Sunday, November 6, 2011

Encouragement

So, I know, it has again been forever since I posted. And a lot of stuff has happened since then.
    Back in late August our Normande cow gave birth to a stillborn calf (it was dead) and since then her health has been steadily declining. Her feet were giving her trouble and she wouldn't eat. That's really bad. She couldn't get up by herself. Very sad to see. And on Thursday my dad and I left early to go to a meeting for church in Massachusetts (more on it later) and left the rest of the family home, leaving my brother to get her up. So, like two hours into the trip my mom calls and is almost in tears. They couldn't get her up. You're all going to gasp in horror at this, but after an hour or so and three more phone calls, my dad told my mom to call the dog-food-meat-people (they come and get down and fresh dead cows...really sad) and have them come and get our cow. So they came and put her down and picked her up (literally, with the backhoe. She weighed like 2000 pounds. No joke.) And y'all are gonna think I'm some kind of insane freak, but I cried. Bawled my eyes out. Like I'd lost a grandparent or something. Crazy, right? I never thought I'd say that I cried over a cow. But, yeah, I'm crying right now, too, 'cause I haven't really had the amount of time to deal with it since then. Just having to face that fact that I wasn't ever going to see her again really hurt. And still does. But it's life, and she's a cow. I'll have to learn to deal with that kind of stuff.
    So about the meeting thing for church. Continuing Anglicanism in the US has never really been a united organization. This meeting was just this thing to get people together from the different jurisdictions of continuing Anglicans to meet and get to know each other and develop relationships. You know, like, getting together at Gramma's house for Sunday dinner? Except this is the first time in 35 years. But everyone there was supernice and I had a lot of fun. I'm probably the only person my age who would say that. Because there was only, like, two other people there under the age of thirty. And I can say with complete certainty that I was the only person there with a one on the front of my age (for the whole meeting. There were other people my age at the banquet, but I was the only on there for the whole two-day meeting). But you know, what? It's cool. Because I get along with older people well. It comes from being a firstborn. But in a way, too, it's not cool, either. Because the fact that there is almost no youth in any of the jurisdictions is a serious problem that needs to be dealt with. I'm going to tell you something. It originally wasn't my idea to say anything about that. It was my dad's. But he has this great way of planting the seeds of ideas he has in me, and maybe watering them a little, and a lot of the time they actually turn out okay. So it became my thing. I was going to stand up and say something about it. And I did. There was a Q&A session where I asked what are we going to do to bring youth in. And guess what I got for standing up and saying something? I got appointed to the youth committee for, like, all four or five jurisdictions. Ian Dunn also got appointed to the committee, too, because he stood up and said something about it, too, and he's also actually within maybe a decade of my age. Maybe a little more. But anyway, Mary Grundorf, (hope I spelled that right!) a bishop's wife, suggested that maybe having youth from each of the jurisdictions on the committee would be a good idea, and it is a fabulous one. So currently, I am one of two members of a committee that is going to, supposedly, put together a youth conference for next year.
    But I'm really excited. I really am. This could be (and will be, I just may have to pester people a bit) a really good thing. If we could get youth talking (and I have every intention of getting that to happen) we could get bible studies going, and we could do skype and all sorts of great christian stuff. I have selfish motives for doing this, too, for those of you who think I'm a saint (Bishop Marsh!!!): I really need the benefit of other people my age who want a relationship with the God the same way I do, and I'm not getting that. Sure, I have christian friends, but I don't have any Anglican friends who live close by. There aren't any other kids who go to my church. And even though I like my Baptist friends, it's not the same. So I'm going to do everything in my power to get that for myself and my brothers and sister.
    I was really encouraged by the whole thing. That's something I needed really badly, encouragement from other christian people. And they are all good, God-fearing people. Especially the clergy. You can see, and feel, and know that God is in them when you are standing there talking to them, or sitting there listening to them give an address, or even just in the way they move. I know that sounds weird, like sexual or something. But that's not what I mean at all. I mean they drip God. They do. In everything they do, you see God. So with that I leave you, because I have other emails to write...on this very subject!
Hopefully I will post again soon.

In Christ,

Em xoxoxo

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