Transitions...

So I quit writing. I got tired of reading what I was writing. Partner was in Seminary for three years. We moved to New York for that, and I started a new job here. We left our home in Wynnedale (in Indy) for basically a two room apartment with a small kitchen, bathroom and one clothes closet in NYC.

I am not sure I ever realized it was ok to enjoy living here. