A Visit to Trinity Washington

Saturday morning a small group of us went for a walk before breakfast. Over breakfast the topic of where we planned on attending church Sunday morning came up. Two of the members of the group were heading to Trinity Washington, and the other two of us asked if we could go with them. Plans were made, and off we went to start our individual days.

Yesterday morning Barbara, Joyce, Maxine, and I climbed into Anita's car for the drive into the District. We left an hour before the service "just in case" (or as my family says, "the bridge might be up"). It was a good choice. We took a wrong exit off of 395 and ended up seeing parts of Washington we hadn't planned on seeing. The Siri sounded quite cross at times, and we joked that we'd be in trouble if we heard Siri say "Do not cross the Jordan River. Make a u-turn and go back to the Wilderness." We arrived at Trinity 15 minutes before the service started.

An usher handed us each a bulletin, and several people said good morning as we headed down to the front of the church to find seats. The rector stopped by to greet us, as he and Anita have known each other for a while, and I worked with him last month when the parish's young adult volunteers had their beginning of the year retreat at the seminary.

The church was full by the time the service started. High church? Not only did they use incense, I observed dalmatics and tunicles on various members of the altar party. This parish is also one of the very few I've visited where the copies of Lift Every Voice and Sing are more used than my at former parish in Connecticut.

A lot happened during the service. They were auditioning the last organist candidate, and the choir did not do well masking their opinions. There was a baptism. They installed the new officers of their Episcopal Church Women chapter. It was Ministries Sunday. And the Peace was fairly lengthy. The service went on for almost two-and-a-half hours, though it never felt like it was dragging. Well, the announcements, which came between the Peace and the Offertory, took longer than they should have. Three people got up and talked about Saturday's parish picnic. Definitely a lot going on!

The other thing they did during announcements was to ask newcomers/visitors to stand and introduce themselves. They even passed the mic around to do it. Three of our group didn't stand, but the rector came over and made a point of having us introduce ourselves because of the connections that already existed. I will say it again. This is not always the best way to identify or welcome visitors.

I saw something new to me. A cup sat on each of the patens used for distributing the bread. It took me a moment to realize that the cups held wine, and they were used for intinction when the clergy placed the intincted wafer on the communicant's tongue. it also took a moment for me to see that there were also chalices. I probably would have been better off receiving an intincted wafer. The Eucharistic minister spilled wine on me. It happens sometimes. I've done it myself.

On the surface, this congregation isn't any more diverse than any of the others I've visited since I've been here. But a closer look reveals that the members come from several different African countries and the Caribbean. There is a small number of Anglos. They also have a wide variety of age groups, though I did not see many teenagers.

We spent a few minutes at the Ministry Fair and then headed out to find something to eat. Siri didn't get too annoyed with us, since we didn't make any wrong turns. We ended up at La Madeleine in Old Town.

I really enjoyed visiting Trinity. It has a lot to offer. But I still have a list of churches I want to visit, especially now that Summer is over.

The Yankee Goes to A Football Game

Yes, I went to a high school football game for the first time since... Well since I was in high school.

My friends Kellee and Bob are big sports fans. All of their kids participated in sports, and they follow college and professional teams in a number of sports. Their youngest is a freshman at a small college that is fielding it's first football team since 1929. So when Kellee asked me earlier in the week if I'd like to go to a high school football game with them last night, I figured why not. I'd spend some time with friends, and I'd have some time off the Hill (more about that at a later time).

An unexpected late afternoon meeting threw a wrench into my plans to run some errands for the Guest Houses and then head over to Kellee's and Bob's before the worst of the rush hour traffic. Instead, I hit the road at about 4:50 and took the local roads route. I'm slowly learning the ins and outs of navigating Alexandria and points west. Traffic wasn't as bad as it could have been, so I arrived in plenty of time. We went to dinner and then headed over to Annandale High School for the game.

The Annandale Atoms third game of the season was against the Jeb Stuart (tell me again that we're not in the South) Raiders. I actually had a good time. It's hard not to get caught up in the excitement of the game when you're sitting in the stands among parents and students. There were times when it seemed like the Atoms were scoring in spite of themselves. In the end, however, they won 32-27.

Another part of the whole game experience is the band. I played in the band during high school and freshman year of college. Things haven't changed much. I recognized a lot of the music and marching routines--or at least the steps involved. They did a much better job at halftime than I remember our high school band doing. There's a picture in one of my high school yearbooks that shows one of the lines during a halftime show. No two of the kids in the picture are in step with each other. But I do know the work involved in even a simple routine. One of the kids in the color guard was clearly knew and still learning, but he had the smile piece down.

