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Ken and I were bemoaning our teenager situation this morning, and he said, "You know when things started to get so bad? I'll tell you when. It's when they took capital punishment out of the schools."
* * *
Then we laughed so much we had to roll around on the bed holding our sides.
It's not funny, and I actually don't agree with him, but it helped at that point.
Over at the RevGals, ReverendMother and Cheesehead are both laid up this week with various tooth maladies. This one's in honor of them:
1. Are you a regular patron of dentists' offices? Or, do you go
a) faithfully, as long as you have insurance, or
b) every few years or so, whether you need it or not, or
c) dentist? what is this "dentist" thing you speak of?
I was raised to believe that taking care of your teeth is of PARAMOUNT importance. So I go to the dentist every 6 months per what my insurance allows. I have cleanings each time and the annual exam every other time. I don't LOVE going to the dentist but I don't mind it. My DH was not raised that way. Of course, he has incredibly good teeth naturally and he thinks my belief is ridiculous. However, I insist he goes to the dentist at least once a year because, hey, I'm paying for it.
2. Whatever became of your wisdom teeth?
They were removed via oral surgery when I was in 9th grade. My mother asked for them (she is into that stuff) but I don't know where they are now. I hope she doesn't still have them!
I remember my choir director being really rude and not believing that I had had that done (as an excuse for why I had missed rehearsals) because I was so young for it. She was having a bad year that year.
3. Favorite thing to eat that's BAAAAAD for your teeth.
Ice! And, um, cherries. You heard me! I actually chipped the corner off of one of my bottom front teeth while sucking the flesh off of a Bing cherry, and apparently using my teeth to help in that process. I had no idea cherries were so dangerous. It was horrible, and of course I did it during Spring Break week when my dentist is closed for a week. Bless his heart, he came in during vacation. My favorite part was that his wife came in to assist him...and she is not a dental assistant. That was funny. More for me than for them, I think.
He put a magical little filling on there of that white composite stuff. You totally can't tell I have a filling...unless I am biting a peppermint candy by mistake and break the filling off a year later. Then I have to go back and grovel and cry and he does it all over again. I try to be very careful.
4. Ever had oral surgery? Commiserate with me.
Just the wisdom teeth, 2 of which were impacted. I remember fondly a Jerry Lewis film festival on the 3 o'clock Million Dollar Movie that week - it was the highlight of the week since the rest of the time there was nothing on the TV except maybe Dialing for Dollars. This was in 1979, after all.
5. "I'd rather have a root canal than _________________."
Have all my teeth pulled! My husband's dad had that done when he was 63, because he had grown up very poor and his teeth had never been cared for properly. Although his debilitating migraines totally disappeared after having the teeth out. So, go figure.
Bonus: Does your dentist recommend Trident?
My dentist has never said a word about gum to me, yea or nay. And actually I don't chew gum because I have TMJ syndrome and it makes it worse.
What I also don't do is eat whole apples anymore - I bit into an apple in grad school and my jaw locked open! Zoinks! That was pretty darn bad.
Just finished Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. It really is wonderful.
Of course, I happen to think Anne Lamott is pretty wonderful anyway - with her crashing honesty, hilarious writing, and the way she shares her thoughts about God and living and politics. You'll be happy to know that she has gotten over hating George Bush so much that it makes her sick...I was worried about that in Plan B. Not that she likes him much, but she's working through the thing.
I feel a special affinity with her as a fellow eating disorder sufferer and as a fairly irreverent and liberal Christian. And, and, AND, she has a 17-year-old son who is not a perfect angel; who, in fact, can be pretty awful (as can she, she points out). My SISTER! Boy, did I need to read about this right now.
She says, "There are only six stories about Sam at seventeen that he'll allow me to tell, and this is my favorite. It's about a fight we had once that left me wondering whether anyone in history had ever been a worse parent or raised such a horrible child. It challenged my belief that there is meaning to life, and that we are children of intelligence and design."
God stays with us, y'all. There is always redemption.
Thank you, Anne. I wish I could thank you in person.
I was feeling pretty blue in Jazzercise class this morning, and the woman next to me had on a T-shirt that said in big letters, "PSALM 34." All during class I wondered, and when I got into the car I looked it up. That was what I needed to read, too:
I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad.
3O magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together.
4I sought the Lord, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
5Look to him, and be radiant;
so your* faces shall never be ashamed.
6This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord,
and was saved from every trouble.
7The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
8O taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him.
9O fear the Lord, you his holy ones,
for those who fear him have no want.
10The young lions suffer want and hunger,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing
Don't you hate it when a blog you read regularly, goes on radio silence for no apparent reason?
I get kind of twitchy when the folks in my "Blogs I Read Every Day" list do it. Like, one of them hasn't posted since mid-Holy Week! Aaagh! is she okay!?
Um, and just realized that I haven't done so since Good Friday, myself. Which leaves me (figuratively, blogwise) sitting at the foot of the cross. But I am not there, I am so happy to say! I have risen with Christ, Alleluia!
