My Saturday Morning Appointment

I love photographing St. Michael's, but I end up with a lot of unedited and unposted pictures.

Last weekend, I wrote briefly about Saturday morning at a confirmation class at St. Michael's. I meant to return to the subject in a bit more depth, but I've been busy, obsessive, insomniac and a little bit ill, so I didn't get around to it. I won't do more than scratch the surface of the topic tonight, either.

This took forever to upload because I didn't resize.

It's all part of the same problem, isn't it? This week I didn't get around to writing about why I'm in that class, or posting the baptism photos I took two weeks ago, or reading John 16 and 17, or updating the church web site, or downloading those two sermons on audio. And that's just the religious stuff I didn't get done. There's also the sleep I didn't get, and the dishes I didn't wash (did some of them, though), the laundry I didn't put away, the visits to the gym I didn't make, and the TV Guides I didn't sort through as John asked me to do a month ago. Yes, I'm busy, but mostly I'm busy doing all the wrong things.

At some point I'll be brave enough to write about angels. No, Paul, I won't be making any major claims about them.

But in five and three quarters hours I will pick up Toni Sue at Walgreen's and take her to St. Michael's, where we will sit at Mass together, followed by Confirmation class and lunch. Maybe this weekend I'll be able to stay motivated long enough to get the sermons and the web update done, and post some pictures, and think some more about what it all means to me. You see, I'm not actually getting confirmed next weekend. I went through all that at St. Ann's in Manlius in 1970, when I was 13 years old. But next weekend, at Father Smith's request, I will be "received" into the Episcopal Church, the same denomination for which I've designed web pages and carried a cross and even blogged intermittently for the past several years. Being received is the equivalent of Confirmation for people who were previously confirmed in other denominations.

I won't be joining the clergy anytime soon.

Frankly, I'm hoping to learn more and accomplish more this time around than I did when I was thirteen. My big memory of that is my staring at the buttons on Father Harrison's too-tight cassock as he told us that only Catholics went to heaven. I was shocked that any priest would still believe such a thing, much less try to pass on that outmoded teaching. The instructor of my confirmation class did some quick damage control the moment the pastor walked away.

St. Michael's isn't at all like that, of course. One of the many things I like about it is that people come to it from a variety of religious traditions, and find a spiritual home among people who like and accept each other regardless of background. I really do want to learn more about this church I've adopted, this church that's adopted me.

But lately, as I prepare for a ceremony in which the bishop will lay his hands on me while John sits at home, I find myself distracted and undisciplined, as usual. I'm not prepared at all.

I need to do better.

Guess I'll start by downloading those sermons - and going the heck to bed in the meantime.

Karen

Technorati Tags: Priorities, Episcopal, Personalll,