Packing power!

While I pack for Anaheim and Napa, Noah is home to sort through and pack up his childhood room. His best friend, his significant other, and his best friend's significant other all are power-packing. The women are folding the clothing and the guys are working on the piles...and piles... of books, papers, musical scores, CDs, church bulletins, and other closet treasures. (But right now I hear them all laughing hysterically. Hmm.)

It's a fine thing to have dear friends when embarking on a task with this much nostalgia involved. As for my packing, I'm mostly avoiding it, since I don't cherish the whole airport scene for much of tomorrow.

And lucky J gets to stay home, getting the house readied yet another time for our realtor to show. Our closing on the house we just bought is at the end of this month, 4 days after J begins as rector in Burlington.

Then my rector leaves for the month of August, and I'll be on call for any and all pastoral needs at the time our actual move begins. We have a lot going on right now.

The Hymnal 1982 teaches the city girl about farming

I grew up on the south side of Chicago proper (none of this "Chicagoland area" back then), where we bought tasty Chicago hot dogs from the vendor outside our apartment and didn't notice the constant noise of taxis and sirens and people out at all hours.

Later this summer, J and I are moving to quiet Mount Pleasant, Iowa, a small college town whose town square surrounded by funky shops reminds us of the college town where we met. But in Mt. Pleasant, we have farm equipment. And I'm familiar with almost none of it -- except the green and yellow John Deere tractors.

As we've driven to Mt. Pleasant, I ask J (why am I asking the Philadelphia city boy?), "Is THAT a silo?" or "What does that machine do?" He figured out the ideal way to teach me something about farming. He sang. See Hymn #290 (vs. 2): "first the blade, and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear: grant, O harvest Lord, that we wholesomes grain and pure may be."

Ah, good Hymnal, I treasure thee!

Preachers' Kids

Recently, I met a retired priest whose son is a composer and violinist. I'd just heard the son's excellent live performance. I complimented the dad, who began talking about PKs, or Preachers' Kids. During our opening discussion of things clerical, I detected not a hair of humility in the dad, who then spoke of his son and said, "You know, they shouldn't be called Preachers' Kids. I prefer to call them TOs."

"TOs?" I wondered. "Theological Offspring," he said. As far as I know, I successfully avoided an eye roll. But, really. He's got to be kidding. (And why is this still annoying me, two weeks later?) Heh.

Okay, I admit it; that was fun.

The phone rang, and the caller said, "Good morning, this is C.M. Almy calling. Is Pastor Horn available?" I answered, "Sure, which one?" (A moment of silence...) Then she asked for John. I had a smile on my face for a while.

Note to self after a week of sorting and packing

Remember this useful motto when moving a household: "Of COURSE we don't need to keep this ______."

Down with clutter! Go away quietly now, you unused kitchenwares, wedding gifts, Christmas trees, baseball bats, college notebooks, record albums whose covers were chewed by at least one dog!

It wasn't just coffee

Graduation weekend is over at the University of Iowa. One of the students from the highly competitive Iowa Writers' Workshop who spent Sundays at our parish during the past two years wanted to meet for coffee before she left town.

Before we finished our coffee, she handed me a gift: her MFA thesis, in which she ends her acknowledgement page by thanking me for support during her time in the rigorous program. I've received thank-you notes from students and always felt very grateful for them. Today, though, was a first. It's humbling. And I've been handed a gift of words!

Take my hand

Our longtime friend, Helen, died last week. I've been thinking about the hours I was able to spent with her in the hospital.

Helen was hungry, but unable to receive food. She took my hand and, even through her oxygen mask, made eating motions, alternating trying to chew and swallow my hand with attempting to chew the bedsheet. She told me that there were 5 musicians in the room, singing and playing instruments. Later she said there were 25 more musicians outside her window, all there for her party. After a while she stopped "eating" and moved my hand as if to suggest I were conducting the gathered musicians.

For Helen's friends, those last days were difficult and very sad. But I think that Helen was content: she thought she was eating, hospice allowed her cats into the room, and there were a whole lot of musicians at her party.

May Helen's soul, and the souls of all those whom we have loved and lost, rest in God's peace surrounded by a choir of angels.