Is it Friday already?
QoD Will America last another four years?
Serious question. There is an element that is determined not be governed by Trump
That element has no one with experience, intelligence and integrity to lad a scout troop.
I doubt that I will see the end of it. I don’t mind at all.
I really don’t. I pray for my kids every day.l
And or many of you.
DJ, you said you have a sheltered front porch that’s a good place for packages to be left. We also have a good place for packages to be left, a front door that can’t readily be seen because it has a semi-enclosed patio–but only UPS leaves packages there. We have asked FedEx and the post office to do so, but they continue to leave packages by the door that is actually our back door, but one that can be seen from the street. (Our unit is part of a four-plex, and the other three have a garage where we have a back door.) When UPS leaves a package, we generally see the man parking and leaving the package, and often he gives the doorbell a quick touch. But when they leave it by our back door, there is no doorbell, we don’t tend to see or hear a package being left (since the back door is a family room we don’t use much–it’s a garage in most of the condo units–and that is shut off visually from the rest of the condo), and that door can be seen from the sidewalk, from the street, and in winter even from the apartments across the street.
We live in a friendly town with good customer service everywhere–except the delivery people.
It’s been a week. I started teaching Monday so Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday I have taught from 5:30 to 8:30. I go into the office late on those days. I didn’t go Tuesday and won’t go today.
I have a situation and someone else out ranks me at the office so he is the one who should handle it. I understand why he isn’t taking action …frankly I don’t know that he hasn’t had a conversation with the individual…We don’t have a photograph of the post, but we do have 4 people who saw it before one of them demanded he delete it. It was racist. I told my class last night and I tell all of my agents. I will NOT allow racism or prejudice in any shape, form, nor fashion. Last night I told them it they did it and I heard about it I would send their license back to the state. I will not tolerate it. I am so disappointed in this person
We’ve asked FedEx to leave packages by our side door, as it is under a carport roof and is the one we use, but they just drop things by the front door and walk away without even ringing the doorbell or knocking. A friend was our UPS person and he told the other UPS drivers where to leave things, and the USPS lady also knows, but it seems we never get the same FedEx person.
Oh, Peter, I have empathy for you with the wondering about what the rain will bring. For a long time I dealt with that as a major concern.
I upped the amount of vitamin D3 I am taking, and I notice it has helped my skin. Or it could just be the extra exercise and sweat I get outside most days.
Such a cheerful header, AJ. Do you know what they are? With my vision being lacking, they look like poppies, but I can’t really tell. I have never been around blooming poppies.
it is cooler today, yeah. So, I’d better get out and do some weeding. Right by the back gate is a lovely little rose bush that is just beginning to bloom. I came home the other day and right next to it a gopher had dug a hole aiming for it. Yikes
Last night I received my first Public Safety Alert by text on my phone about the curfew in Atlanta. Previously I had only received Amber Alerts on my phone. I am not sure how far the curfew extends and I wonder how they decided who would get the alerts.
The protests that have erupted across the U.S. following the brutal deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of the police fit a pattern of long-term structural problems meeting sudden crises that historically have shaped revolutions in the past.
As we grapple with what might change in the wake of covid-19 and unrest across the country, the case of the French Revolution of 1789 reminds us of the contested nature of social change. Revolutions do not necessarily erupt at the moment when people are most oppressed. Rather, revolutions have more often been the result of “rising expectations.” Periods of progress followed by crushed hopes can be especially dangerous, leading to rage and violence. …
…. This theory may be playing out once again today. The gains of the civil rights movement made it possible to imagine that a future of racial equality was within reach. And when Barack Obama became president, it represented to many a powerful symbol of progress. But enduring inequality and police violence, and a highly visible white backlash that emerged in response to Obama’s election have been crushing. The covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of the economy have thrown into prominence the sharp disparities in this country, and exacerbated the stress and anguish of those suddenly facing economic catastrophe. These dashed expectations of a better life made recent incidents of police brutality, assertion of white privilege and other acts of racial violence all the more intolerable. It is not surprising that the murder of George Floyd was the match that lit the fuse.