Holy Week was very emotional this year (as previously noted). Easter Morning I arrived at church during the early service and slipped into the choir loft - a sweet man said to me, "Are you okay? you don't look so good!" :) WELL, THANK YA! But as I told him, it seems WAY TOO BI-POLAR to go from Good Friday to Easter in just a few days. (and having lived with bi-polar persons, I mean that in the realest and most loving sense...)
And isn't that just the whole point!? And wasn't that just the way it was for Mary and Joanna and Mary Magdalene? Except 1000 times worse?
So I took the regular journey, and then there were the little interior mini-melodramas...
Thursday night at church, someone did something that I considered to be thoughtless and inappropriate. I was quite upset, but also certain that the person didn't in any way mean to distract or offend me or anyone else.
Saturday afternoon there was what Ms. Grace calls a "kerfuffle" with a group I love a lot. I went through the feelings about it, put on my big girl panties, and headed to church for the Saturday night Great Vigil service....
...and I arrived to find the Thursday night person setting up to do the SAME THING AS BEFORE. During the Service. And I, Super Conflict Avoider Woman, approached her quietly and (I think) lovingly, and said, "Are you planning to do X? Please don't do that. It was very distracting on Thursday. If you need to do it, could you do it a different way? From over there?" etc. She was clearly not happy (OH NO! OH NO! UNHAPPINESS!) but she didn't punch me in the eye (a bonus for my Disagreement-Facing 101 seminar lesson).
I guess regular people would be able to leave it at that, but not me...it was sticky.
As the service began (first in darkness with the new flame, hand candles, then in dimness) the monsters in my head sort of took over (this is NOT what is supposed to happen in church!) and I mentally went through a nice little monologue like this:
"I can't believe she was going to do that again!
No one at this church appreciates me! And I cannot stay where I am not APPRECIATED!
I'm just going to LEAVE!"
Okay, it was a little longer and more complicated than that, but that was the gist of it. The red miasma that fills my brain in such times was very thick.
And as my mind snorted and shouted and snuffled and pouted, I looked straight ahead from the choir loft to the front wall of the church, where the gorgeous Christus Rex hangs. All through Lent, it is covered with an enormous curtain, and an icon-style crucifix hangs in front of it:
(This is the icon crucifix)
but now, for the first time in weeks, He was there, He was alive, and He was looking straight at me. And smiling. 
(Here's the Christus, seen from the back of the church, just above the font. I need to get a better picture of His face!)
And I thought, Oh wait a minute! I'm not here about being appreciated, or how other people behave, or any of that stuff. I'm here for Him!
And then, looking at the Christus, I thought maybe He was actually laughing a little...very lovingly, of course...and a great peace and joy were suddenly available to me. It was one of those liminal experiences...I don't know how long it lasted, but we were getting to the Baptism by the time I was able to be mentally available to the service again. (They had gotten along just fine without me!)
The Baptismal Font is just under the choir loft, so most of the choir stands at the rail and sort of hangs over to watch. Three beautiful baby girls were sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism, and marked as Christ's own forever. After Baptism, the lights were all brought completely up, the candles lit, we celebrated the Eucharist.
Christ has died
Christ is risen
Christ will come again
Alleluia!
Thanks be to God!
My blogfriend Cathy has been walking a mile a day during Lent (40 miles in 40 days) and has even exceeded that! I'm so impressed with her!
Now she is striving to walk 15 miles during Holy Week, and then 50 miles during the 50 days of Ordinary Time.
Due to my injury, the chiro won't let me go to Jazzercise until next week. This is making me cranky!! He says, though, that I may walk and breathe (thank you!) so I've determined to join Cathy in the Holy Week walking (although virtually, because she lives half the continent away, boo hoo!).
Check back in to see how it goes.
EDITED TO SAY: I changed my goal from 15 miles to 10! Cathy is definitely in better walking trim than I!
Yesterday was (of course) Palm Sunday.
Fr. Court mentioned in the homily (directly after the narrative reading of the Passion) that the scheduling of the week had changed somewhat since he had been in the ministry...that previously, this Sunday was all about palms and hosannas and donkeys.
Now, he said, we (TEC) use the week to telescope all of Holy Week into one service. I guess that's just in case some people can't be bothered to attend Holy Week services; but I must say that going from "Prepare the way of the Lord" to "Crucify Him" in less than 30 minutes is damn hard to stomach. It makes me feel so betrayed. Suppose that's the point.
We have a guest singer in the choir for Holy Week; a woman from the local temple where some of our musicians have helped out vocally during the High Holy Days in the past. I glanced at her during the reading of the Passion and wondered what that was like for her and what she was thinking about it. She is from the Boston area, so I'm sure this was not her first experience of Christian theology & worship. I didn't get to ask her; I had to get to a meeting after the service was over.
I hope I do get to ask her, if she's willing to talk about it.
OH! Remember when I wished, last week, that I could spend all of Holy Week lying prostrate in front of a cross? You can read it here. Well, guess what: Since I whiplashed my neck on Tuesday, I am seeing the chiropractor 3 times a week for a few weeks. Before each adjustment, I lie face down on a table and have electro-stimulo therapy on my neck and back for 15 minutes. The music playing is sort of woo-woo massage therapist relaxation music, and it all works very well for me to imagine that there's a big ole cross on the wall in front of me. Good praying time.
So, watch what you ask for.
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