Look! It's a website!

After months and months of work, at last, the new improved church website has gone live. Eeeeee!

Check it out: http://www.presbyplatt.org/

The old website stopped working around the time I arrived at the church a year ago. (Coincidence?) It refused to let anyone go in and make updates. It was time for a change. We hired a consultant to help us with the technical stuff and develop a basic template, then it was off and running developing new content, especially photos that captured the essence of the building and the congregation.

I was quite surprised when I saw the stock image of a stained glass window on the old home page, when the church has such awesome stained glass windows of its own. So I spent some sunny afternoons last summer (and a couple in the winter) taking pictures of the windows. Not easy. If you're not a professional photographer and able to climb up on a scaffold, the perspective goes all wrong when you point upward with your camera from ground level. So I focused on sections of the stained glass rather than entire windows.

I don't know how old these windows are. The sanctuary dates from the 1870s, replacing a sanctuary that burned to the ground (a couple of years after major renovations) in 1867. I'm not sure if the windows were salvaged from the old church or were built for the new one, as some of the memorials date from the 1840s. But when you examine them closely, you can see that over time they have been repaired, and some repairs, shall we say, worked better than others. But the imperfections make the windows even more beautiful, in my opinion.

And then I started to learn how to edit photos with a program on my computer. I still have a lot to learn, but I was able to clean up some dark photos and crop others. I took more pictures, my husband did also, and others in the church did, too. I struggled to write copy. How do you capture the heart of a very diverse congregation in a few paragraphs? In the old days, I guess, I'd have typed a few lines, ripped the paper out of the typewriter, and tossed it in the wastebasket and reached for a fresh sheet. Today, of course, it's highlight and hit delete. And start over.

And then there was the learning curve for posting sermons and other videos on the Vimeo site and linking them to the website. More technical stuff to learn, and much more yet to learn.

Meanwhile, the youth director and church administrator were working on their own sections. There was much frustration and "Why won't it do what I want it to do?" The youth director summed it up well on her Facebook post, "Jesus saves, but this website won't."

And of course there were the queries and emails from the congregation and session of "When the heck are we going to get the new website up and running?" Guilt, guilt. It took the website consultant to give us the final push to get it all done. But yesterday afternoon, we told him, "Go live!" And here it is.

Still needs some tweaking. But now we can update it every week. And it looks great! In My Humble Opinion.

A new chapter

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) made headlines this week when the 87th of 173 presbyteries voted in favor of Amendment 10-A to the Constitution of the church, giving it the majority needed for passage. The new amendment replaces G-6.0106b, the so-called "fidelity and chastity" amendment adopted in 1997, which prohibited anyone from being ordained to office in the church who did not practice fidelity in a marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness. 10-A never mentions marriage or sexual orientation. Instead, it says that local governing bodies -- sessions in the case of elders and deacons, and presbyteries in the case of ministers -- shall examine candidates and determine their suitability for office. Which is what we have been doing all along, in fact. But by removing the fidelity and chastity wording, it leaves the decision whether to ordain someone who may not meet those criteria up to the local governing body.

Because I pastor the only Presbyterian church in my community, I figured someone from the local paper would call me for a quote, and they did. You can read the story here:

http://pressrepublican.com/0800_special_sections/x1950015858/Presbyterian-Church-approves-change-in-ordination-standard

All the hoopla, lo these last fifteen years or more, has focused on the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians. "Fidelity and chastity" was much broader than that -- it prohibited straight people living with a partner outside of marriage from being ordained, too, and I suspect there are a lot more of them in our churches than gay couples. (Think of older widowed and divorced church members who, for any number of reasons, decided not to remarry but to live with someone.) And let's face it, over the years, there were probably a number of people ordained to office who were cheating on their spouses but never "self-acknowledged" that they were, so hey, they were off the hook. But the focus was on those who were openly gay.

Until a little over a year ago, I had never been married. During the years I was going through the arduous process that leads to ordination as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the PC(USA), I fully expected that someone, somewhere, in one of my innumerable meetings with committees on preparation for ministry, committees on ministry, and pastor search committees, would ask me about my sexual orientation. To my surprise, no one ever did. And I never brought it up. In the secular world, where I worked for twenty years, federal law prohibits an employer from asking questions about marital status, children, etc. In the church, it's no holds barred: you can be asked anything. But no one asked. Doesn't mean there wasn't some speculation raised or assumptions made when I was out of the room. But I never heard about it.

