Two Years on the Tobin

So there I was on the freeway, a mile before the Tobin Bridge crosses the river into Boston. I still had almost three hours to go a distance which was really a decent hour away if there was no traffic, but I was in a parking lot disguised as a freeway, and the wedding was going to occur in three hours.

Five miles and two and a half hours later I exited from the tunnel, which goes under Boston. I had to call Fran (my latest hero on the list of Hillmen: those guys who would die on the hill with me if needed, and I with them), he was able to fill in for the wedding, and he lived just a few miles from the wedding location.

In the hours in which I was on the bridge, and then under the tunnels in the Big Dig, I was mad, I was furious, I was tense, I was yelling at God, I was filed with rage. I experienced the emotions of two years of trouble rush upon my soul on the Tobin Bridge, but in the end Fran was there to fill in until I could arrive for the reception duties. Mike (another Hillman) and Stef were there to get me through this as well.

I am still embarrassed to have missed a wedding due to a traffic issue, but I suppose I have seen how much frustration over former betrayals, and a series of tragedies in this last couple years still lies beneath the surface like a gently rumbling active volcano. Perhaps someday it will go dormant, but those frustrations are apparently hot and active for now.

I hope I never again have to spend two years on the Tobin.

Just a Few Shots of Summeryard

I like how our yard is turning out. I enjoy the radical changes of the seasons which occur here in Salem, Massachusetts. As a California boy, the seasons I knew were earthquake, fire, flood and riot. Now I actually experience Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter, and I love them. So here are a few summer shots from our yard:

Sabbatical Coming

A couple weeks ago the church council discussed sending me on sabbatical. I thought to myself, 'Good idea, boy could I use it.' Then I said (contrary to my thinking), "That is an expensive proposition. We don't have the money for it, and neither does the church."

Of course the council knew this bit of information. Ever since our ouster from our former denomination - or perhaps I should start calling it our liberation from our former oppressors ;-) - the church has been running tight, and we are just making it by from month to month.

But, then Jeff was already in gear with a fund-raising plan, and was not going to take no for an answer.

So that brings me to our current state. I will be going to Wales with a missions team on August 3rd. When they return from the mission on August 16th, I will stay in the U.K. Some point shortly after that Bev will join me in the U.K., and we will travel to Taize, France to join the prayer, chanting, and spiritual retreat which has been going on there for the last 35 years or more.

It was decided that since I was already going to be in the U.K., that Bev joining me there was just a cheap as doing something here in states. With the friends we have on the other side of the pond this is probably true. So, off to Taize we go. Bev is hoping I will spend some days at a Welsh Language intensive in North Wales, which I would love to do, but then again methinks money, and waits and sees on that issue.