Lest anyone think I post irregularly—I’m looking at you, 9rules—I have decided to divulge Chutney’s secret rhythm method for blogging. Posting frequency here follows a ten to fifteen day cycle, with a peak and trough at either end, with days off for berry picking and on-site injuries. Sort of a biorhythms approach, but with the tremors. This is what gives Chutney his spicy hot goodness. Please, let’s keep this between me, you and the fencepost.  I don’t want my secret recipe to get out.

Act 1: Last fall I co-taught a course at church on fundamentalisms. Ten weeks long with homework assigned. Charged $35 because that seems to help people take something seriously and show up consistently. More learning that way.

This past Sunday, one of the class members, a newcomer to the church, came up to thank me for teaching the class, several weeks after the facts. She said I was a good teacher and told me why. And she asked when I would be teaching again and on what subject. Very kind of her.

Act 2: I’ve sort of been through the ringer trying to get a site redesign redone at church this past year. It really needs it. Nobody’s fault really, but it really needs it. So I put together a team to get it done last summer, but with committees being dedicated to hemming and hawing more than decisioning as they’re won to do, decisions were made and unmade, ad infinitum.

Click to continue reading “Intentional acts of kindness, in three acts”

On a discussion at UU Enforcer a bit back, Peacebang had the following to say re: UUs hiring Boomers over GenXers. My congregation is in the early stages of a search process so that discussion and Peacebang’s comments are especially pertinent right now. I’m guessing from the context that Peacebang counts herself among the Boomer ministers she’s criticizing. Click to continue reading “What Peacebang said”

Slate.com editor David Plotz is blogging the Bible.  A “lax but well-educated Jew,” Plotz is reading Genesis himself for the first time, without the filter of rabbis or commentary.  No more watered down Sunday School versions for him.  He starts with the rape of Jacob’s daughter and the resulting massacre of a town by his sons, then moves on to Genesis’ two different creation stories. Could be interesting.

Someone won the fifth grade science fair.  A cool representation of the relative sizes of the planets.  Earth hardly shows up at all next to the sun.  (Hat tip.)

Some new friends have been getting on to me lately about being a closed book. So here it goes.

I’ve mentioned here before that I have depression. I have had it for years now. Depression doesn’t have the stigma it had when I was first diagnosed. People understand now that it’s a disease but not that it’s a debilitating disease that goes well beyond mere sadness.

I make a point to tell people about it, and now I get more responses like “but you’re so friendly” than “no shit,” which perplexes and amuses me.

People who haven’t had depression, or who don’t have a close friend or family member with depression, simply don’t understand what’s involved. This presents problems. When you’re the one with depression, it’s no longer as abstract a matter as educating the public. Click to continue reading “The first thing that goes is people”