Day 16

I made it to church this morning. My grandmother was so eager to get out the door (well in advance of the necessary time) I felt like commenting "It's like Jesus himself is going to be there..." but I didn't think it would be well received. Then I went back to reflect on my catechism / confirmation classes (I had two as it was part of the private school curriculum and my sunday school) Really, if you aren't going to church with the attitude that Jesus himself is going to be there, then you probably don't need to go at all. I mean to say, that's a sign of strong faith to believe in the divine presence in church, but the music and the socializing are additional perks.

Anyway, the tiny (quite picturesque, I'll photo it on a future visit) country church has an incredible pastor who I've enjoyed on family visits to this area previously. She (the pastor) basically the target audience for Kashi foods; a vegetarian, hiker, philosophist, yoga-instructor. She's very much outside the expectations of this church's image but also exactly what they needed, so hey, maybe there is a divine plan.

Anyway, she's smart and creative and a great speaker, so I don't mind getting up to go. And this Sunday she talked about (Simon) Peter's Confession, and how we associate the term "confession" with sins, crimes, etc. However the word means to speak what's on your mind. She did a cool experiment with the congregation where we confessed our thoughts on our weekend in less than a minute to someone we came with. It was interesting to hear how she described the human mind's ability to recollect details as far back as our first memories of self-awareness and then tied it in to Jesus and his disciples walking along. I thought my generation might be slightly better at confessing because we have text messages and social networks and blogs like this one. The "homework" from church was to be more mindful of what we meditate ("chew over", previous week's sermon) on each day so that the things we confess to the world are truly things we value.

For dinner (lunch) my aunt and uncle came and joined us, and brought OMGTASTESSOOGOOD sweet corn from their garden.




Afterwards everyone had hearty naps, it was the right weather and mood for napping around here.

This evening my Grandpa asked if I'd be interested in throwing beanbags. Now, keep in mind, I insist on going down the stairs ahead of him in case he slips, and he's probably lost 100 lbs in the past decade, but bless him anyway, at ninety years old he can still hurl those beanbags with ridiculous accuracy. He beat me all three games 27-15, 21-19, 21-0. I was grateful they have no skunk rule.

Today I harvested: Humility
And petted 0 cats.

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