"Alas, Poor Yorik I knew him well."

K, so I didn’t go to the Aaron Copland opera today. To be honest, I didn’t do much at all this weekend. I never did hear back from Molly about Copland, and upon checking out tickets for Les Mis in Jan I decided not to go today because I could use the money for something else. Of course, a happy thought occurred to me earlier today – my Dec 1 paycheck will include my bonus money from Oct! I can pay down my laptop or reimburse my parents for the new sweater. I need to remember to take a picture for others to see.

A fellow coworker of mine, Gina, wanted some help w/ an Excel document. Four years ago, when I last worked for the OWH, I designed an Excel worksheet which helped us with the labels. Since then I know they’ve used something like that at 2 other offices (actually, one of them was an exact copy of mine). Anyway… Gina works at another office and was looking at the system they use for labels and she was baffled. After looking at it myself, I too was confused. So being the nice guy that I am I volunteered to help her come up w/ something else. She was supposed to call me yesterday, but evidently had the wrong cell number for me but she managed to get the correct one today and called me. So I went in for 3.5 hrs to help her out. We designed something very similar to what our office is using, with a few slight modifications. Actually, it makes me want to go into our system and make a few changes as well. Gina, and a few others, insist I should have copyrighted this sheet or something, but not sure how I would have done that. I am promised a free lunch. We’ll see if that happens.

Mom, Dad and I went to CiCi’s Pizza for lunch. Not a bad place. I left w/ a slight upset stomach which I think is due to the taco pizza they seem to have in abundance. I ran into a guy who used to work for the OWH. Small world. Speaking of guys who used to work for the OWH… Friday night it looked like I was going to have to come into the office and deliver papers. I couldn’t find subs for my routes. Then, Shorty hit upon the idea to call up my former boss – Bill – to sub. And he did. Come to think of it, I’ll need to contact him about payment. I did manage to think ahead, and I’ve made some arrangements for subbing out my routes for Thu-Sun of this coming week. I can’t believe Turkey Day is this Thursday. I expect to be off on Fri and plan to go to the Nebraska-Colorado game w/ my cousin. I just hope I am awake enough to make it. My sister is going to sub on some routes. I’ve given her some easy stuff. Besides, she could use a little extra cash for the holidays and stuff. That is, if she can make it in w/ her upset wisdom teeth.

I spent the bulk of yesterday indoors, watching videos and playing my game, City of Heroes. I tried watching Master and Commander, but the DVD I got from Netflix wasn’t working, so I am sending it back. Not that it matters much, as I found it playing on HBO the other night. I hope to be getting a copy of the new Harry Potter movie to watch instead (and hoping to get my very own copy for Christmas). I was searching for ties today. I seem to have misplaced all the ties I own, during the move which is really frustrating because I have some nice ties and well… my Dad’s are not that great of a collection to draw from, if you know what I mean.

I never did get around to working on my BU essay. I really will need to buckle down this week. The big thing actually would be to contact my references and get them the correct forms so they can fill them out and send them in to BU. I’ll need to find the correct forms though. Man I am going to be busy.

It’s Christ the King Sunday, at least in the Lutheran church. It also happens to be Stewardship Sunday. It is a little odd, and more than a little interesting, to contemplate the relationship between those two and how they seem to fall on the same Sunday, or at least close to one another. To be honest, I haven’t really aid much attention to the changes in the Church Calendar. I know that Advent is coming up, which is pretty exciting. Besides Lent, it is my favorite part of the Church Calendar. Forget Easter and Christmas, the best parts are those leading up to the big events! J I actually went to service this morning. Every other weekend I am working and it is a little difficult to stay awake for the 11am service or attend either the Sat or Sun evening services. Plus, I’m not a big fan of the Sun 11am and 5:30pm services. I used to really like the “contemporary” services, but not so much anymore. Although I might try to go next week since they are doing Communion. I understand they are doing Communion at Wed night’s service too, and my aunt I supposed to be assisting. Aside from work though, I’ve found myself more than a little dissatisfied lately. And I’m not sure if it has something to do w/ my own “faith life” or something to do with the congregation or other factor. Most likely it is a combination of things.

My parents go to the 8am service and that is just way too early for me. For the last 2 yrs I’ve gotten used to a 10:30 or 11am service, and I definitely prefer the latter wake-up time. Of course in DC and G-burg there really wasn’t an early morning service, so I didn’t have much choice. And now that I do… I prefer sleeping in. So I went to the 9:30 service, and man is this service packed. I am amazed at the number of people who show up. I was running a little late this morning. I spent a little extra time coiffing. While walking from my car to the church, I saw an old church friend of mine, Jeremy. He is finishing up his MDiv at Luther Seminary, graduating in Dec. We chatted for a few minutes, doing the quick catch-up thing. I was on one side of the street, and he on the other, just outside his driver side car door. It was a quick conversation and it reminded me of my friends at or from Luther. I asked him to tell ‘Manda “hey!”

So I finally made it into the service and I had to find a seat at the back of the church, tucked away in some niche. A place I’ve never sat in before, btw. Nice to get a different perspective (Sarah kept calling, but now I can finish my blog and whenever she gets home she can read it). Not that I needed a new perspective, but I got one. The sermon was okay, a usual Pastor George sermon. I hate to admit it but I prefer Pastor Tyler’s sermons and I miss Pastor Bill’s. And the music was alright, but not outstanding. A couple months ago they were doing a sermon series on worship, and what I heard was rather insightful and right on, but it makes me ashamed to admit that many of the things they talked about that make something good worship (ie – not personal preferences) are the problems I find with the services at LCM. I know I’ve grown up quite a bit in the last few years, and I’m not sure it is wrong to say that I’ve grown beyond LCM. My worship needs are no longer met there. I go to worship for a good, thought-provoking and insightful sermon, liturgy that connects w/ me on a variety of levels, and the sacraments. I never used to be big into the sacraments, but now I miss having weekly Communion. It seems to be more of an eastern thing, or around here – too Catholic. I guess I’m a little more liberal in my theology and a little more traditional in my liturgy and sacramental desires. The simple solution would be to look for a new church home. I hope I am not in Omaha long enough to actually change my membership, but I may look for other churches to worship at, because it seems my needs are not being met. But it feels wrong. I tried going to another church, and actually did succeed, but telling my parents was difficult. I felt like I was betraying my family. I have a personal connection w/ several people at LCM, afterall I used to be the Young Adult Coordinator, but that shouldn’t keep me back from finding a new place where I can connect to people. And most importantly, connect to God. And that is the other side to it all. I feel totally disconnected in my “faith life.” I don’t want to get onto my soap box about the pious language people use when talking about their faith, but simply put I find myself rather uncomfortable using that language and evening listening to it. I look to a variety of spiritual ‘fathers’ for guidance. I don’t really need to because most of the answers they provide I already know deep inside. I just feel very out of touch. My only real connection is weekly BS and we all know how I’ve been feeling about that.

Something occurred to me today while I was at service. I realized that today is Lauren’s birthday. And I started to wonder if I’ve been connecting church-things w/ her, which is why I have such strong, negative reactions to church. I don’t think this is the whole answer, but it does leave some food for thought. More than enough for now, actually. I need to get offline and relax a little more. It’s amazing how stressful a few hours in front of a computer screen doing Excel formulas can be. And even more amazing how stressful it can be sitting in front of a blank screen and trying to write a blog, only to find yourself interrupted. J

Until next time… sleep well!