I had such a good day yesterday!
I got to church early because I was helping with service, and I was specially happy already because I had heard that the Syrian refugee family we're sponsoring, who arrived in Canada at the beginning of the week, wanted to come to service to greet everyone and give us a gift they had for us. As I was helping Diane, the minister, strip thorns off the roses we were going to give to them in return, I remarked to her that, although I've done very little in the actual sponsorship effort so far, I still felt this immense sense of pride-by-proxy, and she promptly told me that they're likely short on people to accompany the family to various appointments this week, was I available? And I am, so I alerted the people coordinating that, and am standing by. That I might get the opportunity to do that pretty much made my day, and it was only 9:45 am.
(They speak virtually no English or French beyond "hello" and "thank you," and I speak no Arabic beyond "salaam aleikum." If I'm lucky, a volunteer translator will also be available; otherwise the word is that Google Translate works better than you'd think... And of course I'd be helping them navigate government services -- schools? health system? refugee orientation programs? -- which may be a stretch for my French. Woo, a challenge!)
They came in toward the end of service, and to my utter lack of surprise got a standing ovation of welcome immediately, and another after the father finished speaking. His words -- and Diane's back to him and his family -- were translated by a member of our congregation who is an undocumented immigrant (and, iirc, stateless) who is applying for refugee status himself. And then we sang a verse and chorus of a hymn called "Come, Sing a Song with Me," whose chorus goes "And I'll bring you hope / when hope is hard to find, / and I'll sing a song of love / and a rose in the wintertime." People in the congregation were filming them on smartphones, they were filming us on theirs, and then they sat down in the front row for the last fifteen minutes or so of the service and the youngest kid, four years old, promptly got up from his mom's lap to sit on the edge of the dais that Diane and the musicians and the flowers and everything were on, and look out at everybody. I loved that he was comfortable enough to do that; I always love when kids are kid-like during service.
During the service proper, Diane did something she's doing more often these days: she posed a question and asked everybody to break into pairs and share responses to it. Not discuss; just give each person a couple of minutes to say whatever they want to about the question, while the other listens, and then you switch. I paired up with a guy who looked interesting, and he was. (The question was "What makes you feel rooted?" or "What are you rooted in?", I forget the exact wording, and I spoke about feeling rooted in, or by, a couple of specific people.)
A lunch was served after service, and the guy I'd been talking with ended up at the same table as me, and he said that he'd just been out for a walk this morning, and had actually been impelled to come in and check the service out by our crazy stalker picketer, which had everyone at the table cheering and high-fiving. Yay, he would hate that so much!
Then there was a congregational meeting to approve the 2017 budget and also decide whether to spend extra $$ on our upcoming 175th anniversary celebration (we're the oldest Unitarian congregation in Canada) and how to fund the urgent roof repairs. The arguments were more tiresome than I'd hoped, but not more than I'd expected, and the decisions I was in favor of were made by a wide margin, which makes me happy. (I remarked to a couple people afterward that it was nice to see one election go right...)
Then I came home and Geoff and I went out to see Arrival. We liked it very much! Although we agreed that it works better as a metaphor than as a science fiction story, and we nitpicked the logic all the way home. (It's fun for us. Don't judge.) But the way the ending and beginning were structured was genius. And, granting the nitpicks, I loved the design of the alien language.
We were thinking of going out to dinner afterward -- one of the all-you-can-eat sushi places in our neighborhood closed down a few months ago, but a new one has now opened up a few blocks north of where the old one was, woohoo! But Geoff had gone out for an Indian buffet brunch with a friend while I was at church, and wasn't hungry enough for a full dinner at all, let alone an all-you-can-eat extravaganza. So we just came home, and he had a bowl of cereal while I made myself my favorite minimal-effort comfort food. While I cooked and ate, I was online in the first VividCon concom meeting for the 2017 con -- we expect to announce dates very soon! And then Geoff and I relaxed on the couch and I divided my attention between my iPad and the TV (The Simpsons and a rewatch of The Abominable Bride) while he divided his attention between the TV and rubbing my feet.
That was a really good day.
And today I have some work to do, after which I'll catch a bus into the city and see Loving with a friend. Everything I've heard about it has been fantastic, and it also seems like a good movie for the historical moment, you know? (In talking about the, um, current historical moment in service yesterday, Diane said that rather than sagging in despair, we can consider that Trump's election highlights for us where our work is needed. I appreciated that way of looking at it; it was encouraging.)
After that I'll hopefully have time to grab some dinner somewhere, and then I'll go to an informational meeting on the status of my CSA. The guy who runs it abruptly folded up shop six months ago; the person he rented his farmland from was throwing him off with almost no notice, he was losing all his capital investment in greenhouses, plumbing, etc., and of course he was completely unable either to provide the vegetables the members had paid for or to refund our money, since it was all invested in the farm and the harvest wasn't in yet. He's been trying to keep from having to declare bankruptcy and trying to find a way to start up farming again; now he has found land to rent and is hoping to get up and running next year, and find some way to make good on his default. Some members are willing to wait, some are understandably angry and want satisfaction, and I'm curious to see what this meeting will be like -- and I definitely hope he can manage to get back in business!