Attitudes toward gay people have been shifting in the United States since "fidelity and chastity" became part of our church's constitution in 1997. This became clear to me just after last Christmas, when Congress voted to repeal "don't ask, don't tell," a policy dating from around that same era, with hardly a whimper, and essentially with the blessing of military leaders. I suspect that as more and more people have come out in recent years, both public figures we see on television and people we know in our private lives, that being gay now has a face. It's no longer "those people." It's our neighbors, friends, and co-workers. And surprise! Gay people are not demons, after all. They are ordinary folk, going about their lives -- and their faith -- as best they can, day by day.

And in the church, I do think that some pastors who have been particularly vocal in opposing the ordination of gays and lesbians are starting to realize this too. It's not about "those people from outside" who are trying to "destroy" the church. We are talking about children we baptized, who went to Sunday school and Vacation Bible School and confirmation classes, who professed their faith in their youth, who suddenly were no longer welcome in their churches when they announced that they were gay. I think some of these pastors are slowly realizing that gay people have families. Maybe some of these family members have become brave enough to go to these pastors and say, "My child/grandchild/sibling is gay, and when you say they are categorically not fit for office in the church because they are gay, I find that I can no longer worship here."

Some large-church pastors have been rattling their sabers in the last few months, as it became more and more likely that G-6.0106b was going to be removed from the Constitution. Their latest missive suggests that they want to form a new denomination without leaving the old one (with its great health insurance and pension plan, but I'm being cynical here), where they can set their own ordination standards and do as they please with regard to funding the work of the PC(USA). I have no idea how that idea is going to fly with the rest of the denomination, but time will tell how it will all work out.

It's a new chapter in the life of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I don't think there will be radical change all at once; I mean, after all, we're the church. We don't move that fast. (A little bit more cynicism here.) But maybe, just maybe, after all these years of fighting, we can take a deep breath and say, "Okay, let's move on. Let's get back to doing the work that Christ has called us to do in the world." Not everyone is going to go along. But I do think that many hearts and minds have been changed over the years. The Holy Spirit is in our midst, still at work in people's lives. Amen!

Watch the skies!

The photo doesn't show it well, but the white stuff is really coming down today in what they'll probably call the Great Groundhog Day Blizzard. The Weather Channel trumpeted that 100 million people would be affected by this weather system, which has included thunderstorms, damaging winds, tornadoes, ice, snow, and combinations of the above. Here in the North Country we are finally getting a snow day, to the delight of everyone who doesn't have to go to work today (including me!) and the not-so-delight to people who have to be out driving in it, like the UPS driver who slid a little as he turned the corner on our street trying to avoid the snow plow in the cul-de-sac.

We went outside about three hours ago and shoveled and snow-blowed the driveway, walkways, and steps. You'd hardly guess now that they had ever been touched. The snow is really coming down! It is about ten degrees, so the snow is very light and fluffy and won't make a snowball, much less a snowperson. It looks a little bit like powdered sugar piled up on the deck -- a LOT of powdered sugar. There's some sleet mixed in with it, little white icy pellets that look like the salt crystals we spread around to melt the ice that builds up on the front steps.

Snow is silent. Rain makes a fair amount of noise: tapping or hissing or glub-glubbing as it comes down the gutterspouts. But you don't know that it's snowing unless you look out. Except for the welcome sound of the snowplow scraping down the street and the salt and sand rattling onto the pavement, the snow deadens sound. Beautiful. Peaceful. Awesome.

I have a lot of snowless years to make up for, a lot of childhood days in New Orleans dreaming of what snow must be like. Today is going a long way toward filling that void.

Always winter, always Christmas!

I took this photo on a recent day trip to Montreal. This lamp-post in Parc Mont Royale reminded me of the lamp-post in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. At the beginning of the story, when Lucy goes from the wardrobe of fur coats into the forest of snowy fir trees in Narnia, she finds a lamp-post in the middle of the woods. And here is another one.

In Narnia, Lucy meets Mr. Tumnus, the faun, who tells her of the White Witch, who makes it always winter and never Christmas. In the North Country, it's been winter now for two or three months, and there are two or three more to go. It only seems like it's always winter.

But in the North Country, I've discovered, people leave their decorations up after Christmas. Wreaths, bows, lights, everything. Some continue to turn on their lights in the evenings. It really is neat -- I like to say that the city looks like a Currier & Ives Christmas card. When I asked why people leave their decorations up after Christmas, I got three responses:

1. It's too darn cold to take them down.
2. The nights are so long and dark, the lights cheer people up at night.
3. We leave them up until spring comes, or maybe Easter. (Easter is not necessarily spring in the North Country.)

