Monday, Oct. 2, 2006 --a new month, a new week and "new routines?"

Good morning, all--

In the "FWIW" department, I thought I'd just post a couple of comments about our weekend--in particular our visit to church/continuing participation in what activities we can manage.

My husband's "flex" schedule gave him this weekend off, so we did what we could to make use of it. (He's a reference/periodicals librarian at our main public library, and has been maintaining these alternating weekends for years now, as well as other "flex" time in order to man a reference post on Tuesday night as well as the weekend hours on the desks. Hence, you'd think we'd be "used" to what is needed to do this, but we ALWAYS seem to be scrambling to balance the "t0 do" list versus TAKING some time for some better "R&R!")

In any case, we were rather pleased with ourselves that we DID manage to do a bit of BOTH working on the "to-do" list AND having some time to ourselves on Saturday...getting some shopping done, but also taking advantage of a simply beautiful fall day to drive to one of our major parks and then go for a little walk in the "nature center." Peaceful...restorative...and HIGHLY recommended! I'm glad we were able to visit the nature center (and also thankful for the camera which let us capture a bit of what we saw. With family and friends now increasingly "far-flung," we'd like to do more about sharing on something of OUR lives too. You know how it is: "One picture is worth a thousand words!")

HOWEVER, all that walking DID sort of take its toll (Stores are BIG, these days! Have you noticed??!?) and I was rather tired in the evening and sort of draggy yesterday morning as well.

BUT, we did get to church and even made it in time for the adult ed class and then my husband sang in the choir. (I had tried to sing in this choir at the beginning of the year, but had found that I was too tired in the evenings to get to choir rehearsals on Wednesday, so hadn't tried to do this the last couple of weeks. Moreover, though they need men in the choir, they're already "top-heavy" with sopranos, so they don't need me. LONG saga about where and how choirs have been an active part of my church history which I'll spare you. It's a dilemma...I'd LIKE to sing, but I don't feel it's where I should put my energy at the moment.)

If you've followed something of my posts since I began blogging earlier this summer, it may occur to you to wonder WHICH of "my" Episcopal churches we were attending..or, indeed, whether we'd gone back to the Methodist church, where we have also been active in the past. So this is the Episcopal church where our sons' were baptised in the early 1980's, but is not where we currently have membership. (VERY complicated, very difficult saga re our "journey" aka "church-hopping" which I'll spare you at the moment.)

In any case, this was only the third time that I've been able to be there for the adult ed class---something which we hadn't been able to do at our previous Episcopal church since the choir began rehearsal only 10 minutes after the adult class started. Knowing that that sort of routine meant that we had missed out on possibilities for both "learning" AND "fellowship," we both wanted to make the extra effort to attend whatever was offered.

So...we have...but with sort of ambivalent feelings about the "class." The first session was a presentation by two people who had been at the triennial national church meetings this summer, one a deputy to the main church convention--so of COURSE I wanted to hear what was said about that!---and the other a woman who had been a part of the Episcopal Church Women group which had its convention at the same time. We taped that session...and have also taped the following classes...in part because choir participation meant that we had to leave early there too.

Since the "inaugural" session...about which I won't comment right now, since I've YET to listen to the end of the tape so don't really know what all was said there!...my husband attended the first of two sessions on an introduction to Islam (the fall "curriculum" is on World Religions), I attended the next one with him, and then, yesterday, we heard one of the "associate priests" at the church(who also teaches at our university--courses on Western Civilizaton, Introduction to Religion etc.) present something about Buddhism.

Well...In part it served a purpose for us for "being stretched"---no doubt!---and there's much that I'd like to explore in the World of Ideas! (A place to do this might be to "blog" about it, but again, I don't really have the time to do that right now, so it will just have to be "book-marked" as a possibility for now.)

What I did want to take the time to do, however, was to document a bit of how "out of it" I felt!!! I was trying to figure out the source of my discomfort yesterday and I realized that at least PART of it was that, while I have enough memories of being a member there that the PLACE at least is familiar, (and there were three of a class of about 20 whom we did know from "before,") the ACTIVE voices in the class now belong to those who are probably in their 30's. So...THAT's who/what we were "back then"....but we're now joining the "OLDER GENERATION" and this was a first visible recognition of that for me. (I know...that's sort of curious, but when you've been as isolated as I have been through the years due to my illness, it's all too easy not to know how MUCH things have changed in the interim.)

Well...this could be developed as a separate theme of itself "sometime," but right now I'll need to just note this as a kind of disappointing initial venture into finding "community" again, since I need to go use my energy of the moment on some more practical things.

Hope you've had a good weekend and that your week will go well.

Grace and peace!!!

Theodora