Halloween in Ontario

When our son was young we used to joke that Halloween was his favourite religious holiday--we used to go all out, pumpkins with all the fixings.  I think it is something that is most fun when we are young and when we have young people in the house.
One of my favourite memories around Halloween was going all dressed up to our son's French Immersion class at Queen Elizabeth School.  I was "une sorciere" and went to deliver the then always homemade treats.  After having fun with the kids (in bad French!), I had to race off to see a retired priest in the neighbourhood who was supplying a recommendation for me to be considered as a postulant for ordination in our diocese, so as to go to ACPO (Anglican weekend from Hell) to be assessed.  As he answered the door to give me the letter he had written, he remarked "Some of the strangest folk are apply for ordination these days".
This year's Halloween paled in comparison. We actually had forgotten that Saturday was the night, and had made plans to go out for dinner.  Mike carved the pumpkin, put a light in it, and we left it and the box of candy at the front door (Hershey's Cookies and Cream).  A few were removed but, sadly, the little monsters of the neighbourhood are growing up and have yet to be replaced.

Thanksgiving Sunday with the Family

I have only had the opportunity to have Thanksgiving for the whole family a couple of times. Partly, because we have it on the Sunday and partly because when we really get together, there are too many for my table. A dozen friendly people is all I can seat at the table. It is usually at the home of my eldest sister, but this year things worked out so that Mike and I could host a party of ten.

Thanksgiving in Three Part Harmony

I have finished my Thanksgiving Services in the Parish just this last Sunday. The very interesting thing about Thanksgiving in a six point parish is that the original pairs still invite the other church to their service and expect the other one to close that day (In faint but eternal hope that the other congregation will actually respond to their invitation to attend the service). This leads to three Thanksgiving Services for me as the associate priest in this parish.

The first of these occurred on October 4, the weekend prior to Thanksgiving; a service that St. John's in the Woods at Aughrim calls Harvest Home. The decorations are always right out of the fields and gardens and, as this year I celebrated a wedding there the day before, the ladies of the church went all out for both the bride and the Sunday service. (I do hope to get a picture of the church and add it in as it was exceptionally lovely.) Their historically companion church, St. Matthew's in Florence held their service last weekend.

The actual weekend of Thanksgiving, I was posted at Christ Church, Dresden, and St. Stephen's, Thamesville. It is almost a tradition that I will be late going from the services in Dresden to St. Thomas -- even though the distance is quite 'doable' without doing the 'clergy clip'. But the folks at Dresden are a sociable lot and always have coffee and tasty things following the service. I shake hands with everyone as they go down stairs and listen for potential concerns and then move down to grab a coffee to go (in my 'Timmies' mug.) As a result, I am generally about 10 minutes late for the next service. The wonder woman of the parish, who refuses to be an official lay reader, faithfully starts the service for me, handing it off to me after I get there generally during the hymn of praise or the Gloria. Lunch at "Mary's" usually follows the service with three or four of the five or six present showing up. This means getting home about two.
Not a problem generally, but on Thanksgiving Sunday, (11 October) I was having ten for our family dinner and logistics were pretty interesting.

Left Behind

I feel as if I am part of a bad book right now. I keep looking at the great blogs of friends who have gone before. Wonderful things are happening to those folks, and if I weren't so happy for them I would be insanely jealous. For starters, Spring is happening; not to mention language lessons, Alpine meadows and interesting food (always a hit), and apparently even new tramps (looks remarkably similar to the old tramp).
However, it was sunny in southwestern Ontario today so things are looking up, marginally. The dilemma that exists right now is whether or not to book a vacation. The place that spoils us rotten -- near Tulum, Mexico -- has massive sales on now, costing just over a third of what it did the last time we went. So do we save the cookies for a quick dash to another country or do we take a couple of weeks off and revel in the warm waters of the Caribbean. This decision needs to be made soon; as well as wanting to have my vacation before Advent, arrives, I am keeping in mind that the weather up here in November is well past its "best by" date. The Pictures are of the view outside our third floor suite, the bestest buddy who I always take with me, and one of the thousands of ceynote that dot the Mayan Riviera. Exquisite natural variations of the "swimmin' hole" believed to have been caused by the same asteroid that formed the gulf of Mexico and wiped out the dinosaurs.

