A HUGE thanks to MaryBeth for sending a fabulous link with her comment, which led me to the even-worse-than-authentic-Precious-Moments nativity scene you see, in all its glory.
Head over to The Cavalcade of Bad Nativities for some enjoyment of your own.
Note from this blogger: between Advent preparations, Thanksgiving travels, and the complicated, emotional process of accepting a new call, blogging has taken a back seat lately. I will do my best to be more regular about writing in a few weeks. Maybe post-Christmas. But for now, at least a little fun with the Friday five is a nice break in the day.
Please tell us your least favorite/most annoying seasonal....
1) dessert/cookie/family food
Lutefisk. No question. Gelatinous fish dried in lye and then re-enervated in soggy white sauce: even real Norwegians don't eat this crap anymore.
2) beverage (seasonal beer, eggnog w/ way too much egg and not enough nog, etc...)
Hate eggnog. Hate it. Makes me gag.
3) tradition (church, family, other)
You know, I'm coming up blank on this one. No annoying traditions here, I guess.
4) decoration
I hate those blow-up oversized snowglobes people put in their front yards. (Or anything in the blow-up family: big snowmen, Winnie the Pooh and his friends decorating the tree, Rudolph, etc.) I just don't get it. They're ugly. And they make your house look like the residence of a creepy Disney-phile who's gone on the It's A Small World ride one too many times.
5) gift (received or given) 
I collect nativity scenes. I have many lovely and beautiful ones. But I also have a few humdingers people have given me over the years, including a plasticine Alaskan Eskimo nativity. It's not kitchsy enough to be fun and not hideous enough to throw out. Just strange.
BONUS: SONG/CD that makes you want to tell the elves where to stick it.
Anything by an artist dressed in a too-tight red elf costume with fur around the cleavage. Mariah Carey, maybe. I don't enjoy looking at the cover and wondering how many hookers actually do work at the North Pole. One too many ho ho ho's, if you know what I mean. There is also some sort of pole-related joke here, but I'll let that one go.
You know, this was kind of cathartic. All my holiday annoyances out in print. I feel much better.
So yesterday was the big day: I (finally) had to tell my staff and council that I have been offered another call. I have been dreading this for weeks. Make no mistake: it was a hard and exhausting day. But, all things considered, it went very well.
I started with our newest staff member, the Director of Music. Because he had been hired only four months ago, and came to this congregation under the assumption he would be working with me for - well, longer than this - I thought he deserved to know first. One of the things that consistently amazes and delights me about this guy is his maturity level; he's 22 years old, but you'd think he's at least 30. His first response? "Wow; congratulations!"
(As an aside, I have been so focused on how hard this is that I forgot it is exciting too. My husband has said "congratulations" to me, and so have many family members, but somehow, coming from a colleague, it was different. I think that small moment changed the whole day.)
Next, to tell the rest of the staff. The secretary, the youth & family director, and one of our two visitation pastors. (Another aside: this particular visitation pastor used to be my full-time colleague. Five years ago, at age 45, he was diagnosed with a terminal brain cancer. He had a biopsy and numerous, serious complications as a result. He has great trouble communicating but now works very part-time as a visitation pastor. I could write a whole book about this experience, not to mention many blog entries, but suffice it to say that our relationship is complicated.)
That, too, went fairly well. Everyone was surprised and, while certainly no one was happy - though, again, very gracious to me - they took it well. We talked for about 45 minutes.
Then I waited for six hours to tell the executive board. Let me tell you this: I accomplished absolutely nothing yesterday during that time. Nada. And I had plenty to do. Oh well.
I had called this exec meeting; we don't meet every month unless specifically requested or we feel there is a particular reason for doing so. I had one minor issue to discuss and then I dropped the bomb. It went something like this:
"I need to tell you that I have received a call to another congregation."
Long pause.
Treasurer (a dear man who can be blunt as a rock but who has gone to the wall for me numerous times): "Can we talk you out of it?"
Which broke the ice, and we had a good conversation. They wanted a little more from me than I can really give - names of other pastors I would suggest, whether they can choose their own interim - but it was good.
