On the eve of 35

Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown tomorrow night. And in the Jewish manner of keeping time (and there was EVENING and there was morning, the first day) with the new day starting at sunset, I am accutely aware of my birthday tomorrow - my own personal new year. I am also accutely aware that there will be precious little time for reflection during the 24 hours of the anniversary of my birth, and so have been trying to find time to think, at least a little, about the bigger picture of my life. I haven't gotten very far. That said, I have been thinking about how many opportunities there are to have new beginnings. Birthdays. Rosh Hashanah. The beginning of Advent. New Year's Eve and Day. Chinese New Year. Mondays, every one of them. Tomorrows, every one of those, too. I am grateful for these, because I have a feeling tomorrow may be fairly anti-climactic. Perhaps that's just as well. Thirty-five is a middle sort of birthday, nothing flashy. And I am far too practical - with the birthday cash my parents sent I bought a new bike helmet, since the snappy-buckle-thingy on my old one broke or fell off in our move. (To think I work in a shoe store and I bought a bike helmet with my birthday money!!) Sitting on the eve of 35, I am thankful. And tired. And hopeful. Who knows what the next year will bring...

Preach it, my Irish brother!

It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.

- Bono, rock star and anti-poverty activist. (Source: The American Prospect blog, though I got this quote via email from Sojourners.) As a facebook friend of mine in Phoenix put it - it's amazing that socialism is somehow okay in America when it means taking care of wealthy businessmen and their businesses, but it's not okay when it means taking care of the sick and poor. And to think - where our treasure is, there our hearts will be also...

Beginning in the middle

Welcome to what will likely be "random thoughts along one servant's path." We'll see... I set this blog up a month and a half ago, fully planning to get into a writing pattern before Grant (my husband) and I began our new call as co-pastors of Christ the King Lutheran Church. So much for a good idea. We did manage to get a congregational blog up and running while we work on getting the church's website completely overhauled. You can find that blog at Rooted. We're using it to post events and reminders as well as some thoughts from the pastors' seats. In the middle of this crazy economy, we are feeling the pinch. Having left two full-time calls in Phoenix (and hence 2 full-time Phoenix incomes) to take a shared call in Montana, we have cut our income by more than half. It would be an adventure in simple (okay, frugal) living if we'd sold our house in Phoenix before we left. But we didn't. So now we have college-town sized rent plus a mortgage. We are "working members" at the very groovy Bozeman Community Food Co-Op. And I am selling shoes at the mall. It is an interesting thing to be back in the world of retail. I covered part of a shift this morning because someone called in sick, and the mall is S..L..O..W... Granted, it's a weekday, but still. And most of the employees are college students. It feels strange to be low person on the totem pole. I am accustomed to knowing what's going on and how things should happen. I am used to having questions asked of me and having most of the answers. Now I am learning, again, (still?) to ask a lot of questions. I also have renewed appreciation for all the folks for whom hourly wages are the only wages, and who work much harder than I do. This blog is beginning in the middle of what has already become a very busy pattern of life. I pray for the wisdom and gumption to give it the structure I thrive on and the rest I need.