I really love our annual Sunday service after Thanksgiving. The bakers in our congregation (include me in) each bake a special bread for the service. We slice it up and place it on a table alongside the chalice, having arranged the seating in a semi-circle on both sides.

For this service we don't use the pulpit and its microphone, but a hand-held mic that we pass from person to person. We have the usual part of the service, lighting the chalice, meditation, hymns, and so forth.

Then, in lieu of a sermon, several of us, taking turns, read a service of thanksgiving and love. After, we pass around the baskets of bread that we have baked and everyone samples whatever they like.

It feels very elemental and grounded to bake bread from the grain grown in the earth, and share with our friends and families. It's a fun service, but solemn, too, in that we recognize our connection to the web of life and to each other. What we do to the earth, what we do to each other, we do to ourselves.

Today after the service, no one wanted to go home, it seemed. We stayed and had tea and coffee and talked and talked. Our connections with one another seem stronger at this time, partly because of the season, I guess, and in part because of the interim minister.

I think (though no one says it aloud) that most of us wish he were our full time minister. In just a few months, he has changed us and I think for the better. I hope his influence lasts after our settled minister returns.

It's so beautiful outside, you'd think it were summer. It's 95 degrees, sunny, gentle breezes. A day for tee shirts and shorts and bare feet--the way I dress whenever possible. If I had my way, I'd never wear shoes, only barefoot or sandals.

Counting 26 days. I'm getting anxious to hear from the retirement people. Are they processing my paperwork? Did they receive it? All I've had is a robot email saying that it takes up to 10 days for them to reply (it's been 1 month since submitted, 2 weeks since email asking if received), due to the number of people retiring, high volume of requests.

Batty, Dan Gent, don't they at least send you a form letter saying that your application has been received?

Possess my soul in patience.