Thursday, July 9, 2009

A Year

Last week, on July 1, I celebrated my one year anniversary in this job.  Well, I didn’t actually celebrate, I just sort of noticed that I had been here for a whole year.  And what a year it has been.  My personal life has been filled with conflict and turmoil and transition - we’ve had one major transition in our family every month since arriving last June.  Geez, it has felt chaotic.  But, work, work has been so amazing and so wonderful.

A few months ago, I had to write a “report” for the Annual Report.  This is what I wrote:

Sitting on the fence. Like Humpty Dumpty or the Rolling Stones, I’ve just been sitting on the fence. Not because I’ve been indecisive but because sitting on the fence is the perfect place for me to watch and reflect. Since I arrived here 7 months ago, my primary goal has been to watch, listen, and learn, and I have seen and learned much in that time. 

I have watched a faithful community of people gather on Sundays to engage in the mystery of Holy Communion. I’ve watched children at play, both in worship and on the playground, living fully into who God has created them to be. I’ve watched couples, arm in arm, devoted to one another after years and years of love and companionship. I’ve watched families struggling in faith to bring God into the center of their common life. I’ve watched people caring for one another in both simple and profound ways. 


I’ve heard laughter. I’ve heard crying. I’ve heard outbursts of anger. I’ve heard singing. I’ve heard shouting – some during play and some during moments of pure frustration. I’ve heard incredible music coming from our beautiful organ. I’ve heard the voices of angels praying. I’ve heard kind words in the midst of troubled times. I’ve heard the gospel proclaimed. I’ve heard the ancient and beautiful words of scripture. I’ve heard truth.

I’ve learned that an enthusiastic group of people really can rake 6 acres of leaves on a Saturday. I’ve learned that listening is always better than talking. I’ve learned that this community responds to the needs of others with abundant love of grace. I’ve learned that the history matters. I’ve learned that there are new ideas everywhere I turn. I’ve learned that there is a hunger and thirst for righteousness here. I’ve learned that God is at work in powerful ways in the midst of this faithful community. 

Sitting on the fence has given me the incredible experience of getting to know you, the people and community of St. Martin’s-in-the-Field. You are truly created in the image of God. I am so blessed each day to be here with you. 

I really feel like that is a good summary of my experience here.  Certainly, I have participated, my time here hasn’t all been observation and reflection.  But I do feel like that was a huge part of what I did in the last year, and an important part.  Getting to know this congregation and my place in it was of utmost value.  

I think next year will be the time for jumping down from the fence and mixing it up a bit!

Posted by julie at 15:25:56 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Mowing the Lawn

The kids and I moved into a new house last week.  Our lease was ending in our townhouse and since I decided not to purchase it, I knew that we’d have to move.  Our landlord really wants to sell it, so I knew that he’d put it back on the market once our lease ended, so we were going to need to move.  Through the grace of God, we connected with a set of parishioners that were debating about whether to sell or rent their home.  He was retiring and they were moving to a home in Maine that they purchased a year ago or so.  They were thrilled to rent it to us and we are thrilled to get to live there.

It’s a 3 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath house with a full basement.  It has been recently updated and the kitchen is just fabulous.  As a special bonus it has a swimming pool in the backyard - which is just amazing.  Best of all, it is less than a mile from church.  Nicholas’ commute to school has been reduced by 1/2 hour each way, which is just a huge blessing.

This is the first time I’ve lived in a single family home since I moved out of my parent’s house 20 years ago.  Since then I have either lived in apartments (during college) or condos/townhouses.  It is a bit strange to be in such a big house.  It’s wonderful not to have to remind the children not to stomp too loudly on the floor because someone is below us.  It is great to send them out to the front yard to play with the neighbors, knowing that they are playing in a quiet cul-de-sac where they are safe.

