Arriving: Hospitality and home

"Arriving" is a continuation of the blog series "Leaving," which reflects upon my process of transitioning out of my first call and into a new call; leaving St. Timothy Lutheran (Naperville, IL) and moving to First Lutheran (Decorah, IA).
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Our new house, in the snow!

It has been a short few weeks here in my new call. And I've been thinking a lot about home and about hospitality.

On my very first Sunday here, I preached in worship, and afterwards I had three families offer to host me for brunch, lest I feel lonely or ignored. That evening, I visited the high school youth group, and afterwards, the youth and family director invited me to join him at a friend's house for board games and hanging out. And at the board-game-hangout, this friend of the youth director invited me to a birthday party for two of his kids the following weekend. I was blown away by the warmth, welcome, and hospitality of this new church home.

Two Sundays ago, I presided over the liturgy for the first time in this new church. As part of the presiding role, I began worship with a word of welcome. I heard myself say the words "Welcome to First Lutheran Church, and a special welcome to visitors." And I realized that I was extending the hospitality of someone else's home. I'm still in a place where I am being welcomed, and yet I have the privilege of welcoming others into God's space. It's beautiful. And confusing.

We are currently house-sitting for members of the congregation, which allowed us to "move" into town before we had a house of our own. We are getting more and more comfortable there, but it has yet to feel like home, no matter how much laundry is strewn about the bedroom floor. But we have grown accustomed to the wild turkeys gathering outside the window, and the cardinals who visit the bird-feeder outside the living room window, and the fridge is full of our own food.

Yesterday, we closed on our own house. All of our belongings are still living in Chicago until next week, so we're not living there yet. The rooms are empty and clean, full of potential. It won't feel like ours until we have our stuff there, and it won't feel like home until we've started building a real life here, full of our own patterns and habits.

Tonight, I ate dinner at the home of a wonderful couple from church - she is on the church council, he was on my call committee. It was absolutely lovely. Conversation and laughter with kindred spirits. How beautiful to be invited into someone's home, and how beautiful to spend time with people who help make this new place feel like home.

I'm not sure quite what the connecting thread is between all of these anecdotes, other than to say that even in transition, even while we're still working to put down roots and create a life here in this new place, it is hospitality that makes this new place feel like home. For someone like me, who thrives on patterns and habits and feels anxious without a place to call my own, I crave these moments of hospitality, and look forward to finding ways that I can extend it to those around me.

Where there is hospitality, there is home.

Scarcity to abundance: ELCA World Hunger Leadership Gathering day 2

I am proud to have received my first sunburn of 2012. This happened while I was on an afternoon field trip to the ECHO Global Farm and Research Center here in Fort Myers.

As an organization, ECHO (Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization) is an organization that does hands-on agricultural development and education. It dedicates itself to developing farming techniques and simple innovations, as well as agricultural development and know-how, in order to help communities across the world learn how to farm well in their own specific climates. They prove that anyone – and any community – can do simple things to create abundant and sustainable food sources. It is an amazing way to address hunger in the world, and to help fix the hunger problem rather than just offering relief. It is real change, in garden form.

I had the opportunity to tour the Global Farm and Research Center here in Fort Myers. They literally simulate climates and soil conditions from all over the world, and learn what plants grow, and how to irrigate, and how to adapt farming for best yield. It is a demonstration farm, where staff and interns develop farm plots, play with simple and innovative technologies, and then teach what they discover to mission partners across the world.

I learned many things during my visit.

I learned about how you can take any variety of container, and with a little knowledge, you can grow anything from lettuce to butterfly weed to a starfruit tree.

I learned about this crazy Moringa bush, which is truly a miracle plant. It grows easily and quickly. Its leaves are edible (tasty – sort of like extra-peppery arugula!) and contain a ridiculous number of vitamins and nutrients. You can dry the leaves, which will retain most of the nutrients, and then crush them up to use as a nutritious additive to food and baby formula. Its seeds can be crushed up and – get this – they can purify water! They can remove nearly 95% of bacteria in water, and if you they put the water out in the sun and let UV rays get to it, you can get that water nearly 99% clean!

I learned that you can take common “found items,” in any community, in any country, and build tools, irrigation systems, rain barrels, trellises, stakes, and any other number of agricultural tools.

I learned that you can be smart with how you raise animals so that you can make the most of the circle of life…and, to be honest, how to harness the power of poop. ☺



I learned about how you can use plants as tools and architecture: living fences, deep-rooted plants on hillsides to build tiers and to prevent erosion, taking advantage of acacia trees that shed leaves in the spring and grow shade in the winter under which to grow sun-sensitive plants.

