Busy Weekend

Whew! I've been quite busy this weekend. I got up early on Saturday because I had been elected as a commisioner to the Presbytery meeting being held that day. It was a confusing meeting with a motion from the Peacemaking committee on a resolution opposing going to war with Iraq at this time. There was a motion to refer the motion back to committee which was rejected, a substitute motion, ammendments to both the original motion and the substitute motion, then the substitute motion was defeated and the original motion was passed as ammended. It was very interesting and I was relatively pleased with the result. Like anything done by committee, especially a committee of hundreds, this was not necessarily the best resolution ever written, but I am glad that the Presbytery was able to express opposition to the current call to war.

The rest of the Presbytery meeting was fairly routine, though it is always exciting to see candidates for the ministry getting approved in their calls, which we did in the afternoon.

During a break I got to speak with Bob Horne who had just been presented with the Peacemaker of the Year award by the Presbytery that same morning (there was little discussion and no opposition when that motion was made) and whom I had met during a church school class about peacemaking issues just a week ago. He remembered me and thanked me for my comments during the class (we hadn't had a chance to talk after the class as I had gone directly to the choir room, as usual) for which I was most grateful. While we were talking he mentioned that Walter Wink would be the featured speaker at the Peacemaking conference in Montreat this coming year! That sounds really exciting and I plan to find out more about that. The Peacemaking conference I attended in Montreat 10 years ago still ranks as my favorite Montreat conference.

After the meeting I ran some errands. I stopped and bought some food for the church luncheon which we had today. Then I stopped and talked to a friend of mine with whom I am working to put up a web site for his business. When I got home it was about 4:30. After talking briefly with MM I then went on to the pot-luck filk sing which I mentioned in another note (I brought some homemade potato salad from Mr. Krogers). I didn't get home until well after midnight and didn't get to bed until almost 2:00am.

This morning I woke up just in time to get up, shower, dress, and get to church school late. Then to choir and worship which was a little rough as I had strained my voice a little when I pitched a song I sang too high the night before.

After worship I went to the Lunch and Learn which featured a young woman who had spent some time recently in Israel with Care delivering medical supplies to the Palestinans. I'm afraid I didn't fully pull my weight as a member of the Fellowship committee on this as the rest of the committee pretty well had everything set up by the time I got there. Usually we have between 20 and 30 people for these Lunch and Learn presentations, but with the concern over the middle east lately we had fully 50 people there today. It was a well done and moving presentation.

After cleaning up after the Lunch and Learn I met with my fellow co-chair of the Fellowship committee and discussed the budget for next year. We came up with some ideas which we'll discuss with Stewardship and Finance before presenting them to the session at our next meeting.

I then thought about going to a local meeting of Not In Our Name which I mentioned earlier. However, I decided to stay home and catch up on some things which also allowed MM time to go visit her parents which we do too infrequently. One of us had to stay to wait for a call from Alex as he had taken the afternoon to go to a Magic the Gathering tournament and would need a ride home. I even managed to get a short nap before Alex called.

It was nice to be home and have a chance to share a delicious meal together as a family. We watched Iron Chef!

After supper Jessica called! That is always a joy. Both MM&I got to speak with her before she had to let us go so she could get some studying done. She did admit that she had... relocated my collection of Indigo Girls CDs. Of course, the fact that I hadn't missed them over the last few months is an indication that I haven't been greatly inconvenienced.

I then went back to church to pick up the extra food that I had forgotten this afternoon so that we could put it in the freezer. After repacking the food in freezer bags and putting it away I finally got a chance to sit at the computer and decided to update my blog and let you know why I haven't gotten around to writing my next "Beyond Theism" piece. Maybe after I finish cleaning up the kitchen and walking the dogs. We'll have to wait and see.

Posted by JoKeR at September 29, 2002 08:42 PM