Maybe you can go home again

When the Town & Country Commission decided to hold their fall meeting this year in Sugar Grove, PA, just 15 minutes from my hometown of Warren, I jumped at the chance to tag along. I get back home so infrequently anymore, and a free trip there was too good to pass up.

The anticipation was building as we drove down from the airport - it's been a year since I was last in Warren. I was going to stay at my sister's house, and it would be nice to see her, but because the meetings would be held in Sugar Grove, I'd also be able to see several cousins there who still live on the land they grew up on.

I had forgotten about the fall colors, and wouldn't have dreamed what strong feelings they would evoke in me. Reflecting on it, I realized it's probably been almost 30 years since I was last in Warren at the height of the autumn brilliance. Turn after turn of the road revealed heartbreakingly beautiful reds, oranges, yellows, greens and browns of deciduous splendor.
I was desperate to stop and capture it on film, but we needed to keep moving, to get to our destination, and I didn't want to scare the passengers in my car with my drive-and-click method of photography (which yields admittedly questionable results). :)

The next unexpected joy was waiting for me at the church. The pastor, Brian, had told me that my carpenter-contractor cousin Bob was working on a construction project in back of the church. This church I have always thought of as a sleepy country church is almost doubling the size of their building! We arrived in time for me to talk with him for a while and catch up a bit, then we were off to his big brother's buffalo farm.

I'd been there last year at the reunion - I knew the buffalo would be cool. But when my cousin John started telling us all about the animals, from breeding to feeding to disease prevention to behavior patterns, and more, I was tremendously impressed with how knowledgeable he is. Things like this: they buy bugs, actually import specialized insects that prey on the kind of flies that plague the buffalo, and can cause eye disease. And how buffalo are so intelligent, that, unlike cattle, they don't hurt themselves by overeating.

I was glad that we'd arrived just in time for me to see cousin Barb and cousin-in-law Sherry, as well!

The whole weekend, although a bit crazy busy, was wonderful! We were able to tour two other local businesses, including a lumber mill (with the biggest, scariest saw I ever wish to see!), and a diesel engine plant where they make two products - a big engine and a bigger engine! (Now who would have thought assembly line work could be so fascinating!??).

Best of all, of course, was the people. Our commission invited four area pastors and their spouses out to a nice dinner on Friday, and all four pastors are friends of mine. It was very special to spend a bit of quality time with them, and hear how their ministries are going.

The reason the commission holds one meeting a year at a town & country church is two-fold: to learn about the individual churches, and to encourage the pastors and congregations. We always pick locations where there will be a cluster of several T&C churches. And while I think we did encourage the pastors by our interest in them and our visit, there's no question in my mind that I was on the receiving end of some big time encouragement by being there.

All of my trip photos are here (as well as explanations as to what they are), but below are several of my favorites from the weekend. Enjoy!

Ethical Obligations

Here's a question: if you hear what sounds like a fight through your neighbors' open windows, are you required ethically / morally to do anything about it?

Tonight I heard what sounded like a very intoxicated female neighbor yelling at whoever she shares a home with - husband? child? roommate? If I'm correct, it's a woman I know only by reputation, not even what she looks like. But the gossip on the block is that she's been picked up on occasion being drunk and disorderly, beating up on her husband.

What I heard tonight wasn't anything to report (just yelling), but what if I were to hear someone actually beating on their spouse?

A few years ago, I gradually became aware of some odd noises coming in my open window. Five or six neighbors were gathered in the alley behind my house. I joined them, and found out they were all there because they had heard what sounded like a guy beating on his wife. He was yelling, she was screaming. I think one of them had called the police. One or two of them had shouted up to him to stop it. I think he may have shouted down some choice words at them. We were out there for some time. If the police had been called, they must have taken their sweet time getting there, because I think I left before they ever came by.

So what is our responsibility to our neighbors, our fellow humans? It's nice to know that my neighbors at least pay attention to what's going on in our streets.

What is the Key? The RENEWED MIND!!!

Okay, it was really funny (in a horrifying way) the first time I saw this video.




Oh, man, but it was funnier still when I saw what The Soup had to say about it.




