The Week of 1/13-1/21- Prayers, Wedding & Ordination

The Week of 1/13-1/21
New Things:  Prayers, Wedding & Ordination
Inspiration: St. Hilary—Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher of the Faith, and Doctor of the Church, Andy & Kim, Matt, St. David's 

Flower Girl

Reflection: Hello again! So, this marks the new weekly format for 365. I have to say that not having the daily responsibility of updating the blog has been really nice, but I have lost some of the drive without the accountability.  I am thinking that I will have to return to the daily format at some point during the year (like Lent and other major days and seasons) when I really need the added help with the discipline. We will see. Anyway, here are some of the highlights from this week:

St. Hilary and Crew

On 1-13, I celebrated the Feast of St. Hilary of Poitiers—Bishop of Poitiers, Teacher of the Faith, and Doctor of the Church. You may remember my celebration from last year (found here) when I honored the life of "The Hammer of the Arians"by learning a new hymn since he was not only a scholar but a musician and hymn writer. Before I hit the road to make my way to Reading, I ducked into the Drew Seminary Chapel to learn some Psalm settings that are in the Methodist Hymnal which I had never heard before. I was in there singing for a good 45 minuets and felt really grateful for the whole week and that moment. Hilary was one of my inspirations for beginning this Doctoral program in the first place, so it seemed fitting to cap off this week of learning this way.  I am still trying to figure out my nick-name: "Hammer of the Pot-Roasts" never seemed to catch on. Any suggestion? 

The Wedding Party

The next day, 1-14, was crazy! I did the very new thing of attending an ordination and a wedding on the same day. I made my way to Philly in the early morning light to be a part of my colleague and friend Matt's ordination to the priesthood. It was a really beautiful service filled with many blessings. The music was gorgeous and I was so touched to see a huge crowd from St. David's in attendance. Also, I got to see my friend Dave from NYC. You may remember him from Vocare last year. Yeah, Matt!

Matt, Me, and Dave

After that, I raced back to Reading for Andy and Kim's wedding! They had a lovely ceremony which included the handsome Ken as a groomsman and the beautiful Delia as a flower girl.  After the service we headed to the nuptial feast at the historic Lincoln Hotel where we danced the night away with some Moravian friends that I had not seen for years. A lovely night for a lovely couple. Congratulations!

Go Greyhounds!

However, the best story from this weekend was probably when I got back home. I was on the road well before dawn on Sunday morning to make it back in time to shower and change before services leaving Delia and Ken asleep in the hotel. Unfortunately, it wasn't until I got home that I realized that I did not have my house keys. So, I headed up to the church to see if they had a spare. They didn't. Frank (the Rector) came down to the house with me to see if we could break in and helped me literally climbed up the rain spout of our second story pouch believing that the back door might be unlocked. It wasn't. I used Frank's knife to cut open a screen on a window that appeared unlocked from the outside. It wasn't.  In fact, it was actually painted shut--something I did not realize until I had already ruined the screen. After I had climbed back down (almost falling on Frank in the process), Tom (one of the other Associates) tried to get one of the storm widows off and open an unlocked window. He couldn't. At least not with out a third trip to the church to get a drill which he used to get enough of the storm window frame off for us to get out fingers underneath and slide it open. Then I had to crawl in through the window. All the while, parishioners are starting to show up and I'm still in my jeans and boots and obviously locked out in the cold. Super Professional.

Perhaps, "Hammer of the House Keys?" "Hammer of the Graceful First Impressions?"