I didn't realize

I didn't realize how much time it takes to do a blog. It is much like an on-line journal including the oh, drat I didn't write in my journal today. Apart from behind in posting at all, I am really behind in posting pictures, some of these were taken a couple of weeks ago. My next task is figuring out how to use the online album system so any one who is interested can go to it and look at the pictures. We went up to North Bay to our pals Gee & Gee's daughter's wedding. Had a great time and took some pictures on our way up and back. I was hoping to get some shots of the autumn colours for my screen saver and memory photos--Just my luck--it was a glorious fall for all of us, even in the near North, and only a couple of trees were tinted with orange. It was also so warm that the water in Lake Nipissing was warm enough to stand in--I wished that I had brought my bathing suit. North Bay and that Lake have some fond memories for me. When I was very young, I went there with my parents and grandparents to the lake (they were fishing) I have a very vague memory of having my picture taken in the water with my eldest sister. I remember being very cold in July there, and now I have a photo of me mid calf in the water. We did get some fun pictures in the trip -- the Mennonite horse and cart. Mount Forest's sign (NOW we know why all the planes were hovering over the corn field), and the two old broads hanging out in the water--to protect the faint of heart, I didn't include the legs.

I generally have my camera with me in my purse. Driving down country roads, one frequently has the opportunity to get a picture of something that will only come once. I was using my cell phone for a while, and had some great shots of the tree arches on the way from Aughrim to Florence, but they were lost when I (are you ready for this??) dropped my phone into the water above the Mormon Flats Dam in Arizona (at Tortilla Flats). Brilliant. I have some great pictures of a flock of trumpeter swans on the new cell phone. I caught that picture on the way to Dresden from Thamesville...on my way back to celebrate a baptism, after the two morning services. Don't panic, liturgical folk, it was not a private baptism, but fully open and well attended--it just couldn't be done in the morning for logistical reasons.
I still haven't figured out out to download from my cell phone to the computer (such a sharp curve, so little time) Sadly, (Does anybody know how?) So, now I take my camera, and keep it cleared in case of stupidity.

I figure that if the Divine One has use for me in New Zealand, then I am going to want some pictures of the roads paved, unpaved and muddy that I have sped over the last several years. I was going to put some on the bottom of this post, but I have yet to figure out how to do that or if I can. I will just have to

The second day...well, the second day for actually writing something. Continuity is difficult if one is organizationally challenged or, if one's computers are found out to be doing odd things or, if one has forgotten exactly where one has put one's blog and how it can be accessed. I am here now--In regards to the position I spoke about in the last post, I was not short-listed for the position, and if it is anything like being short-sheeted, I am ok with that. In honesty, I was disappointed, but the church was definitely program sized and I know that I would be far more effective and comfortable in a smaller parish. I was blues-ed out for about half an hour and then picked myself up. I sincerely believe that the divine has put this out there in my life and I had better keep going until the ministry that needs me and I that I need presents itself.
I contacted another diocese for permission to apply to postings and was granted permission. At this point I have two applications there for very different ministries.

In its own way, this has been a growing edge. Procedures are very different from my current diocese. When one applies for a job here, one phones or writes the bishop who has oversight of the position and forwards a current C.V. and record of education document. The bishop then considers who s/he thinks is suitable for the position and those people are the only applicants the parish sees. One assumes that the bishop is in contact with the archdeacon--and that may or may not be a good thing. Unless one is chosen by the parish, not a whisper is heard; no letter or note of receipt, no letter of rejection--nothing--one realizes after the announcement comes out on the diocesan mail that one is out of luck. After a couple of these, one begins to sense one's worth to the hierarchy. Pastoral care be damned.

In New Zealand, after expressing interest to the Diocesan bishop, the applicant is sent a copy of the parish profile and the parish statistics. One parish included a recent demographic study of the area done by the towns that are home to the parish. The applicant must then respond to the profile as well as supply a reflection of ministry. Along with the C.V., police check, photograph and names and contact information of references, these documents are sent to the Diocesan bishop. These are then read by a committee in both the diocesan office and parish and the references are contacted. All of them.

I like this process.
Firstly, I felt that I really had a chance for someone to take a look at me. Here, I do not believe that our bishops really know us, and there are some very understandable reasons for that. In my opinion they are generally overworked and under appreciated. For the most part they can only go by the quick encounters that they have with their priests, and the opinions of others who have contact with them. Because most of the priests work outside of Mecca, and are therefore seen infrequently, much of our bishop's knowledge of their representatives is either hearsay or impersonal sound bytes, neither of which offer a real picture of the priest. I respect for our Bishops' quick intervention when a priest is in mental, physical or spiritual distress, but that snapshot is not the picture that most of us want the Bishop to have.
Secondly, I really feel that the New Zealand process was good in terms of candidates being able to reflect upon their ministry--has it changed over the years since university? Where do we find our joy, what is our growing edge? As for the parish profile--As a lay person on committee, I would have been delighted to see a document acknowledging and responding to the work the parish had done. I have been on hiring committees that eventually wondered if the chosen priest had even read the profile sent to them.

So now I am in the process of waiting again. I know that this is good; it is a time to reflect and to catch up on the parish I am currently called to serve. Time to wait, time to visit, time to love.