A Time of Changes

This blog entry was exceptionally difficult to title, mainly due to an embarrassment of riches. But if I posted every item independently there would be three, four, or maybe more entries just for today. So I will combine them all under the general topic of changes.

It's hard to pin any one point as the beginning of changes when in fact St. Bartholomew's has been generally in change from day one (for me). Sometimes slower, sometimes faster, but always something. So I will arbitrarily pick a point 11 months ago tomorrow, when we conducted our first "facility" change on Palm Sunday before the new (to us) Lithuanian-American altar.

Since then we have seen steady growth, perhaps and hopefully most recently as an Anglican family new to our locale visited us for the third time today. During the announcements Father Davis noted that point, addressed them by name (I'm simply terrible with names, one reason I should never be a priest) with a clear jest to the effect that "on the third visit, you're set! You are one of us." It's funny, but for us it was our third visit that clinched it so long ago. We had been looking for a good Episcopal church home and visited St. Bartholomew's by accident... and we're still here.

But I'm seeing St. Bartholomew's getting to the point where we may need two Masses on Sundays. Nice for the early-risers (like me) but not for night-owls (like my spouse). The only downside of such is that, like the church wherein I was raised which had three services, at parish meetings one has multiple groups of parishioners equally devoted to the parish but who barely know each other! I cannot imagine such at St. Bartholomew's.

And this growth element showed up again two weeks ago with the delayed Welcome Party for Tanaya. During announcements that day Father Davis was going to say we were welcoming the newest member of the parish, but recognized that Don & Jan (I hope I have that right -- did I say I was poor with names?) had joined us after Tanaya's arrival from India.

Don and Jan: they went up for blessings today and we all thought "wedding anniversary." I saw an unusual little bit of discussion at the altar rail, and it turned out this was for birthday blessings: one birthday today and the other Tuesday! They were also all ears when, during announcements, Kathy talked about support for the upcoming (in three weeks) Kairos Prison Ministry weekend in the womens' prison in Purdy, WA. It appears they know others who have been involved in or led Kairos locally.

And finally I return to "facility" changes. Last Sunday Father Davis talked about the "Organ Donor" program, hoping it would be the first and last time. St. Bartholomew's organ is apparently on its last legs. I know it loses its stops settings every time the power goes out, but it seems the (gold-wire?) contacts are going too. My ears haven't heard anything, but several others more attuned to the organ have, and we apparently have a professional assessment on this. It is a ca. 70s organ and the second "real" organ we've had. (I am not including the WWI Army field or the 1888 parlor organ we used for a bit, in the early days.)

It appears the call has been met and soon after Easter we will have a (truly) new organ, built to our specifications and shipped from the Netherlands!

Cancelled

Tonight was to be, I believe, the 11th installment of "The Truth Project" video. But with significant snow in the forecast, I was watching the weather radar all day and all I could say about the forecasts was "I don't know." High winds, unsettled weather, snow flurries in clear sun, everything was up in the air -- this household already decided to stay home. Whatever hits Woodinville, it could be much worse here.

A couple of minutes ago Claire phoned to say the evening is cancelled. Sure enough, checking the traffic cams linked from the church website, just north of the church there is significant snow sticking on the roads. A few miles south, not yet. But better safe than sorry -- Seattle traffic conditions can (though they don't always) deteriorate amazing quickly when snow comes in. It's nothing at all like the Midwest.

Return to St. Mary's?

Hard to believe it's only been a little over three years since I wrote about "The Trees of St. Mary's, from Goring-by-Sea in Sussex, England. But I am now making arrangements for my return to the U.K. in April and thought of visiting them again, this time to attend a service.

The situation is not ideal: I am scheduled to arrive at London Gatwick at 7 AM on a Sunday and experience says I'm fairly wiped when I arrive in Europe (always in the morning). But functional enough to clear Immigration, catch a second flight if necessary, and still get to my hotel however I get there: whether by car, train, or taxi. Also not sure yet if Gatwick has showers so I can clean up & dress up -- I'm definitely not at my most presentable when I arrive in Europe and I'm sure their dress code is a bit higher than my travel regime, though I rarely if ever travel wearing jeans. Slacks, nice shirt, jacket... walking shoes or maybe dressier slip-ons (with orthotics).

By early afternoon Sunday I'll be pretty much trashed and will need to be in a hotel so I can adjust my body clock for the days ahead.

But it looks good. Their "Sung Eucharist" is at 09:30, map services says it's only a 45 minute *drive* from Gatwick Airport, and the nearest train station is only 3/4 kilometer from the church. (I don't have to bug my co-worker there for a lift.) I think I can get there in plenty of time, walk on over, participate in "Sung Eucharist" (will they be "higher church" than St. Bart's? stay tuned), catch the train back to LGW, have lunch, check in at the hotel and crash.

Still have to research a few elements of this, but it seems the Wandering Anglican just might get to visit St. Mary's again.

(An alternative is to skip all this, take the train into London, tour it again this time including Lambeth Palace if it's open on a Sunday, and be off-schedule/jet-lagged for my meetings.)

Got off easy?

Yesterday was the first Mens' Breakfast & Fellowship (and work party) I've been to in some time. Partly because it's not every month anymore, and partly because I've usually been away. So I looked forward to this one, even though we were asked to "bring rakes" because the latest windstorm had once again left the parking lot full of debris from the trees.