And, with living in a house, comes all the chores of a house.  Mostly they are the same as other places, except for that whole yard thing.  Sunday afternoon I mowed the lawn.  I’ve never mowed a lawn in my entire life.  I remember watching my dad mow the lawn as a kid, but somehow I never got around to actually doing it myself.  Actually, it wasn’t something I ever thought I would do.  I guess I always assumed that I’d either have a spouse who would mow the lawn or, better yet, we’d just be wealthy enough to hire someone to mow the lawn.  But, life doesn’t always become what we expect it will be, and so I found myself mowing the lawn.  Truthfully, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be, though next time I think I’ll try to remove the sticks from the big tree before I start mowing as I did an awful lot of wood chipping as I went along.
Posted by julie at 20:24:52 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Monday, June 1, 2009

Change to Eucharistic Prayer B?

As you all know, Eucharistic prayer B begins as follows:

We give thanks to you, O God, for the goodness and love which you have made known to us in creation; in the calling of Israel to be your people; in your Word spoken through the prophets; and above all in the Word made flesh, Jesus, your Son.

Today, at the big ‘ol confirmation (59! candidates from about 10 churches), the Bishop celebrated. When he said Eucharistic Prayer B, he changed the words to:

We give thanks to you, O God, for the goodness and love which you have made known to us in creation; in the calling of the children of Abraham to be your people;

And I’m trying to decide what I think about this. I think I understand what the bishop was trying to do. He was trying to make God’s “chosen people” more inclusive - not just the Jews and the Christians, all the descendants of Israel, but also the Islamic people, who are descendants of Abraham as well. On the surface, it seems like a good idea to be inclusive, but I’m not sure it works in this context.

God did choose the people of Israel for a specific purpose - to set themselves apart so that they could have a singular relationship with the one true God. From the context of that relationship, Jesus was born and thus opened everyone to a relationship with the one true God. The boundaries of the special relationship were broken open and everyone had access to God.

Now, this doesn’t mean that God didn’t have a special relationship with the descendants of Ishmael. It also doesn’t mean that God didn’t (or doesn’t) have a special purpose for God’s relationship with the people of Islam. But it wasn’t this special purpose - God’s relationship with Islamic people does not appear to have the same purpose as the relationship that God began with the descendants of Israel.

And, for me anyway, it would seem that in the context of the Eucharistic Prayer, we are thanking God for the special relationship with the Israelites because it led to the “Word made flesh, Jesus, your Son.”

I don’t know..I’m sort of mulling it around. What do you think?

Posted by julie at 03:01:49 | Permalink | Comments (10)

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

National Memorial Day Parade

The kids and I went into Washington, DC today to visit with our cousin who was in town with some of her friends.  We had a great time with her and enjoyed walking around the Air & Space Museum with her.  Afterwards, we wandered over to the National Memorial Day Parade.  It was fun to see all the bands lining up and getting themselves in formation for the parade.  We arrived at the starting point of the parade about 15 minutes before it was to start.  We got to see the National Anthem sung and hear the invocation, as well as say the pledge of the allegiance with the crowd.  I’m pretty sure I haven’t said that in a crowd since sometime in high school.

At some point a woman came out and sang all the songs from the armed forces.  Having grown up singing many of them on the 4th of July with my family, it was fun to hear them sung.  Though I must admit that I didn’t know that the merchant marines had their own song - that was a new one. 

After some more formalities, the woman returned and began to sing “God Bless America”.  All of a sudden, what had begun as just a few quiet voices in the crowd, became the whole crowd singing along in force.  We happened to be sitting on the steps of a large building - we were about half way up - so we could hear the voices coming from behind us, as well as next to us.  It was quite a sensation to hear a crowd of strangers since together with such force and unity.  We sang it twice, with the singer adding her voice as harmony near the end.  It was just beautiful.