One member of our group talked about the experience in terms of “abundance out of scarcity.” And it’s true. ECHO showed us that you can take the worst of the worst “soil” and to turn it into an overflowing bounty. It taught us that with dedication and ingenuity, you can do simple things to create sustainable gardens and farms in any climate, for any people. All it takes is one seed to create more seeds, and you are off and running. One tree becomes many. And you can feed a village!

Sand between my toes: ELCA World Hunger Leadership Gathering day 1

Despite the fact that I don't mind winter and love snow, I am pleased to be writing this post from sunny & warm Fort Myers, Florida! I am blessed to have been invited to attend the 2012 ELCA World Hunger Leadership Gathering. I am hoping to learn much and to gain energy about important issues of hunger, health, and poverty across the world.

I flew out of Chicago this morning. It was cold. And early. (got up at 4:15am to make a 6:45am flight!) And I landed in 75-degree weather, with sun warming my shoulders as I waited for the hotel shuttle to come get me from the airport.

There were no official events until the evening, so I had made plans to meet up with some family who live near Fort Myers. They made my day by driving me out to Fort Myers Beach, so that we could eat lunch together and then walk on the beach. It has been a long time since I've walked on such perfect, powdery, silky, white sand. An amazing feeling to be walking on the beach in bare feet in mid-February! I had to document it, of course. Pardon the really bad cell phone pictures:

The Gathering began this evening, with some orientation and learning about ELCA World Hunger as an organization, and then continued with a yummy reception, lots of mingling, and even spending about 15 minutes talking to Dave Scherer (that is...the rapper Agape) without even realizing it was him. :)

We spent some time "speed dating," which means that we got to introduce ourselves to about 15 people in rapid succession and learn a little bit about one another. I had a lot of fun talking to people from all over the country, all ages, all manners of pastors and synod staff and lay leaders.

But let me tell you...it feels good to be back in my room, getting ready to sleep off a long day in a comfy bed with great pillows. Tomorrow is going to be a very full day, and so I am excited to see and learn.

The unoriginal but amazing life

I bought a notebook this morning.

More specifically, a black, softcover Moleskine 2012 Weekly Notebook Diary/Planner. Because in church work, you need to have a January calendar at the ready by the time November hits.

It is my first Moleskine, and kudos to them for having created a brand that carries with it such a particular mystique that it actually seems like an important detail in my life to say "it is my first Moleskine," as if that really means something.

A little baffled and enticed by the sheets of icon stickers in the back pocket, I ventured to the web to see how others had used these stickers...and found no useful pictures or suggestions (not that there is a right or wrong way to use them, but I was curious). But I did end up pouring over blog posts about the creative ways that people use or modify their Moleskines, extensive discussion of the best Moleskine pen (turns out it is the very pen that I am already using!), and glimpses of fascinating people who read many books or drink many wines or travel many places, and then have the patience and inspiration to write about those experiences.

I don't read enough books these days to warrant a book journal, and I would probably have no patience to keep up with it anyway. I don't drink nearly enough wine, nor do I care deeply enough about it, to have any interest in keeping a wine journal (and for as much as I love food and cooking, I'm not sure that a restaurant or food journal would be exactly the right thing for me either).

But travel? I don't do much of it, but I would love to do more. I feel the pull of city-based Moleskines, that include public transportation maps and give you space to write about all the things in a city that you've seen, done, tasted, and experienced.

Or how about a plain old ruled notebook...that could accompany me on travels all across the world? I kept a serious journal during our Tanzania travels. I wrote down all the details I could remember about our days, as well as keeping lists of the food we ate, the animals we saw, and the Swahili we learned. I used that notebook to keep score as we played cards on our flights, I pressed flowers in between its pages, and I saved beer bottle labels in its back pocket.

And so, at this moment, as I stare outside at the gray Chicago sky, I find myself desiring the unoriginal but amazing lives of so many of my fellow young adults: lives filled with travels and journals, laptops and good coffee, a spirit of both exploration and appreciation.

And all because I needed to buy a day planner.

Hello, bed. I've missed you.

So here's the thing. I got back from the confirmation retreat around 3 today. It was an EXCELLENT retreat, and there's much to be said about it. But not tonight. I want to talk about the wonderful things that happened, but I am just TOO tired tonight.

