Ok! That's it.
This has not been a good week. It has been a bad week. Any way you want to measure it, I declare this week bad. And I am hereby Done With It.
I submit the following reasons for your inspection:
Two days ago, still in the thrall of the nor'easter that was attacking New York, and causing water to stream down my closet wall ('towels!' was the helpful suggestion of the maintenance crew), I was waiting for the uptown 1 train. 20 minutes, and no train. I would now be late for my 3pm appointment. The rain, apparently, had caused the subway to implode. So I leave the station, lose my fare, and hail a cab, driven by a friendly Russian man, who will take me up town.
And we listen to the radio.
And I start to hear things about Virginia Tech, which I am familiar with.
So I ask him to turn it up. The details are sketchy, but there's been a shooting. 'Yes, did you hear? Someone shot up the school!' he exclaims. 'Probably some Mohammad guy. Let's hear what Bill O'Reilly has to say.' He changes the station to Bill O'Reilly.
I'm having trouble breathing. My migraine from earlier returns.
I wonder who I know at Virginia Tech still, from when I was in college. I wonder who I know from college with friends there. I try to make lists in my head.
I wonder if I can jump out onto Broadway, just tuck and roll away, evade the zooming traffic, and Bill O'Reilly's yapping.
I watch the meter, and figure out how much less of a tip I can give the suddenly-much-more conservative cab driver and still leave the cab intact.
We arrive, and I jump out, still not sure what happened, and more angry than anything else.
Slowly, over the past two days, the seminary has processed it, in various seminary-like ways:
the prayers at the beginning of classes, brief conversation in PT, and a whole talk in Liturgics.
Confronted with the prospect of being the rector of a church outside Blacksburg somewhere, we had to plan a service for that night, on a few hours' notice. What would we do? What choices would we make? How would the sermon go? What liturgical resources would be appropriate? As pastors, as priests, what was our first move?
More than anything, that was helpful for me, but in a surreal way. While everyone else in the class could approach this with some level of disconnect, I'm still struggling.
My reality is that I probably will take a church somewhere near Blacksburg. Many of the people I will minister to have been profoundly affected by this, and many of my friends have already been affected. I was the person in the class who pointed out that the first thing you should do is find out what happened to your people. You can plan a very moving liturgy, but if someone from your parish has landed in the hospital, or has died, and you don't know about it, everyone else will have checked out.
So, basically, I'm done with this week. I'm tired of it. We need to have a new week, and it needs to happen now. The weather needs to get nice, and it needs to actually act like spring, and the world just should go along with it. (and also, I should have the power to decree stuff like that.) It is decided!
I submit the following reasons for your inspection:
Two days ago, still in the thrall of the nor'easter that was attacking New York, and causing water to stream down my closet wall ('towels!' was the helpful suggestion of the maintenance crew), I was waiting for the uptown 1 train. 20 minutes, and no train. I would now be late for my 3pm appointment. The rain, apparently, had caused the subway to implode. So I leave the station, lose my fare, and hail a cab, driven by a friendly Russian man, who will take me up town.
And we listen to the radio.
And I start to hear things about Virginia Tech, which I am familiar with.
So I ask him to turn it up. The details are sketchy, but there's been a shooting. 'Yes, did you hear? Someone shot up the school!' he exclaims. 'Probably some Mohammad guy. Let's hear what Bill O'Reilly has to say.' He changes the station to Bill O'Reilly.
I'm having trouble breathing. My migraine from earlier returns.
I wonder who I know at Virginia Tech still, from when I was in college. I wonder who I know from college with friends there. I try to make lists in my head.
I wonder if I can jump out onto Broadway, just tuck and roll away, evade the zooming traffic, and Bill O'Reilly's yapping.
I watch the meter, and figure out how much less of a tip I can give the suddenly-much-more conservative cab driver and still leave the cab intact.
We arrive, and I jump out, still not sure what happened, and more angry than anything else.
Slowly, over the past two days, the seminary has processed it, in various seminary-like ways:
the prayers at the beginning of classes, brief conversation in PT, and a whole talk in Liturgics.
Confronted with the prospect of being the rector of a church outside Blacksburg somewhere, we had to plan a service for that night, on a few hours' notice. What would we do? What choices would we make? How would the sermon go? What liturgical resources would be appropriate? As pastors, as priests, what was our first move?
More than anything, that was helpful for me, but in a surreal way. While everyone else in the class could approach this with some level of disconnect, I'm still struggling.
My reality is that I probably will take a church somewhere near Blacksburg. Many of the people I will minister to have been profoundly affected by this, and many of my friends have already been affected. I was the person in the class who pointed out that the first thing you should do is find out what happened to your people. You can plan a very moving liturgy, but if someone from your parish has landed in the hospital, or has died, and you don't know about it, everyone else will have checked out.
So, basically, I'm done with this week. I'm tired of it. We need to have a new week, and it needs to happen now. The weather needs to get nice, and it needs to actually act like spring, and the world just should go along with it. (and also, I should have the power to decree stuff like that.) It is decided!
posted by Dajjimeg at
2:24 PM
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