Catching up after a long silence...

Ugh. Has it really been almost a month since I posted last? I guess I got out of the habit while I was away on vacation and never got back into it. I will, though.

Just a few thoughts, each deserving its own blog post, but alas...

• We had an awesome, relaxing week at a lakeside farmhouse with my extended family -- 10 of us -- just kayaking, swimming, reading, watching the Olympics, playing games, eating good food... Check out pictures here.
  
  
• It was truly inspiring to be part of an interfaith witness on behalf of Rabbi Moshe Wilansky of Portland, who was ordered by the City Council to stop the weekly prayer services he's been holding in his home for something like 20 years. With the support of the Maine Civil Liberties Union, the Maine Council of Churches, and hundreds of Portland area residents, who showed up for the rally on the steps of City Hall, Rabbi Wilansky eventually won an appeal. The outcome was the right one, but even more than that, it was powerful to be part of this collective witness by people of many faiths (and no faith at all), together for the purpose of defending religious freedom and expressing our oneness in something that lies pretty close to the core of our humanity: the desire to pray and to be part of spiritual community. I hope the effects of that event will be long-lasting.
  
  
• Exciting news... Things are progressing as the congregation we serve pursues the purchase of a new facility for worship and ministry! We've made an offer on a commercial condominium with several meeting spaces, a kitchenette, and two bathrooms. The offer has been accepted by the seller, and now we're working through a long and time-consuming process of securing approval from both city and denominational leaders, while completing inspections, developing a budget, consulting with attorneys, meeting with property management, and on and on. Sometimes it seems like an endless process, but things are looking good!
  
  
• I went to my 20th high school class reunion last weekend. I'll confess, I was a bit ambivalent beforehand, but it really was good to see old friends after all these years. I was class president, which sounds much more impressive than it really was -- there were only 63 in my entire graduating class! -- but that meant I was part of planning the event, which proved to be quite an undertaking. This was only our second reunion in 20 years -- the first at our 10th. I hadn't seen many at the reunion since the day we graduated back in June of 1988! Amazing, though, how much people looked the same -- and I guess personalities are pretty well formed by age 18 because in that regard, it was truly like stepping back in time!
  
  
• Tomorrow we're meeting up with others from the New Light community for a Random Acts of Kindness service day. We have something like $100 in quarters and 200 coupons for coffee at Coffee By Design, and we're going to spend the morning handing out coupons for free cups of coffee, stuffing parking meters with quarters, opening doors, picking up trash, maybe giving out quarters for loads of laundry at the laundromat, dropping quarters on the sidewalk, offering free hugs, blowing bubbles on the sidewalk, stuff like that... We plan to end with lunch, and of course, we'll invite some people who look like they could use a free lunch or a friendly conversation to join us. I'll post an update later!