I went home, relaxed for about 2 hours, and then went back to church to meet up with the high school group for our crazy bowling night. We had a HUGE turnout, which was awesome. We bowled some regular and some crazy games, which was also awesome. The bowling alley accused our group of trying to cheat them out of pizza...that was NOT awesome...and NOT true. But apart from that, a great night with an amazing group of high schoolers!

I'm blessed! I spent this weekend with a combined 60+ St. Timothy youth of a variety of ages. They all make me so happy. I'm at this church, in this call for a distinct reason. It's amazing.

Even when I'm tired. And grumpy. And physically exhausted. And dreading some of my Monday morning office tasks. Despite all of that, I love my job. And more than that, I love the kids I work with!

Now, it is beyond bedtime. There are more stories to tell from this weekend, but not until tomorrow. If you're craving substance, check out yesterday's guest post from my hubby. Good stuff there.

Off to Camp!

This weekend is our confirmation retreat at the Lutheran Outdoor Ministries Center in Oregon, Illinois. I get to spend a weekend with some awesome junior high students! I have so many great memories from the retreats I went on in junior high and high school - I'm excited to share that experience with this group here at St. Timothy!

I'm going to try to talk Matt into guest-blogging for me tomorrow while I'm gone (I'm trying to keep faithful to posting every day!), and then I'm sure I'll have pictures and stories to share when I'm back on Sunday.

St. Olaf Homecoming Recap: Weekend of Good Phone Calls!

Last weekend (not this recent one, but the one a week ago), I headed up to Northfield, MN for my 5-year college reunion. My youngest sister lives in Minneapolis and went to St. Olaf. My middle sister didn't go to St. Olaf, but loves it anyway and took the weekend off to drive up with me so that we could have a fun sisters weekend!

So a week ago Thursday, I got up early, went running, did two loads of laundry, packed, and drove to Steph's Starbucks. I hung out there until she got off of work, and while I was waiting, my cell phone rang. Turns out it was ringing with BIG NEWS. I answered it to find Bishop Wayne Miller on the other end, who was calling to tell me that...(warning: shouting ahead!)

I AM ASSIGNED TO THE METRO-CHICAGO SYNOD OF THE ELCA - EXACTLY WHERE I WANTED TO END UP!!!!

(Ahem. That's enough shouting.)

On that note, we headed out on our Minnesota road trip. The trip there was pretty unspectacular except for a great sunset, and we made it to Beth's apartment late. We watched a little TV, tried to check our email (their wireless internet is kinda cranky), and pretty promptly fell asleep.

Friday morning, Beth headed off to work (she's a teacher!), and Steph and I lounged around for a while. And then my phone rang again. More good news! My dad called to tell me that our older sister just went into labor! Very exciting! Steph and I then drove down to St. Olaf, where we ate a quick lunch before I headed off to be a part of a panel discussion in an American Studies class, talking about college life (and especially St. Olaf life). I was one of three alumni from three decades, and I had a blast! Afterwards, Steph and I wandered campus, shopped some in the bookstore, got haircuts, and then drove back to Minneapolis. For dinner, the three of us dolled up a bit and went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. We had barely stepped into the restaurant when Beth's phone rang with - yes - more good news! My dad called to announce the birth of Cameron Patrick Andrew Egan! :) We were crazy excited!

After a yummy (and HUGE) dinner, we found our way to my class of '03 gathering. What good sports my sisters were! They came with me for moral support - I'm not so comfortable going into unpredictable social situations, especially when I'm not sure who I'll know. I had much more fun than I had expected to. One of my college roomies was there, and we caught up on life, as well as some choir friends and res life friends and friend friends. All in all, enjoyable.

Then...back to the apartment, where it was early to bed for us, since we were all getting up at 5:30am on Saturday to participate in the homecoming weekend 5k run/walk. Beth ran the whole thing, and ran it well. I ran most of it (there were a couple short, steep hills that I walked in order to save some energy) and felt SO STRONG and PROUD when I finished. Steph ran and walked, and Beth and I both went back to run the last stretch with her. It was amazing sister-bonding. :) Look at us, post-race - we look so happy!












The rest of the day was spent walking around campus with Nick's family (Beth's boyfriend), eating lunch at Hogan Brothers (yummmmm), wandering through the new science center, and going to the football game. Look how pretty we are:












After the game and some more bookstore shopping, we all headed off to Fireside Orchard for some apples and cider and donuts and caramel apples. It was all so very autumnal and wonderful. The orchard grounds boast a pond and rose bushes and wonderful space outside to sit and enjoy an apple or two. Here's me, carrying all of the apples we bought:















And here we are, posing by the tractor (doesn't it look right out of a magazine?):












We finished off our afternoon/evening by napping/relaxing at Beth's apartment, then by going out for Vietnamese food (oh so very yummy). We attempted to watch a movie when we got back to the apartment, but all promptly fell asleep. Sunday was gray and kind of rainy, and after some coffee at Blue Monday's and a quick pass through Hogan Brothers (yes, again), Steph and I headed back to Chicagoland.

