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We had a very nice birthday celebration. M and I made a donut run early this morning, and we had a junk food breakfast with mimosas. Heh. I had gotten the day off from work, so I found myself at the grocery store at 11:30 a.m. and the place was hopping. Who knew?

R spent the day as he wished--smoking a huge brisket and a rack of beef ribs for some friends and for our freezer. Fork-tender and finger-lickin' good. Cooks Illustrated is R's gold standard for most recipes, but they don't like mesquite chips for smoking because they are "Too strong." Tsk--yankees.

He also smoked a chicken for good measure, and made some queso fundido, homemade bbq sauce, potato salad and Austin baked beans. C and I baked a yellow cake and I made chocolate sour cream frosting while MaDear wrangled kidlets. C has a new rolling suitcase for her trip to visit the cousins next weekend, and MaDear managed to find one *without* a licensed character on it. Amazing.
Clergy Novelist shared an article from the New York Times (registration required?) about clergywomen. Upshot: clergywomen rise pretty high in the ranks of denominational leadership, but when it comes to big fluffy pulpits, there's still a lot of bias in favor of men. Lots of churches, especially big ones, still want a youngish guy with a wife and kids. No big surprise. What the article doesn't talk about is the opt-out phenomenon. Lots of women I know (including me?) don't seek out large pulpits because of what it means for family-work balance. So I always feel conflicted about articles like this one. I would like to hope that if I wanted to be a head of staff of a tall steeple church, I would be able to find something and not have the stained-glass ceiling to contend with. But I don't feel called to that right now.

Is that a bad thing? No and yes. No, because I want to be true to my call--not only my pastoral call but my call to be spouse, parent, etc. But also yes, for the same reason that Linda Hirshman (google her) had an actual point that got lost in all the arrogance and the vitriol: the more women who opt out of ministry (or other demanding, male-dominated professions), the greater the burden on those who remain to try to advocate for change. Sigh.
The divine miss m and I are off tomorrow for Suburban Pres's annual staff retreat at Senior Pastor's cottage on the Chesapeake Bay. We will be WAY out of internet range. I'll check in when I get back. I expect my blogging will continue to be less frequent, but on the upside, I'm getting quite a bit of real-life stuff done.
St. Cass and all of those on the Gulf Coast are in my thoughts and prayers this week.

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Previous Entry :: Next Entry Read/Post Comments (13) Share on Facebook		2006-08-27 9:33 PM sunday/monday peace-loving dots We had a very nice birthday celebration. M and I made a donut run early this morning, and we had a junk food breakfast with mimosas. Heh. I had gotten the day off from work, so I found myself at the grocery store at 11:30 a.m. and the place was hopping. Who knew? R spent the day as he wished--smoking a huge brisket and a rack of beef ribs for some friends and for our freezer. Fork-tender and finger-lickin' good. Cooks Illustrated is R's gold standard for most recipes, but they don't like mesquite chips for smoking because they are "Too strong." Tsk--yankees. He also smoked a chicken for good measure, and made some queso fundido, homemade bbq sauce, potato salad and Austin baked beans. C and I baked a yellow cake and I made chocolate sour cream frosting while MaDear wrangled kidlets. C has a new rolling suitcase for her trip to visit the cousins next weekend, and MaDear managed to find one without a licensed character on it. Amazing. Clergy Novelist shared an article from the New York Times (registration required?) about clergywomen. Upshot: clergywomen rise pretty high in the ranks of denominational leadership, but when it comes to big fluffy pulpits, there's still a lot of bias in favor of men. Lots of churches, especially big ones, still want a youngish guy with a wife and kids. No big surprise. What the article doesn't talk about is the opt-out phenomenon. Lots of women I know (including me?) don't seek out large pulpits because of what it means for family-work balance. So I always feel conflicted about articles like this one. I would like to hope that if I wanted to be a head of staff of a tall steeple church, I would be able to find something and not have the stained-glass ceiling to contend with. But I don't feel called to that right now. Is that a bad thing? No and yes. No, because I want to be true to my call--not only my pastoral call but my call to be spouse, parent, etc. But also yes, for the same reason that Linda Hirshman (google her) had an actual point that got lost in all the arrogance and the vitriol: the more women who opt out of ministry (or other demanding, male-dominated professions), the greater the burden on those who remain to try to advocate for change. Sigh. The divine miss m and I are off tomorrow for Suburban Pres's annual staff retreat at Senior Pastor's cottage on the Chesapeake Bay. We will be WAY out of internet range. I'll check in when I get back. I expect my blogging will continue to be less frequent, but on the upside, I'm getting quite a bit of real-life stuff done. St. Cass and all of those on the Gulf Coast are in my thoughts and prayers this week. Read/Post Comments (13) Previous Entry :: Next Entry Back to Top