It's Local!

Living in a small community is a lot like sitting near a pond and dropping pebbles to watch the ripples move outward. It is possible to see the effect of events ripple across the community. It invokes a certain solemnity to important life events that can be lost in the impersonal life of a city.

Last week there was a fatal car accident at the edge of town. I first learned of it on the church's Facebook page where one of my pastors posted:

"Hearing reports of a fatal car accident in BP this morning. God who shines light in the darkness, we pray for those involved and their family or families...and thank you, God, for our local first responders who answered a difficult call to serve today. Lord, in your mercy,"

The post elicited a flurry of  Hear-our-prayers responses, and undoubtedly set many people to praying. I was one of them. The local news reported that there had been a one car accident and that there were three people in the car, and one was killed, one was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and one person was uninjured.

Later in the day I heard more details: It was a woman and a couple. . . The man had died at the scene. . . He hadn't been wearing a seatbelt. . . The woman was their daughter. . .They were from a nearby town. . . The helicopter had come from Mayo but was too late. . . The victim wasn't wearing a seatbelt because he had a colostomy bag. . .  Thursday morning I learned that one of the EMTs who responded was the woman who teaches 8th grade confirmation. She said it was a very difficult morning. And that it had been her third morning ambulance call that week.

Thursday night I went to hear a biologist speak on the prairie bio-sphere. (Coincidentally, he also teaches 8th grade confirmation!) His talk was mainly focused on the plant life of the prairie but he couldn't resist sharing some information about cowbirds. Cowbirds are those big birds you see where ever there are cattle (or bison). They follow the herd, and so never build a nest anywhere. Consequently, they lay their eggs in other bird's nests, and the babies are hatched and nurtured by other birds. The nests are carefully chosen, and the cowbird incubation period is slightly shorter than that of the other eggs in the nest, so the cowbird is almost always the first hatched and gets the best care and feeding of the nestlings.

It would seem that one more egg in the clutch wouldn't make a bit of difference - but anyone who has raised a family knows that every time you add another child, yours or someone else's, there will be ripples (and sometimes tsunamis!) The same is true for the cowbirds. For healthy species of birds it poses few problems, but for certain endangered species the presence of even one more egg can have a very negative impact so the cowbird eggs may sometimes have to be relocated again, by people, to protect the other eggs in the nest.

Small changes can have a big impact. A tiny patch of ice, an adopted egg, and confirmation teachers who are intimately involved in life and death, can spread ripples that will go on and on. Perhaps a Texan dropped into a small town in Minnesota will cause a few ripples too. What we do matters. Thanks be to God!

Winter Get-Away

This week I attended a great retreat/continuing education event at Good Earth Village, a summer camp and retreat about an hour from here. The cold was brutal, but everything else was comfy and cozy. I think I found my perfect retreat setting! I just wish I could invite you all to Minnesota to go to Good Earth Village with me. The shot on the right is the meeting space at the Log Lodge where we met and stayed. Everything was very "North Woods-y" and very, very cozy.

The workshop was about Multiple Intelligences. There were three main segments devoted to: 1) getting to understand the theory of multiple intelligences,2) learning about our individual strongest intelligences, and then 3) figuring out how to use this information in a congregational setting. Good stuff!

Since I'm blogging about this, it's probably no surprise to hear that Linguistic (Words) is my favored learning style/intelligence. Reading, writing, talking, listening . . . all my favorite ways to LEARN. Learning is really what multiple intelligences are all about.

So far researchers have identified eight separate ways to learn. These are the "intelligences": Linguistic (Words), Logic (Math/Patterns), Visual-Spatial (See/Visualize), Body-Kinesthetic (Move/Touch), Musical (Music), Interpersonal (Getting along with others), Intrapersonal (Going within), and Naturalist (Animals/Outdoors).  We all have all eight,  but each of us leads with some more than others.

We took a simple assessment where we gave each statement a score of 1-4 from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. I made some predictions before I took it and got one surprise from my final score.

Music rose to the top and surprised me. While I have made music for most of my life, I don't usually think of it as a way that I learn. As I thought about it I remembered something I discovered at another retreat long, long ago. My faith life has a definite sound-track. Every major milestone as I have grown in faith has a theme song. The first was Oh Who Can Make A Flower? from my very first Vacation Bible School experience (I'm told I sang it in my sleep in the camper on the family vacation that immediately followed) to the most recent background music of the Kyrie we sing here every Sunday. My kids have long teased me that unlike most people, I do actually live in a musical. It is not unusual for me to accompany daily life with a bit of song so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. I just need to remember how easily I learn things set to music and seek out more music in my life! Sadly, rhythm, which is spatial, did not rise to the top.