I love my sisters...this weekend was so wonderful, I can't even begin to express it. It just goes to show that I am a completely family-oriented person. To be with people I love in a place that I love: this is bliss to me. :)

The Quick Version

It's been quiet around here! I've been out of town twice, and am about to head out of town a third and fourth time, so it's about time that I did a quick recap of July goings-on before August gets too far underway.

The end of June/beginning of July was spend with this amazing group of people:


The 11 of us spent a week in Denver, Colorado, spending a week doing urban ministry around the city. We worked at nursing homes and packed boxes at the Food Bank of the Rockies. The food bank was an intense operation: at the beginning of the line, one person would grab a box, put two boxes of cereal in it, and push it along the rollers to the next person. This next person would grab three huge cans of tomato juice – nearly 10 pounds! – and load them into the box, pushing it down the line. And so it went – from the tomato juice to evaporated milk, canned vegetables, applesauce, beef stew, rice, and beans. At the end of the line the box would get taped up and loaded onto a pallet. Our arms were aching at the end of each day! But it was worth it: in our three combined days of work, we packed 40 pallets of boxes. That’s 2000 boxes. That’s well over 60,000 pounds of food. That’s over 8000 people being fed across two states, thanks to our 3 days of box-packing! After a week of hard work, we celebrated by spending the 4th of July at the Denver Zoo, and then to Coors Field, where we rooted the Rockies on to a 18-17 win over the Florida Marlins and then enjoyed the fireworks together.

Then it was back to Rockford for a couple weeks before heading off to St. Olaf for the Conference on Worship, Theology, and the Arts. The theme for this year's confrence was "Fling Wide the Gates," and the week was spent talking about what it means to fling wide the gates of our worship and what it means to connect what we do in worship with what we do out in the world. We opened each day with Eucharist and closed each evening with evening prayer. (I read the gospel in worship on Thursday the 24th - you can hear the stream of the service here.) We experienced the colorful and whimisical artwork of He Qi. I spent my mornings at an in-depth seminar led by Mel Bringle about hymns based on the book of Isaiah, and we even wrote our own Isaiah-based hymn-texts at the end of the week! I went to special interest sessions on the context of the ELW (Evangelical Luthearn Worship - the ELCA's new hymnal), on the use of visual arts in worship, on Barth and Shleiermaker's approaches to theology and how these approaches relate to experience of music and experiences of God in music, on worship and social justice, on how God speaks in our worship and in our music, and on how what we do at the table in worship leads us to what we do outside the doors of the sanctuary. I could write for ages about everything I learned and experienced, but I'll spare you. :)

The rest of July was spent in Rockford, packing up our apartment here (our lease was up at the end of July) and moving most of our things back to Chicagoland. Life at church has been normal-crazy, and we spent a lot of time and effort re-visiting the question of worship times, even holding a special congregational meeting and a special council meeting to decide what to do (we ended up shifting each service inwards half an hour, which may or may not solve anything and which may or may not make anyone happy...such is the way of things). I've turned in all of the rest of my candidacy/first call/ordination paperwork, so now I just have to be patient and wait until my approval interview (end of August), and then (if all goes well at that interview) wait for assignment, which will happen sometime in October. I'm mere months away from knowing where in the country I'll be placed. So close, but yet so far! So much waiting!

As far as August goes now, Matt and I are heading to Minneapolis this weekend for a wedding, and then to New Jersey next week for some good family time and beach time. And then, I return to my last two weeks of internship...saying goodbye is going to be so hard...I've come to love this place, and these people, and I can't even begin to imagine how to tell everyone everything that I want to say to them before I go. Sigh. That's a post for another time, however. Today, it's time to get myself organized before I go traveling! :)

Holiday Re-cap (The Random Picture Version)

Well, here I am, on my third day back to work today after a wonderful week and a half of time away with family and friends for the holidays.

