Our friend Diane at Faith in Community has a beautiful post about "imperfection."
With that as encouragement, I have a story to share.
A week ago I came drifting into the office about midday to check messages and make ready for the rest of the day -- an all afternoon session with some fans of Jane Austen, here in Prairie Metropolis, discussing the clergy in Austen's novels ("Henry Tilney ROCKS!" you heard it here first), and then joining the Rector's Warden, her husband and another couple for dinner.
Sunday also needed a bit of preparation: not only was it "Thinking Day," with rampant Baden-Powell-ish-ness everywhere, but The Lady in the Purple Shirt and Pointy Hat was making her first official visit to MH & U, preaching and presiding, bless her heart, at both services.
With all this in mind, I picked up the service leaflet.
And THERE, in the second line of the Psalm, was the typographical error of all time.
The gremlins had found an extra "t" and inserted it so that "Out of Zion, perfect in its beauty" had become ... "Out of Zion, perfect in tits beauty."
(pause for effect)
And when the screaming (mine) had died away..."action was taken." Should you ever find yourself in a parallel predicament, here is The Method:
I gathered all the leaflets AND three pristine new bottles of Liquid Paper into a nice clean cardboard "Banker's Box" and into Harriet's trunk, and when I arrived at my dinner engagement the hostess found me on the doorstep toting box, beaming brightly and saying, "Hi! We have a Little Project this evening!"
Picture us around the dining room table, replete with a wonderful dinner, giggling uncontrollably and dab-dab-dabbing over the offending letter in every single one of the bulletins EXCEPT the one I saved out for the Bishop's delectation. AFTER the services.
Blessings on all the good helpful folks; and on their butter-wouldn't-melt expressions next morning during the singing of the Psalm; and on these moments that convert disaster and chagrin into comfort and joy.
We do contrive to have a good time, one way and another...
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
in which the Rambler launches into Lent (parenthetically)...
...at 7:30 this morning, temperature dangling somewhere down below zero Fahrenheit, inches of new snow, treacherous slippery streets -- but it wasn't entirely dark!!!!!
And MH & U was warm (faintly miasmic of syrup and sausage, still), and the hangings were changed last night after pancakes and Christian Education (let us not ask by whom)(Alter-cation Guild seems to have suffered a brain cramp)(ah well, bless their hearts), and the ashes were sufficient...
And there were FIVE LIVING BREATHING CHRISTIAN SOULS at the service, two parishioners (although not for the entire ritual), two total strangers ("We found you on the Internet"), and the Rambler...
And we assured one another on the authority of Isaiah that the Lord would make our bones strong, thinking fondly of fractured friends at hand and elsewhere.
The lower level is "full of contractors" contemplating the remediation of the heating system. We have (hushed voices) "cavitation" in the pumps. Fine word, that.
We enjoyed a delightful morning with our Bishop last Sunday, and SHE, bless her heart, got to preach the Transfiguration...nicely too! This was her first visit to us since she, so to speak, assumed the purple...and the Scouts and Guides were in attendance and marched to and fro (using the term loosely)and put their flags in position and took them out again, and repeated their promises, and then provided us with all sorts of goodies for the post-service coffee time.
It was all extremely festive, and there was good feeling on all sides, thereby equipping the saints to deal more faithfully and joyfully in the ensuing week with things like cavitating pumps.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A thrill a minute...
...at Tether's End, these days...
Yesterday was designated as "FAMILY DAY" here in Prairie Province: i.e., "any excuse for a statutory-holiday Monday in February" in the total absence of Presidents to commemorate...
Number Two Son Unit came over in the morning with tools and Mysterious Box of electrical supplies and re-illumined the laundry room with two new twisty bulbs in separate fixtures in lieu of the half-failed fluorescent fixture that was there..."A light to lighten the Gentiles" and much appreciated.
Then a meeting with church-wardens late afternoon, and when I got home, after dawdling about in the office for some time...I couldn't get the front door open. Hysterics from Nefertiti on the other side.
Evening, statutory holiday, the Locksmith's Delight all around...as a "non-functioning key" became a "broken lock" became a "broken lock incapable of being half-replaced" became "hole in door not large enough for new lockset" became "new lockset not engaging strike plate in door jamb..."
