My son in whom I am very pleased.

I can hardly believe it's been three weeks since I wrote anything. Time has once again gotten away from me.

Tomorrow is a great example of how time gets away. It's my son's 15th birthday.

I'm not quite sure now it happened, but he's taller than me even when I wear heels. And his voice is deeper. And he's got fuzz on his lip.

And now, when girls call his name and wave, the hair on the back of my neck stands up.

Of course, this is the same boy who used to play with my hair while I read to him.

This is the same boy who locked himself IN the bathroom when he was four and couldn't get himself out.

This is the same boy who wanted to know if we could find somebody to trade with if we didn't like the new baby (Rachel).

This is the same boy who told the doctor that the purpose of a ceiling was to hold the fan up.

When the rest of the Cub Scout pack was asking the visiting banker how much money was in his bank and how much a car cost, this is the 9 year-old boy who asked him to explain, "What is economics?"

This is the same boy who has endured terrible pain and anguish over the last five years while we have sought a way to control his horrible migraines.

This is the same boy who has been absent from school more than he has attended in the last four years, and manages to get As and Bs in honors and AP classes.

This is the same boy who was too shy to order his own kids meal at the burger joint, but who now teaches skills to younger scouts.

This is the same boy who writes fiction so well that a literary agent, upon reading Chapter 1 of a novel he started, told him to finish it, send it in, and not to tell anyone his age.

This is the same boy who questioned God's love for him when he wasn't healed, and came up with the right answer anyway.

This is the same boy who reduces his sister to tears telling her she has rabies and scurvy and leprosy (or scurvaceous rabid leprosy complicated with dandruff), but is genuinely concerned when she says she feels bad.

How did that little baby who sucked his thumb the day he was born turn into this strong, compassionate, resilient, and interesting person?

And for all his amazing accomplishments, he's not perfect. (No, Nana, he's not!)

But he is my son, and I am very pleased with him. And I am grateful to be his Mom and watch him grow up.

Well, God is watching us, His children, too. Do you think He's amazed at how much we've grown? Is He surprised at how mature we are? Or are we late bloomers - a spiritual failure to launch living in the basement?

Is He very pleased?

anything but typical

One Foundation

One thing I love about my church is that there are very few cradle Episcopalians.

Let me explain. Lots of people have come together to my church who were raised in other churches. They bring with them other points of view and traditions.... and music. My friend, Carol, who was raised Lutheran, teaches me all the old German hymns. We find that we're singing the same hymn texts with different tunes. I teach her the Baptist versions. D-Ray keeps reminding me of how things are written in the Methodist hymnal. His wife, Gina, and I sang a song out of the Pentecostal Holiness hymnal from my husband's family's church that I had no idea she knew, and our friend, Mary Kay, another former Lutheran, said it sounded like Baptists had landed. Jim brought me music from Handel's Messiah that he wants to sing. Linda and the Esparagozas come over from the Catholic church to do music on Sunday mornings and bring all sorts of folk mass music I'd never heard until we came to King of Peace. Bill brings his dulcimer and plays along. Today he surprised everyone by playing our new piano for communion music. And of course, those who were raised Episcopalians share their hymns with me as well, although some are a little fuzzy on why we got a piano instead of an organ. We all share and are better for being part of the mix.

You see, God's love for us and our love for Him is the common root for our life in communion with each other. While we may have different views on expressing our faith, on worship, on spirituality, on what a "good Christian" looks like, we are bound together into one community by Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane - that His disciples and followers would be one, just as He and the Father were one. He knew that while He is our foundation we needed to support each other for our survival.

Holy Week is a time that liturgical churches get back to the reason we're here. We wouldn't be here if Jesus was just a Godly prophet. The Church is in existence because of Jesus' sacrifice, death, and resurrection. He is our foundation, our rock, our cornerstone.


anything but typical


P.S. Apologies to my family for my getting carried away in all the excitement over the new piano and the preparations for Holy Week services. Thank you for all your encouragement and patience. (Did you know we got a new piano?)


The Church's One Foundation by Samuel J. Stone 1866

The Church’s one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord,
She is His new creation
By water and the Word.
From heaven He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her
And for her life He died.

She is from every nation,
Yet one o’er all the earth;
Her charter of salvation,
One Lord, one faith, one birth;
One holy Name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.

The Church shall never perish!
Her dear Lord to defend,
To guide, sustain, and cherish,
Is with her to the end:
Though there be those who hate her,
And false sons in her pale,
Against both foe or traitor
She ever shall prevail.

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

’Mid toil and tribulation,
And tumult of her war,
She waits the consummation
Of peace forevermore;
Till, with the vision glorious,
Her longing eyes are blest,
And the great Church victorious
Shall be the Church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won,
With all her sons and daughters
Who, by the Master’s hand
Led through the deathly waters,
Repose in Eden land.

O happy ones and holy!
Lord, give us grace that we
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee:
There, past the border mountains,
Where in sweet vales the Bride
With Thee by living fountains
Forever shall abide!