June So Soon?

And it looks like I am lapsing into a Monday, Wednesday, Friday posting cycle...which may or may not be sustainable...or enough. It's not as if I don't have plenty to write about. But the more I have to write about, the less time I have to write about it...and so it spirals down and down and down into the dungeon...or maybe up and up and up to the steeple instead. I guess I kinda like the second image a little better. Right now all I really know is that my legs are really sore.

Day surgery at Maine Med this morning/afternoon to have a Medi-Port installed for my chemotherapy. I THINK that's how it's spelled. No worries, no hassles, no complications...and everyone assures me that life will be much easier from here on out, tough stick that I am. Yesterday's Religious Education Service was also really a delight; "YADRE" (Young Adult Director of Religious Education) Rebecca Hinds preached an excellent homily first time out of the gate, and it really made me feel proud...both for her, and for having had the...well, let's call it wisdom...to hire her in the first place. And her invented acronym really cracked me up, since around my family we are already Madre (Margaret), Padre (moi) and Daughdre (Stephenie -- also sometimes spelled Dadre). So now another nickname for the list!

This has been a tough year on our entire staff, both because of my illness and because we are all basically brand new here, myself obviously included. I haven't been around the past six months to mentor Rebecca like I assured her I would when we hired her, and yet she has done an excellent job of finding the resources she needs in the congregation and among her local colleagues. And the same could also be said of our new administrator, Barbara Simons, whose job this year quite frankly has been simply overwhelming, especially since my first "supervisory" instruction to her was basically "go figure out what this job is all about and come back and tell me what it is." Charlie Grindle -- our interim Music Director -- is at least an experienced hand, but has been away at his own seminary program and well out of the loop at First Parish until last December. So it is really only our sexton, Moe Blanchard, who has any significant contiguous time in the job. So yes, lots of miscues and dropped balls. But you know, we made it anyway. And now it's almost time to start putting things to bed, and planning what we want to do both the same and differently next year.

Anyway, heavy chemo Wednesday, Flower Communion (and the Annual Meeting and Annual Picnic) Sunday, and then we are technically into the Summer Services: Fathers Day on the 15th, Pride Sunday on the 22nd; depending on how I'm feeling, I may actually attempt a "rehab" sermon on July 6th, when we would otherwise probably just not open the doors. That's still aways away though. And if I've learned ANYTHING from this illness, it's that I shouldn't try to plan these things TOO far ahead....