We spent Christmas with my side of the family - including my sister and her family who are living in Scotland for a few years - which meant that my parents' house was blissfully (and a bit chaotically) full of eleven people and five cats for a few days. We drove out to them Christmas Eve, after eleven o'clock worship, which put us in around 2 in the morning...hehe. Christmas morning, I got to worship at my home church and to sing with my family before coming home for our traditional Christmas morning breakfast (scrambled eggs, fried potato sausage, another kind of homemade sausage, cardimom bread, yule bread, rye bread, and lots and lots of coffee). We listened to music and leisurely opened presents, and spent the day relaxing together. It was lovely. On the 26th, we had a lazy sleep-in morning and a late breakfast before heading to downtown Chicago for our yearly visit to the Macy's (formerly Marshall Fields) Walnut Room Christmas tree.






















Afterwards, we stopped by to visit family friends from our church. The husband is a glass artist, and while we were there, we all got to work with him to make glass icicle ornaments - so much fun! My parents and younger sisters and I have done it before, but it was Matt's first time. It's amazing to be so hands-on - we get to help melt the glass and get to take full responsibility for twisting and pulling the glass into these ornaments. I love having a glass-blowing family friend... :)























On the 27th, Matt and I flew out to New Jersey for a week with his family. We brought Emme with us...which was interesting... She meowed the entire time that we were at the gate, but was quiet during the flight after takeoff. And then we brought her to Matt's house, where she decided that she was NOT interested in hanging out with Daisy, Matt's parents' black standard poodle. We never quite got the two of them to be friends, but we made great progress in at least getting them to tolerate each other.




























On the family side of things, we celebrated Christmas and spent time with Matt's grandmother before she flew to California (to visit more family!). We watched The Chronicles of Narnia with Matt's parents (for the first time...we don't watch a lot of movies...shame on us!) and played cards with Matt's sister and her almost-boyfriend. We went out to dinner with Matt's parents to celebrate our anniversary a few days early, and then spent the rest of the evening editing a Wikipedia article about earthworms and what they do in the winter, just because we could (yeah...don't ask.). We spent a lot of time trying to convince the cat to come downstairs and hang out with us (and the dog), and we at a lot of wonderful food. We celebrated our three-year anniversary by going out to dinner at a fabulous restaurant in Princeton called Sotto, and they by stopping into the Princeton Record Exchange for the second time that week to add to our ever-increasing library of CD's.

Matt and I also spent a lot of time with friends of ours. We spent three different evenings hanging out with different permutations of his high school friends, one of those evenings being New Year's Eve, and two of those evenings spent absorbed in the game Puerto Rico, which is perhaps the most complicated game I've ever played. Not difficult, really. Just lots of things to keep track of...and nearly impossible to explain to someone who hasn't played. We also spent time at Princeton Academy of the Sacred Heart, the school where Matt worked while we were living in Princeton, where we not only visited with faculty/staff friends, but also with two of our closest friends with whom we went to college and with whom I went to seminary. On our last evening, we drove up to New Brunswick to play pinochle and visit with two of our other closest friends...we played the longest game of pinochle ever (no one could seem to ever make their bid!) and ate delicious homemade chocolate-toffee bars.

We flew back to Chicago-land on Friday, spent the evening with all of the family plus Beth's boyfriend, and spent Saturday enjoying one last day of relaxation and family time (including me baking two king cakes for Sunday's Epiphany celebration here at church!). Look at all of us!






















Matt and I had a wonderful break and a blessed time with family and friends this Christmas. Matt commented that this was one of the best Christmases we've had, and I'd have to agree. I'm still trying to get myself back in a normal routine here in Rockford and back at Trinity...it's a slow recovery, admittedly, but I'm making some progress at getting things back on track and organized here. I'm at the end of my PhD applications (three down, one to go), in the midst of writing my 6-month evaluation (Really? I'm halfway done here? That's crazy.), and busy this week with rehearsals for Bach for the Sem. And so January hits the ground running...

So here's hoping that you all had a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year! Let's see what 2008 has in store for us!

What Kind of Day Has it Been?

You may or may not know that I am a huge Aaron Sorkin fan. "What Kind of Day Has it Been" has now been the title of the end of season one of all three of his TV shows: Sports Night, The West Wing, and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

It also seems like a fitting title to the end of my "seminary season" and the start of my "pastor season." I start internship on Sunday, and have been bouncing back and forth between Chicago and Rockford this past week, moving things in, getting set up, and trying to fit in as much Matt time as possible before I am living full-time in Rockford (starting...tomorrow).

