Rev. Judith's Journal

Yes, I am a grandmother! Carson John Joseph Caditz made his entrance from the womb and into the world Thursday morning, January 10. He weighed 7 lbs. and 12 oz. I know because I was there for the whole labor and delivery. It is very different being at the other end of the birth process; that is, not the one giving birth. Amazing and awesome in the very least. I have pictures to prove it, but promised my daughter not to share them with anyone. Carson and his parents are doing well and adjusting in the midst of the sleep deprivation. I spent many days helping the first week but will not be there this week at all. I am taking a vacation next week so that Jacobe can go back to work. Carson is a very snuggly baby so I look forward to getting a lot of TLC from him and returning it as much as possible. When I came home I could smell him on my bath robe. Nothing quite like a new baby smell. Even beats a new car and new puppy smell by a long shot!

That's the question for my adorable new puppy. Her mother is a golden retriever and her father a mystery. Everyone seems to have an opinion about her paternity: chow, lab and newfoundland have the most votes. One woman who owned a newfie told me Boo Bear really looks like one. I looked newfies up on the web and she may be right. Plus, Boo Bear is very large for 10 weeks. I compared her with Buddy's baby photos and there is a real difference. Boo is much fluffier, her ears are shorter and her face boxier. Time will tell.
Whatever her parentage, she is a super pup. She is very social so the kids at the church are really enjoying her. She is quiet and good about going outside to pee and poop. Gee, I'm sounding like a new parent! I know there challenges over the next year; I hope puppy classes will help.

A couple in my church have children with a golden retriever who had puppies a month ago, about the same time Buddy died. The paternity of the father is unknown; I have decided to take a puppy. She is black and I will name her Boo, the nickname of my mother. The one little challenge is that the puppies are in North Carolina. But then so is my son. So I have booked airfare for the day after Thanksgiving to fly back East to pick her up. I will be able to stay 3 or 4 nights with my son as well, an added bonus!

St. Paul's Church will never be a boring place to work. On the contrary it is so crazy-busy that I am wanting to figure out how to retire! It's exhausting. Take last week as an example, although truth be told it was pretty typical!
The Trustees decided we needed a new safe that is both large enough that someone couldn't pick it up and walk away with it and that's fire-proof for documents. Three men of the group ordered it from a catalogue. The "Hummer" of safes was delivered and would not fit in the locked closet where it was supposed to go. That closet, by the way, had formerly stored my vestments, which were all now dumped in my office over a large chair. I have robes for every liturgical season and beautiful stoles made by women friends from every church I've served, so it's a large pile. Other worship supplies as well as the Hummer safe were put in Lisa's office (the associate pastor). That was all on Monday.
Later that day the same Trustee decided to start painting the new office manager's office with her trying to work in it. His crew was available and they do not work on weekends. Four members of the finance committee showed up to meet and sat at a table in the office while a member from the UMW met with a man about a new ice machine in the hall way. Another UMW member spent two hours on the phone tracking down money we sent to Zimbabwe.
And then it was Tuesday. I was in Stockton all day meeting with four other pastors in my age group beginning a leadership study together. We ended up talking about how tired we are! The painting continued, the closet was modified so the safe could fit, but my vestments are still piled on a chair in my office. While Lisa and I were meeting with the two Lay Leaders in my office, a man showed up to take a pew from the sanctuary. Charlotte, the office manager was at lunch. His English was very poor and my Spanish even worse as I told him they were supposed the reupholster them in place. I opened the sanctuary door for him to look. A hour hour later we heard what sounded like a piano dolly. It was a pew being rolled to his truck.
By Wednesday the pew project was in full swing with the backs removed from the pews, which meant all the hymnals, bibles, songbooks, prayer cards, offering envelopes and pencils were stacked all over the steps to the chancel. Most of the sanctuary was covered in plastic as the pews needed to be cleaned with a horrible smelling paint thinner product.
And then the spraying started on Thursday. I reminded the Trustees that the UMW was having a retreat in there on Saturday and they said "no problem." The officer manager asked if someone was going to help put her furniture back, but Lisa and I had to go to Sacramento for a meeting at the Conference office. She finally got some help Friday afternoon.
By Friday morning it became obvious that the sanctuary would not be available for either the UMW on Saturday or the congregation on Sunday. So I put on my jeans and tennis shoes and helped set up the Fellowship Hall. I had to calm down the UMW president and talk about "going with the flow". She didn't understand why the pew project couldn't have waited another week. I changed clothes at lunch to make a visit to the nursing home, then put my "other" work clothes back on to help with the setting up.
Saturday morning was the UMW retreat where the woman leading it called me the pastor's wife. 34 years of that and I'm still not used to it! After the luncheon which ended the retreat, we added more chairs, wheeled a piano into the room, brought in banners and set up an altar. I was there until 4:00 and still had a lot of work to do on my sermon. In the afternoon the upholstery guys had come back and taken apart about eight pews and the sanctuary looked like a bomb had gone off.
Sunday morning we had my adult class in my office which meant 11 people around a table for six. Robes and stoles are still stacked on a large chair in there. Then we worshipped in the Fellowship Hall and it was okay. We had moved Fellowship time to the Fireside Room and outside, which was a nice switch. Annie and Jacobe had arrived for the service and afterward about 30 of us gathered on the lawn around a hole, placed Buddy's ashes in it, told stories about the good old dog, and planted an oak tree. I took Annie and Jacobe to a Mexican restaurant they really like (Annie's friend Brie was also with us). I was then supposed to marry them, but Annie forgot the license. So we drove to their new house in Sacramento where I did the minimum to make it legal. They will celebrate with a real wedding next fall. And I drove home.
I wonder what this week will bring? It's my day off and I've already had a call from the office with several questions. I am going to unplug my phone and work in the garden. Then I will take a long nap. I know that this week already involves a memorial service, a meeting with the trustees and finance committee as well as the Church Council. We are told that we cannot be back in the sanctuary until November. I don't remember seminary classes about any of this stuff!