And the best part, which resulted in the title of this post, is that they decided we ought not to tell the whole council until I have made a decision. In all honesty, that was the part I was dreading the most: first, telling the council; and second, the extremely high likelihood that the news would then find its way into the congregation, no matter how much they promised to keep it quiet. (12 council members, 12 spouses...you do the math.)
I did feel like it was a stay of execution. The ELCA way of doing this is that you are obligated to inform your council when you receive another call, whether or not you intend to accept it (or have decided yet). You only inform the whole congregation when you have made a decision.
What I really worried about was rumor getting out of hand, during an already emotionally charged time of the year. By not telling the council - or, by fulfilling that requirement via the executive board - I think we've minimized the chances of that as much as possible.
I feel good. I admitted to the staff that, as hard as it was to tell them this, it was also something of a relief to tell them the truth. In a post from awhile ago, I used the image of Hester Prynne to describe how I was feeling during the interview stage; I've heard numerous pastors describe the whole thing as the ecclesiastical equivalent of an affair. (We assume these pastors are speaking metaphorically only and with no personal experience, but it's striking to me how often that image comes up. Certainly says something about the depth of attachment we develop to our congregations.)
To tell the whole council was, as I discussed with a blogging friend the other night, like saying to your spouse, "Well, I've been cheating on you for several months but I haven't technically decided if I'm going to leave you. I'll let you know in thirty days."
This is not a good feeling. (And I have no doubt that actually telling your spouse about an affair would be thousands upon thousands of times more difficult than the conversation I had with the board. But there's still truth in how this image conveys betrayal.)
So I can head into Thanksgiving with a reasonably light heart. Now we just need to make a decision. It's almost a foregone conclusion at this point; I have suspicions that both Beloved and I are dancing around the common assumption that we're going, but no one wants to be the first to say it.
I knew that five very specific people were praying for me as I headed into that exec meeting, and I can't tell you how meaningful that was. To the five, my gratitude.
Also, I got my hair cut and colored today. Now I feel sassy. Sadly, no camera to prove the sassiness. But it's real: trust me.
I'm at Luther Seminary this week, my alma mater, taking a class for continuing education. The class, called Preaching Difficult Texts, has definitely been worthwhile and I know I'll have more individual posts on various consciousness-streams-thereby-produced later, but for now, just a few observations about returning to the home turf:
1. I am obviously getting old because the student who served bread at chapel communion today looked about twelve years old.
2. It is both enormously wonderful to see old professors and hear them again; it is simultaneously wistful to see them aging more quickly than I would like.
3. Although I have long been someone who scoffs heartily at those who disdain seminary professors, saying they are out of touch because they are not in the parish - and I still find that a largely unconvincing argument - there have been a few moments during this class when I have thought to myself, "well, you might be able to get away with that here, but obviously you haven't been in the parish for thirty years." This is much like my swearing up-and-down, in my teenage years, that I would NEVER EVER EVER turn into my mother. Enough said.
4. Seminary friends are still, nearly eight years after graduation and despite being scattered around the country, the very best friends of my whole life.
5. I would really like to be a professor but the truth is, I just don't want to do the work of getting a PhD. Maybe this will change someday.
6. It does the ego a bit of good to be remembered by profs. I am not above this.
7. The seminary bookstore makes me sad that all I have within striking distance of my home is Christian Supply.
8. I am really glad not to live in Minneapolis anymore. Damn, it's cold.
9. A great many pastors, when raising their hand in class, are only doing this in order to hear themselves talk. They do not have an actual question. This was true in seminary and it doesn't change. I am just going to have to find a way to stop being inordinately annoyed by this.
10. Last, but not least, my alcohol tolerance level has obviously gone way down in the parish. So have my pool-playing skills. These, too, are reasons for doing continuing ed with eight of your very best seminary friends.
I just want to point out that tonight on Grey's Anatomy, a woman came into the ER because she had fallen down the stairs. She was worried about her infant daughter but insisted that she, herself, was fine. Just fine.
And what happened to that woman tonight on Grey's Anatomy?
SHE DIED.
I'm just saying.
In case there was any doubt about the post below. Which was written hours before the show aired, for the record.
