Quite a week!

Tonight my head is spinning a bit. The week past has been full of changes. We started out in Shutesbury. I decided to go next week to a Symposium in honor of my former teacher, Markus Barth, which will be held at Princeton Theological Seminary this coming Wed--Fri., and made arrangements to go by public transport, a combination of bus and train. Then Ellen decided she could go to Swarthmore and drop me off and pick me up. So I have a couple of tickets I need to figure out what to do with. Maybe I could make a trip to NYC to see Katie at some point. We went up to Vermont on Tuesday for the opening of River Singers, and went early enough to have soup at the church before the rehearsal. John and Cynthia met us there (they live near-by), and it gave us a chance to see them and talk a bit. John was using a walking-stick to assist his walking because he mysteriously injured his foot - it is very sore and swollen and he has no idea why! I've done things like that too. It's pretty weird when it happens.

We stayed at home Wednesday and started to clean the house in anticipation of company - Phil McKean - who was coming on Thursday and spending a night or two. He and Deborah were coming over from Maine so that she could attend a Mt. Holyoke College reunion of particularly good friends. One of them had graciously agreed to room with her and assist her (Deborah has Alzheimer's), so Phil felt free to have some time away. So we picked up, swept, vacuumed, cleaned, laundered bedclothes - the whole deal. Then we went to Concert Choir rehearsal - which we both enjoyed very much. We like the way our new director, Jonathan Harvey, conducts a rehearsal. But I also learned that someone I had sung with in both the Chorale and the Concert Choir, a soprano, Sharry Manning, had died. This was shocking news because I had no idea she was ill, and she is fairly young. Sobering! About the same time we got an email from Maggie and Jerry that Maggie's cousin, Bob Nilsson, had died in New London, NH. He is son of the famous Aunt Hazel who is still living and is 107 years old (or is it 108?). And on top of that, Maggie, Jerry and Daniel are all driving out for Bob's funeral on Sept. 29th, which is the weekend Katie will be visiting - her visit coming right on the heels of my trip to Princeton!  We'll see how all that works out!

Thursday, I decided not to go to the Common Ground Fair in Maine (this weekend). It just seemed like too much - I feel I need to conserve my energy with all that is happening. I would not feel deprived by not going but Ellen would, so she left early this morning for Maine. Meanwhile, Phil did arrive Thursday at suppertime and we had a lovely meal prepared by Ellen and a very nice visit. I had spent some time getting our propane fireplace heater going again after our summer away. New batteries, lots of tries  and no luck until I called Tech Assist and they walked me through the whole process until I realized I had forgotten to turn one knob a last quarter-turn. Voila! It was nice to have it because the weather has turned "fallish"  and the heat felt good. We talked well into the night and one thing Phil shared, which was quite moving, was a talk he had given at their local church in Maine on the new sense of values and joy he has found in caring for Deborah in her cognitive impairment and loss of memory - a true "living in the now." It has not been easy to come to this new place, he feels, but he realized at some point that "Valuing memory above all else can become idolatrous." I've attached a photo of an article that was in the paper. Over fifty people came to the talk. Deborah was there and I wish I had been there too. At the end of the evening I cleaned up the kitchen and Ellen and I watched the late PBS news. Our country is in sad shape indeed but at the personal level, friendship is strong!

Phil and Deborah McKean at the Common Ground Fair - a few years ago

An article about Phil's talk on Alzheimer's last week

This morning Ellen left early, Phil and I had breakfast together, another good talk, and then, since he wanted to go to W. Hartford, CT to see his grand-nieces in soccer games, he brought me down to Shutesbury to K&S's since it was right on the way. He took a moment to come in and meet Katie and Savanna. He had worked for a decade in fund-raising for the PenBay Hospital where Savanna had her ankle surgery, so they had some things to share. He knew her surgeon - Dr. Rasmussen - who, by the way, took the trouble to call Savanna this week to find out how she was doing. That is unusual!

This afternoon I went to the Smith College Library to look at three books which I had earlier requested be brought out of their Annex (their main Library is under total renovation and the whole biblical collection is in storage. But you can ask for specific items and they will retrieve them for you - in a couple of days). They were interesting, one sufficiently so that I photographed the whole book with my iPod: Isaiah in the New Testament, it is titled, published in 2005 (and so fairly recent). My dissertation is all about Isaiah in Luke. The author of the chapter on Luke in this collection was Dutch and his sources were mostly European and recent, so, not surprisingly, I was not among them.

The first page of the chapter on Isaiah in Luke-Acts

Katie, Savanna, Brendon and I had a lovely supper of chicken stew with dumplings that Katie made, and afterward I cleaned up the kitchen. This has been a clean-up week for me. Fortunately, I actually enjoy it (really!). In a life in which so much that I have done has had unknown or uncertain results, it is gratifying to do something where the results are immediate and pleasing!

The clean kitchen