Tether's End heaves about, you see, like a dory on the waves, and the doors interior and exterior prove it...
Ninety minutes and three hundred dollars later, all is functional and secure...the lock locks, the key unlocks, the latch latches, and life goes on.
Yesterday was designated as "FAMILY DAY" here in Prairie Province: i.e., "any excuse for a statutory-holiday Monday in February" in the total absence of Presidents to commemorate...
Number Two Son Unit came over in the morning with tools and Mysterious Box of electrical supplies and re-illumined the laundry room with two new twisty bulbs in separate fixtures in lieu of the half-failed fluorescent fixture that was there..."A light to lighten the Gentiles" and much appreciated.
Then a meeting with church-wardens late afternoon, and when I got home, after dawdling about in the office for some time...I couldn't get the front door open. Hysterics from Nefertiti on the other side.
Evening, statutory holiday, the Locksmith's Delight all around...as a "non-functioning key" became a "broken lock" became a "broken lock incapable of being half-replaced" became "hole in door not large enough for new lockset" became "new lockset not engaging strike plate in door jamb..."
Tether's End heaves about, you see, like a dory on the waves, and the doors interior and exterior prove it...
Ninety minutes and three hundred dollars later, all is functional and secure...the lock locks, the key unlocks, the latch latches, and life goes on.
Friday, February 13, 2009
More kitten stuff...
So last night it seemed like a good idea to see how Nefertiti would respond if I left my bedroom door open.
HA! silly question.
She hopped up on the bed and played a brisk round of "Cobras under the Duvet" while I read* for a bit, but the minute I turned out the reading light, "Right! bedtime it is! Sleeping now! Preferably on your face, Rambler! Hold still, now."
She doesn't purr while she's falling asleep -- or didn't last night, anyhow...but I fell asleep to small breathings and small heartbeats...and by morning she was coiled up, as above, against the back of my neck.
When I stirred, she rose up likewise and sat on top of my head for a while and then decided, while she was there, to chase her tail...it did NOTHING for the coiffure, believe me.
*I'm reading a Christmas-present biography of Moses ben Maimon ("Maimonides") and can report I feel much less perplexed already, and I'm only up to about page 100.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
good news
and about time.
A phone call this morning from our long-service, volunteer, VERY well qualified Organist of the Early Service...the embodiment of Eeyore in his outlook on the world. Gloomy to a marked degree; in part because of increasingly frail health, lots of pain and weariness.
Despite these impediments to joy, he is a very good musician, an excellent chooser of hymns (the selection at the early service is left entirely up to him)...and he does those little things that nobody else notices, like providing gentle "noodling" on the organ to cover the post-communion ablutions, and so forth.
On Tuesday, while I was "retreating," he had the first of two cataract surgeries. On Wednesday morning early, the bandage came off. And this morning he called, on the verge of tears with sheer delight, to tell me that he had read the whole eye chart, down to the twentieth line, that the notes on his music on the organ-rack were "sharp and black", that the sign over the restaurant where he and his family had a post-bandage breakfast celebration was almost too bright, and that..."there's just...SO...MUCH...LIGHT..." TBTG.
A phone call this morning from our long-service, volunteer, VERY well qualified Organist of the Early Service...the embodiment of Eeyore in his outlook on the world. Gloomy to a marked degree; in part because of increasingly frail health, lots of pain and weariness.
Despite these impediments to joy, he is a very good musician, an excellent chooser of hymns (the selection at the early service is left entirely up to him)...and he does those little things that nobody else notices, like providing gentle "noodling" on the organ to cover the post-communion ablutions, and so forth.
On Tuesday, while I was "retreating," he had the first of two cataract surgeries. On Wednesday morning early, the bandage came off. And this morning he called, on the verge of tears with sheer delight, to tell me that he had read the whole eye chart, down to the twentieth line, that the notes on his music on the organ-rack were "sharp and black", that the sign over the restaurant where he and his family had a post-bandage breakfast celebration was almost too bright, and that..."there's just...SO...MUCH...LIGHT..." TBTG.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
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