I'm back in Chicago tonight because I am singing at a funeral tomorrow morning, and a few of Matt's college friends who are passing through the area are staying with us tonight. They're in the living room, watching a movie. I started feeling a little cramped (our apartment is sort of small for five people to sit comfortably in front of the TV) and a little lonely, ironically. So I'm flopped on the bed here with a cat sleeping next to me who is clingy and definitely knows that something's been up this past week (though she has no idea that she's moving to Iowa).

I spent last night at the Rockford apartment by myself. I did well alone, at least for that one night, which gives me hope that being apart from Matt this time round will be better than my stint in Princeton, especially second semester middler year (the first semester we were married). I spent a comfortable evening knitting and flipping channels, and around 11, I even walked the half-block to the grocery store to buy some much-needed ice cream for the freezer (and my tummy!).

This morning, I went over to church, spent some time sorting out initial details with Pastor Hoffman and beginning the process of settling myself in this new position. I got my plethora of keys (but they're color-coded, so there's hope), met a number of people who were volunteering with VBS this week, and then went to lunch with Pastor Hoffman. We had some good conversation about all sorts of things related to church and church work and the nature of pastoral ministry. Trinity is going to be a very good place for me. I'm definitely getting excited about starting. Being away from Matt is still quite less-than-optimal, but at least we're making the sacrifice for a worthwhile internship experience.

I went back to to the apartment (it's great...I'll take some pictures this week to share), bummed around, took a nap, and then left for Chicago late afternoon/early evening.

The drive was quick until I reached city limits, and then it took me upwards of an hour to get from my exit off the expressway back to the apartment and to find a parking spot. In the midst of looking for a parking spot, I went to turn around in a driveway, pulled out of it very poorly, and dropped my front right wheel over the curb instead of rolling it nicely down the gentle slope of the driveway. The underside of my car made a very sad noise as it hit the curb, and it didn't take me more than 30 seconds of driving to realize that I broke my car. I'm not kidding. I think that whatever I hit under the car near the wheel affected the front-wheel drive capabilities of my car on the right side. That is to say, when I hit the gas pedal to accelerate from a stop, my car doesn't go anywhere unless the left wheel catches.

This makes me seriously sad.

My parents are coming out in the morning to take a look and help me get it to somewhere to get it fixed, so it will be all right, though I have to say that I feel some enormous guilt toward my car, as if it were something that could feel emotional pain...

As the night has progressed, I have gotten past some of the initial bad feelings about my car, but a new set of strange feelings has sprouted up in their place.

I'm here at what I consider to be home, but don't feel home at all. Perhaps some of it is the knowledge that all of my important things are living in Rockford. Perhaps some of it is the slightly-too-empty kitchen and the bare look of the bedroom now that some of their contents are living in Rockford. Some of it is the homeless feeling you get when you haven't stayed put for a while and when you are craving just being somewhere (no matter where!) for more than a day or two. This will obviously be solved when I go back to Rockford tomorrow and stay there for more than a night.

I can't say for sure that I'd rather be in Rockford than here right now, or that Rockford feels more like home than this apartment that I've lived in for almost a year, where my husband and my cat are. But last night proved to me that I can create a home and create a routine in that new place. I think that I'm getting weary of a series of "last nights" here in Chicago. The night before I started the move last weekend felt like the last night at home before leaving for college - the combination of anticipation and grief. Thursday night felt like that last night all over again - the night before I went up to Rockford with the last round of stuff, and the night before I went to Rockford alone overnight. Tonight again feels like that last night, except that while this is the real last night here in Chicago before my life picks up again in Rockford, I'm so tired of the "last nights" that I don't have any emotional energy to devote to this one. It's like when you're beginning the process of leaving a party, for example, and you say goodbye to somebody, and then get caught up with this that and the other, and twenty minutes later, you're really on your way out and run into that person to whom you've already said goodbye. You feel like you need to say goodbye again, to let them know it's for real this time, but it's a bit awkward, because you did the actual goodbye earlier...you know what I'm talking about.

Part of me feels like I don't live here anymore, as if I - like Matt's friends - am just visiting, just passing through for the night. As if this apartment is Matt's, and not ours. And I think I'm all right with that sentiment so long as I'm in Rockford, where I have a place that feels like mine and where I'm about to be part of a community and where I'm about to build a life (if only for a year). But here in this apartment in Chicago, where no one but me knows that the kitchen cabinets are half-empty and that my dresser drawers are nearly empty, I feel as if I don't belong. I'm missing that sense of home that I am always seeking (one of the themes of this blog), and so I'm feeling sort of empty.