My roommate for this event was a Children Youth and Family person from a nearby congregation. We had previously met but I really enjoyed our time together and made plans to travel together to future CYF events and save the gas and the planet (that's where Naturalistic Intelligence shows up.) She got engaged two days before this event (Interpersonal) so we are also getting together to talk about stamping and DIY weddings. It was a very happy pairing. We also had a great room with a private bath. Check out the picture on the right.

There are nine rooms with this set up in the Log Lodge. It would be so perfect for a women's retreat. I'm mentally working on how to build interest in a retreat for the women of my congregation.

One other thing made this the retreat center of my dreams: a double-sided fireplace in the center of the upper level. We kept it roaring the whole time we were there. Welcome heat in the cold winter!  
                    

Saturday night I went to a heart-warming event at the Servicemen's Club - a gala to raise money for the local Boys & Girls Club which is a very important organization in Blooming Prairie. The Club provides a lot of child-care in the summer and after-school care all year round. It won't be quite the scale of the gala for the New Life Center that many of you attend, but it should still be an evening of fun for a very good cause.

Another familiar thing to warm my heart here in the cold north: I looked out my front window this weekend and saw that the minivan that lives across the street is FILLED with Girl Scout Cookies! It filled me with fond, and not so fond, memories, and a longing for a cookie. I'm very much looking forward to keeping cozy with a side of Thin Mints, 1100 miles north.

Wild Life

Far too quick for my camera to catch him, a jack rabbit hopped past my office window, across the street and into a neighbor's yard. He looked like Thumper from Bambi, with a huge white puff of a tail and a happy, hoppy demeanor. Watching him I remembered the funny tracks I saw in the fresh snow on my way to the garage the other day. Pretty sure those were from my resident gray squirrel, but they were very funny looking tracks and the route was very squirrel-ly: curious, circular, and ultimately disappearing, presumably because he went up.

There's a bird's nest in a small tree out in the courtyard that perfectly illustrates why birds fly south for the winter. This time of year the only birds I ever see are crows: big, black, ominous looking crows. They stand in such stark contrast to the white snow rather like black writing on a white page implies there must be something important here (which we know is not always the case!)

Sunday was Groundhog Day, and, according to Stephen Colbert, Superb Owl day. Two teams from named after wild life went head-to-head someplace cold and the birds won the day. I only watched the halftime show and the commercials so I can't really discuss the game. However, I did watch Groundhog Day, for the umpteenth time, which tickled my funny bone yet again. Here are a few comments on this movie from my weekly letter to the Sunday School teachers last Thursday.

Sunday is Groundhog Day and, I have to confess, Groundhog Day is one of my guilty pleasure movies. I watch it nearly every time it comes on and I always spot some new thing that just tickles me. For those of you who are too young or sophisticated to be familiar with this movie, the basic premise is that  weatherman Phil (played by Bill Murray), is sent to see the groundhog come out and gets stuck in a loop where he has to live the same day over and over. At first he is desperate to get out of the loop, but after a while he starts to have fun with it, knowing that he'll probably get to do it again the next day. 

Teaching Sunday School is kind of like Groundhog Day. Each week you encounter the same little tribe of kids. The incessant talker will talk incessantly. The shy one will volunteer nothing every week. The anxious mother will continue to hang around and make her kid nervous. You know what's going to happen. And so, one day, you start to have a little fun with it:  

• You offer the incessant talker a pipe cleaner to play with for as long as he doesn't interrupt. 

• You give the shy kid a sock puppet and let the puppet do the talking.

• You invite the anxious mother to take all those dull pencils to the Parish Ed Office and sharpen them.

You just have to live into some things. 

I share this mainly as a glimpse into my daily life. In my new job I am charged with equipping church members to work with children, so I spend a lot of my time writing, coaching, and finding out what gifts people have, and far less actual time with kids. Some weeks I really miss being with the kiddos, and some weeks (like this one) I feel so excited to be able to help other adults experience the joy of being with them. This Sunday we had our very first closing music time with kids in second grade and younger. It was great fun (everyone sings here!) and hearing a little one loudly proclaim "And also with you!" in worship shortly thereafter made my heart sing. Small joys.