_________________________________
Oh, and personally, I am wondering if a lot of this unrest is due to DJ. I distinctly remember her complaining about all the reporting on Covid-19 and how she wanted to stop. It seems a lot of that was stopped. Hmmm–be careful what you wish for!
My son’s dog. The 20 month-old learned how to say his name the night before the Boston Terrier died. He’s been wandering around the house calling for Rambo.
The curfew here has moved from 9 p.m. last night to 8 p.m. tonight and maybe for the rest of the weekend. I think I might. Eed to call and ask Art to please try to be home by 8 p.m. According to curfew rules he can be out because of his work, but I would not want him to get stopped.
Those have to be the prettiest poppies I have seen! That would make a lovely cover for a notecard 😉 thanks for posting that today…it just makes me smile!
I had a “gazillion” errands and tasks to do today. The errands done with exception of a couple things I couldn’t find and the hunt continues. Tasks done. It is 83 degrees and windy here and there is a big ol’ dark cloud to the west. We don’t want a lightening storm when it is this dry 😳
We are having dinner this evening with one of our elders and his wife. They have invited another couple which causes a pain in my gut. The wife of the other couple seems to not like me. She had asked me twice to work in the nursery/childcare at church. I declined both times…I am learning when to say yes and how to say no. After she had someone hand me a copy of her email in church, I sent an email telling her that her email had gotten to my junk file and that I was not trying to avoid her. But, I was declining her second request. She became very short with me and said she would no longer “bother” me. It’s tough to have boundaries sometimes. Praying for a civil and grace filled evening over dinner 😊
Nancyjill, Anyone should understand people not wanting to work in the nursery during a pandemic. I don’t think my church will offer that option for quite awhile. There are times when children need to stay with their parents.
Thinking about the video that DJ posted yesterday. The guy said he had a word from God. I suppose for some people that might mean that the Holy Spirit brought to mind a scripture from God’s word. In the case of that video, the scripture that God brought to his mind must have been the one about the heart is deceitful. I know one person at my church who uses that phrase.
Janice this all transpired about 6 months or so ago. We had only been attending about 6 months at this campus. Every church we have ever attended it seemed we always were recruited to teach Sunday School, work in the nursery, with toddlers, or with the teens. I am worn down at this stage of my life and I knew if I said “yes” I would be completely frustrated. I did tell her if I sensed the Lord leading me to take on that commitment I would indeed let her know. She just didn’t like my telling her no 😞
NancyJill maybe tell her what you have done in the past taking foster babies and teaching Sunday school. Tell you you are in a period of recharging. No need to tell her when that recharge will be done.
I realize I am a southern white woman but I am about tired of hearing white privilege. Tearing someone else down doesn’t build you up. Let’s all work to build others up.
NancyJill, no need to make excuses. Let your no be no. 🙂 It’s hard to do, but she needs to understand that she doesn’t need to know why you turned her down.
Like everything valid points soon become overreach and something to hammer other people with, over and over again.
Nancyjill, you have a good reason to opt out.
I spent today covering the hourlong, number-crunching covid news conference for la county and now I still have to write a story about a report on the ports’ economic outlook.
Then tomorrow I have to cover the start of a “unity” march through town. Senior editor wanted me to cover the whole thing, I told my city editor (who knows about the knee injury and is sympathetic having played a lot of sports) no way could I ‘walk’ it; but I was willing to be at either the start or finish and do what I could from that vantage point. So I’ll be there when they gather, before 10 a.m., get some quotes, numbers, ‘color,’ and then come home and write what should be a fairly brief story, the photographer will be shooting the event from there.
