A Second Journal for March 2024

 

Lenten roses are blooming now

This is what I have done as time continues to slip away, and Holy Week is roaring closer like a train.

I met yesterday with two church women who started a lunch group last year called “Getting to Know You Better.” It’s a group of eight rotating people who lunch together in the fellowship hall once or twice a month, in order to get to know one another better. Somehow these two women cajoled most people – members and visitors – to attend one of these lunches last year. I'll be introducing a slightly new format.

I wrote a Wednesday church newsletter article marking the fourth anniversary of the Covid shutdown.

We hired Suzanne as our new pianist. She was raised at Mt. Bethel UMC in Bahama with sweet old Ron Snider as her pastor, which makes me feel old.

Our annual Palm Sunday covered-dish lunch is organized with no help from me, yay.

I’m now prepared somewhat for Holy Week. This means I have all the readers I need for our Good Friday service of Tenebrae, and I have an idea of what I plan to say/do for Maundy Thursday. The new pianist will play on Good Friday, and she starts this coming Sunday.

In terms of preaching for Palm Sunday and Easter… well. Yesterday, one of the women with whom I met about the lunches put me on to Google’s AI for writing. My son has already tried to do this, but it’s gotten a whole lot easier. I typed in: “United Methodist Sermon for Palm Sunday using Mark 11:1-11,” and in 15 seconds up came this dandy little… meditation. It’s far too short to be a sermon, but that’s okay. It’s a good backbone for a sermon. Is this cheating? Maybe.

I did the same for Easter and got a somewhat less satisfactory meditation. We’ll see if AI helps or not.

Today I have signed up for a “forest ramble” in Duke Gardens, and tomorrow I’ll finally play tennis again. Sunday is Eric’s 33^rd birthday, and he has asked me to take him to the 3 p.m. showing of Dune 2 at the IMAX, followed by dinner. We are the only two sci-fi fans in our family.

Yesterday, I received the bishop’s missive on new leadership in the conference, and I will be very sorry to see our current district superintendent go. I sent a one-word email to a colleague: “SCREAM.” He replied, “No worries; retirement is on the horizon!”