Start Me Up

This is a really hilarious cartoon, from a very strange website about how to date: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-best-questions-for-first-dates/

So as it turns out, "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones* is a hugely inappropriate song, something I never thought about until just now when I tried to look it up online while in the church office without first turning the volume down on my laptop. There are days when I live in fear that someone will discover that I am, in fact, the worst pastor in the world.

Anyway, what I actually wanted to say is that it turns out starting up at a new congregation is kind of like starting to date someone new. Actually, let me be more clear: starting up at a new congregation is exactly like starting to date someone new.

Anyone who has ever been in even a quasi-long term relationship can surely remember those first few weeks and months of togetherness with their beloved. Can you remember it? Back before you knew anything of your lover's frustrating habits or idiosyncratic ticks or odd family traditions? Back before you had ever argued about the same thing 3,000 times or constantly "forgotten" to do the thing the other asked you to do 78,000 times? Remember that? When it was just the two of you and a world of possibility (and maybe even making out)? They were the days in which you got butterflies in your stomach by simply seeing the person, spent forever picking out outfits to wear on your dates**, laughed at all of each other's jokes, and secretly daydreamed about what you might name your children while simultaneously living in fear that it won't work out and also constantly feeling slightly awkward. Only much later is it possible to look back on these days and laugh at all you didn't know about each other and all the wildly unique and frustrating personality quirks you tried desperately to hide from each other, even though they may have come to be the things you love the most about one another. And you can feel thankful for how far you have come (if not a little annoyed that your partner probably doesn't dress up all that much for you any more, but usually just wears pajamas around all the time, except when going to dinner on your birthday. Sorry, Mr. L).

Arriving at a new church as the minister is, in a very strange way, a lot like that. As I go about these first weeks of a new pastorate, I am noticing something very similar happening. I am on my best behavior. I suddenly wear suits on Sunday. I spend loads more time on my sermon. I am charming and engaging and never impatient and will talk ad nauseum to anyone who stops by for no reason. I say, "Me too!" and "Oh, really?" and "That is so interesting" way too much.  I am nervous before each Sunday starts about how I'll do. I have yet to do any of the things that would demonstrate my weaknesses, such as snap at people or swear or complain or wear jeans to work or write a crappy sermon because I just wanted to spend Saturday lounging around in my sweatpants watching "The Tudors." In short, I want them to like me. And now doing this for the second time, I realize that the converse is also true. They want me to like them too. Everyone seems so positive and functional. There seems to be very little of the high drama that usually characterizes the management of a human institution. Everyone has stopped by to "help out."And everything seems just perfect. But I know better. I know that things are not perfect, they never could be. There will be conflicts and frustrations and people who drive me BONKERS*** and who I want to scream about later to Mr. L. But by then, it will be too late. I will be their pastor. And they will be the people I pastor. And we will have kinda fallen in love in a non-creepy way and even the things they do that drive me nuts will make me care for them and blog about them and remember them forever.

I think I'll still wait to sing them "Start Me Up," though........



* The album cover is also quite weird and is a furry foot in a stiletto. Just wanted you to know.
**I recently reconnected with an old college roommate who I happened to live with for the few months around the time I started dating Mr. L. While catching up back and forth on Facebook, I told her I was married and described Mr. L. She said, "Oh yeah, that guy. I remember when you went on your first date with him and five minutes beforehand you were tearing clothes out of drawers and throwing them around and screaming because you couldn't figure out what to wear. Glad it worked out." Go figure.
*** Strange and somewhat not helpful lesson I've learned from pastoring: It's never the people you're worried about who end up giving you hell. It's always completely different people who come out of the woodwork to ruin your life. The people who you immediately notice and worry about usually turn out to be mostly innocuous. I'm trying to think of some great metaphor to describe this that includes laser tag, but it's the end of the day and my metaphor-producing brain sector is worn out already.

Newness

You may notice the hip new layout of WUJ, a bit of flair for the new year. You may also notice some new cool elements, such as the sidebar to the right with recipes I've been trying lately....check 'em out!

