Ropes Course

This last week has passed in a blur of activity. I had Annual Conference (which went very well) I was assigned another year to the church and community I love.

Following Annual Conference I met up with all of the other Pastors and our new Superintendent for a Ropes Course. I had never been on a Ropes Course before. It was team building and personally building for me.

Most of it I loved and while it was very physically demanding it was exciting and thrilling. One part I found downright terrifying was the giant swing. I climbed a 30 foot pole to a platform where you were harnessed to a cable over the canyon. You were supposed to step off the edge of the platform and be swung on the cable 80 some feet up in the air. I took one look at the first person plummeting off that platform and said ... "Nope, not me!"  But when they asked me if I wanted to climb the pole I of course said, "Yes but I am passing on the swing". So I climbed the pole which was surprisingly difficult. Once I got up there I affirmed yet again that I was not stepping off the edge. That is when the instructor offered to go in a tandem harness with me. As everyone on the ground was chanting my name, I succumbed to peer pressure and said "okay".

So we harnessed up together, wrapped our arms around each other and pushed off the edge of the platform. I have to admit that the first swing off the platform I was so scared I could not even scream. By the 2nd swing I had let go and was hanging upside down laughing. It was thrilling, exhilarating and wonderful.

I am so thankful that I did it. So thankful that I pushed through what scared me and did something that everything in me was saying that it was a really bad, bad idea. I am thankful for all of my colleagues who were cheering for me to win through. And thankful for the experience that the Superintendent gave us.

Yep ... thankful ... and sore!

Just Connie

The Alpaca Farm

 I spent the morning at an Alpaca Farm visiting a friend. I loved roaming around the 80 acres and seeing all the animals. It lightened my heart and filled me with peace.

It reminded me that I need to do things like this a little more often. These moments do not come often enough.

here are some of the images I brought home from my trip.

Just Connie

Monday, Monday

Another sermon day drawing to a close and like so many of them this was not the contemplative study day that I dream of. Let's see today ... I had 5 drop in visitors and I was called to fill a food box for a needy family. I also fielded a bunch of phone calls and sorted the mail. In between all the ministry going on I read and studied and let God speak to my heart. The end result was that the sermon got finished and e-mailed to the six different people who need different parts of it.

I actually finished up in time to head over to a friends and pick some raspberries. From there I went and walked a couple of times around the Willamina Pond. Then it was home to water the garden and do a little bit of weeding. By then it was time to get dinner (with fresh broccoli right from the garden) and mix up some shortcake to have with my fresh raspberries.

Now I am sitting with my feet on the coffee table with the taste of raspberries lingering in my mouth. I am feeling tired and very satisfied with the day.

Yep ... Mondays are good days ....

Just Connie

Act of Service - Day 2

I performed another act of service today, but I have to admit that I did not enjoy it as much as my time yesterday. In fact I am left with a very unsettling feeling of frustration.


About a year and a half ago a local business man bought our old high school. 11 acres with 55,000 square feet. He bought it with the desire to give it back to the community to be used as a community center. because of my experience with non profits, he asked me to help set up a board and file for a 501-C3. Over the past year and a half we have restored the auditorium wing and received a $50,000 grant to help in the project. The school district uses the stadium during football season and the ball fields during baseball season.

And that is where the problem came in ... when the school used the stadium concession stand in the fall, they left it with food all over and dirty, dirty, dirty. The fact they left food in there, meant that the rodents have been dining well in the last months. To further complicate things, someone broke in and sprayed a chemical fire extinguisher everywhere. It left an inch of chemical powder over all the food, mouse droppings and general ick.

Today three of us donned air masks and began the long process of cleaning the mess up. It was not pleasant work, further complicated by the respirator that I had to wear to save my lungs. We made a good start on the mess and worked for 2 hours in the heat. We probably have another couple of hours of work ahead of us before it is usable.

I found instead of that warm feeling that comes from serving, filling my heart when I was done, I was ... well kind of angry. Angry that the concession stand had been left in that shape, angry that the school did not clean it up when they discovered it and angry about the senseless vandalism which made everything so much more complicated.

But I know that anger will not solve this problem. So I am scheduling a meeting with the school district to iron out our use agreement for next year. It is time to be proactive and not just whine about the problem.

Sigh ... sometimes I wish life was easier ....

Just Connie

I gave the gift of service today. I joined our men's group and went and split and stacked 3 cords of wood. My job today was to load the logs into the splitter. It is good hard work and I actually like it. In an hour and a half we had everything split, stacked and cleaned up.