Lest you think there is no wild life in Minnesota, I would like to point out that hockey up here is called the Wild. I am delighted and amused by the fact that the best hockey player in the entire youth group is a girl who can apparently hold her own with the boys on almost any rink. And through the same window where I saw the rabbit, I sometimes see three boys, maybe 10 years old, walk by with skates around their necks and hockey sticks in their hands headed to the rink near my office.

It's been a wild adventure moving 1100 Miles North. May you have a little wild in your life this week!

Blizzard!

Two vehicles have passed my house this afternoon. One had 4-wheel drive. The other was a snowmobile. If anything else went by, it was lost from sight in the blowing snow. My photography skills and cold tolerance have made a real photo impossible, but it looks kind of like this:

Here's what the local weatherman said in his blog today:

There's no sugar coating it.  The next four to five days will be one of the most brutal stretches of winter weather many of us have ever seen.  There's two rounds of light snow.  Okay, we can handle that.  But, one of them will be a full-fledged blizzard.  Yuck.  An abrupt drop in temperatures from the low 20s to throwing a minus sign in front of that 20 by Monday morning.  Then we'll do it again Tuesday morning.  Still following what we have coming our way?  It's a lot.

First let's start about how this winter has gone so far.  There's no surprise it's one of the coldest we've seen in decades.  For Rochester, MN (the official climate station for SE Minnesota) the last time we started winter so cold was the 1983/84 season.  So far we've had 25 days reach subzero readings.  That puts us in the top ten for number of subzero days to start a season (Thru Jan 24)  In comparison, last winter had 12 for the entire season. 

Even though I was in Texas in 1983/84 I can attest to that winter also as Emily was born on the day in 1984 that Austin got SIX INCHES of snow. They even offered to let us stay an additional day in the hospital so the snow could melt.

I will share this photo of my parking lot, which I snapped upon my return from church:

If you're wondering - yes, that's a six-foot privacy fence behind those piles of snow. And the snow to the right of the big piles is the actual depth of the snow now. It' about knee-high on me.

Sunday morning I faced my first real work crisis. I had several Sunday School teachers who couldn't get into town to church because of snow, drifts, or unplowed roads. After fretting and worrying a bit, it all got sorted out, thanks to flexible and agreeable volunteers. However, this is a reality of my new job that I should probably spend some time thinking about.

All of this follows a wonderful couple of days off with my sister Laurie and my cousin Jane. It may be bleak outside, but inside there was lots of color. We made several of these fun box cards:

My WaterWings blog was added to First Lutheran's blog roll this week and I got lots of warm fuzzies from new readers at church. . . hmmm, that blog recurring references to water. This one seems to have an awful lot of warm and cold going on. I'll try to post next week with no mention of weather (but no promises when things are this dramatic!) Livin' la Frio Vida  in Minnesota!

Acquired Memories

"The business of life is the acquisition of memories." That's my nominee for the best line from this week's episode of Downton Abbey. Thank you Carson-the-Butler.  I must admit, this week's Downton experience paled after my adventure in millinery before last Sunday's episode. Watching with Texas girlfriends while wearing hand-crafted bands ala Roaring Twenties is only one of the memories I have acquired since I last wrote. Last week's trip to Texas did not happen as anticipated in last week's post:

• It will be remembered for the most boarding passes accumulated on a single journey. Thanks to the polar vortex's visit to Minnesota I got two from Rochester to Chicago, five from Chicago to Texas, and three for the Megabus from Austin to Houston. I kept reminding myself of Louis CK's routine about air travel: Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy (if you haven't heard it, and you can tolerate a little bit of vulgarity, you can watch it here.) Even with all the delays, I got to Austin in 10 hours, had two meals, and passed 22 levels of Candy Crush Saga on my phone and read a book on my Kindle. 
• My wonderful friends Pat and Len met me at the airport shortly after midnight, gave me shelter, and then had to deal with a dog and a skunk episode less than six hours later and other out of town visitors throughout the weekend, along with stray friends I invited over at random times. 
• I had breakfast, and lunch, and wonderful talk time in favorite Austin restaurants with daughter Gracie and son-in-law Tony while waiting for my luggage to catch up with me.
• My first Megabus experience - WiFi, outlets for charging up electronics, cheap seats (all three tickets added up to $25, which is less than a full fare ticket on Greyhound) and only one stop between UT and downtown Houston! I'll definitely try that again. . . and if you ever need a taxi in Houston, be sure to call Fiesta. Fantastic service!!!
• I had a personal encounter with Shelley Gardner, founder and CEO of Stampin' Up! at the Downtown Aquarium before all the other demonstrators arrived followed by an amazing private evening at this wonderful venue. I even petted the stingrays! Then I spent two days learning about my stamping business and hanging out with friends from Illinois and made a new friend from St. Louis who shares my passions for stamping and Christian Education - what are the odds!
• Visited my former church in Austin and was hugged enthusiastically by kids I've been watching grow up for many years, and old and new friends I've been missing. Had a chance to visit with former collegues and an unexpected encounter with someone I've known since I was a young mother. Coffee with Nick and Barb who moved me to Minnesota in September.
• Lunch with my bookclub gal pals at Beth's, with my stamping downline at Melanie's and with my old Brown BagBible study group at Schlotzky's. . . great food, great conversation, lots of old and new memories made and discussed! Breakfast tacos at Rudy's with my accountability group of the past 13 years who I miss every single Saturday morning, and often in-between!
• And the familiar warmth of chatting in the hot tub in the dark with Pat who has been present for pretty much every important moment of my life over the past 30 years.

