Catching Up

A week and a half ago I caught one of the bugs that is going around both my office and my parish. It put me totally out of commission for three days last week, and even now I'm worn out by mid-afternoon. Basically, I go home, eat supper, do a couple of necessary chores, and go to bed. At least I've been able to get through the past two nights without the need for cough syrup. Those 4 a.m. coughing fits are exhausting.

During the course of this illness, a lot of stuff happened--some of it important, some of it not so important, and some of it just plain silly. Friday, when I was finally out of bed and returning to work, I found that I'd slept through the Super Tuesday Primaries, the release of the St. Andrew's Draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant, more unseasonable weather, and the release of job postings at the Church Center. The real kicker was waking up Friday morning and half-hearing the news report saying "Volcano... erupting... Quito... Ecuador..." Ruth-Ann is in Ecuador for the pilot of a curriculum project, the Executive Council meeting, and another project. Which volcano? How big of an eruption? How close to Quito (or even in Quito)? Fortunately, that worry was quickly eased as I heard further news reports that the volcano was one about 90 miles southeast of the city.

Would that other news stories had come and gone as quickly. The Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks to a lawyers' group about Sharia law have plagued the media and the blogosphere for the past few days. I think it's been blown all out of proportion, but it's also the symptom of a larger problem. Almost everyone is watching the Archbishop's every word to either undermine his position or support their own. The Archbishop is an academic who wouldn't know a sound byte from a mosquito bite--or at least acts as if he doesn't. He still has not learned that the Anglican Communion is not an academic setting, and he can't make it one.

Saturday I drove up to Hartford to attend a communications workshop at the diocese. It was a long day for one still recovering from the bug. Nor had I really wanted to go in the first place, but because the vestry retreat was the same weekend, I was the only one on the parish communications committee available to go. I'm glad I went. I picked up a lot of good information that will help us with our web site and parish communications in general.

Finally, even though we have the list of our positions at the Church Center--two-and-a-half weeks late--we still haven't been given the go ahead to let folks outside know. Hopefully, that word will come once everyone is back from the Executive Council meeting.

That's all for now, as my lunch hour is about up.

Peace,
Jeffri