I always enjoy working side by side with the men from my church. There is always good humor and the joy that comes from doing a job well. I feel fortunate to be back on my feet so I can once again join them for these work days.

It is a good reminder

Lavender Fields

 I took a trip today with some friends from the community. It was a great group; a retired lawyer, an alpaca farmer, a retired teacher and one little minister.

We went to a Lavender Farm in Lafeyette and spent an hour or so wandering around and looking at plants. I even came home with a couple of grape vines and one little deep purple lavender plant.

It felt so good to relax with friends and get to know each other in new ways. It reminded me that I need to do more of this. It lightens the load I carry and helps me look beyond all the things I need to do.

So I will keep looking for more opportunities to socialize without a work agenda.  it is time for me to do some resting and restoring.

And that sounds like a good plan.

Just Connie

This is somewhere I would like to sit and spend some time.

Dr's Orders

I saw the specialist today. It was a follow-up visit for the bacterial blood infection that I have struggled with over the past 11 months. After months of drugs and misery, I am feeling better every day. It feels good to be breathing easy and I had every expectation of being cut loose from treatment. I have to say that my appointment had some ups, downs and downright surprises.

First the downs; after listening to what I had to say and listening to my lungs he then told me that it is very possible I will have to go through another course of antibiotics. But he is willing to wait and see if the cough gets worse again.

Next the surprise; he asked me if I snored. When I told him that my border collie had never complained about me snoring, he told me perhaps it was time for me to find a bed partner. I told him that my border collie never snores and does not hog the bed covers. I wanted to ask him if he had been talking to my father, since dad is always nagging me about finding a husband as well.

And now the ups; I am released! Of course with the understanding that I will call in if my breathing gets worse or I begin coughing again. But I have no more appointments with him scheduled and that feels mighty good from where I am sitting.

So now I get to keep getting better and stronger ... and no .... I am not going to look for a husband. There are some things that even a doctors order does not make it sound attractive.

Nope ....

Just Connie

What a Day

Today has been filled to the brim with stuff. It began at 6:45am when I arrived to help set up for the Annual Fishing Derby, For the next two hours I checked in excited children and explained the procedure to parents. In between I enjoyed friends and being out in the bright sunshine.

At 9:00am I headed to the church for the Men's Ministry meeting. I enjoyed a great breakfast with some incredible men. I was then given a first hand demo on how our new commercial dishwasher works. (Explanation ... I did the dishes)

From there at 11:00 I dashed home, changed and grabbed my work gloves and joined the rest of the fellas and headed out to cut down trees. We cut down 2 thirty foot tall pear trees and hauled off the limbs and cut and stacked the rest. It was fun and good hard work.

By 2:00 I was back home where I threw on clean clothes and headed to visit with a couple in crisis. I spent the next hour with them, listening, encouraging and praying with them.

By 3:30 I was back home once again where I began the process of preparing for tomorrow's potluck and Pie Auction. That meant I had to dishes to prepare and two pies. I am taking a break right now with one dish completely done, 1 pie completely done. 1 casserole partly done and cupcakes yet to be fixed.

These are the days that I often think my male counterpoints (male pastors) do not have a clue how challenging it is for me to prepare for Sunday events. They prepare their sermon and their wives take care of everything else. I have to get up in the morning and prepare everything for the potluck and of course my offerings for the pie auction. besides all of the normal pastoral kind of stuff. In fact I am actually playing two roles. Sometimes, like today it is very challenging.

However, I will persevere and in a little while I will pry myself off the couch and go and start the next batch of cupcakes.

This will all be worth it .... right?

Just Connie

My Garden

 This is my garden. Well most of my garden. I also have two other spots one for the pumpkins and one for tomatoes and peppers. I go out every day and water the garden with Hope Puppy.

Today I actually harvested the first of the lettuce. I had been given a bunch of fresh spinach from a friends garden, so I fluffed it out by adding some of my own lettuce.

It was a pretty good feeling to send my son outside with instructions to pick a few leaves of lettuce, from my very own garden!

You can see the lettuce is far ahead of everything else right now. They have really liked the weather we have had so far. Today I noticed the zucchini and the pumpkins have come up. So now the spinach, the carrots and the radishes need to get with it.

Which reminds me .... it is time for me to get with it and go out and water the garden now that it is cooling off.

I love this time of day.

