Two Moose and a Giraffe go in to the ER....

Still working hard to find the proper rhythm for this blog, wrestling with the competing challenges of when I have time to write, nothing is generally happening, while when things ARE happening it becomes hard to find time to write, plus even simple access to the internet itself gets problematic, yet people assume from my silence that something terrible has just happened and that I must be on critical life support in ICU, when it's really just my iBook acting snotty about who it will and will not talk to, and the fact that I'm physically incapable of walking across the room to throw it against the wall.

But apart from these minor details, this past weekend has basically been business as usual here on the Gibson Oncology Pavillion. Was admitted Friday morning (as I wrote in my last post here), watched the basketball games Saturday night (and blogged over on my Obi-Wannnabe-Kobe site about each of them afterwards)...woke up Sunday morning without internet access, and nothing any of the help-desk guys here or in India have been able to suggest have helped me restore my connection. So now I'm sitting up in a wheelchair at the public access computer, just trying to get a little caught up so that folks will know and understand that I'm still OK and receiving my treatment right on schedule. And once I get back to my regular computer, I'll try posting the photo that goes with the headline.

Meanwhile, from all reports the Sunday service at First Parish came off perfectly smoothly in my absence, just as they have pretty much every Sunday for the past several centuries. Our church treasurer (himself a preacher's kid) read my sermon in such a way that my "authorial" voice was present even though he obviously wasn't me, and I'm told that my message on Volunteerism (which I'd preached before years ago on Nantucket) was clearly heard and understood. But I would have loved to have been there to see the reaction to one of the illustrations I offer of a "real" volunteer: Jim Bowie asking four strong men to carry his bed across the line Colonel Travis had drawn with his sword in the sand at the Alamo, since he couldn't walk across it himself. Now THAT'S a Volunteer!

There was apparently another very nice moment in the service when one of the lay worship leaders passed a stuffed moose around the Meeting House, and everyone in the congregation who wanted to gave it a hug. Later on one of my visitors brought the moose with them up to my hospital room, so that I could receive that same hug in person -- along with cards and posters from the Sunday School students, and such an outpouring of good thoughts and prayers and warm wishes from the members of that community. It feels so mysteriously tremendous and fascinating: I've been preaching this "doctrine" (with evolving conviction and sophistication, I like to think, but mostly just on faith), for about thirty years now..."By their fruits shall ye know them," "People are Precious," "Wir alles sind Gotts Kinder," "Be the Change You Hope to See," "Pay it Forward," "It's a Wonderful Life." And now suddenly it turns out to be true. It's enough to bring tears to my eyes. It's almost enough to make a believer out of me.

But enough of this sentimental silliness. How 'bout them Jayhawks?