Last thing I wanted to do on my day off. I’m beat, between this knee pain (I sent another written note to my doctor this afternoon asking ‘what’s next?’) and some neck pain after desk work day in and day out, I could really use a real weekend. But we have a ‘driven’ senior editor who seems to feel that we have to be at every protest, in all our areas, every day. They’re all kind of the same at this point, frankly. People, signs, chanting. People, signs, chanting. People, signs, chanting …
Well, I agree! And who wants to write the same thing?
I don’t get the obsessions some editors have with beating dead horses, but they seem to like to do that.
If it’s nighttime and there are rumblings of potential violence, that’s one thing. But marches at 10 a.m. on a Saturday? It’s just the usual march at this point.
I’m so tired of it all.
Very sorry to hear about Rambo 😦
Called my doctor, they were closed, asked them to call back to set up a video conference with my doctor. The high-tech connections were supposed to make things easier and faster and more efficient, but I’m not finding that to be the case so much.
And after, what’s it been, 2 weeks since the Floyd killing, this is all quite redundant. Maybe this weekend will see a “peak” in the street activity, but I somehow doubt it.
Michelle, I’m sorry about Rambo. My mom’s uncle bred Boston terriers and all her life she sort of wanted one but never did have one, though she had several other dogs. But they always make me think of my mom, and they are sweet dogs. Sorry for your family’s loss.
Re nursery: I come from a family in which half of us don’t use a church nursery, and I wouldn’t have done so. (My mom didn’t, my sister didn’t, and my daughter didn’t. So yes, even though I never had biological children, I can safely say that I wouldn’t have used the nursery if I had had young children.) I thus feel no particular guilt saying no to working in the nursery. I figure if they have enough people to staff it, they’ll have a nursery, and if they don’t, they won’t, and either way it isn’t my concern.
Well, in Nashville they had a “policy” that all adult church members work in the nursery every so often, every two or three months I think, and to “set a good example” my pastor even took his turn and had someone else preach that week. I did nursery a couple of times, but at that time period I lived alone and worked from my house, and Sunday was just about the only time each week I saw people. I fought back the tears as I sat in the nursery with two or three toddlers playing around my feet and I missed church. It just didn’t seem a worthwhile trade to have adults miss church so that babies could be kept out of church. After a couple of times, I asked them to take me off the rotation, and I was told I needed to talk to the elders. So I talked to my shepherding elder, and he talked to the secretary, and everything was OK.
A couple of years later, I got an e-mail from someone else sending the nursery schedule and my name was on the rotation. I called or e-mailed and said I wasn’t supposed to be in the rotation, and explained that my shepherding elder had approved my being left off it. She told me firmly, “Everyone is on the list. You have to take your turn.” So I talked to my shepherding elder again, he talked to the new person, and I came off the list.
When my husband and I were preparing to marry, he told me he didn’t want me doing nursery duty because it’s a good way to pick up germs and he’s vulnerable. Since I was no longer living alone, I would have been slightly more open to doing it occasionally, but only slightly, and I was happy enough to concede to his wishes.
Honestly, there are all sorts of reasons someone might not want to do nursery duty, or can’t. Maybe she’s really struggling with infertility and it’s too painful. Maybe she can’t physically lift children, or he used child porn before becoming a Christian two years ago and doesn’t trust himself with children. Maybe he teaches Sunday school and at time for church he simply wants to be in church. Or someone works with little children five days a week and wants a break on the Lord’s day. Church nurseries are rather a new thing, and in my opinion it’s hardly the end of the world if we don’t have enough workers a given Sunday and parents choose between being in the nursery themselves or taking the children into church with them. (I don’t mean I avoid volunteering in some kind of holier-than-thou way and I hope they won’t get enough staff, just that I don’t see the nursery as being an “essential service” and it doesn’t bother me one way or the other. Staff it or don’t, but on the Lord’s day I want to be in the worship service unless I’m providentially hindered.)
I’m sorry. I wasn’t clear. Rambo was 11 years old; the baby is 20 months.
I’m tired.
And have now finished the penultimate chapter. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll finish writing the book tomorrow and can think about other things like . . . rewriting the VBS script! Yikes!
