work blog

Here's the entrance to Zion Mennonite Church in Souderton.

They invited me to serve an interim term which ends the end of June, 2008.

If interested, you can follow my work blog at www.singzion.blogspot.com.

I think it's a real cool place. Two days a week I plan to be on these premises. It's Monterey the rest of the time.

inside Zion

Tuesday I forget about Monterey and Harmonies for the day and start my work at Zion. By the end of the day I shot this picture after working out some pieces on the organ. The benches face to the left, so this is looking out the right side of the sanctuary.

That evening the worship committee met at the pastor's house, planning for Advent.

I'm eager to do this work.

After Thanksgiving

All the big things--the wedding and Thanksgiving--are over. Now time to take a break.

How to kick back and relax a day? Go to the big, bustling city. Find the Renoir exhibit. The sign's big enough.

The museum itself is some kind of work of art. It must have just been scrubbed. The Renoir pieces were all landscapes, his earlier work. So beautiful while we are living in an autumnal picture of yellow and red trees.

On the way home we can't miss a stop at Ikea for an office storage unit and a Swedish meatball.

wedding rehearsal

Time stopped at Monterey last week. Part of the world stopped.

A major building block was to be laid in the edifice of life.

That was the matrimonial union of Joel and Steph. Big, fun, seismic events don't take place with the stroke of a pen, a punch of a key, or the mouthing of a word with just one or two witnesses.

Something real happens. Camels and goats change fields. Servants flock around the families and prepare food, set up meeting places, make music, write documents, prepare rituals. Civil servants at the town hall write this up for the official record. Newspapers print it. Artists skilled in beauty, mirth, culinary arts, and dance are summoned by the leaders of the clans.

The evening before the final event, all the major players gather and walk through the ritual. That's what a wedding rehearsal is. And here is Dorcas checking the rehearsal dinner tables.

By 6:30 p.m. the 30 persons came together and had Thai food here in the foyer of the East Chestnut Street Mennonite Church, Lancaster, Pa.

White oak pleads...

...pleads for a little bit more time. Look at those leaves straining to communicate. And that color--isn't that a shameless bargain for more life.

But the tree knows what time it is.

This white oak is growing in the southwest corner of our little triangle in Monterey. We chose it because the 1824 deed describes the lines of our lot as going from "the huge stone at the side of the road, direct south to the old white oak." The white oak in 1824 surely was original growth and could easily have been there since 1500. Now this upstart, no more than a teenager, is trying to push all limits since we gave it nutritional iron two years ago.

Behind it is the spruce we used as a live Christmas tree ten or so years ago. The weather will soon get freezing cold. The oak will hibernate. The spruce, tough it out. They each inspire me.