A new perspective on things

Hi folks,
So yeah, it's been a Long time since I've updated this. I can't begin to tell you what's happened between now and then but what's happened in the past four or five hours is what I'd like to chat about, then an update on my progress toward Boston.

So today is Wednesday(Happy hump day!) anyway... What that means for me is that I normally go to the Food Pantry at St. Matthew's to help give food to folks who visit us. I've been doing this for a while and there are a lot of people I don't remember but they remember me, but today I saw a lady who I first met a few months ago. She was "goin through some stuff" with her family and I thought about her often. It was nice to see her, the last few times she's been in, I've taken her around. Today I just happened to see her as she was leaving and asked how she was and how her family was. I will admit, her name escapes me, even when I saw her today, I couldn't remember what her name was. It was nice to see her and see how she was doing.
For the past month or so we've been having difficulties with the AC in the gym at St. Matts. You know it's hot when going outside feels cool! I discovered from last week that water doesn't really help that and surviving that, so this week I got a bottle of Gatorade (thanks to Chelsea) and that seemed to work a bit better.
We were finished with the pantry at about 5:15 and I had an appointment with Fr Rob at 5:30. Between those times I got together with Mary Margaret and we read over the liturgy for tonight's Wednesday night Healing Service. Mary Margaret is sort of in charge of the folks who do things during the liturgy (read the lessons, are eucharistic visitors, etc.) tonight she was scheduled to do the Homily. I don't know the difference between a Homily and a Sermon but it's kind of the same idea, I think. I work with MaryMargaret sometimes during the services, I read the prayers of the people or I read the lessons sometimes and I mentioned the idea that I'd like to be more involved, I like to try more new things.
So since she was already on the schedule she got approval from Rob for me to be part of the liturgy too. Tonight I got a chance to be the person who read almost everything except for the gospel, Homily and officiate the communion. Father Rob and Mary Margaret did those things. The other really neat part that I haven't really done before was I wore an Alb (which is Latin for the word White BTW, Thanks Father Rob). I've never worn one before, they feel like they're made of polyester, and I'm not sure if they're supposed to be short or not but mine was above my ankels and about an inch or two above my wrists. I would also describe them as hard to put on, you have to find these snaps that are somewhere in the fabric on each shoulder (one snap on the left shoulder and two snaps on the right) it's hard to find the snaps. I'm pretty sure it'd be easier once you wear one more. So, needless to say, the alb is HOT! Thank God I had shorts and short sleeves on. I bet folks are dieing when it's winter time.
But all that aside, being up there was a totally different perspective. I've been in choirs before so it wasn't so much being up there in front of everybody, it was I was up there for a different purpose. It's a little scary to know that everybody's waiting on me to do the next thing. I did great though, missed a really important "not" in there somewhere, but I'm sure God get's the point and won't hold it against me.
Another thing about the perspective being different, during the blessing of communion, I stood behind the altar. I had told Rob earlier that I wasn't sure what to do during communion, I was expecting to just sort of stand in my spot while that happened but he told me to come stand next to him behind the altar. That was different! According to MM (her name's long) that doesn't normally happen, normally lay folks (I think she used a different term) normally stand further back but she thought that maybe Rob wanted me up there so I could see what was going on. The only thing I can say about that is... Words fail to adequately describe this but I was struck by the fact that something Holy was happening, and I'm pretty sure my mouth was hanging open the entire time. (caught myself a few times and remembered to close it but not the entire time) I can't really describe that other than wow. Then Rob gives himself communion (that kinda seemed sad to me, you don't get that connection with another person when you have to give it to yourself) then he gives MM and I the bread and the wine, then he told me to go back to my seat while he gave the bread and MM gave the wine.
I can't tell you how many times I've had communion over the years probably up to a thousand by now I'd say, but I've never really had the opportunity to watch people receiving communion before, that was another mouth hanging open experience. I can't really say what about it was different about it, but wow. Maybe it's cuz I could see people receiving it and the various things they do but it was kind of amazing.
I didn't know that a prayer is said before the folks process and I have to say, that prayer helped my nervousness to disappear, I wish prayers were said before a lot of other things that I've done!

There is so much more I want to say but I'm tired of typing and may have more thoughts later.
Bye for now

Hey!

Ok folks, before you ask... yes I know it's almost 4 in the morning.
My creative brain sort of ran away with me and I am So about to go to sleep!
Anyways, I am about to go to bed... But before I do that, I wanted to tell you about my new blog!
The address for said blog is monastic-internship-nancy.blogspot.com.
Yes it's long but hopefully makes sense. Probably could've done without the dashes, but oh well.

Second bit of info I'd like to share is something I'm not really sure how to share...
It's a gift that has been given to me by the parish in Rock Hill that I went to while in college. A few weeks ago, I heard that their Vestry was being asked on my behalf to help with travel expenses, which would be absolutely amazing since that's a problem for me.
I pondered this for a while before I sent an email to the Senior Warden (kind of like the chairman) about the possibility of their helping me purchase an ipad. It's something I'd been dreaming about for a while for a lot of reasons, most notably I've found apps that are church related that worked well on my ipod but would be even better to work with on a larger screen and secondly the brothers at the monastery have their daily offices already in electronic files and they were willing to blow them up and print them for me. they're about 30 pages or so and I couldn't justify printing that many pages every day four or five times a day. So I proposed the ipad. The great part is that they approved it and as we speak, or write/read, the various parts that belong to the ipad are making their ways from various places in the world to be deposited on my front porch in the next week or two.
The reason I said I had a hard time talking about this is because I am thankful, more than words can say, but I don't want to gloat, but at the same time I also want them to know how greatful I am. So, I figured I'd start with this. Beyond my close family, there aren't too many people who know and my audience for this is relatively small. So there you go, my big secret... kind of.
It's not a secret, just not sure what to say/do.

So, all of that being said, I'm going to post in my new blog sometime tomorrow. and some of you guys I put in my email alert list. This blogger thing is fun!

All right,
I'm going to bed now.
Love,
Nancy