Goodbye MOs

Have you ever noticed how many ways of saying goodbye there are? I hadn't thought much about it until I had occasion to say goodbye to nearly everyone I have known in the last five years. Other than being another exercise in letting other people down, it was a fascinating window into the status of my relationships with various folks. Here are some top favorites:

• The gut-wrenching-really-really-sad-I'm-leaving-this-friendship-has-changed-my-life goodbye which often involves the exchanging of super precious and touching gifts* and tears. 
• But there's also the so-glad-to-have-the-opportunity-to-exit-this-friendship-because-actually-I'm-not-that-into-you-but-not-so-much-so-that-I-would-have-broken-up-with-you-because-that-would-be-awkward goodbye which you can reserve for folks who you are not that sad about leaving which usually is awkward in that it feels as though it should be emotional but isn't. 
• And then there is the sorry-we-never-actually-fulfilled-the-potential-of-having-a-relationship goodbye which can be saved for neighbors and other people who you never got to know, but who seemed okay.
• There is also the I-am-so-so-so-happy-I'm-leaving-this-relationship/work situation/commitment/whatever-but-I-will-try-to-mask-my-joy-so-it-won't-be-so-awkward-for-you goodbye reserved for jobs you hated or "extra-curriculars" that had taken over your life with no exit strategy except moving across the country.
• Sometimes you can be surprised by the oops-I-miscalculated-how-good-of-friends-we-were-and-didn't-prepare-the-appropriate-goodbye-strategy goodbye which is usually accompanied by surprising proclamations of how you completely changed someone's life whose name you had trouble even remembering. 
• And then there is the sorry-I'm-ruining-your-life-by-leaving goodbye which is a small part of every single goodbye you say when leaving a church.

I employed all these (and combinations of them) as I took my leave from the East last month. And maybe even some others I didn't think of here. But if I missed you, then I offer to you a so-sorry-we-didn't-get-a-chance-to-say-goodbye-and-now-I-am-offering-an-expost-facto-electronic-goodbye-which-is-a-bit-awkward goodbye!

*My amazingly talented friend actually crocheted for us two guardian angels for our trip cross country, based on her intimate knowledge of my obsession with YouTube stuff like this. Here they are just waiting to cross the nation:

How cool is THAT? I love having talented friends! Love you DRJ!

2012

Hey! Happy New Year readers! Hopefully you are holed up somewhere eating fattening snacks, watching football and enjoying this New-Years-Day-On-A-Sunday-Means-Monday-Is-Also-A-Holiday phenomenon. I, for one, definitely plan to watch my Alma mater in the Rose Bowl later today, despite the fact that one of my Christmas gifts this year was a cold that has made me feel as though I am being run over by a Mack truck each morning about 7.

I just cringed when I logged in and realized that it's been an entire month since I posted here. But in my own defense I have been a little busy. Doing what, you ask? Well, I've been busy turning my entire life upside down and shaking it like a snow globe. Oh and celebrating the birth of Jesus and all that jazz.  Here is a not-so-brief summary of my activities this last month:

