Sunday, October 10, 2010

Human

Quite an interesting morning at worship today. While I'm in between churches, I've been doing occasional pulpit supply and have a regular service with a nearby church on the second Sunday. They don't have a pastor and I lead worship and celebrate Communion with them. It's a cool, neat little group and I really like being able to celebrate Communion.

This morning I added an unusual twist to the service ... I almost fainted.

It was a bit hot up in the pulpit and I almost lost it once before the sermon. But my worship assistant turned the ceiling fan up and I managed to cool off and made it through the sermon.

Then came Communion.

I made it about 1/3 of the way through the Communion Prayer when I started getting really hot again and began to wonder if I could stand up through Communion. I found a place to sit and attempted to carry on. Didn't make it too much further before I decided that, Nope! This isn't going to work and worship came to a screeching halt.

What a wonderful group of people!

They brought me cool cloths and water. Wouldn't let me move. One of them had a glucose test meter, so we checked to see if that were the problem.

We finished Communion and worship with me sitting on the floor and everyone in a circle around the Communion table.

Then, one of them drove me home while her husband followed us.

I've always known I was human, but this is the first time it's physically (as in my health, not one of my fabulous bloopers) gotten the best of me during a worship service.

And now I'll go down in history as the pastor who fainted in worship. *chuckle* The Spirit at work, huh?

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Negative Space

I seem to be in negative space at the moment. You know, that area around and between objects in art where there just "isn't".




I'm between positions ... and have been for almost a year and a half. I'm sort of between homes, since my house is on the market and it is and isn't mine.

I am neither fish nor fowl nor ...

Negative space is an odd place to be. You are part of groups, but tend to feel disconnected from them. "Let's get together sometime." But sometime never seems to materialize. There is an element of non-belonging which makes your ideas and contributions a bit suspect, no matter how valid they may be.

It's part of why my poor little blog has been ignored recently. It's hard to focus on negative space.

But when you do, there may be something incredible to discern. I've always been able to see both the faces and the vase, or the hag and the beautiful lady, or the people and the moth.

Maybe I just haven't found what I'm supposed to see yet. I've never been any good at drawing, but you often hear the art teacher tell the students to draw what isn't there. For example, color in the space around the legs of the chair, until what's left is what you were trying to draw - a chair.

Negative space isn't necessarily a bad place to be, but I'd really like to find my way to something positive for a while. Yes. I think I'd like a metaphorical "chair". Not to sit on, mind you, but to stand on and shout to the world, "WOOHOO! I'm not just the outlines anymore!"