So, to quote another diva, "but it's the laughter, we will remember, whenever we remember, the way we were." I really nailed that acquisition of memories thing. And I hope my memory holds up because I forgot to take a single picture while I was there . . . but here's a moment at the Aquarium that someone captured and posted to Facebook:

Definitely a week to remember! And one final memory - when it was time to return to Minnesota, I felt like I was coming home, and I treasure that feeling. I feared the trip would trigger a deep sense of loss or doubt about my decision/discernment to come here but I returned with the deep certainty that this is home now, polar vortex and all! 

Heading South. . .

This is what a bubble blown from a child's wand looks like when the temperatures reach sub-zero depths. It freezes instantly. It will shatter like glass. Still, it's really lovely to look at, if you can stand to be outdoors for a few minutes.

A Minneapolis television station highlighted this fun experiment over the Christmas holidays and I've been wanting to try it for myself. Today would be perfect! At 9AM it is a "brisk" -24 degrees outside. Since a person can quickly freeze to death in these temps I believe I'll try it another day.

I will be going out today though; I am driving to Rochester to stay with friends Beth and Niel tonight, just to make sure that nothing interferes with my escape tomorrow! I'm headed for Texas: some work and some play, some family and some friends, and a wonderful opportunity to thaw out.

Here's the ultimate measure of the goodness of the people in my new community. Every single person I told that I was going was delighted for me. Not one person expressed jealousy or mocked me for being a wimp, they just cheered me on. They willingly stepped up to do the small tasks that need doing each week, and wished me well.

Once again my gratitude is overflowing. To have people waiting to welcome me in Texas and people here in Minnesota helping me to feel good about going is a rare privilege. Grace upon grace!

So, wherever you may be on this blustery morning:

• may you be warmed by the sun, the fire, the furnace, 
• may you love the people around you and let them love you back,
• may you wrap yourself in the comforter of happy memories and enjoyable pass-times, and 
• may the warm breath of the Spirit fill you with passion for life itself. 

Hope to see many of you this week!

Merry Christmas

I tried to write a generic Christmas letter this year. It's been a really full year, but it proved hard to condense into a letter. There were some things I wanted to share with everyone and other things I only wanted to share with some people. There were things that would sound like bragging in a Christmas letter but were things some of you wanted to know! And there was so much I had already recorded here that it might have been repetitive.

So, I'm working on cards. If you haven't gotten one yet, you will soon. Or you'll get a New Year's card or a Valentine. And it will be hand-crafted and contain news that interests you - or if you're up on everything, it will be a vehicle for me to tell you how much you mean to me.

I am also doing all the stuff we all do at Christmas. Baking. Shopping. Wrapping. Getting the car serviced. Going to parties. Shipping. Laundry. And in the middle of all of this I have such peace. I've taken my own advice and simplified Christmas. I did the things that mattered to me. I stuck to my budget. I didn't decorate every nook and cranny - only as much as I felt like putting away. I got lots of sleep. I socialized some and acted like a hermit some. And now Christmas Eve has arrived. I will be at church much of today, then sharing a little Christmas Eve feasting with some new friends here before a good night's sleep in preparation for traveling east to see the girls.

I hope that you are joyful this day. I hope that you are warm (at 9am here the temperature has climbed to -9) and that you will see or speak with someone you love today or tomorrow. And I wish you the joy of the child. The hope for the future that would be impossible without God coming to us. We are loved; no matter our circumstances we are loved fiercely and faithfully and unfailingly. Joy to the World, indeed!!!