With luck, Geoff will be having dinner in town with a friend, and we can meet up afterward and come home together. Otherwise I'll be on my own, but on the other hand I'll have the car instead of taking public transit, so I'll be able to get in and out a lot faster.
Yesterday was the first lovely sunny day in almost a week, and today it's snowing gently. I think today will be a good day too.
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(They speak virtually no English or French beyond "hello" and "thank you," and I speak no Arabic beyond "salaam aleikum." If I'm lucky, a volunteer translator will also be available; otherwise the word is that Google Translate works better than you'd think... And of course I'd be helping them navigate government services -- schools? health system? refugee orientation programs? -- which may be a stretch for my French. Woo, a challenge!)
They came in toward the end of service, and to my utter lack of surprise got a standing ovation of welcome immediately, and another after the father finished speaking. His words -- and Diane's back to him and his family -- were translated by a member of our congregation who is an undocumented immigrant (and, iirc, stateless) who is applying for refugee status himself. And then we sang a verse and chorus of a hymn called "Come, Sing a Song with Me," whose chorus goes "And I'll bring you hope / when hope is hard to find, / and I'll sing a song of love / and a rose in the wintertime." People in the congregation were filming them on smartphones, they were filming us on theirs, and then they sat down in the front row for the last fifteen minutes or so of the service and the youngest kid, four years old, promptly got up from his mom's lap to sit on the edge of the dais that Diane and the musicians and the flowers and everything were on, and look out at everybody. I loved that he was comfortable enough to do that; I always love when kids are kid-like during service.
During the service proper, Diane did something she's doing more often these days: she posed a question and asked everybody to break into pairs and share responses to it. Not discuss; just give each person a couple of minutes to say whatever they want to about the question, while the other listens, and then you switch. I paired up with a guy who looked interesting, and he was. (The question was "What makes you feel rooted?" or "What are you rooted in?", I forget the exact wording, and I spoke about feeling rooted in, or by, a couple of specific people.)
A lunch was served after service, and the guy I'd been talking with ended up at the same table as me, and he said that he'd just been out for a walk this morning, and had actually been impelled to come in and check the service out by our crazy stalker picketer, which had everyone at the table cheering and high-fiving. Yay, he would hate that so much!
Then there was a congregational meeting to approve the 2017 budget and also decide whether to spend extra $$ on our upcoming 175th anniversary celebration (we're the oldest Unitarian congregation in Canada) and how to fund the urgent roof repairs. The arguments were more tiresome than I'd hoped, but not more than I'd expected, and the decisions I was in favor of were made by a wide margin, which makes me happy. (I remarked to a couple people afterward that it was nice to see one election go right...)
Then I came home and Geoff and I went out to see Arrival. We liked it very much! Although we agreed that it works better as a metaphor than as a science fiction story, and we nitpicked the logic all the way home. (It's fun for us. Don't judge.) But the way the ending and beginning were structured was genius. And, granting the nitpicks, I loved the design of the alien language.
We were thinking of going out to dinner afterward -- one of the all-you-can-eat sushi places in our neighborhood closed down a few months ago, but a new one has now opened up a few blocks north of where the old one was, woohoo! But Geoff had gone out for an Indian buffet brunch with a friend while I was at church, and wasn't hungry enough for a full dinner at all, let alone an all-you-can-eat extravaganza. So we just came home, and he had a bowl of cereal while I made myself my favorite minimal-effort comfort food. While I cooked and ate, I was online in the first VividCon concom meeting for the 2017 con -- we expect to announce dates very soon! And then Geoff and I relaxed on the couch and I divided my attention between my iPad and the TV (The Simpsons and a rewatch of The Abominable Bride) while he divided his attention between the TV and rubbing my feet.
That was a really good day.
And today I have some work to do, after which I'll catch a bus into the city and see Loving with a friend. Everything I've heard about it has been fantastic, and it also seems like a good movie for the historical moment, you know? (In talking about the, um, current historical moment in service yesterday, Diane said that rather than sagging in despair, we can consider that Trump's election highlights for us where our work is needed. I appreciated that way of looking at it; it was encouraging.)
After that I'll hopefully have time to grab some dinner somewhere, and then I'll go to an informational meeting on the status of my CSA. The guy who runs it abruptly folded up shop six months ago; the person he rented his farmland from was throwing him off with almost no notice, he was losing all his capital investment in greenhouses, plumbing, etc., and of course he was completely unable either to provide the vegetables the members had paid for or to refund our money, since it was all invested in the farm and the harvest wasn't in yet. He's been trying to keep from having to declare bankruptcy and trying to find a way to start up farming again; now he has found land to rent and is hoping to get up and running next year, and find some way to make good on his default. Some members are willing to wait, some are understandably angry and want satisfaction, and I'm curious to see what this meeting will be like -- and I definitely hope he can manage to get back in business!
With luck, Geoff will be having dinner in town with a friend, and we can meet up afterward and come home together. Otherwise I'll be on my own, but on the other hand I'll have the car instead of taking public transit, so I'll be able to get in and out a lot faster.
Yesterday was the first lovely sunny day in almost a week, and today it's snowing gently. I think today will be a good day too.
read
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