So in answer to the question posed by the title of this post, it's been a deflating sort of day. The good part of this deflated feeling is that it means that I'm already having a positive enough experience in Rockford that I'm ready to be there and do this whole internship. The lousy part of this deflated feeling is that Chicago is in my blood, and there's no reason it shouldn't always feel like home, and it's troubling that I can't feel that sense of home right now. (And that I broke my car. Boo.)

But in another hour, I'll get to curl up in bed with the man I love, and debrief my day with him, and know that when I drive out to Rockford tomorrow, he'll be with me. In an hour, I'll get to leave behind all of these emotions for a night of sleep in a bed that definitely still feels like my bed, and to wake up in the morning in a guaranteed better mood. Sleep cures many ills, my friends...

Orbitz and Expedia, I expect you to come through for me!

I have serious wanderlust right now.

Inspired by our friend Lauren's trek through South America for the past 3-4 months, I decided that I need to travel. And I need to travel somewhere new, memorable, free-form, exploratory...Matt and I aren't quite adventuresome enough to do South America. But we'd both love to run around Europe for a while. We've even (just for fun) tried to see if we'd be able to go for 3 weeks this summer, but it's not looking likely. We'd love to hop a plane to some European destination and then wander around for a few weeks - has anyone out there done this? I'd love to hear about it! We don't really know how to do it, so any advice would be wonderful. (Not that we're planning on being able to do it this summer, but who knows.)

I'm so hyped up on world travel right now that I'd even settle for a one-destination trip - Athens, Tokyo, Rome, London - but it's so expensive.

Any world travelers out there who want to share ideas, advice, or encouragement? Feed my wanderlust!

Christmas in New Jersey, part 2 (plus a comic)

For starters:


I like to think of myself as a reasonably smart, wise, thinking person, but sometimes comics just figure out how to be more profound than I can manage to be! Gotta love the unintentional Lutheran law/Gospel undertones here. (Yes. I am a Lutheran geek.)

So I left off on Wednesday afternoon, when we were about to go to PTS Lessons and Carols and then have Jon and Gretchen over for more cards. The service was incredible. Beautiful music, chosen specifically for a "Carols of Many Nations" theme. Each of the readings was printed in the bulletin for the congregation to read along as international students read them in their native languages. I miss PTS terribly, I realized, and at the same time, I loved being an experience-r rather than a performer. Music, candles, faith, community: these are things that make up Christmas for me.

Matt's brother got home late Wednesday night, carrying with him his Christmas present to his girlfriend: a fat, cuddly cat named Bullwinkle. I, of course, am completely thrilled about having a cat around. :)

On Thursday, I ran a few errands with Matt's mom and then we went out to a girls-only lunch at Teresa's, one of my favorite restaurants in Princeton. It was nice bonding time - we became very close during my first year of seminary, when I was homesick and she quickly became my Princeton mom. So it felt really nice to spend time together again. That evening, I went to St. Paul's (the church I attended during seminary) to rehearse with their choir, since I'm singing with them Christmas Eve (tonight, that is!). My family became members of a Lutheran church at home when I was a senior in high school, so even though I certainly consider that church my home church and church family, I've probably spent as much total time getting to know and being apart of this congregation in the Princeton area, so it certainly felt like a homecoming to show up there on Thursday night. It's a wonderful congregation and I was blessed to have spent so much time with them. I'm excited to be back, even if it's only for a very short time.

After choir, Matt and I went over to a friend's house, where I got my first taste of the Nintendo Wii. I thought I'd hate it, or be too self-conscious for all of the motion-sensing games, but we had a blast. It turns out that I'm a good golfer and a decent bowler.

Friday was another day full of friends. I met up with my friend Christa, from PTS, and we had a lovely dinner and lovely conversation together, catching up on this past semester's worth of news. Later that night, Matt and I got together with more of his high school friends, this time for Shanghai Rummy.

And then yesterday. Yesterday was a very lazy day. We made a quick Target run, but other than that, we sat around relaxing for the rest of the day. Last night, we got together with a whole crowd of Matt's high school friends, playing the Wii, playing pool and ping pong, eating a random mix of Christmas-themed foods (cookies, candy cane ice cream, toffee) and Asian candy. We did a terrible job of coming home at a reasonable hour, and so since we didn't get to bed until almost 3, today has been equally as uneventful, seeing as we both slept until 11, and have only managed to shower and eat lunch so far today. But later we will go to church with Matt's family and then St. Paul's for late-night church. It is Christmas Eve for certain.

Christmas in New Jersey, part 1

I have to say that my first three or so days out here have been marvelous.

