I got interviewed!
(I’m sitting in the church office right now.)
Author Archives: Jen
The Last Few Days
The last few days have been packed. I attended the first funeral on Wednesday (of the three active members of our church who died this past weekend) and it was very uplifting. Mary (the deceased) was an amazing woman and the readings were very powerful as were the chosen hymns. Afterwards, I and others stayed to transform the fellowship hall from church to dining room for Mary’s funeral luncheon.
Just before the second funeral, Jon told me that he and Bill had to head to Columbus to be with the family of a member of the church (D) who was having major heart surgery yesterday. His surgery was scheduled for 2:30 pm and he had a serious heart attack around 12:20. Thankfully, his son and wife were in the room and they got a code called in within 15 seconds. His brain was unfortunately without oxygen for a period of time, so his survival rate was put at 20%. After conducting two funerals, Bill and Jon were exhausted and Jon volunteered me to drive.
When we got into the hospital, D was still in surgery. We sat with his wife and his son until the surgeon called us in for a conference. I wasn’t expecting to be allowed in but they asked me to stay. (Usually on hospital visits, I bring a book or some crocheting and fold myself into a chair in the lobby for however long the visit takes.) D survived the surgery — praise God! The surgeon was really awesome and explained the situation, finishing with a request for Bill to pray for all of them — a very good thing in this situation. We sat with the family and comforted them until D was moved into ICU. Again, I was allowed to go into ICU but I did so only to find out where D was so I could direct Bill there later. Afterwards, we grabbed dinner at the Wendy’s in the hospital basement and headed back home so Jon and I could do visiting hours for the person to be buried today.
The funeral today went well — at least that’s what I heard. My job was getting the drinks and stuff ready and making sure our WELCA president sat down on occasion. 🙂 I also baby-sat the kitchen with our Church Council president while the ladies were at the funeral and John (CC pres) and I did some more prep work. The luncheon went well — WAY too much food but I limited myself to only what I was hungry for at the time.
No Internet Access
I currently have no Internet access because my IP is having wire problems or something. I’m blogging from Jon’s computer at the church. If you need to reach me in the next few days, email me at jen [at] peaceful, and I’ll have Jon check when he goes into the church office.
This isn’t bad because I’ve been trying to write a blog entry offline and it’s been difficult. I can focus on that entry this weekend since I’m not sure they’ll have anything fixed before Monday.
Quiet Blog
My blog may be really quiet for the next few days because I’m helping with the cooking and set-up for the funerals tomorrow and Thursday. As we’re worshipping in our fellowship hall while they replace the heating/air-conditioning system in the sanctuary, I’ll be putting away chairs and setting up tables while they’re doing the burial after the first funeral (which is the only one I wanted to attend) and then I’ll be helping with the cooking for the second funeral. On Thursday, I’ll be cooking all morning for the funeral and basically watching the kitchen because most of the ladies cooking will want to attend the funeral service (for someone who I pretty much knew just by name).
It’s going to be a crazy few days but I’m glad I volunteered to help out. Two of the three were active and faithfully attending until fairly recently and a lot of people are really in pain over the deaths. It’s one of the few times that I’m thankful that I’m only here temporarily — I have less attachment to the people than I would have if I’d attended here for years. Besides… many of the WELCA ladies are old enough to be my grandmothers and they all feel horrible about me being 2500 miles from my family members, so I get spoiled rotten by them as they try to compensate. 🙂
Three Deaths and a Wedding
In the last 24 hours, three people (two women and a man) have died at Jon’s internship site. Thus… three funerals will happen this week with a wedding on Saturday at a local church (our sanctuary is torn up to install a new heating/air-conditioning system). I knew one of the women sort of well so I am sad about her — she was in her 80’s and offered to teach Jon and I how to drive and me how to sew! She loved Rennie, the fox in Jon’s children’s sermons, and was one of the first people we met when we came to the church.
In all of this, there is a hymn that is offering me comfort
Reasons Why I Frequently Dream of Moving to Canada
The following is a hypothetical situation:
You are part of an organization of businesses. Your business is the most successful and you host the meetings of this group at your lavish company headquarters. One business in your organization is treating its workers badly and is employing slave labor. There are also allegations of fraud within that business. You want to take over that business and liberate the workers from the tyranny of the business owner. Other businesses stop you and say, “Let’s try to do this through discussion and see if we can’t get the offending business to sell to us.” You’re not enthusiastic about that suggestion and damage the reputation of the businesses that suggested it. Against the wishes of the leaders of this organization (who exist to ensure fair practices), you engage in a hostile takeover and liberate the workers. The owner of the offending business is forced to sell and you acquire the shares of the company and claim that you will help the workers to rebuild the company rightly. You then lead a charge to disband the organization that you are part of because you didn’t like its criticism of your (possibly illegal) actions.
OK boys and girls, raise your hands if you think this is a ludicrous and completely selfish move for the most successful business to take. *multitude of people raise their hands* Wonderful. You all get gold stars. Now… how many of you understand why I’m putting this hypothetical situation forward.
*sees raised hand*
Yes Johnny?
Ms. K-M, could it be because there are seriously deluded people who never paid attention in their History classes who think that the U.S. was right to launch a smear campaign against France and suggest that the U.N. be disbanded because they don’t agree with us and criticized us for going into Iraq on charges of WMD that are yet unproven?
Very good Johnny. You get a cookie.
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This is the foolishness to which I am referring:
I call right now for the US to establish a group of allies and dissolve the UN. As the world’s sole superpower and leading democracy, the US should now create a new multilateral association of countries limited to countries that are broadly and successfully democratic and display a committment to to peace for all. This body of allies would promote peace and democracy throughout the world. The US would be the fulltime chair of this group, and membership in this group of allies would be a privilege not a right.
OK… it looks like this person slept through U.S History because they have obviously missed the ball on this. Evidence? Well… they didn’t know that the U.S. *does* have allies — the group is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (a.k.a. NATO). Membership *is* a privilege as many former Warsaw Pact countries are having problems gaining admission. It was started to combat communism and the former Soviet-bloc nations formed the Warsaw Pact.
Another thing: since when are we automatically “right” because we happen to be the wealthiest nation? I have many issues with this as our culture has replaced elements of other cultures and much of our pop culture is damaging to the cultural mores of other nations. We have 5% of the world’s population yet control over 50% of its wealth and consume 60% of its energy. Does this really sound like the kind of nation you want running the show? I seriously think NOT!
Another Round of Random Bursts of Thought
There has been so much in the last few days that has needed to be in my blog subjects that I think I’ll start another round of this.
One True Church, theology, our churches… We had a great time and if we can squeeze it in, we want to do lunch next month as well. As someone on my blogroll IRREVERENTLY (!!!) put it, “it was nice of him to hang out with [us] flaming liberals.” To this person, I’d say, “yeah… but we’re right-wing flaming liberals.” 😛