Just Connie

 

Vandalism

This is just a small glimpse of my afternoon. One of the community projects that I have been involved with is the restoration of the old high school into a community center.

Sometimes it seems that just as fast as we restore the vandals are breaking. This time is was the concession stand that is attached to the football stadium.

It seems that there were actually two problems.

Problem number 1; The School as in Willamina High School  had left it in a mess from football  usage. There was food left in there nothing put away or organized. Which drew pests of the four legged furry variety. Which caused me to walk in and go "Ewwwwwww!"

 Problem number 2;  someone broke in and vandalized it by spraying the fire extinguisher everywhere. There is an inch of fire chemicals on everything. On the floor, on the shelves, on all the supplies and on all of the equipment. It is also in the equipment because they opened stuff up and sprayed in everything they could, which included the large commercial pop corn popper. I was trying hard to only breath through the sleeve of my shirt because every step we took raised a cloud of chemicals.

It is getting harder and harder to stay ahead of whoever has been targeting the school and I have to admit it is also discouraging. I have things I would rather do than spend the day making police reports and surveying damage.

Personally I am thinking someone needs a spanking .... and I am thinking I will sic my mother right on it! After all .... she sure scares me!

Just Connie

Long Days

Sigh ... I am in the midst of a couple of 13 hour work days. I have to admit that I had a couple of them week too. They are the first really long days I have had to work since I came back from medical leave.

I am finding that people are always willing to fill up my schedule and it is usually not with frivolous things. It is with important things. So the trick I am finding is how to develop healthy boundaries for myself without shortchanging people that have very significant needs in their life. I am all too  aware that I cannot do it all, that it is not even healthy for me to attempt it and it is not corporately healthy for the church either.

Sometimes other people need to be freed to step in and help others. Sometimes they  (the client) just need to suffer the consequences of the choices they have been making and not be bailed out by myself or the church. And I have to admit that sometimes .... it is very hard to see where those lines should be drawn.

Right now I am trying to pile all of my appointments including counseling appointments into two days a week. Today was community meetings and staff meetings, tomorrow is counseling appointments. That makes for two very long and tiring days ... back to back days.

So far I am not feeling exhausted. I will have to see how I am feeling tomorrow. I might need to cut down on at least the evening appointments.

Sigh .... it is so much easier to talk about it ... than to actually do it.

Just Connie

Garden

I recently joined the green team ... I planted a garden. The garden really comes by way of our local Kiwanis who decided that they would build me a raised bed for veggies. It grew into a much bigger project that I was expecting and it is beautiful! I now have everything planted and I am watching with joy as things are sprouting and growing. I have lettuce, cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, carrots and radishes. As well as zucchini and pumpkin. I have also planted some fo the fresh herbs that I love so much and have missed like rosemary, basil, parsley and sage.

This is the first time I have planted anything resembling a garden since my life blew up and changed so much 15 years ago. It truly was another life time ago and I am thankful for the healing that has happened that is allowing me to do this.

I am also deeply appreciative of all of the help I have had to make this happen. I could not have done this alone. I live in a truly wonderful community and have incredible friends.

Now if I will just remember to keep it watered ....

Just Connie

Tommy

Friday I went to the funeral of my friend, Tommy. This was a man I worked with. I liked and admired him. More than that I found in him the same mischievous streak that I have running in me. To be honest I was a bit nervous about attending the funeral because it would force me to interact with a group of people who had hurt me deeply. But to honor my friend I went.

It was wonderful to take the time with other people who loved Tommy and remember the stories, the pranks and the sheer fun that he always was. I shared the story of my birthday when I was greeted with a big pile of gifts and in the midst was a large box that said, "Open Me First". When I unwrapped it, Tommy leaped out of the box with a tag around his neck that said, "Your very own Tommy doll". First of all he almost gave me a heart attack when he jumped out of that box. Secondly I was laughing so hard I could hardly talk. Even all these years later it brings a smile to my face when I remember it.

The service was very simple and gave plenty of opportunity for us to just share with each other. I was also blessed to discover it was not nearly as painful as I feared to be there. In fact I think it was healing and I am glad that I had a chance to lay some ghosts of a painful time.

I am sad that Tommy is gone, sad for the struggles he went through these past years but so very thankful that our lives had a chance to connect. I think that we were a gift to each other in a season of life when we needed uncomplicated friendship.

So as I think about him I am sad ... and I am thankful and I think that they are both okay things to be.

Just Connie