During breakfast, following Morning Prayer, Fr. Davis mentioned that Larry was going to be bringing a list of additional things to be worked, given him by outgoing Junior Warden Paul (I am guessing that Larry is our new Junior Warden). But Larry didn't arrive, for whatever reason.

So we raked the drive and lot, and (I) went home. Just as well; it had been an extremely difficult week at work and I really needed some rest, though I wound up replacing the thermostats on the water heater instead -- it was delivering scalding hot water.

Today I will read the Epistle. It's nice being back into the swing of things, though trouble (as in yet more travel) is looming in the world of work.

Welcome (again) Tanaya!

It's been about 3 months since she finally arrived in the U.S., but the youngest (though no longer newest) member of our parish was "officially" welcomed today with rather a bit of a party after Mass. Marissa and Genevieve decorated the Parish Hall (Fr. Davis "warned" us about this during Announcements) -- it was a delight, even if balloons kept getting entangled with people and dragged everywhere.

We had a number of visitors too, including Tanaya's adoptive grandmother from Chennai (I've been to India twice on business, loved it, and really want to see more of the country), plus a family of Anglicans moved to the local area from elsewhere near Seattle. (I hope you liked what you saw -- but for reasons I've modified the photo slightly to hide faces, such is the sad state of Internet affairs these days.)

But Tanaya herself? It was clear she was having a great time!

Delegate to Diocesan Synod

I'm so far behind on things I just now read the announcements on the back of last Sunday's bulletin!

I see there, among other things including retired and new Vestry members (congratulations, Nancy and Larry), I was elected again as a delegate to Synod in May. Guess I better mark that on my work calendar. But my flight at least will be paid by my employer, since two days later I have committee meetings right in the area.

Unsettled

Don't know how well I'm going to sleep tonight. Last night we watched the file "Iranium" at a nearby church. Although I'm a little more sensitive to events in Iran than most (in part due to having a number of Iranian-American friends -- Sunday we will join them at a memorial for Dr. Daryoush Homayoun), the picture painted by this film is profoundly disturbing when the dots are so believably connected.

Then tonight it was the 9th lesson of Focus on the Family's "The Truth Project":

Of all the social spheres, the state, to which God grants the power of the sword for the punishment of evil and the preservation of the good, has the greatest potential to go awry if it oversteps its authority. The civil magistrate must always remember his place under the sovereignty of God – otherwise, havoc will ensue.

Now I've missed most of the series so far; this is only the third one I have attended. Next week's will be interesting also (if I don't get too much homework from next week's training class), and it looks like I'm home for the last three.

But tonight's lesson, "The State: Whose Law?" was disturbing in its own right. Much like the situation in Iran, not that there was anything particular new about the events and trends (and there was a lot not mentioned tonight), but like most people I've not connected all the dots, whether through inability, lack of time, or distraction.

All I can do is pray, as we did in Evening Prayer this evening: "O Lord, save the State," and "O Lord, save thy people."

The Society of Anglican Techies

We had visitors in church Sunday. I was a bit embarrassed to not have recognized one, because he's been a friend going at least back to 1987, though this was only the second time I'd seen him, the first time being around 1997.

Sometime around 1987 David and I were working on similar projects: being able to send and receive e-mail on our CP/M computers (old even then, but still useful). E-mail was fairly primitive then; you had to directly specify the routing path from computer to computer to the destination, what we called "bang-routing" because a path to "Bob" would look like "sigma!uw-beaver!tikal!ihnp4!plugh!bob," with a few computers such as ihnp4 carrying the long-haul traffic, instead of simply typing "bob@plugh.com" (the latter, domain-name routing, was just starting to come into use).

E-mail to Australia was even more fun. Messages reached some computer where all outgoing messages were spooled up onto magnetic tape, then flown to Australia where they were read off the tape and sent on their way. Return e-mail worked the same way. But I digress.

David lived back East at the time, as I recall, but we had a number of conversations on the Usenet CP/M forums. He and his wife showed up at St. Bartholomew's one Sunday about 1997, a day when I was home sick, but I got up and joined them for brunch at a restaurant a block away from home. It's then that I learned that he was a member of the APCK too.

The news this Sunday was very happy; he's taken a job nearby! Until his relocation to the area is complete we won't see a lot of him. But it will be great to welcome him into our growing band of Anglican techies. (It's only too bad the Anglican Geek and his family aren't here, but I know it's a LONG haul for them.)

Speakers

It's a hastily-taken picture so it doesn't show the grill very well, but the "rumor" that the organ speakers were finally going to be relocated from the floor beside the organ into the space over the Narthex turned out to be true. The sound was definitely improved!

And our new organist Scott started also. It looks like the music program is headed to even greater heights!

Whispers

Little by little, news of St. Bartholomew's has been filtering in to me during my two weeks' absence due to travel.

Lots of it centers around the organ: we have a new organist who starts tomorrow, there is apparently activity around finally getting the organ speakers off the floor and back above the Nave where we'll get better sound, and apparently something about a new organ!

Fr. Davis' newsletter a few days ago (which I only caught up with today) about the Annual Parish Meeting was most encouraging, though it also hints at challenges ahead.

And other small items, too little to note here. It will be good to return tomorrow and catch up.

AND begin what is hopefully another extended stay home. Although my next trip is now probably the week of March 21st (followed by the already-scheduled trip the week of the 28th), it looks like I have dodged one that should have been called for next week or the week following, any time after that being too late.