-Said goodbye to everyone I know in Boston which involved intermittent weeping and gnashing of teeth.
-Ate at all my favorite Boston restaurants "one last time" or maybe five "last times" in the case of the Indian restaurant across the street which I now worry with go bankrupt without our bi-weekly take-out order.
-Finished teaching my classes just four days before departing, including administering and grading 48 final exams, reading 45 final essays and responding to a multitude of fairly pathetic last-minute excuse making by students who didn't do anything the entire term but are surprised to know they aren't doing well.
-Wrapped up the loose ends from my work at the church including trying to do planning for next year, finishing all the administrative projects that have been "on my list" for the last two years, continuing to lead the celebration of Advent with a modicum of intention and presence and oh, saying good bye to all the people I have completely fallen in love with there and will miss tremendously. More weeping and gnashing of teeth.
-Packed everything we own into a P.O.D. while deflecting waves of angst about whether 1) all of our things would be tossled around said P.O.D. and broken and crushed or 2) this was actually a huge scam and they were actually going to auction off said P.O.D. on storage wars and we would never see our stuff again.
-Slept on an Aerobed in our empty and cold apartment for three days with our increasingly anxious dog. (WOOF=Where'sallOfOurFreakin'stuff?)
-Preached in worship on my last Sunday in MA. Received many gracious and touching gifts (and then selfishly worried where we would put them given that our P.O.D. had already left.) Immediately went out for cocktails with my co-worker and his partner.
-Loaded up way more stuff than we had planned for into our car including anxious dog and departed at 6 a.m. the next morning with only one false start (to return and search for my travel mug lid which I thought fell out of the car) and minimal weeping (okay not so minimal).
-Drove to Oregon. (Damn, those great plains states are so great....as in, why is Nebraska so damn big? And Wyoming? Whose ever even heard of Wyoming?)
-Moved in with the in-laws on December 22.
-Led Christmas Eve service at the new church on December 24 with all the usual first-day awkwardness of not knowing how anything works (where is the microphone? who gives the announcements?) with an added sprinkle of new-visitor awkwardness,which just basically means it was really awkward.
-In a twist of calendrial irony, led worship again on December 25, Christmas this year having landed on a Sunday. It was slightly less awkward this time.
-Opened some cool presents which Mr. L and I bought for each other on December 23.
-Got Mack truck cold. And a new bank account, new license plates, new drivers' licenses, a realtor and a mortgage broker.
-Planned a funeral.
-Conducted both worship and funeral on New Years Day while continuing to suffer from Mack Truck cold and waves of awkwardness.

So, you can see why I am laying low today, hoping Mr. L will make his delicious football watching cheesy-bread-bowl-of-diabetes-and-heart-failure. And why I am hoping to have a more balanced 2012, in which I can have a bit of breathing room for blogging!

Goodbye (In Song)

Clearly I have reached the procrastination stage of freaking out, because instead of working on ALL THE STUFF that I really absolutely need to get done right now in order to end my work at two jobs, put all my stuff in a POD and drive across the nation in time to start on Christmas Eve, I am blogging and surfing the web. This is what usually procedes periods of great productivity tinged with hysteria for me, so I am embracing it. By searching for list of great good-bye songs online.

My favorites so far?
Hello Goodbye by the Beatles (What the hell is this song actually about? Not sure, but it is awesome.)
I've Had the Time of My Life from the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack (An eternal truth: Nobody puts Baby in a corner. Another eternal truth: why is this still the best movie ever?)
I'm Coming Home P.Ditty with Skylar Gray (Love the ridiculous nature of this video, and the message that PDitty is trying to return to his ghetto roots despite having been a millionaire now for the better part of two decades.)
Leaving on a Jet Plane (or NOT, see previous post) by Peter Paul and Mary
Friends by Michael W. Smith (A tribute to my sappy, quasi-evangelical youth group days and anyone whose eighth-grade graduation slide show had this as the background music. Also, this particular video is a fairly amazing slide-show of cheesy images that will make you tear up or laugh hysterically depending on what mood you're in.)
Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight (Yes!)

Any favorites to add that I should look up on you tube and play on repeat while I pack boxes and weep? Send em on over!

Travel

I actually don't really understand this cartoon, but I love it. Thanks orthocuban.com!

So, we'll actually be driving to Oregon when we leave in a few weeks. Turns out shipping an 85 pound dog across the country in winter is a bit of a thing.

But I am happy about this fact for a single reason: it will mean no airline travel during the holidays. This will be good for me, because I've decided that air travel is just not what it used to be. And not only because you are stuck like a veal in seats that get smaller every year with no food or movies and not even tiny bars of soap to steal that say American Airlines on them. And not only because now that they are charging to check bags everyone brings on three pieces of luggage large enough to fit the entire cast of CATS inside.* But mostly because air travel these days brings back bad memories of middle-school gym class.

What, you might ask, does a seventh-grade class full of sweaty and awkward pre-teens trying to learn basketball have to do with domestic air travel? Well, quite frankly, the fear of getting picked last. I don't know if I'm overly sensitive to this given my not-very-athletic childhood**, but has anyone noticed the increasingly ridiculous boarding procedure plaguing domestic air travel recently?

