A Lenten Small Group

 

The first small group we joined several years ago in our church in South Bend specifically asked us to meet with them because we didn't have any small children and they were a bit overwhelmed with children who needed to be cared for.  Our first meeting was supposed to be a costume party for Halloween.  Creative costumes have never been my thing but I had an idea.  I stuffed a pillow under a large shirt and went as a pregnant woman which would have been quite the shocking surprise for everyone for someone my age--60 or so.  

After a few years with that group, we took on the joint leadership of a group of graduate students who worshipped at our church or were somehow affiliated with others who did.  We provided a meeting place and food and the young folks took on the leadership in all other ways.  We did introduce them to the idea of "white elephant" gifts for our Christmas parties which enabled us to get rid of a few odd items.   As it turned out, the Dead Sea Scroll ties were quite sought after as folks traded up for them.

Two and a half years ago we moved to Princeton and when the opportunity came for joining a Lenten small group, we signed up--specifically saying we hoped to meet some younger folks.  This is our third Lenten season meeting at the home of two young men who live only about a five minute drive from our apartment.  The church, Nassau Presbyterian Church, provides lessons which are coordinated with the Sunday sermons and adult education classes.  So we discuss a passage and then are certainly more focused on what the sermon will provide for us to contemplate.

Each meeting begins with an "ice-breaker" question which has been great fun as a way to get to know each other.  We use questions from the church as guides for our discussion and we end up with a time for sharing of concerns and for prayer.  

As newcomers to the area, we have been so pleased to have had this opportunity to meet a few other persons.  Especially in this time of Covid isolation, it has been good to chat with others.  Last year we met by Zoom.  This year we are meeting in person.  Jim and I wear masks and a few of the others do as well.  We are all vaccinated.

One of the leaders mentions and thanks us for our courage and vulnerability.  Being a part of a small group and sharing concerns with others is demonstrating vulnerability.  I am grateful for those who have shared their needs which have been profound and I am praying for those needs.  I feel encouraged by hearing how others are trying to live out their faith in their work and their families. 

Singing Again

 

Two years ago I mentioned in this blog that the first sign we had of life changing because of Covid was that Grace Notes Choir, the choir for seniors that I had joined, was cancelled.  They continued to meet via Zoom but I did not do so.  This month they began to meet again in person and yesterday afternoon I showed up masked and ready to sing again.

There were maybe ten of us instead of the twenty or so that met two years ago.  We spent an hour singing hymns that members had chosen as favorites.  We sang some oldies like "The Church in the Wildwood" and the spiritual "We are Climbing Jacob's Ladder" as well as some more traditional hymns from the Presbyterian hymnnal. We did not rehearse anthems as we did in the past and I assume there are no plans to lead worship services at nearby senior living centers. 

It was wonderful to sing with others again--to be able to sing my alto part harmonizing with the other voices.  I know that my faith needs music to be nourished and yesterday it was strengthened through the words we sang.  

I smiled but underneath my mask no one knew I was smiling unless my eyes were smiling too.  I am grateful for Noel Werner, our director, who has kept the group going through this pandemic season.  I am thankful for Kingston Presbyterian Church (about to celebrate its 300th birthday) who hosts the group in its basement.  I look forward to a few more biweekly sessions before the usual summer break. I am thankful for Jim who postponed his weekly golf date to drive me to the church because I have yet to take my maiden voyage alone in our new car. 

-----------Two weeks later--As much as I enjoyed singing two weeks ago, I did not go this afternoon.  I was feeling paranoid about singing in an enclosed space.  We are getting our second booster next Monday, April 18, and maybe then I will feel better about joining for the last meeting.  Also, good friends of ours here in Princeton who were very careful about Covid, got sick anyway.  So better to just stay home.  Jim was able to get a last minute tee-time so he is off trying his new clubs this afternoon.

R H Charles off to Press!

 

Jim has mostly finished his retirement project of writing a biography of Robert Henry Charles, a leader of the early 20th century in Jim's field of early Judaism.  Jim's goal is to send it to Oxford University Press by the end of the month.  They have already accepted it for publication.  The hold up is because Jim is finding it difficult to get permission from a few sources to use archival material and photographs.  

To celebrate the ending of the project, Jim suggested we go to Ocean Grove for an overnight stay.  I made a reservation at Laington Hotel, a historic inn built in 1875 and located right on the boardwalk.  It took a bit of emailing and telephoning to get Room 2, a two room unit in front but it all worked out eventually.  

I had two medical appointments in the morning so I was ready to get away and relax! We arrived yesterday afternoon, checked in early,  and were pleased with our room on the second floor.  It was foggy outside but we went for a walk towards Asbury Park looking for potential places to eat dinner.  Sadly Pop's Garage where we had eaten before was closed until later in the season.  We checked out menus at two other places.

We walked back to the hotel to settle in to watch Notre Dame play Alabama in the first round of the NCAA tournament.  ND had beaten Rutgers in a double overtime game on Wednesday in a play-in game.  We had to get the innkeeper and his grandson to come up and get the TV working and find TNT but it all worked out--and we watched what seemed like a closer game than the final score indicated, a  78-64 win over Alabama.

After the game we walked to Stella Marina where we both ordered pizzas.  I had a local beer (Asbury Park Blonde) and Jim had his usual Sauvignon Blanc wine. There was enough left over for meals today--so we stored them in the car overnight where it was plenty cool enough. 