(I'm pretty fine. The bruise on my left shin is epic, but the ankle is doing surprisingly well.)
We have had an existential crisis in our house this week: the television died.
Not just any television. This is Beloved's bachelor pride-and-joy, a 57-inch big screen. I hated it when we started dating and was very unsure that I could actually be with a guy who would have a big-screen, until we watched a few movies on it and then - ah, the shame - I became a convert. Smaller would still be okay with me, but this one is already paid for. So we'll stick with it.
Naturally, the repairman is going to come any day now, which is what he's been saying for the last week. On the positive side, we've been getting a lot of reading done.
Yesterday morning, I fell down the stairs leaving the house. It had rained a little, just enough to make the wood deck slippery, and somehow I took a header down the back deck, hitting my legs on the way down and landing face-down (though thankfully not on my face) on the ground. Ouch. I sprained my right ankle and gave myself a huge goose-egg on my left shin. Ouch ouch. I was on my way to meet a friend for coffee, so after I picked myself up and sat for a minute, I decided I was well enough to go. This was very likely my need for caffeine speaking more loudly than the pain.
By the end of our coffee hour, my ankle hurt so badly that I started to worry something might be really wrong. I ended up at the urgent care clinic ("urgent" being a relative term, seeing as how it took them nearly 90 minutes to see me). Mainly, I was worried that I might have a hairline fracture and since I'm flying to Minneapolis on Sunday for a week, I really didn't want to end up 1500 miles away with a broken foot.
But the real reason behind my clinic visit, the image running through my head, was this: you know the person who comes into the ER on Grey's Anatomy and refuses to get checked out, insists he or she is just fine, and then walks away without ever having a doctor investigate their pain? You know that person? You know what always happens to that person on Grey's Anatomy? THEY DIE. Every time.
It turns out my foot is badly sprained but not broken. I will survive. Also, the doctor who saw me was no McDreamy (though he was very kind). So life goes on. But we better get the TV fixed because, you know, TV can save your life.
Or it can cost you an inordinate amount in copays because you are paranoid. Hmmm. Maybe we should leave it broken.
Mother Laura at RevGals is asking about interviews...and yes, I have some thoughts on that! Here goes...
1. What was the most memorable interview you ever had?
I'll choose a portion of the interview I had for the church I serve right now. It was an all-weekend affair. On Sunday morning, I met with whoever wanted to show up at an adult forum and answered whatever they wanted to ask. The first question, right off the bat, was this: "Do you have a man in your life?" (I was single at the time.) I was a bit too stunned to answer immediately, but before I could, someone else in the room told the questioner, "You can't ask that!" We all laughed it off and there was a pause and then, BAM! the same guy asked it again: "No, seriously. Is there?" Before I could stop myself, I said, "Let's just say Jesus and leave it at that." I don't think they saw that one coming. Either that got me the call or I'm lucky I got it in spite of myself.
2. Have you ever been the interviewer rather than the interviewee? If so, are you a tiger, a creampuff, or somewhere in between?
I've been an interviewer for some staff positions. I try to make people feel comfortable. Not exactly a creampuff, but not a tiger either.
3. Do phone interviews make you more or less nervous than in-person ones?
I've done more phone interviews as the interviewer. So I've never been particularly nervous: I just really miss the in-person interaction and the chance to read body language. It's just not satisfying.
That said, it does help you narrow down the candidates.
4. What was the best advice you ever got to prepare for an interview? How about the worst?
I'm sure my dad told me this at my very first job interview ever, in high school: "Be yourself." This is his standard advice (he just gave it again a few weeks ago when I interviewed for Potential Future Congregation).
I can't think of any truly bad advice I've ever gotten about interviews.
5. Do you have any pre-interview rituals that give you confidence?
I like to dress well. Not too formal, but not sloppy. It definitely improves my confidence. Especially really, really good shoes. Materialism aside, good shoes seriously do change the way I walk.
Best wishes to any and all RevGals who are interviewing soon, or who have. Being mid-interview process myself, I know how it feels...fun, scary, exciting, overwhelming, and then some. Peace to you all.
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