I need vegetables ~ Ghosts in the Machine

Leafy green ones would do really well for me.

My cuticles are red and broken because I've neglected to eat my daily allotment over the past week. I went to Findlay Market today to get some and wouldn't you know they had no (bananas...yes we have no bananas today) or other fruit or vegetables! Arrgh! Kenny Havens told me that, despite the fact that the market is open seven days, you still have only the weekends - Friday through Sunday.

Also, Becky thinks we have a ghost. I know we have the dog, Ghost, but she means a spectre.

We've been hearing loud, clear footsteps in the house at 6am, midnight and then 1:30 am – it sounds like cloppity-clop – like a person in loose shoes – and it's not our tenant.

I'm still seeking material explanations on this and will keep you posted.

I also made my way to a Catholic supply store today – St. Francis Bookstore, I think it's called. They have a lot of stuff – Catholic gear – very inexpensive. I picked up a new Jerusalem Cross for $6.50 – you may recall that I lost mine, the one I've had for ten years or so, during me expedition to the Camp Katrina. They also had some really cool crosses for the wall. I saw some that folks around Vineyard would dig.

Beck's talking with everyone here at house church about the ghost. I think the consensus is that our new leather couch is haunted. We bought a big ass leather couch – hunter green and over stuffed. So thick it blocks my wifi connection! This replaces the wool sectional/hair magnet we've had for some time. If you've had the misfortune of sleeping on this blue wool retro piece, you'll understand when I say that we were ready for something more comfortable.

The blue bomber has been in my family for 35 years or so – my grandma bought it at a yard sale and had it recovered in 1972. The couch was built sometime in the 50's. Ghost slept on it for a long time and left a lot of hair to clean.

Tuesday Housechurch
Sunny day. Beautiful out and darn nice inside.

Eric said he wasn't able to make rent this month and is feeling kind of screwed by this guy her's working for. Eric says he's being payed too little and the boss is in obvious financial trouble. It sounds like he's being taken advantage of by this guy.

Eric says he's had discussions about faith with this guy and that's made it hard for him to insist on being treated better by this boss.

Folks here advised him to insist on payment before proceeding with the work relationship. That's my feeling, too.

Bill, this new Brown House resident from Oregon, is here tonight. He has hair like my neighbor Josh. Ringlets of hair. Julie introduced Bill and everybody said hi.

Our ultrasound is tomorrow morning. We'll find out if this is a she or he.

Julie's lesson
Julies says that people have said they wanted structured teachings in HC and she's got this packet on Mark that we're going over tonight.

Julie says that Mark wrote for a gentile audience and may be a source for other Gospels.

“He came in an unexpected way,” she says. “He came as a suffering servant.”

She read from another text, “Try to love the questions themselves...live the questions...perhaps you may...live into the answer.”

Christ is seen as this divine answer man, but he asked just as many questions, she says.

Julie says it's easy to become a prisoner to legalistic ways and the law.

“It's too one dimensional for Christ,” she says. “It also leaves us out of the picture, which makes us laborers instead of co-laborers with God.”

'What if you have to live into the questions?” she asks.

Lesson one was Exodus 20:8-11
This was about keeping the Sabbath holy by not working and focusing on God.

So Mark's Gospel talks about the apostles technically breaking the Sabbath by gathering food. Somebody questions this and Jesus tells them that the Sabbath was made to serve God, not for God's people to serve the Sabbath. The main idea seems to be, if you're doing good on the Sabbath, it's cool.

She says the truth of how we are supposed to act on the Sabbath has changed from the Pharisees to the time of Jesus. Jesus in this passage seems to be denying that you can do nothing on the Sabbath and that, really, you're either doing evil or good.

The theme, consensus says, is that the Sabbath is set aside to honor God.

Russ is sitting next to me. His glasses make him look like that sports announcer Harry Kari (sp?)

Becky says that maybe Jesus was saying, “Don't get caught up in the semantics of the Sabbath.”

Julie reads from Tilden Edwards, who wrote that we as a society have moved away from draconian laws that prosecuted people for going on a recreational walk. The author says that, with this needed freedom, we've also lost some valuable rhythm to our lives... “a cathedral in time.”

Leslie says her family tried to observe the Sabbath by resting. Russ says nothing was open on the Sabbath. He says one drugstore was open in his little town, but nothing was operating except th pharmacy. Russ says this made Sunday a natural day for visits with friends and relatives.

“We were dull and boring,” Leslie whispers my way.

Worshipping on Sunday morning is a time out of time, Julie says, a connection across space with others worshipping on that day and across time with the entire history (and future?) of the church.

Beck says that Sundays for us are observed (I wouldn't have said that, though I think she's right by default) – this community has influenced us to hang about, talk, chill, eat on that day and that's become a part of our regular rhythm.

Say, I realized, I could podcast this HC – would anyone like me to do that? Would that be obtrusive?

(To be read in the voice of Patti Smith, breathless and halting like in the song Rock'n'Roll Nigger: I jump in my mind to that Mexican restaurant on 24th St, midway between Mission and Florida Streets in San Francisco -- the rhythm quickens now, beats folding ito each other --- and it was night and Beck and I were there, eating much too much after that long, 23 mile ride around the peninsula , eating much too much for our bellies at that late hour, later still by the jetlag, and we didn't finish and this kid comes up asking us for what's left on our plates so properly, saying, “I don't mean to be obtrusive, but may I finish that? If you're just going to throw it away? I hope I'm not being obtrusive.” And I'd never heard it said without an “un” on the front and that just shows you how little I, fed, cared about it, compared to a squatter kid with an empty belly.

But then, I had the money to by the food and he didn't. That's why he had to worry about it and I didn't.)

Cathedral in time, Julie continues. “I think that finding a rhythm is important,” Julie says. “...whatever you're doing to honor God.”