I must admit that I haven’t been much of a patriot the last few years.  I’ve been saddened by many of the choices that our country has made.  Internally, we have become greedy - chasing after more and more wealth, until we practically collapsed our economy.  Externally, we became prideful and arrogant, believing that we know best and making decisions on a global scale independent of the counsel of other important nations.  Yet, in the midst of all of that, I continue to be eternally grateful for this place that I live.  For all of our faults and all of our errors, my life and the lives of my children are incredibly easy and blessed because we live in a place that is mostly free of corruption, where we know that our water and our food is safe, where education is free (if not equal in quality) for all, and as a general rule we are physically safe from harm.  Joining in the prayerful song asking God to care for us was really moving and I’m so glad that we got to be there right at that moment.

This is a photo of the very beginning of the parade.  The banner says “National Memorial Day Parade”

Posted by julie at 00:26:15 | Permalink | No Comments »

The Bike

The street that runs in front of our town house is a fairly busy corridor. It’s not a major street with businesses or anything, but it is the way into and out of this large neighborhood back where we live. Every Saturday morning, people from all around town setup yard sales on the strip of grass that runs along that street. Naturally, the kids run out to see what “treasures’ they might find each week.

When I finally drug myself down to the kitchen to make my coffee last Saturday, I peered out the window and saw that someone was selling an exercise bike - and I was delighted. I sped upstairs and put on some real clothes and went out to investigate. The woman was only asking $40 for a LifeCycle brand cyle - that was in perfect condition and just needed a new 9volt battery. I ran inside and scraped together $40 cash - raiding the kids piggy banks and the change jar. I am so excited.

Since moving to Maryland it has become clear that going to the gym in an impossibility in my life. I can’t leave Nicholas with the child care folks at the gym and I’m not willing to pay a babysitter to watch him while I work out. I bought some work out DVDs, but found that I really can’t use them in the morning since I’d be jumping over the heads of my sleeping downstairs neighbors. But, the bike - the bike is perfect. I’ve put it in my room and have already used it to much success. I get a great workout while the kids are just playing in the house. I’m so so happy!

Posted by julie at 00:12:42 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Written by a Man?

From GenderAnalyzer.com:

We have strong indicators that http://julienelson.blog.com is written by a man (99%).

Hmmm…wonder what that says about me?  Am I too manly?

Posted by julie at 20:21:08 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Learning to Delegate

I’ve always been good at task management.  I am nothing if not a good task administrator.  I’ve even been pretty good at delegating as a task manager - finding the right people on my team and assigning the work accordingly.  In fact, sometimes I think I’m better at managing other people doing the work than I am at actually doing the work myself. 

However, none of this is true in my personal life.  I’m a “do-it-myself” kind of gal.  And I’m not really sure why.  Maybe I’ve really bought into the culture’s myth that I have to do it myself. Relying on others is a sign of weakness, so if I can’t do it all myself I must be week.  Maybe it is a deep sense of responsibility that I’ve picked up along the way - the notion that I have to be responsible for myself and I can’t burden others with my trouble.   Whatever it is and wherever it came from, it is there.  I can and will do it myself, all by myself.

But, as it turns out, that can’t always be true.  As of late, I’ve found myself overwhelmed with the number of things that need to get done. Some are small things (like signing Ella up for gymnastic lessons) and some are big things (like hiring a babysitter or finding a new place for us to live when our lease ends in May).  I’ve been looking at this huge pile of crap that needs to be done and just don’t even know where to start with it, so I haven’t done anything.  Unfortunately, though, stuff needs to get done.  And I finally figured out that what I need to do is to delegate.  A million people have offered to help me and I finally decided that I should avail myself of that help.

Last week I started asking for help, specific help.  So far, things are working out well.  With the help of others: I have found a house for us to rent (4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bath, a pool, and less than a mile from work!), I know where to find gymnastics classes for Ella, I have someone looking for a summer overnight camp for Nicholas, Ella had playdates for spring break, Nicholas has someone to care for him during his spring break, and my taxes are done.  Whew.  Some of the big things and some of the small things are handled.  There are plenty of other things to do, but having all of those tasks completed or in progress has taken such a huge load of stress off of me.