At least in my memory, boarding announcements used to go like this:
The gate agent announced: "First Class Passengers are welcome to board at this time along with any passengers needing additional assistance or those traveling with small children." Then we would wait several minutes while men in suits with briefcases annoyingly and unhelpfully brushed past families juggling multiple car seats and several small children. We peons traveling in coach without children would patiently stand by or make a final bathroom run. Then we would hear, "Passengers seated in rows 27 and higher are welcome to board." And everyone would line up and slowly make their way down the gangway. And finally "Passengers seated in rows 6 and higher are welcome to board." And the rest of us would get on and everyone would feel okay and we would take off.

But now this process has morphed into a ridiculous pageant of elitism that leaves me brimming with fury and Mr. L sad that he ever agreed to go anywhere with me in the first place. It starts like this:
"Welcome, ladies and gentleman, we are ready to begin boarding flight #12345 to Whereversville." at which point everyone in the waiting area whether they are on the flight or not jumps up and crams toward the boarding gate like a mob at a Black Sabbath concert (yours truly included. "What if they don't have room for my bag?" I think, judgmentally eyeing a carry-on burdened family of five a few paces ahead of me.)  Now that we are all standing there, you might think it was time to actually board the flight. But no, no, mon cher. "First I'd like to invite our Delta Super-Platinum Elite First-Class Gold Star Flyers to board via the red carpet on the right side of the boarding area." Approximately two men in suits go forward. And then we all wait for several more minutes, I assume while those two men are seated, hang up their suit jackets, and have a Manhattan prepared for them and the Wall Street Journal laid out. "Now I'd like to welcome our 2011 MVP Gold-Status Top Tier Frequent Flyers to board via the red carpet on the right side of the boarding area." Maybe one more person boards and then we wait for five minutes. This is the point at which my middle-school induced status anxiety mixes with my self-righteous tendency toward egalitarianism, which together make for a potent tincture of indignation. "Oh," I seethe to Mr. L who is trying to ignore me having already anticipated this outburst, "they get to board via the RED carpet, because they are ELITE flyers with SUPER special talents. What is this? The Roman Empire?" "Please just chill out. All seats depart and arrive at the same time," says Mr. L. Though factual and sensible, this is not at all helpful. "Thank you. It is now time to welcome our 2011 Silver Class Honored Members to board via the red carpet." And my fury increases. And it goes on like this for what feels like forever until every possible combination of precious metals, status labels, and membership categories has been combined in order to welcome, in total, about 8 people. And one of the children of the family of four with all the luggage trips and starts crying and I briefly feel badly for judging them. But only for a moment until I hear the nail in the coffin of my good traveling spirits: "Passengers in Boarding Group 2 are welcome to board via the BLUE carpet on the left side of the boarding area." And that is it. It is just TOO much. Because now having my anxiety raised for the last 30 minutes while we welcomed business people like monarchs of old, I have to spend the next 30 minutes FREAKING OUT about which boarding group I am in (usually something like 5, but is that in the middle or at the end? How do we know?) and if I'll have a place to put my bag. And so I cram forward annoyingly like everyone else and at the last minute am forced to confront my mediocrity when I board via a completely different stupid little lane with blue carpet. And, when finally aboard, I have to shove past the Delta-Super-Platinum guy in first class who is already on his second free drink and is looking at me as though he is slightly annoyed that I am there at all and have accidentally brushed his arm with my bag which probably they will end up checking anyway because there is not room. And my good traveling juju is lost forever. And not even Sky Mall Magazine can save me.

So, hopefully, you can see why I'll be glad to be packing it up in the Accord this holiday season with the dog, some books on tape, and free snacks galore. We'll be having our own super-elite, top-tier, diamond members party up in there.