Boy, my worship team almost never has matching spangly dresses and choreographed dance moves, including (gasp) the moon walk. (Of course, since I'm the only one there not sitting or holding an instrument, I guess it would have been up to me...)

DWLL Victory!

I've heard of (and blogged about, kinda) DWB (driving while Black). DWLL was a new one for me. My son came up with it while he was telling the story of how he lost his license.

He said he got pulled over on the West Side for no good reason. "DWB," I interjected, "you know, driving while Black."

"No, Mom, not on the West Side. Over there, they get me for Driving While Looking Latino. Everyone thinks I'm Puerto Rican," clarified my son.

Back to the story, the cop who pulled him over said nothing about his speed, a burned out light bulb, failure to signal, nothing. Instead, he just looked at my son and said, "you got any sh** on you?"

My son said no, but the cop asked for his registration and insurance. He did have insurance, but not with him, and the cop took his license and gave him a citation. He couldn't get it back because he owed money on parking tickets. But meanwhile, the citation only said that he didn't have insurance - in other words, he was stopped simply because the cops were profiling him.

So today, my brave, strong, sh**less son went downtown and fought to get his license back, based on the cop racially profiling him, and WON!! HA HA!! Take that, you LWR (living while racist) cop!!

(Disclaimer: The photo here is just something I found on the internet - my son says he can't remember what the cop looked like who stopped him, including what race he was. Hooray for my colorblind son!)

Dry again

Quite a change from Sunday! I drove past Anderson Hall today, and was surprised to see that the parking level was completely dry. Amazing how fast the water comes, then leaves...

Rain, rain, go away

In thirty years of living in Chicago, I have now lived through two "great floods". The first one was in 1991, and it was actually the result of a boat crashing into the side of the Chicago River, allowing water to flow into basements all through downtown, and flooding out the subways.

This one is caused by Mother Nature herself, dumping record rainfalls on our fair city over the past couple of days. A friend and I went out and took some pictures...

... of the river threatening to crest its banks and flood the auditorium at North Park University,

... of Anderson Hall, which along with the Campus Center at NPU, is evacuated and closed,

... of the sandbags keeping the waters on Carmen Ave from flooding onto Kimball Ave,

... and of Foster Ave at Pulaski, where the entire street and much of Gompers Park lie covered by water and news crews.

We always think of Chicago as a flat plain. You realize, when checking for standing water, that the City definitely does have its higher and lower ground. (I'm very thankful I live at one of the high points.)

It's very scary to see water entering your home, and there's not a thing you can do about it. I've lived through that, and hope to God I never have to again. I just pray for all the people affected by this flood, that they can dry out and clean up quickly. And for my alma mater, I pray that its buildings will not be damaged to the breaking point.

Salivating...

Okay, food trivia fans. Here's a little quiz. What do the following items have in common?

• stuffed peppers
• grilled chicken parmigiana
• chicken cordon bleu
• pulled pork
• swedish meatballs
• melt-in-your-mouth meatloaf (can'twaitcan'twaitcan'twait!!!!!)
• classic lasagna
• tuscan pot roast
• chef's special gazpacho :)
  
• ratatouille for me-eee (and Jazz)
  
• chicken pot pie
• beef bourguignon
• stuffed pork tenderloin
• chicken chili
• melt-in-your-mouth meatloaf

If you guessed they are things that I'm not cooking in October, you are CORRECT!

If you guessed they are things I am eating in October (well, at least 10 of them), you are ALSO CORRECT!

If you want to point out that meatloaf is on the list twice, no duh! It's only the best thing in the whole wide world!

Finally, if you'd like to point out that I'm using way too many exclamation points, get used to it!!!!!!!

who cooks for you?

I'm not going to start talking about my very own personal chef... not yet, anyway (sorry, dear, that has to wait for some future time!)

No, what I really want to talk about is the Barred Owl I met the other night. I had gone outside to try and take a nighttime photo of USML's beautiful chapel, but it was a wasted effort with my substandard camera.

