A week in February

I made a resolution for 2015 and I want to keep it, in a flexible way. The resolution is to write a post in my blog at least once a week. It is so much harder to break months of silence. When it happens, I feel like I hardly let a few weeks go by, and realize suddenly that it has been 5 months of not blogging! Getting back to it is like running after a galloping horse and try to crawl back on its back.

So what happened this week?

An important event in the life of UPPC (University Place Presbyterian Church) where I work: the installation of our new Senior Pastor, Aaron Stewart, last Sunday. Aaron was picked for this position on the last Sunday of November – the same day I got ordained actually. This is an audacious and wise choice. Audacious because in the Presbyterian tradition, churches usually hire an outsider (it actually used to be the absolute rule) and Aaron has been part of the life of UPPC for the past 18 years. Wise because he is a great leader. He was the executive pastor during the transition that preceded his nomination. I appreciate his open and dynamic style. A new page of the life of UPPC just started.

And today is Friday the 13^th.

February the 13^th is Saint Beatrice day. My family never celebrated those days, in French “fêtes” – where you congratulate the bearer of the name of the Saint of the day.  But two have remained in my memories, February the 13^th and December 1^st, after the names of my Catholic friends! I was 8 when Beatrice and I met. We have often lived far away geographically from each other ever since but never stopped send each other letters, fax and emails, depending on the years.

Beatrice, in white, during one of our visits in Troyes, France, where she lives
with her husband Max who took the picture. 

February 13^th is also an anniversary. In 2001, Irvin and I got engaged on that day. Today afternoon, while enjoying some fresh oysters on a tavern by the water under a hesitant sky (clouds and sunshine) I was thinking that whatever people say, Fridays 13^th are actually propitious days.