A Year in photos

- January 01, 2019

Last year, 2018 began with some major transitions: our daughter, son in law, and grand-daughter sold their home, took a new job in Detroit, and moved in with us. The end of 2017 and first few days of 2018 were complicated by all of us catching the flu. This despite having the flu shot. It was, apparently a bad season for the flu.

Saying good bye to their former home

I went to Chicago to help with the last of the move and got sick myself. I sequestered myself in an upstairs room while the movers loaded the truck. Then I slept in the car while Jess drove us to Dearborn.

We had a lovely winter last year, lots of snow and plenty of play time outside as we all figured out how to live together.

By the time Easter came we were anticipating the birth of a second grand baby, due in October. In July I travelled to Austin, Texas where I preached at the historic St. David's church during the celebration Eucharist for the closing of the Episcopal Women's Caucus, of which I had been the Convener for 6 years. It was a monumental occasion, one where I sought to honor the hard work of women and men in the Episcopal Church since 1971, especially for women's ordination but also for other justice causes in the church. Here's a link to the EWC closing service

Dan and I took a great trip to Seattle to see Peter and had so much fun. Jess finished class in August and had a break until Garrett was born in October. Life was good but hard as we adjusted to the needs of an infant and toddler.

2018 was a year in which I began some deeper intercultural work as I accepted the call to mentor a Curate from Lebanon, who is doing ministry with Arabic Christians in our area. I decided to build my sabbatical work around deepening intercultural awareness and travelled to Portland in November for training with IDI: Intercultural Development Inventory. This organization has created a tool, which I am now licensed to apply, that helps individuals and organizations understand their intercultural competency and how they become more adaptive in their intercultural capacity. I have done a lot of reading to assist with this tool. And, I am excited to go to Chicago in January, back to Seabury where I acquired my M.Div, and audit a class with Eric Law and Emlyn Ott on Diversity and Context; a class designed for congregations and intercultural awareness across the spectrums of gender, race, class, ethnicity. At some point I will take some sabbatical time to travel to other countries and deepen my intercultural awareness that way, too.

Then around Thanksgiving we all got sick with a respiratory virus that kicked us hard. It lasted five weeks and ended up with Jess having a sinus infection and ear infection, me having a sinus infection that took courses of antibiotics to kick, Leah and a double eye infection and a double ear infection. But baby Garrett was the worst, he ended up in the NICU for 9 days with a heavy congestion, compromised breathing, and for a few days, our fear that he might not make it. Thankfully he had excellent medical care. Although we began and ended this year with illness, overall we were healthy and had a good year filled with many blessings.

I am hoping for a less sick, but equally blessed 2019. I hope the same for you.