Meet-n-Greet

See #7 for the "word" connection.

Meet-n-Greet is a way to get to know new people at RevGalBlogPal's blog.  This week, the Rev. Teri Peterson wants "charter members and brand newbies and everyone in between" to introduce ourselves.

1.  Who are you?

I'm the Rev. Bonnie Setliffe Jacobs, retired after serving as a pastor in the United Methodist Church.  Yes, in Tennessee.

2.  Where are you?

Three years ago, I moved to St.  Louis, Missouri, where I live in an independent retirement center.

3.  How do you spend your days?

Being retired, I get to have fun most days.  By "fun" I mean activities like exercising with others who live here in the Crown Center, attending musical performances, and eating with friends in our Circle@Crown Café.  I take people shopping or to their various medical appointments, since some of my new friends no longer drive.  Several of us have decided to work together on the DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) and exercise for flexibility, balance, strength, and endurance.  I also read a lot and volunteer in the Crown Center's small library.

4.  Do you blog?

Yes, you're on my blog now.  I no longer blog daily, as I once did, partly because I'm so busy with other activities.

5.  How and when did you find RevGalBlogPals?

I was already retired when I found this great group in 2007 when another clergywoman mentioned it.

6.  What do you appreciate, what is it about this community that keeps you here?

As one of the early clergywomen in the United Methodist Church, serving churches that didn't think women should be in the pulpit, I enjoy "seeing" all the activities of the many women serving churches today.

7.  What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

That I'm a word person.  My earliest full memory is about words.  I see my grandmother's chandelier beyond the head of my uncle (possibly Uncle Paul), who is looking down toward Nancy and me standing at his feet.  He asks Nancy, "What grade are you in?" and she says, "First grade."  That's all of the conversation I remember, but my perplexity rings clear in my memory.  What were they talking about?  How could she be in a "firstgrade" when I could clearly see she was in a room?  What's a "firstgrade" anyhow?  I didn't even understand our uncle's question, but Nancy knew and she answered him.  EVERYBODY knew what the words meant ... except me!  I couldn't stand it!  I wanted to know what all the words mean, all of them, every word in the world.  Even Nancy, a little girl herself, knew what these words meant, and I didn't.  It was so frustrating.

As an adult I pondered my memory of confusion and perplexity, realizing I must have been very, very young if Nancy was in the first grade.  Nancy, after all, is four years older than I am.  Let's see, she would be six years old in the first grade, making me ... two?!?  This means I struggled with words and understanding grown-up talk from the age of two?  Wow!  In later years I realized an uncle whose name I don't remember would probably be one who lived away from Chattanooga.  Many people were milling around in Grandma Reynolds's living room that day, meaning an uncle (one of her sons) was there for something big.  A funeral?  Probably, since Grandma died in early May 1943 and since that uncle was wearing a dark suit.  That means I had just turned three years old a week earlier, and Nancy was at the end of her first year in school.

My first degree was in English Language and Literature (a double major with Philosophy and Religion), and I studied Latin, German, classical Greek, Koine Greek (1st-century Greek), and a dab of Hebrew and even less Dutch.  And I still occasionally run across new words in my reading.  In other words, maybe subconsciously, I've been trying to learn "all the words in the world" since 1943.