Back to more NCAA basketball and a night of sleep in a four poster bed.  An old hotel is noisy and we could hear steps (sounded like jumping!) and toilet flushing overhead.  But it all quieted down at midnight and we slept well.   The howling wind and waves were good sounds for us to hear from inside our cozy rooms.

Now it is back home for our usual routines of Saturday groceries and NY Times and more basketball.  ND plays Texas Tech tomorrow and we will see how far they can go!

Our Kia Adventure

 

Our 39 month Kia Sportage lease was going expire in May.  We have been reading about how difficult it is to get a car with supply chain problems so we made an appointment for today to gather information.  We left with more than information!  Our appointment was at 11;  we left Gateway Kia at 2 pm with a new Kia Seltos.  

We have a 48 month lease  and will pay just a little more than we have been paying.  We have a beautiful car with many safety features.  It's not a boring white or gray or black.  It's orange but what I would call a burnt orange.  We will be able to find it in parking lots!

We must have signed or initialed a hundred sheets of paper--some with electronic signatures.  There definitely is an element of trust in all of this when it all goes so fast.  But we will not have to deal with this again for a long time.  Kia takes care of the paper work for dealing with the DMV and even called to get our State Farm insurance updated.  When we got home, Jim called the bank to get our former lease payments discontinued and I called SiriusXM to get that little used feature ended (with a small refund!) We remembered to take our garage door opener and transponder out of the old car!  Oh, and also Jim's golf clubs! 

It is sobering to think of how old we will be when this lease ends.  I hope we will still be driving and driving safely.  Maybe it will be our last car.  The last two years have kept us from taking anything for granted.  But meanwhile, our new car has blind spot warnings, map directions, warnings if you swerve out of your lane, braking if something stops suddenly in front of you.   If we lock the fob in the car, we have an app on our iphones to unlock the car.  I hope that we are not too old to learn to use all these features well.  

Renters Again

We have come full circle in terms of renting and owning a house.  We started out our marriage renting a second floor apartment and now we are renters again--in a second floor apartment.  As I was contemplating this thought, I counted how many times we had lived in rental units.  Seven times I think.  

Grand Rapids, Michigan:   Our first apartment (rent-$39 a month) was very conveniently located to Calvin College where we were both seniors.  Our elderly landlords unfortunately sold the house to a young couple who worked nights at Lear.  They would come home at 2:30 am and party.  When we could hear them or their guests throwing up in the wee hours, we decided we had to move.  We found a house ($60) also in the Calvin College area although by that time Jim was a student at Calvin Seminary and I was teaching at Seymour Christian School.  Because we had an entire house, we often became the party house.  We hosted many a party for our friends and fortunately there was never any trouble at our house or for anyone leaving while driving home.

Then Jim had a Fulbright year in St. Andrews, Scotland where we had a garden flat on Howard Place--which meant an apartment below street level. It was not really a basement and it was comfortable and cosy with two spacious rooms, a living room and a bedroom with a small area for cooking in the middle with a bathroom and an entry way.  Our landlady had rooms on the same level as well as an upper level.  She took care of us and loved our newborn bairn.

Then on to Somerville, Massachuseetts where Jim found us a downstairs apartment at 74 Elm Street.  That sounds idyllic but the trucks that went down the street made everything rattle in the cupboards.  Our landlords lived in the two floors above us and once again, were folks who took care of us and loved our little baby.  In fact, after a few months, they decided to lower the rent.  They often shared their good Italian food with us.

As good as they were, we thought it best to move into Harvard student housing when it became available.  We had a lovely townhouse at 114 Holden Green and took advantage of a babysitting coop and a food coop during our three years there.

Jim's first position after graduation was at North Carolina State University.  We found an apartment in Cary, North Carolina and mistakingly assumed that would give us a community like the one in student housing.  It did not!  We soon realized that housing costs were so low that renting was a waste of our money.  We broke our lease and bought a three bedroom house in Raleigh.  

That was our first of two homes we owned in Raleigh.  When Jim had the offer from Notre Dame, we did not sell in time to buy in South Bend so we had to rent again.  Georgetown Apartments was a pleasant complex but once we sold our house in Raleigh, we bought a rather large house in Granger, Indiana where we lived for the next 28 years.

And that brings us up to 508 Barclay Boulevard where we are enjoying our spacious modern three bedroom second floor apartment--a great contrast to the second floor apartment we started out in 54 years ago.  I wonder what the next step will be.  For now, we are ready to sign the lease again for another year.

-----------------And thinking it over, there were a few more places we lived for at least a few months.  One was in LaJolla in 1988 when Jim was a visiting professor at UCSD.  We had a two bedroom apartment on the third floor in a large complex.  With three kids, it was crowded!  But we were outside a lot in perfect weather.  The adventure of that stay was the earthquake which woke us up in the middle of one night.  We ran down three flights of stairs and met all our neighbors in the parking lot.  My most vivid memory is the sound of burglar alarms going off in cars. 

Then there was the parsonage in Hospers, Iowa in the summer of 1972 when Jim had a summer preaching assignment in a church there.  That was a big house in a small town and was rent free as part of the compensation for Jim's work.  We were told that no one ever locked their doors--which made us a bit uncomfortable having come from urban living for several years. I learned to use a wringer washing machine to wash out diapers--and then we hung them on the line to dry.  We knew we were being watched but we were cared for with food from the farms in the area.