I had to ask for a reprieve on my port story I was still trying to get done tonight. I’m just so tired, have to work tomorrow, & asked my editor if the story could hold until next week I could also add some more voices to it and make it better.
I’m thinking of just going to bed super early and reading and sleeping.
Wandering Views 
Is it Friday already?
QoD Will America last another four years?
Serious question. There is an element that is determined not be governed by Trump
That element has no one with experience, intelligence and integrity to lad a scout troop.
I doubt that I will see the end of it. I don’t mind at all.
I really don’t. I pray for my kids every day.l
And or many of you.
LikeLiked by 5 people
DJ, you said you have a sheltered front porch that’s a good place for packages to be left. We also have a good place for packages to be left, a front door that can’t readily be seen because it has a semi-enclosed patio–but only UPS leaves packages there. We have asked FedEx and the post office to do so, but they continue to leave packages by the door that is actually our back door, but one that can be seen from the street. (Our unit is part of a four-plex, and the other three have a garage where we have a back door.) When UPS leaves a package, we generally see the man parking and leaving the package, and often he gives the doorbell a quick touch. But when they leave it by our back door, there is no doorbell, we don’t tend to see or hear a package being left (since the back door is a family room we don’t use much–it’s a garage in most of the condo units–and that is shut off visually from the rest of the condo), and that door can be seen from the sidewalk, from the street, and in winter even from the apartments across the street.
We live in a friendly town with good customer service everywhere–except the delivery people.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lovely flowers in the header!
LikeLike
Good morning. Another day with no child care so time to do more weeding and mowing and watering.
LikeLiked by 2 people
It’s been a week. I started teaching Monday so Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday I have taught from 5:30 to 8:30. I go into the office late on those days. I didn’t go Tuesday and won’t go today.
I have a situation and someone else out ranks me at the office so he is the one who should handle it. I understand why he isn’t taking action …frankly I don’t know that he hasn’t had a conversation with the individual…We don’t have a photograph of the post, but we do have 4 people who saw it before one of them demanded he delete it. It was racist. I told my class last night and I tell all of my agents. I will NOT allow racism or prejudice in any shape, form, nor fashion. Last night I told them it they did it and I heard about it I would send their license back to the state. I will not tolerate it. I am so disappointed in this person
LikeLiked by 3 people
We’ve asked FedEx to leave packages by our side door, as it is under a carport roof and is the one we use, but they just drop things by the front door and walk away without even ringing the doorbell or knocking. A friend was our UPS person and he told the other UPS drivers where to leave things, and the USPS lady also knows, but it seems we never get the same FedEx person.
In other news, here are the funnies for the week.
And it looks like my plastic sheeting is about to get another test. It’s black and rumbling off to the West.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is the black sheeting rumbling in my direction?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Oh, Peter, I have empathy for you with the wondering about what the rain will bring. For a long time I dealt with that as a major concern.
I upped the amount of vitamin D3 I am taking, and I notice it has helped my skin. Or it could just be the extra exercise and sweat I get outside most days.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Such a cheerful header, AJ. Do you know what they are? With my vision being lacking, they look like poppies, but I can’t really tell. I have never been around blooming poppies.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Poppies! I seeded many of those this spring. So far none have come up. Here’s hoping.
LikeLiked by 3 people
DJ!
LikeLike
Our red poppies are blooming away and spreading, along wit the irises and strawberries.
LikeLiked by 3 people
with, DJ.
LikeLiked by 1 person
it is cooler today, yeah. So, I’d better get out and do some weeding. Right by the back gate is a lovely little rose bush that is just beginning to bloom. I came home the other day and right next to it a gopher had dug a hole aiming for it. Yikes
LikeLiked by 3 people
Hmmm. . . It’s black and rumbling here in Atlanta, too!
That sheeting moves faster than Superman.