I left Chicago on Sunday afternoon, and enjoyed my flight more than I ever enjoy flights. Nothing particular special about it, but I had a good seat - the first row behind first class, very spacious - a calm and productive flight (I was writing my last paper), a particularly good plastic airplane cup of diet coke, and a threefold nice landing: we flew over Giants' Stadium while the game was still going on (the aerial view is great!), I could clearly see the NYC skyline as we descended, and I had an incredibly talented pilot who unknowingly gave me the smoothest landing I could ask for.

I finished up my paper during the day on Monday, and then we drove up to Highland Park to visit our friends Jonathan and Gretchen. They are our pinochle buddies. We played one terrible game and one fantastic game, and ate way too many of Gretchen's wonderful Christmas cookies.

Yesterday, we had lunch with Matt's grandparents and then went bowling. I'm a terrible bowler...usually. (You can ask my high school friends. We would go cosmic bowling and literally duke it out for low score. A great game for me is breaking 100.) But for some uncalled for reason, I bowled a 167 my first game (!!!!) and a 121 my second game. It was crazy. After that we hit up the Princeton Record Exchange for cheap CD's and DVD's, and managed to find a bunch of good Christmas presents. Then, after a nice dinner with Matt's parents, we drove back over to Princeton and visited our friends Julie and Jason. It felt so cozy and comfortable to be back at the CRW apartment complex, where we lived last year.

Today has been Christmasy and lazy. We slept in, ate some lunch, and then wrapped all of our Christmas presents for Matt's family. We are going to Lessons and Carols at PTS tonight, and then Jonathan and Gretchen are coming over here to squeeze in one more pinochle evening before they leave for Christmas.

I've been drinking tea like nobody's business, and I keep eating Christmas cookies, and I've started working on Christmas cards, and the family room here is completely focused on a big and beautiful Christmas tree. The holiday spirit is alive and well with me! Yay!

So that's the news from my camp...more posting later!

a quick pictoral summary

tomorrow we go back to baltimore and we officially declare vacation over. on some level...it's sort of relaxing to be done with vacation, as ironic as it sounds. we're exhasted after 2 and a half weeks straight of traveling:

we drove up from baltimore to new jersey
the next morning: flew from jersey to bermuda
the next week: flew from bermuda to jersey
the next day: flew from jersey to chicago
later that week: flew from chicago to jersey
that same day...took the train down from newark to princeton
that same evening...drove 5 hours to bristol, rhode island
two days later: drove 5 hours from bristol to jersey
tomorrow: drive back to baltimore!

::yawn!::

but here are some highlights:

matt's brother, dan, swimming with dolphins



matt's sister, ruth, swimming with dolphins



all of us "kids" at church bay in bermuda



matt with the famous lions outside the art institute in chicago


the two of us on the train out of chicago


we didn't take any pictures this past weekend, when we moved ruth into college (roger williams university in rhode island), which is a shame. she's in a double-turned-triple, which means that the room is pretty tight, but it looks really nice all set up. the campus is beautiful, right on the water, and i think that she's going to love college once she gets settled. (for those who read this, thoughts and prayers for ruth as she starts this new adventure!)

as for us...we're pretty exhausted. we're looking forward to a quiet night, where we don't have to do anything except sit around, cuddle, and look forward to being home tomorrow.

before i board the plane

we leave bermuda in a few hours.
bermuda really is paradise. here are the highlights of this past week:


sailboating around the island

spending nearly every day at one of a couple beaches...
...and not getting sunburned!!

hiking through the south shore, from horseshoe bay to warwick long bay

being too much of a wimp to snorkel at church bay
being slightly less of a wimp and snorkeling for a couple minutes at the snorkel park
being my bravest and snorkeling for a little while near horseshoe bay, swimming through millions (literally) of neons
learning that i really DON'T like snorkeling!

pizza on the beach

the schools of jumping fish at warwick


i felt the blessing of being able to see the bluest and clearest water i'll ever know, seeing a passionflower in full bloom, watching some amazing sunsets...the blessing of air conditioning and to loving poodles. the blessing of a family that has totally taken me in. the blessing of being married.

paradise isn't just pink beaches and clear blue water.

paradise is knowing that i am blessed, and being humbled because of it.

Beachy

Tomorrow I leave for Bermuda.

I know that I'm excited to travel to someplace warm and beachy and, well, paradise-like. I know that I'm looking forward to a beautiful, romantic place to enjoy with my husband. I know that I feel grateful and fortunate to have this opportunity...


...but in my heart of hearts, I mostly can't wait to get home to Chicago in a week.