Death and Other Losses

I've been pouty and crabby the last few days and I don't like the pouty, crabby Amused.

I've had many funerals in the last year. So many that I'm no long nervous about them. But the funeral tomorrow is different. When I met him a little over a year ago he was a relatively healthy early 70's guy with a constant story and joke. 7 months ago he was diagnosed with cancer. This funeral is different because I walked with him - I knew him. (As did almost everyone in the congregation). And, I too will miss him.

I'm also crabby because I am anticipating other losses. Two of my secular friends leave very soon for a new city. They are the ones that knew me before I was Pastor Amused and with whom I rarely fall into "shop talk." They are the ones that keep in touch with what others my age (without the demanding careers) are like.

We've had 4 20-somethings staying at church all summer through a mission trip organization (they are the staff that hosts between 40 and 70 youth at our church from all over the country to do mission trips). And they leave in a little over a week. It has been so much fun to have them there all the time. Not to mention the ministry they do.

And, my summer roommate will be leaving the same day the mission trip staff do - likely within an hour of each other. We were just talking yesterday about living with people and I freely admit that I do like to live alone - but I am sure going to miss her when she leaves. My house will be more boring, and the possibility of easy conversation at the end of the day gone.

I am pretty good at being the one who leaves. I don't like being the one who stays. And so I'm crabby - and throwing a pity party for myself. It's not at all attractive.

Out of focus

I'm supposed to be writing a sermon. I didn't preach this morning, and I don't preach next Sunday - but I've still got three sermons in the next week and I haven't started any of them - at least not in earnest.

I'm searching - I'm not sure for what. I want something to inspire me - something to excite me. When this happens I spend way too much perusing the internet - hoping that something will interest me - hoping that something will be intriguing.

There is no order to my search - either my internet search for interesting items or my search for the right way to begin any of these sermons. But, I just don't have the energy to narrow my field of vision. I just don't have the urgency to sit down and type out a masterpiece.

I would love for someone else to swoop in and fix it all for me - my boredom and my lack of inspiration.

Saturday Morning Etiquette

This Spring and Summer I've been a fairly consistent runner. I tend to run at lesser populated times - just after the early morning rush during the week, or right at the dinner hour. And for some reason when I've run on Saturdays it's not been good weather.

Today was different - the paths were packed and I crossed paths with families and dogs and bikers and meanderers as well as a few other runners.

In this area, unless the other person avidly avoids eye contact, everyone gives a greeting as you pass one another. Usually I puff out a "hey" or "hi" in my exhale...saving my breath as I trudge along...and that has seemed to be perfectly acceptable - in fact what many other people do.

But, I believe I just discovered a secret that everybody but myself knows - Saturday mornings it is considered proper etiquette to issue an entire "Good Morning" to all you meet. Even as bikers race by a "good morning" is tossed back. If you pass families ambling down the path it's proper to greet each single person - one "good morning" for the group is quite rude.

Near the beginning of my run, as I discovered this "good-morning-itis" I started to stretch my "hey" to "hey-llo" and near the end I actually started to say "good morning."

I no longer blink when someone calls a drinking fountain a "bubbler" or an ATM machine a "tyme machine" (no, not time machine...which is what I thought they were saying - Tyme is the brand name, like Kleenex is to tissue). I'm getting used to and even picking up some of the idiosyncrasies of the area - but, I guess there are some things yet to discover.

Good Morning.