We are having a big rain shower at the moment.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Last night I received my first Public Safety Alert by text on my phone about the curfew in Atlanta. Previously I had only received Amber Alerts on my phone. I am not sure how far the curfew extends and I wonder how they decided who would get the alerts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have eight buds on my poppy that are ready to pop. Mine is orange with the black interior and not doubled or whatever these are. Very pretty.
LikeLiked by 2 people
LA dropped its curfew for last night. It may be back in place for the weekend. Sounds like things still aren’t settling down, protest-wise.
Interesting piece. I don’t think until now I’ve ever considered such a possibility (as a revolution being underway):
https://www.thehour.com/opinion/article/Are-we-on-the-brink-of-revolution-15316674.php
___________________________
The protests that have erupted across the U.S. following the brutal deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others at the hands of the police fit a pattern of long-term structural problems meeting sudden crises that historically have shaped revolutions in the past.
As we grapple with what might change in the wake of covid-19 and unrest across the country, the case of the French Revolution of 1789 reminds us of the contested nature of social change. Revolutions do not necessarily erupt at the moment when people are most oppressed. Rather, revolutions have more often been the result of “rising expectations.” Periods of progress followed by crushed hopes can be especially dangerous, leading to rage and violence. …
…. This theory may be playing out once again today. The gains of the civil rights movement made it possible to imagine that a future of racial equality was within reach. And when Barack Obama became president, it represented to many a powerful symbol of progress. But enduring inequality and police violence, and a highly visible white backlash that emerged in response to Obama’s election have been crushing. The covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of the economy have thrown into prominence the sharp disparities in this country, and exacerbated the stress and anguish of those suddenly facing economic catastrophe. These dashed expectations of a better life made recent incidents of police brutality, assertion of white privilege and other acts of racial violence all the more intolerable. It is not surprising that the murder of George Floyd was the match that lit the fuse.
_________________________________
LikeLike
Oh, and personally, I am wondering if a lot of this unrest is due to DJ. I distinctly remember her complaining about all the reporting on Covid-19 and how she wanted to stop. It seems a lot of that was stopped. Hmmm–be careful what you wish for!
LikeLiked by 6 people
I do wonder if you nailed it right there, Kathleena.
LikeLiked by 3 people
The heading looks like it could be a cover for Michelle’s book.
LikeLiked by 5 people
I suddenly feel like my parents watching Vietnam protests on the evening news and shaking their heads in bewilderment.
This all makes the baby boomers in their heyday look almost mainstream.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Did I tell you Rambo had to be put down?
My son’s dog. The 20 month-old learned how to say his name the night before the Boston Terrier died. He’s been wandering around the house calling for Rambo.
How do you explain death to a toddler? 😦
LikeLiked by 3 people
Michelle, don’t try. My opinion is that he’s too young for the concept.
LikeLiked by 3 people
That is sad about the toddler missing Rambo. It makes for a doubly sad scene.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The curfew here has moved from 9 p.m. last night to 8 p.m. tonight and maybe for the rest of the weekend. I think I might. Eed to call and ask Art to please try to be home by 8 p.m. According to curfew rules he can be out because of his work, but I would not want him to get stopped.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Janice, I think the probability of a single man driving a car getting stopped is very small.
They have other things to do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That was me. I don’t know how it got posted before I was ready.
.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Those have to be the prettiest poppies I have seen! That would make a lovely cover for a notecard 😉 thanks for posting that today…it just makes me smile!
