7 Quick Takes

This is me, being myself.  Consider yourself warned. But I am just taking what I believe to be some good advice.

1.  I am getting my haircut later today.  I know color will be suggested.  I vacillate over the correct decision.  So I decided to get some input and I asked my parents, aunt and uncle.  They can't see any grey at all!  They don't see my wrinkles either.  Of course, the only light in the room was from the tv, because my mom has some issue with turning lights on, which may explain why I like light.  But I digress, color or not?  I notice many women my age seem to have very light hair, which translates into upkeep, for which I have no patience.  Any color, besides what I have on my head currently, requires upkeep.  Okay, no color, since hair upkeep and I will not work.  My husband just needs to stop looking down onto the top of my head and noticing the grey.  

2.  I have a difficult time with my work email address   My job is director of faith formation, so I used faithformation as the email instead of my name, seemed easier to spell.  The domain is our parish name, stedward (all lowercase, no period) pb (for Palm Beach) and then .com.  Sometimes when I have to give it to people over the phone it is a real struggle, here are some questions I get:  "faith, what"  "is there an 's'?" No, the church does not belong to St. Edward, he's deceased thank you.  "How do you spell Edward?"  What I have noticed is that when I have to tell a secular vendor this info it takes forever; when I have to tell a company who deals with churches on a regular basis, piece of cake. Which concerns me, my address is "faithformation" not "catecheticaldirector" or "catechesisleader", do people not know what faith is any longer or does the use of religious terms just throw them?  My personal email is just as troublesome.

3.  Ash Wednesday questions have begun coming into the office, so let me go over common misconceptions.  1.  Ash Wednesday is NOT a holy day of obligation.  2.  An Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion can distribute ashes.  I have done so and the earth did not move nor was I struck down.  Think about it, if lay people can distribute Jesus' Body and Blood, why not ashes?  3.  No, we do not just "give out" ashes.  Please come to Mass or the Liturgy of the Word service to receive them.

4. I was afraid my Bible study group was going to revolt yesterday morning over Romans.  But they hung in there and we got through all the circumcision references, faith and works discussion, and the necessity of the Torah.  It's all Grace, Trust, and Faithfulness.  I don't want to talk about circumcision ever again, really.  And I bet the 3 men in the class are tired of it.

5.  This week was the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  As a deacon in formation my husband and his classmates plan and implement an evening of prayer with other area churches.  Last night we went to an Episcopal church.  I figured out the big difference between Roman Catholics and Protestant denominations.  They sing all the verses to a hymn; we stop when whatever action we were singing with is complete.   It was a very nice service and truly we do need to pray that one day "all will be one"  as God intends.

6.  There is a bake sale coming up this weekend at church for EDGE, our middle school youth group.  I will be baking some goodies to sell.  I also want to make up little packages of trail mix that I saw on pinterest.  I think they'll be cute. 

7.  If you need an idea on up-cycling  your weekly parish bulletin, click on over to my post on New Evangelizers.

And, if you'd like to read some more Quick Takes, Conversion Diary is the place to go!