Of course, as flutist, I looked for the flutes. No flutes. Three piccolos. We had no piccolo player during my years at DHS. The first flutes usually ended up with the piccolo parts in the Sousa marches.

All in all I had a good time. I might even go again, if I'm invited.

The Yankee Remembers

It's impossible not to know when this date rolls around. For days before, sometimes weeks, the media barrages us with stories and documentaries about that awful day 11 years ago. When I awoke this morning I noted, as did many others, that the weather was pretty much the same as it was 11 years ago, and that it was also a Tuesday. I'd overslept that morning, and as I got ready for work I heard the traffic report about a plane hitting one of the towers of the World Trade Center. Details were sketchy, and the reports of those first few minutes said nothing about a jet. I was on the way to work when I heard reports of the second plane. Immediately I knew it was no coincidence and no accident. Not long after that came the news of the plane hitting the Pentagon and eventually about the plane going down in Pennsylvania.

The company I worked for had temporary employees on assignment with companies in the Towers. Employees of our New York office watched helplessly from their conference room further uptown. When one of my friends emailed me that one of the Towers had collapsed. At first I thought he was kidding.

He wasn't.

It was days before we tracked down all of our employees assigned in the Towers.

It was days before I heard from people I knew at the Pentagon.

Each year on the anniversary the nation's attention focuses on what happened to and in the Towers. We hear surviors' stories and the stories of victim's families over and over again. We hear about the upcoming memorials around Ground Zero and across the country. Memorials from Ground Zero are televised. Throughout all of this comes the occasional afterthought.

Oh,yeah, one plane hit the Pentagon.

Oh, and there were those passengers who heroically fought their hijackers and kept their plane from hitting its intended target.

After 10 years of remembrances in the vicinity of New York City it is a different experience being literally less than six miles from the Pentagon on this 11th anniversary. The stories I hear are tinged with a sense of the panic people felt here that was very different from what people felt in New York City. There was a much greater sense of waiting for the next attack to come, which is understandable given the large number of military bases and offices in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Not to mention federal offices, the Capitol, and the White House.

Yet even here, the majority of the media coverage focuses mostly on the events in New York City. The images of the Towers burning and collapsing are iconic. The empty field in Pennsylvania doesn't hold the same visual impact. Photos of the downed jet look much like any other air crash. The Pentagon was not catastrophically destroyed, and it was a military target as opposed to a civilian one.

Eventually the events of 11 years ago will fade into history and myth joining, among others, the attack on Pearl Harbor that occurred 71 years ago, the sinking of the Lusitania 97 years ago, and the sinking of the Maine 113 years ago. Like those events, the historical, social, and political contexts of 9/11 will be simplified or glossed over in our cultural retelling. Like those events, 9/11's primacy in our cultural memory will be replaced by some new catastrophe or attack.

Until then, we remember.

The Yankee Experiences Virginia Weather

Yesterday and today we've had our first taste of Fall weather, even though Fall doesn't officially start for another few days. After the past weeks of hot temperatures and high humidity it is a relief. It did not, however, come without cost.

Fortunately, I had the TV on Saturday afternoon while I puttering around the apartment taking care of chores. Shortly before 4:00 an Emergency Alert interrupted whatever was showing. I paused to see what it was for what areas. It wasn't the thunderstorm I could hear coming in rapidly from the west. It was a tornado warning of the seek immediate shelter kind. Having been raised by a mother who grew up in the Midwest and gone to colleges in the Midwest, I knew what to do without hesitation. I grabbed my flashlight/radio, cell phone, wallet, list of who's in the Guest Houses, and keys and headed for the bathroom in my office--ground floor with no exterior walls. I glanced out the office window as I headed into the bathroom and saw the rain start to go horizontal, which is never a good sign. Later I learned that the proctors moved students into the basements of the dorms while I was headed into my office.

The all clear came about 15 or 20 minutes later. Other than the funnel cloud sighted to the west of us, we had no tornado. Even where there had been one, there appears to have been no serious damage. There were lots of branches down, and the power was out. Shades of June's Derecho. Fortunately, the power came back on after a couple of hours.

As we've shared stories over the past couple of days, locals have said this is just part of weather in Virginia. Hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes, and the occasional snowstorm. Fewer snowstorms than back home, but probably more hurricanes.

And let's not forget about earthquakes.

Nature happens. There isn't anything do do but be prepared. I know where to shelter. I know what to grab depending on how much time I have. I keep a shelf in the kitchen stocked with food that doesn't need to be cooked.

So the violent weather front passed through, and we're experiencing cooler temperatures and clear skies. Yesterday afternoon and this evening I opened my windows. It feels wonderful having fresh air in the apartment. I should sleep well tonight.