I'd like to think that people in the North Country have read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and have taken it to heart. If it's going to be "always winter," then by golly, it's going to be "always Christmas." Aslan is here, even in the dead of winter. Take that, White Witch!
 

A White Christmas

Yes, last week we finally got real snow! As I write, it is snowing lightly. The temperatures haven't gotten very far above freezing, if at all, in the last week, so this snow is going to stay around. The transplanted New Orleanians are going to have their first white Christmas as newlyweds. Is that romantic or what?

Like Santa Claus, I'm making a list and checking it twice, but my list is a little different from Santa's. Bulletin for Christmas Eve children's service -- check. Bulletin for candelight service -- check. Bulletin for next Sunday -- check. Bulletin for the week after that, so I can take a week's vacation -- check. Pastor's report to session -- check. Pastor's letter for January newsletter -- check. Speech to local Rotary club -- check. Sermon for Christmas Eve -- hmmmm...and here I am writing an entry in my blog...

Back in New Orleans, the locals are remembering Nash Roberts, who died on Sunday at the age of 92. Nash was a television weatherman who first went on the air in New Orleans the year I was born, 1951, and is perhaps best known for predicting accurately where several major hurricanes would make landfall, including Betsy in 1965 and Georges in 1998. I remember Nash on the air about ten o'clock the night Betsy came ashore, standing in a pile of broken glass that was the remains of the front window of his office on Royal Street, telling viewers, "We're going to stay on the air as long as we can" -- and then the power went out.

In recent years Nash stayed home to care for his wife, who I believe had dementia. As Katrina approached, he made the decision to evacuate (for the first and only time) to get her to safety. I wish with all my heart he had called his old colleagues at WWL-TV and told them of his plans. If only they had announced on the air that Saturday in August 2005, "Nash Roberts is evacuating the city for this one," many of the old-timers who had decided to stay because they had ridden out Betsy in their homes and they believed they would be safe in this one, would have changed their minds and gotten out. Immediately! "Nash is leaving? We're outa here!" So many older people drowned in their homes or died from the heat and the stress. Of all the people in the city, Nash was the one they would have listened to. Not the mayor. Not the current crop of weather forecasters. They trusted Nash.

Nash, thanks for all that you did. Be at peace in a place where the weather is always perfect.

Snow at last

OK, it wasn't much, even by the standards of a transplanted Deep Southerner, but some of it is still around at the end of the day (which doesn't happen in the Deep South). But it was neat to see a few flakes turn into serious snow, even if only for a few minutes. There is still snow on the deck, and for a time, the green pool cover turned white. (BP the alligator has gone for his winter hibernation indoors...deflated.)

In the middle of it, a phone call from the tire dealer asking us how we like our new tires (mine, all weather; his, snow tires). I said, "Well, it's finally snowing. Call us again after we've had time to try them out."

The next opportunity for snow, according to The Weather Channel, is late next week. We'll see!

Tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent, the first Sunday in the official liturgical year, but with it falling on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I'm not sure how many people will be back from their travels and in church. I have spent the holiday at home, doing battle with a respiratory illness and mostly losing. At least the fever has abated. All I want is to have enough energy and voice to make it through two services tomorrow. One day at a time.

Waiting for snow

Okay, it's mid-November. Most of the trees are now bare, and since we went back to standard time, the sun is setting in the North Country around 4:30 in the afternoon (soon to be even earlier).

I am now the proud owner of $800 worth of "all-weather tires" on the Evacumobile, as well as a new battery (the four-year-old one was pronounced not fit to survive the winter), and the biggest windshield wipers I have ever seen (to stand up against snow and ice).

So where's the snow? I remember from my college days at Syracuse that it usually shows up by now. And the Midwest has had a couple of big ole nasty storms already.

Mind you, I'm not complaining that it's still 50 degrees and the sun is shining the past few days. I'm just, well, dying of suspense. Let it snow, and let's get that first one over with!

Yesterday I saw a photo in an online article of a snow-covered New England country house. Soft, beautiful snow on the roof, snow in the yard, snow in the trees, soft golden light coming from the windows at dusk. The article was about romantic weekend getaways in New England bed-and-breakfasts during the Thanksgiving to Christmas season.

Hey, we're ready for our own weekend getaway-at-home, just a ferry ride away from New England! The front porch is stacked with firewood! How about a lovely snow-covered roof and yard at OUR house, not to mention smoke coming up from the chimney, so we can take pictures to send with the Christmas letter?

Oh, right. I work weekends, and especially between now and Christmas. Scrap the weekend getaway. I'll settle for my day off. Or any snow days that may come along.

When February rolls around, I am going to go back to this entry and groan. I just know it.