Sneaking this in before I hit the road...

WARNING: THIS POST MAY HAVE SOME RELIGIOUS STUFF IN IT. If that is not your thing, please just skip over it.  I am not about trying to foist my beliefs or my belief system on anyone else - except to say we should all be kind to one another, one at a time. I am simply writing here about my whole life - and that includes my ever-evolving spirituality. I come from a varied religious background: Atheist, Agnostic, Jewish, and various Christian denominations.  I am the last person on earth to tell anyone what their truth should be!

Will be heading out soon to visit some of my clients this afternoon/evening, and with luck, will be getting to the Sip 'n Knit for this evening.  Fingers crossed! 

Hope you all had a great (in the US) holiday weekend.  Mine was quite nice - and the week leading up to it was as well.  Something I forgot to mention when last I posted was a wonderful lunch last Tuesday with a dear friend, Diane F.  Diane - and a number of people who have become very dear to me - and I were all in EfM* together.  It was quite an experience and we all learned so much.  For a number of us, one of them being Diane, this was one aspect to discerning whether one was called to the ordained ministry.  In Diane's case, it was part of her spiritual formation as a Deacon.  Another fellow EfM'er is now an Episcopal priest.  I am still in the laity, LOL:)! Anyway, we must have talked for hours, but it felt like 15 minutes! I felt like I came away with far more than I gave in that conversation, and I am so grateful to have reconnected with her.  

Speaking of reconnecting, it was quite the weekend for that! When last I left you, dear friends, I was about to attend a 70th birthday party celebration for a wonderful colleague and friend.  I had a blast! The food was terrific, and the company was even better.  I saw some friends I have known for decades, but due to working in another county, have only seen rarely over the past 15 years or so.  It was great catching up.  I found out that one of them is good friends with yet ANOTHER EfM friend - how amazing is that?! I took lots of pictures and a sweet video of the Birthday Girls' two sisters and her, and later her two daughters,  dancing together to "We Are Family," which I later sent to the Birthday Girl herself.  This old lady actually hauled her considerable bulk out onto the dance floor and continued the fun.  I probably made a terrific fool of myself and I. Don't. Care:)! The music was great - all great popular songs from the 60s to today. The DJ was very professional.  It was just a lovely evening and I do believe a great time was had by all!

Sunday morning was a special treat: I went to services at the Washington National Cathedral with Nancy and Rennie S., our former music director and her husband.  The music was, of course, outstanding.  The choir sang Thomas Weelkes' awe-inspiring "Let Thy Merciful Ears." I was a bit sucker-punched by the Sequence Hymn, The Servant Song.  The words of the middle two stanzas reminded me of the children suffering in our border concentration camps and I couldn't help the tears.

I will hold the Christ-light for you in the night-time of your fear;
I will hold my hand out to you, speak the peace you long to hear.
I will weep when you are weeping; when you laugh I'll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow till we've seen this journey through.

Later, we had a nice brunch together.  It was a deeply meaningful experience, sharing faith and breaking bread with friends. On a more humorous note, the Cathedral window holding a piece of rock from the moon always makes me think of a kid hitting a baseball into a living room window.  Leave it to me to find the ridiculous in the sublime:)!

Sunday evening was fairly quiet - a number of the progeny were out of town or on the other side of the Chesapeake visiting other family members.  Our daughter D, her two girls and BF, J, came for dinner along with the home team.  

Monday was another lovely day, spent knitting and prepping for the week ahead (and cleaning off my disaster of a desk!!!).  

On the knitting front, I've made some progress on the Rhapsody in Cables:

I think this picture gives the best approximation of this yarn color.  It is a medium grey, with flecks of teal and deep pink. I've had it in deep stash for over ten years. It's Cascade 220 worsted weight in Heather Tweed.  Sometimes those workhorse yarns just do the best job, don't they?

Nothing else really to show as I have been - again - remarkably monogamous with this project!

Looking to the future, I am still trying out color combos for the Birkin:

Too many colors perhaps and too warm?? Watch this space, LOL!

In other news, I am seriously and prayerfully considering changing my church home to the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Baltimore.  It's farther from home, but I've sung with them before with the St. J's choir and there's something about a church in the middle of a city. I realized yesterday evening that my heart wasn't into going back to St. J's - not yet - but I do need to participate in some way in a church community and hopefully in some way in music.  More to come in the future.

Well, gotta get back to work.  Hope your week goes well for you.  Keep the victims of Hurricane Dorian - in the US and especially the Bahamas - in your thoughts/prayers! Back soon I hope.  In the meantime,

God be with you 'til we meet again!+

*Education for Ministry - a Four-Year program about the Old and New Testaments, Church History and Theology, and other topics for lay people of the Christian faith - a number of denominations participated.  Ours was Episcopalian and I think that is where the program began if I'm not mistaken.)