St. Patrick's Day

My friends Marilyn and Donna celebrating St. Patrick's Day in 2015 in the Circle@Crown Café.  Notice they are wearing green.  Neither of them is still with us, but today (reminded by this photo) I'll think of them and St. Patrick, patron saint of Ireland, who is said to have died on March 17 around 493 A.D.

Let me end this blog post with a bit of humor:  "A best friend is like a four-leaf clover:  hard to find and lucky to have."

Ambassador ~ word of the day

Word of the Day #1

am·bass·a·dor. (noun) = (1) an accredited diplomat sent by a country as its official representative to a foreign country.  Example:  "He was the French ambassador to Portugal."  (2) a person who acts as a representative or promoter of a specified activity.  Example:  "He is a good ambassador for the industry."

This photo shows Donna and me (back left, near the books) in a cooking class in the Crown Center's culinary kitchen, with our library behind us.  When I moved here in 2014, Marilyn was appointed my Crown Center ambassador.  That means she showed me around the place, helping me get to know the layout and how to sign up for activities, like this 2017 class when Marilyn was sitting directly in front of me, wearing that white jacket.  Being an ambassador is a volunteer activities we can take on, and I enjoy doing it now.

Because of the pandemic, we are not officially being assigned the job lately, but I have appointed myself ambassador when I want to get to know a new resident.  Most recently, that would be Fay.  I met her about a week ago and learned she'd moved in only two weeks earlier.  So I started to acquaint her with what goes on around here.  I've done things like get her a resident list from the office, so she can see who lives on her floor and which building that person she met at lunch lives on.  It turns out Fay is also from Tennessee, like me.  Serendipity, huh?

Word of the Day #2

ser·en·dip·i·ty (noun) = the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.  Example:  "It was a stroke of serendipity that Fay and I are both originally from Tennessee."

Sunday Salon ~ exercising, books, family

Exercising

Dorothy, Marilyn, and Shannon had gotten into position to do "wall pushups" the day I snapped this photo of part of our group.  I'm not a morning person, and most of our scheduled exercises meet in the morning.  So I rounded up a few like-minded people to join me a couple of afternoons a week to do our own thing.

Books

Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne  ~ by Wilda C. Gafney, 2017, religion

Several of us who live in my retirement center are meeting each week.  We are Jewish and Christian and studying a book about religion together.  What we've found is that each of us brings an enlightening perspective and enriches us all.  By clicking on the title, you can read what I wrote about the book when I bought it.

Family

My great-granddaughter Shiloh celebrated her first birthday yesterday.  I could have shown you the requisite photo of her eating (and wearing) her special birthday cake, but I like this one better.  It shows what a cute little girl she has become.  She had trouble breathing when she was born, but look at her now!

Bloggers gather in the Sunday Salon — at separate computers in different time zones — to talk about our lives and our reading.

Friday Five ~ five things that are new in my life

Mary Beth brings us today's Friday Five:

"So, no matter what the weather’s doing where you live, this time of year brings the beginning of school for most people.  Unless you are in year round school, or homeschooling, or something else.  Many folks I know say the beginning of school makes them feel like a new beginning, even if they are not in school themselves or have kids there.  In fact, I did a little math at the beginning of the week and determined that, based on my career in higher education and when I entered first grade, I am entering the 44th Grade this year.  So, for beginnings:  Tell us five things that are new in your life, or that you would LIKE to have be new in your life.  If that doesn’t work, how about things that you are ready to shed ... to make room for new things?  Opening your hands to release, to see what God might put into them?  So, go!"

Five things that are new in my life:

1.  New home

In June, I moved to St. Louis from my hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee.  It's been a great adventure so far, as I settle into my new home and ... (ta-da!) ... make new friends!

2.  New friends

Evelyn, Betty, Sheila, Judy, Tomoko, Nancy, and Marilyn eat at my table at our "senior living" apartments.  I've attended all sorts of activities so I'd get to know my new neighbors in the building.  I've taken road trips with them and gone to all three "birthday bashes" in the three months I've lived here.  And I've participated in resident council meetings.  We didn't have anything like that where I used to live.  These people are very active and involved, and I'm loving it!

3.  New study buddies

My way of continuing to learn and "be in school" is to gather a group of my new friends — and one old friend — into a book discussion and "teach" each other.  We are currently studying Brian McLaren's 2014 book We Make the Road by Walking: A Year-Long Quest for Spiritual Formation,Reorientation, and Activation.

4.  New stole

Because I'm in St. Louis and live only six or eight miles from Ferguson, I learned on the 20th of a call for clergy in vestments to gather in solidarity for prayer and witness.  Local and statewide clergy would march to the county's Justice Center for a brief demonstration and prayer, and then the group would "caravan to Ferguson and consecrate the area with prayer and oil" so that our presence, prayers, and prophetic witness would make a difference.  Oops!  I just moved.  I had kept one stole when I retired, a tapestry stole showing children of the world, but which box was it in?  I got the invitation the day of the gathering and I didn't have time to search through boxes, so I went out and bought a new stole.  It's tapestry, similar in color to the one of the children that I have, somewhere, not yet unpacked.  And I did get it in time to march with the others, wearing my new clergy stole.

5.  New church

When I moved into my new home, in a new state, hundreds of miles from my last church, I set out to find a new church home.  University United Methodist Church is only two and a half miles from home, has a clergywoman as new to St. Louis as I am, and (as an added plus) both she and her husband graduated from Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta -- just as I did.  He teaches at Eden Seminary.  The Rev. Diane Kenaston is wearing the white robe and stole in the top photo, and her husband Adam Ployd is the bearded man behind her.  I was there, but only my left hand made it into the photo.  I was just to the left of the picture, beside the man wearing the white shirt.