I don’t know why it was so hard for me to ask for help.  Maybe because it didn’t really occur to me that those were all things that others could help me do.  In any case, it has made such a huge difference for me not to be worrying about so much all by myself.

On a completely different topic, while I haven’t been blogging here much, I have been blogging at my church blog - just a few musings about Lent and some of the readings that we’ll encounter at the Easter Vigil.

Posted by julie at 19:56:24 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Quote of the Week

I was sitting on the couch today watching Oprah with Ella.  We were watching the Queen of England and her staff prepare for a fancy dinner in one of her castles.  Someone mentioned something about how important the queen is. 

Ella said, “I’m the most important person in the world.  Because I’m me.”

Thank goodness I don’t have to worry about any self-esteem issues with that one!

Posted by julie at 01:40:33 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Thursday, March 5, 2009

The Strangest Phone Call

This afternoon while I was sitting at my desk looking at the readings for next week’s sermon, the intercom rang.  I answered the line and it was a call from one of the office staff.  She informed me that on line 1 was a man who was calling to ask where our church stood on the Gene Robinson issue.  She mentioned that he is not a parishioner, but someone from the neighborhood, so if I didn’t want to take his call she would tell him that I wasn’t available.  I decided that I was now too deeply curious to let this call slip away, so I took it.

The man introduced himself and told me that he wasn’t a parishioner but that he lived in the neighborhood and wanted to know where our church stood on the ordination of Gene Robinson as bishop.  I asked him what he knew about the issue and he informed me that he had followed it a bit in the news and that he had recently met Bishop Robinson at a local event. 

Having no idea what this call was about or whether I was about to get lambasted for having the ‘wrong’ answer, I tried to be reasonably vague, but still honest.  I responded that, in general, our congregation was very open and welcoming to our gay and lesbian neighbors and that most of the parish supported Bishop Robinson’s consecration.  I added, rather quickly, that if we were to ask each person in the parish that we would probably find a wide range of opinions, from those that are very troubled to those that are thrilled that Gene was elected bishop, but that as a general rule, most people in this congregation are supportive and positive about Gene.

He then went on to tell me the reason that he was calling.  You see, he is retired, has been for some years, and lately has been working at Circuit City just to have something to do.  We talked briefly about Circuit City going out of business, and then he told me that he had 3 computer monitors that were each just a couple of years old that were sitting in his basement taking up space and he was looking for a church that might be able to use them.  Really.  That’s why he was calling.

He said that if we needed them we could just stop by to get them.  I thanked him for the offer and told him that I’d check with the school to see if they had any need for them and that I’d get back to him.

And this is why they pay me the big bucks.

Posted by julie at 20:42:28 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

The Opposite of Depression

I was listening to NPR on Sunday morning on my way to church.  I only listened for a few minutes, but the host of the show was quoting an author whom she was about to interview.  The author had written a book about his experience with depression and had written that the ‘opposite of depression is not happiness it is vitality.’  And I thought, “yeah! That’s it!  It’s not about being happy, it’s about feeling vitality.”

vi-tal-i-ty
noun
the state of being strong and active; energy
the power giving continuance of life, present in all living things

For such a long time now I’ve just felt like such a slug.  I’ve been so drained of energy and so unwilling to get up and engage in anything.  I haven’t wanted to interact with people.  I’ve felt weak and tired.  Sure, sadness is a component of it, and so is an inability (or maybe unwillingness) to feel joy.  But, really, truly, the depression has taken away my energy and just left me feeling and acting like a lump.

I was so lucky to find a good therapist here.  She is so insightful and has been able to name some very important patterns in my behavior and in my belief structures.  Having clarity about those things have allowed me to make some small changes in the way that I approach the world and it has made such a huge difference in how I feel and act every day.  I can slowly feel my vitality returning.

Posted by julie at 02:42:31 | Permalink | Comments (5)