*PLEASE STOP BEING SO RIDICULOUS WITH THE BAGS, EVERYONE. Now let me get my prejudice-against-folks-with-kids on for a second and don't get pissed because this is just common sense: your five-year-old SHOULD NOT carry on his bag and a personal item. That's just ridiculous. Several months ago, I was on a plane sitting the row behind a family of six. ALL of their children, aged about 3 to 9 had huge rolling suitcases and backpacks so big compared to their frame that they could have hiked the Andes with them. And it probably took the family 25 minutes to exit the row. Why is this? Because three years olds aren't that coordinated. AND THEY ALSO CAN'T GET THEIR OWN DAMN LUGGAGE OUT OF THE OVERHEAD BIN BECAUSE THEY ARE ONLY A FOOT TALL. I understand it is frustrating and expensive to travel with a family and  I feel for you man. That seems tough. And I understand that the airlines are bleeding you dry. But let's work together to fight for justice and find a better solution than treating your toddler like a sherpa and making me worried I'll miss my connection.

**I seriously think that there should be more psychological support for those of us who had to endure middle-school gym class. I have talked with SO many friends who were seriously traumatized by these barbaric scenarios such as picking people for teams, etc. Most of them have just barely recovered. Isn't there a better way to educate young people about the value of physical activity without subjecting them to the very expression of social hierarchy that as awkward adolescents they spend all their time fearing? Get on it America.

Westward Expansion

My sister gave me this bumper sticker a few years ago, which I put in a drawer and forgot to put on our car. I got it out the other day and realized that the back reads, "Follow your heart. It will lead you home." Turns out its true!

So, as it turns out, my last several sentimental posts about Boston and our adventures in NE do, in fact, have a common purpose which is not to eternally and sap-tasitcally memorialize my life here: it is to help me say goodbye to it. Because we are headed home.

A few months ago, the painful reality that my little church was not going to be able to pay me much longer came into specific relief. And so I started searching around for something else. I was not imagining that I would be able to find an opening in the particular part of the world most appealing to me (Oregon), but, as it were, that is exactly what I found. And it worked out. And we're going.

And thus the reason I've been so delinquent in posting these past few weeks is not because nothing erratic or hilarious has happened (believe me, it has), but because I haven't had time to write about it amidst goodbye saying, box packing, farewell letter writing, condo renting, wall spackling, furniture taking-aparting and generally freaking out. Because, surprisingly, it turns out that even doing the thing you really want to do can be scary as S**T.

We've always said that we were moving back to Oregon. And we've always dreamed about the days when we would get to live amongst the mountains and neo-hippies again and have a garden to grow tomatoes and actually see our families and friends at regular intervals and have organic, fair-trade, fresh-roasted coffee delivered to our door via bike messenger.  But it so happens that when your dreams become reality, things are more complex than your imagination would have made it seem.

This is the right thing for us, and we are so grateful for this opportunity. But it is more complicated than I ever thought it would be to say goodbye. Because this place is now a part of who I am. And I will miss it. I will miss my friends and my colleagues. I will miss my home and my neighborhood. I will miss the Indian food restaurant across the street and its constant provision of take-out. I will miss the snow (not that much, but maybe a little). I will miss my work and all the people there and how it and they have frustrated and fulfilled me in ways that I could not have imagined. I will miss not having a toaster. I will miss Shabbat dinner. I will really miss my book club.

Looking back, I realize that in many ways, this the place where I became an adult. It is the place where I prepared for and entered my career. It is the place where I feel I fully and truly lived into my role as a partner to Mr. L (we've now lived here 5/7 of the time we've been married, which is a lot proportionally.) It is the place where we created our own unique family traditions and made friends who had only known us together. It was the place where we did things on our own and found out that we're fairly capable people.

So in saying goodbye to this place, I feel I'm saying goodbye to all that. But I am already starting to realize that there are great things ahead, too, and other stages of life that will be just as transformative and fulfilling and frustrating and exciting.

We just bought and shipped my nephew his first ever bike, a birthday gift.* And we'll get to see him ride it soon. And we'll get to be there for many milestones after that. And there is something giddily happy about that for me. Also, I hear the coffee is great out there.



*Brother-in-law: If you are reading this, we are SORRY that you will be the one who has to assemble the bike, which I am afraid may have come in 24,000 pieces. Clearly we did not fully think through the awesomest-long-distance-aunt-and-uncle-in-the-world plan enough to realize it came with a mandatory burdening-parents-who-are-already-busy-doing-other-stuff-with-putting-bikes-together-at-midnight addendum. We will buy you a bottle of gin as soon as we arrive to make up for this oversight.