Here and Now

In 36 hours I'll be heading home. Not that I'm counting. Well, not much... Got a call from the movers today - we will be loading all the stuff of our lives on Wednesday. Boy that seems really strange. I don't like packing - I have too much stuff. Rachel and Elie have been reluctant to throw or give anything away. I kind of get that. A lot of the stuff that we accumulate through the years has STORY attached to it. We have an ugly green lamp in the basement that we bought to light the attic. When we moved to Warren, there was only a tiny pop-up to get into the attic. We put in a drop-down ladder and floored the attic so we could, yep, store more stuff up there. Steve Beach and Erik Larson helped me put the flooring down and for about three years after that there was a perfect size 13 crack in the plaster of the ceiling of our bedroom. Story matters. And, to some extent, that's why some stuff matters, too. I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't really have...

Believe it or not, we did NO work today at the Pittsburgh Project. There was a miscommunication and our homeowner wasn't home today - and the work we need to do on her house is INSIDE. So, we watched another group do siding (actually, we helped a tiny bit) and I took the kids out to lunch at Permanti Brothers (the ORIGINAL). They were unimpressed. So, today was kind of a complete waste of time. Now, I'm not bitter about it, just a little annoyed. I really don't like it when plans fall through. Now don't get me wrong. I know that stuff happens all the time and I have absolutely zero control over it. And sometimes the stuff that happens is really, really, I mean REALLY great stuff. Last night Lori and the girls surprised me and showed up here at the Project. It was awesome! We hung out for like an hour and half and then they came in to worship with me for a little while. I was really feeling blue yesterday and that really took the edge off (I don't do away from my fam...

I know I've been quiet for a month now... Sorry. Getting ready to move - and still pastoring - is really time consuming... Spent most of last week at Annual Conference. For our non-Methodist friends - that's the once a year meeting of all the United Methodist pastors (and lay representatives) in Western PA. It's held at Grove City. Except for an unscheduled drive to Warren, I had a great half-week at Grove City. Nothing really earth shattering took place. But I was taken aback, again, this year by how quickly and...un-messily we pass the budget. I mean, it's ten million dollars - yeah, that's a one with six zeroes after it. And we spent about 15 minutes talking about it - and THAT was only on a tangental issue... I'm not complaining, per se. It's just hugely shocking to see that kind of thing just go by with barely a nod. All in favor, wave your green card (yeah, I know how weird that sounds...but that's what we do...) So, now I'm at Pitt...