A New Year, but We Continue as Usual

We tried out a new church on Sunday. The fog was thick in the morning, and the new church, which is in Sparta, is on the other side of The Mountain. It was a forty minute drive on twisty roads with sheer drops just past the edge of the road, which I find frightening, even when heavy fog prevents me from seeing just how far down we'd plunge should Ed's attention waver from the road for a millisecond. Anyway, Ed and I decided before we got there that the church would have to be pretty spectacular -- a chanted liturgy, orderly service, lots of children, and good coffee --to be worth the drive. We got there just as the service was starting and, thankfully, snagged a rear pew. Thankfully because K. started telling me partway through the service, "Mommy, I have to throw up," and I didn't believe her. In my defense, she has been using this line for the last three weeks, whenever she gets bored with the service, and then giving a little cough and mischievous look when I rush her out and into the bathroom. This time, however, she meant it, much to the dismay of the elderly gentleman sitting beside us. Aside from our little diversion, the service itself was fairly normal but rather Un-Episcopalian. The building itself, which is new, spare, open, and totally lacking in stained glass windows does not have the "feel" of an Episcopal church (I'd have thought perhaps it was Baptist). The rector, or, more accurately, the Priest-in-Charge (whatever that means) furthered the non-traditional impression by giving a long sermon that had only the most tenuous connection to the readings which had a very "I'm okay, you're okay" feel to it. He walked around at the front of the church while speaking, and used one of those trick party candles, the kind that keep re-lighting themselves, to illustrate his point about the light of God living in us. The trick candle, the fact that he prefaced his sermon with the statement, "Now, this isn't orthodox teaching, just my opinion," and the silent periods after each of the readings, when the congregation was supposed to reflect on the text, were all a bit surprising to me. Not bad, exactly, but not what I expected. Ed loved the sermon, though. I think the visual aids really woke him up. The refreshments afterwards were absolutely first class. T. was wild about the ham on sourdough rolls, and K. found the chocolate chip cookies quite satisfactory. The members of the congregations were wonderful -- my favorite out of the three churches we've visited. We stayed late, chatting, and one gentleman told me that one of their Sunday School teachers homeschools her children. I've never met another homeschooling Episcopalian before (in Florida they were almost all evangelicals, here they are Baptists and Presbyterians), and he kindly gave me her phone number. She had left early, but I called her after we got home, and she told me about the homeschool group she participates in. They meet every Friday, and we may give them a try (barring foggy weather). Maybe what I need is a spreadsheet, so I can set up neat columns and rate each of our three churches in the categories of rector, service, choir, drive, refreshments, etc.?

We watched "Jurassic Park" last weekend, and T.'s enthusiasm for movie making was further kindled (as if that was necessary) by the "Making of Jurassic Park" segment after the feature. He talks of almost nothing but his "Link" movie (this passion of his can get to be a bit much, even for the most doting mommy), and is constantly working on cartoons and film segments (really the movie setting of his digital camera) in preparation for making his full lenth movie. After the rain stopped today, he got into his costume and talked Ed into being his camera man. K., naturally, was the beautiful princess Zelda, but T.'s leading lady was more than a little wayward today. Even bribed with chocolate brownies, it took her many takes to properly declaim her line, "Link! You must take the master sword! Ganon has poisoned the king of Hyrule!" At least he is learning early about dealing with tempermental divas.

*You see in the pictures T. trying to explain his vision of how the scene should play to K. It isn't easy, being an actor/director. She is giving it her best shot. The last picture is of our intrepid heroes climbing Mt. Woodpile. As you see, T. has not yet gotten that haircut.