I had a “gazillion” errands and tasks to do today. The errands done with exception of a couple things I couldn’t find and the hunt continues. Tasks done. It is 83 degrees and windy here and there is a big ol’ dark cloud to the west. We don’t want a lightening storm when it is this dry 😳
We are having dinner this evening with one of our elders and his wife. They have invited another couple which causes a pain in my gut. The wife of the other couple seems to not like me. She had asked me twice to work in the nursery/childcare at church. I declined both times…I am learning when to say yes and how to say no. After she had someone hand me a copy of her email in church, I sent an email telling her that her email had gotten to my junk file and that I was not trying to avoid her. But, I was declining her second request. She became very short with me and said she would no longer “bother” me. It’s tough to have boundaries sometimes. Praying for a civil and grace filled evening over dinner 😊
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nancyjill, Anyone should understand people not wanting to work in the nursery during a pandemic. I don’t think my church will offer that option for quite awhile. There are times when children need to stay with their parents.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thinking about the video that DJ posted yesterday. The guy said he had a word from God. I suppose for some people that might mean that the Holy Spirit brought to mind a scripture from God’s word. In the case of that video, the scripture that God brought to his mind must have been the one about the heart is deceitful. I know one person at my church who uses that phrase.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Janice this all transpired about 6 months or so ago. We had only been attending about 6 months at this campus. Every church we have ever attended it seemed we always were recruited to teach Sunday School, work in the nursery, with toddlers, or with the teens. I am worn down at this stage of my life and I knew if I said “yes” I would be completely frustrated. I did tell her if I sensed the Lord leading me to take on that commitment I would indeed let her know. She just didn’t like my telling her no 😞
LikeLiked by 2 people
NancyJill maybe tell her what you have done in the past taking foster babies and teaching Sunday school. Tell you you are in a period of recharging. No need to tell her when that recharge will be done.
I realize I am a southern white woman but I am about tired of hearing white privilege. Tearing someone else down doesn’t build you up. Let’s all work to build others up.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I wish I had hope for the cute but I no longer do.
LikeLike
Not looking favorable for tonight. Someone is shooting loud firecrackers occasionally nearby.
WSB-TV (@wsbtv) Tweeted:
#BREAKING: The crowd at Centennial Olympic Park has grown in leaps and bounds just 90 minutes before the 8 p.m. curfew begins: https://t.co/uE6VC1daul https://t.co/mY30GljNEI https://twitter.com/wsbtv/status/1269033068750397440?s=20
LikeLike
NancyJill, no need to make excuses. Let your no be no. 🙂 It’s hard to do, but she needs to understand that she doesn’t need to know why you turned her down.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Like everything valid points soon become overreach and something to hammer other people with, over and over again.
Nancyjill, you have a good reason to opt out.
I spent today covering the hourlong, number-crunching covid news conference for la county and now I still have to write a story about a report on the ports’ economic outlook.
Then tomorrow I have to cover the start of a “unity” march through town. Senior editor wanted me to cover the whole thing, I told my city editor (who knows about the knee injury and is sympathetic having played a lot of sports) no way could I ‘walk’ it; but I was willing to be at either the start or finish and do what I could from that vantage point. So I’ll be there when they gather, before 10 a.m., get some quotes, numbers, ‘color,’ and then come home and write what should be a fairly brief story, the photographer will be shooting the event from there.
Last thing I wanted to do on my day off. I’m beat, between this knee pain (I sent another written note to my doctor this afternoon asking ‘what’s next?’) and some neck pain after desk work day in and day out, I could really use a real weekend. But we have a ‘driven’ senior editor who seems to feel that we have to be at every protest, in all our areas, every day. They’re all kind of the same at this point, frankly. People, signs, chanting. People, signs, chanting. People, signs, chanting …
LikeLike
No offense, DJ, but who wants to read the same thing? I skip all those stories unless something significant happens. 😦
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, I agree! And who wants to write the same thing?
I don’t get the obsessions some editors have with beating dead horses, but they seem to like to do that.
If it’s nighttime and there are rumblings of potential violence, that’s one thing. But marches at 10 a.m. on a Saturday? It’s just the usual march at this point.
I’m so tired of it all.
Very sorry to hear about Rambo 😦
Called my doctor, they were closed, asked them to call back to set up a video conference with my doctor. The high-tech connections were supposed to make things easier and faster and more efficient, but I’m not finding that to be the case so much.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And after, what’s it been, 2 weeks since the Floyd killing, this is all quite redundant. Maybe this weekend will see a “peak” in the street activity, but I somehow doubt it.
