK (mostly politically) because of his presence on their board.

There is something about place. Being there. Experiencing the sun, the dust, the beauty, the despair is important to me. It's not about the HOLY SITES that I will probably see, but just being there. (In the Holy Places, there are just too many people and besides most of them are not the "real" place, just where Constantine's mother decided the event must have happened.)

Anyway, I am counting the days. I have a lot of travel ahead. A very quick trip to Cleveburg to see my doc next week, a conference in Austin for the College of Pastoral Leaders (a Lilly group), then Israel (ending with my niece's graduation from law school), then a week in England. Home for a month then off for a month in China, Tibet, on a cruise to see the total eclipse of the sun, over 6 minutes, the longest in years, then a few days in Japan, my favorite country. Then I'll have withdrawal from travel. I hope I survive. I live to travel.

Now, off to do some housework before I get ready to go to church.

Spring in the South

There is nothing so lovely as spring in the south. The dogwoods are all in full bloom right now. The azaleas are just beginning to bloom. Some varieties are in full flower, others are beginning to burst forth. When I was looking on the web for a house here, I was always struck by the pictures of the houses with dogwoods and azaleas.

One street has a median which is lined with dogwoods. Almost every house on the block has a dogwood. As you look up the street, you see a sea of white (with the occasional pink dogwood thrown in).

Today is overcast and chilly. It will get below freezing tonight, with 70 degree weather forecast for Wednesday. I'd love it if it would stay in the 60s or 70s, but it seems to bounce around. By the time the temperature stabilizes, it will be in the 80s and 90s (if not 100s). But for now, when the weather is nice, it is very, very nice.

In other news, I jogged 5.25 K (sounds farther in kilometers) on Friday. I didn't make it quite that far today.

And I found a wonderful Easter sermon that says exactly what I want to say from three years ago. I like the sermons I preached in Michigan so much more than the ones I'm preaching here. I have no idea what that's about.

From my son's post on his journal

It's National Poetry Month! In honor thereof, a quote from Lu Ji's Wenfu (On Literature): "We poets struggle with Non-being to force it to yield Being; we knock upon silence for an answering music."