Once again I have picked up the ashes of a loved one, this time my dog, Buddy. Interesting fact: When my mother was cremated (weighing 150 pounds) in February the cost was $1600 and she was placed in a gray plastic box. My dog was cremated (weighing 95 pounds), the cost was $135 and he was placed in a beautiful finished wooden box. It even has a lock and two keys. Not sure why. The difference in the price of cremations is a real scam.
Wednesday evening some of us will gather at the church, bury Buddy's ashes and plant a tree over him. I'll read "The Tenth Good Thing About Barney" and we can share the good things about Buddy which number more than ten.
I hope my ash-picking-up days are over. Three times is enough for one person in one lifetime. Dust to dust.

Today I "put down" Buddy, the best ever dog. A 10 year old golden retriever, we had been through so much together. I picked him out when he was only three weeks old in Three Forks, Montana. He had moved with me, traveled with me, and was always happy as long as I was near by. He was the perfect example of unconditional love, always happy to see me and never asking for anything except for dinner at night and bed near me. He was especially happy to be in the backyard when I worked there. He loved going to the office with me and greeting everyone who came in. He was the church mascot. The kids in the preschool loved to go by my office and see him lying in the big sliding glass window.
Buddy developed liver disease and went very quickly. But right to the end he was trying so hard to be loving and to please me. It broke my heart to leave him at the vet's office. When I took the collar and leash off of him I thought my heart would break. It is breaking still.
Buddy, I loved you and I will miss you more than is reasonable.

Or so the T-shirt for this fundraising season reads. But then that's where I get most of my news such as this: The President of Iran is visiting New York and people were outraged that he wanted to put a green wreath at ground zero of the Towers. What am I missing here? We refuse all acts of kindness because "We will never forget" as the bumper stickers proclaim. We don't want to move on. We refuse to heal. We will certainly not let one of the countries of the "Evil Axis" profane our sacred national shrine. But wait! Aren't we supposed to be more civilized than this? Aren't we supposed to model ways of peace and reconciliation? Or do we just try to get Israel and Palestine to work things out when we will "never forget." Sigh. But wait, we are still invading Iraq and sending our dead soldiers home in body bags that are not allowed to be photographed. I wonder if people still get Iraq and Iran confused like the country western song that came out after September 11: "I don't know the difference between Iraq and Iran..." I forget the rest of the verse, thankfully. But I remember how bizarre that phrase was, playing on our emotions to "never forget."
My sermon this Sunday is on Micah: what does the Lord require of you? To seek justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God. I do believe I will have a lot of current material from which to draw. And that's too bad.