LikeLike
Michelle, I’m sorry about Rambo. My mom’s uncle bred Boston terriers and all her life she sort of wanted one but never did have one, though she had several other dogs. But they always make me think of my mom, and they are sweet dogs. Sorry for your family’s loss.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I say we declare tomorrow a “No COVID, No Floyd” day and talk about anything else. For DJ’s sake.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I’m waiting for the plastic sheeting to rumble by. It’s all I have to look forward to right now.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Re nursery: I come from a family in which half of us don’t use a church nursery, and I wouldn’t have done so. (My mom didn’t, my sister didn’t, and my daughter didn’t. So yes, even though I never had biological children, I can safely say that I wouldn’t have used the nursery if I had had young children.) I thus feel no particular guilt saying no to working in the nursery. I figure if they have enough people to staff it, they’ll have a nursery, and if they don’t, they won’t, and either way it isn’t my concern.
Well, in Nashville they had a “policy” that all adult church members work in the nursery every so often, every two or three months I think, and to “set a good example” my pastor even took his turn and had someone else preach that week. I did nursery a couple of times, but at that time period I lived alone and worked from my house, and Sunday was just about the only time each week I saw people. I fought back the tears as I sat in the nursery with two or three toddlers playing around my feet and I missed church. It just didn’t seem a worthwhile trade to have adults miss church so that babies could be kept out of church. After a couple of times, I asked them to take me off the rotation, and I was told I needed to talk to the elders. So I talked to my shepherding elder, and he talked to the secretary, and everything was OK.
A couple of years later, I got an e-mail from someone else sending the nursery schedule and my name was on the rotation. I called or e-mailed and said I wasn’t supposed to be in the rotation, and explained that my shepherding elder had approved my being left off it. She told me firmly, “Everyone is on the list. You have to take your turn.” So I talked to my shepherding elder again, he talked to the new person, and I came off the list.
When my husband and I were preparing to marry, he told me he didn’t want me doing nursery duty because it’s a good way to pick up germs and he’s vulnerable. Since I was no longer living alone, I would have been slightly more open to doing it occasionally, but only slightly, and I was happy enough to concede to his wishes.
Honestly, there are all sorts of reasons someone might not want to do nursery duty, or can’t. Maybe she’s really struggling with infertility and it’s too painful. Maybe she can’t physically lift children, or he used child porn before becoming a Christian two years ago and doesn’t trust himself with children. Maybe he teaches Sunday school and at time for church he simply wants to be in church. Or someone works with little children five days a week and wants a break on the Lord’s day. Church nurseries are rather a new thing, and in my opinion it’s hardly the end of the world if we don’t have enough workers a given Sunday and parents choose between being in the nursery themselves or taking the children into church with them. (I don’t mean I avoid volunteering in some kind of holier-than-thou way and I hope they won’t get enough staff, just that I don’t see the nursery as being an “essential service” and it doesn’t bother me one way or the other. Staff it or don’t, but on the Lord’s day I want to be in the worship service unless I’m providentially hindered.)
LikeLike
I’m sorry. I wasn’t clear. Rambo was 11 years old; the baby is 20 months.
I’m tired.
And have now finished the penultimate chapter. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll finish writing the book tomorrow and can think about other things like . . . rewriting the VBS script! Yikes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I had to ask for a reprieve on my port story I was still trying to get done tonight. I’m just so tired, have to work tomorrow, & asked my editor if the story could hold until next week I could also add some more voices to it and make it better.
I’m thinking of just going to bed super early and reading and sleeping.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I hope the plastic sheeting doesn’t pass me by if I go to bed early, but if so, I’ll live with it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is sad about police officers in Atlanta.
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/police-union-georgia-chapter-president-responds-to-atlanta-officer-arrests/85-76992f9a-1716-4b6f-8337-3a31a9704841
LikeLike