The stroll outside wasn't a waste, however, when I heard someone asking, "Who cooks for yooouuu? Who cooks for yoooouuuuu?"

I wasn't ever able to see much more than his (or her) outline against the night sky. I was later told that this is the distinctive call of the Barred Owl. I remembered my sister saying that when they do night walks through the woods, the owls sometimes answer their calls.

So I responded to the owl (enigmatically, I might add), "Who cooks for youuuuu?", hoping I wasn't being too rude by not answering and that I didn't sound too much like a rooster.

He and I traded questions several times. He also flew around a bit, from the roof of the dormitory, to one tree, then another. The last time he flew, he went almost directly over me, and I was able to see his rather impressive wing span as he flew across the campus and out of my sight.

He never did give me the name of his chef.

Repeat Witness

So, in February, I wrote about being a witness. It's happening again, right now. I'm in the same place, even, with some of the same people. We're talking about who we are as Christians, who we are as the Covenant, who we want to be as the Covenant, what challenges we will face in coming years, what responsibilities we have to God, to our churches, to our pastors, to our communities, our conferences, our country, the world.

Just a small conversation...

The setting is interesting. We're at the University of St Mary's of the Lake in Mundelein. It's the same place we held the meeting where we talked about being intentional about ethnic diversity. It's the same place where we held a meeting to look at the implications of our numeric growth on our current structures. Not to mention countless other retreats and meetings we've had here.

This is becoming a very meaningful place for the ECC. Who would have thought that a Catholic seminary / retreat center would be so instrumental in the direction of our church?

Sankofa Processing #4

So, Sankofa stills keeps coming to mind almost every day.

A couple of days ago, I was going to blog about how the upstairs neighbors' daughter plays the same song over and over again; that it's not loud, just annoying, and compare it to some old upstairs neighbors who must have had a Mr. Microphone. At this point, being the eager blogger that I am, I wanted to link in a reference to Mr. Microphone. Lo and behold, there's an old ad for it on YouTube!

The only thing is, I was so horrified when I watched it, I couldn't post the blog after all. At one point there's an African American man dancing down the street waving his radio around, singing on his Mr. Microphone. *shudder* Watch this ad at your own risk of being offended.

Granted, the white guy who hollers out of the car ("Hey, good lookin'! We'll be back to pick you up later!") makes me shudder, too, but not in a offensive-race-stereotype kind of way (more like a you're-such-an-incredible-dweeb kind of way).

At least this has the excuse of being about 25 years old, and thankfully isn't being aired anymore. Kind of reminds me of the old I Love Lucy shows, where she calls Ricky "sir", or he actually spanks her. They thought that kind of offensive 'humor' was funny, too, rather than simply misogynistic.

good neighbors

They say good fences make good neighbors. I talk to and like a lot of the people on my block, even if I don't actually socialize with them beyond our sidewalk conversations. I think I have pretty good neighbors.

There's a 3-flat across the street from me. The owner is not a huge gardener, nor does he take exquisite care of his lawn (as opposed to the people in the 3-flat right next door to him, whose lawn is as green as I imagine their homeland of Ireland to be!).

Over the years he's gotten some nicer plants, and he's tried to put little mini-fence things to protect his grass. But the mini-fence things keep getting knocked over, stepped on, bent, by who knows who. And the neighbor kids from the corner apartment building have begun extending their play area to include his lawn.

I remember walking by his yard and seeing that someone had systematically bent over all the top decorations on his mini-fences, and also flattened every other one to the ground. Nice.

So today, I come home, and what's across the street? A good (and pissed off) neighbor...

It is God's will that I don't listen to the Republicans!

Can anyone convince me that John McCain has a serious chance of winning this election? I don't think so!!

But I like to think of myself as a fair and open minded person, and so while I thrilled to hear the Democrats' speeches last week, I would make the effort and listen to the Republicans' speeches this week... except that God apparently has other plans for my listening ears. Because the audio absolutely doesn't work on the Reps' website. None of their videos have audio to them now. And it's not even a problem with this computer - I can listen to iTunes just fine.

My story and I'm sticking to it is that God's ways are higher than mine, and who am I to question them?

:)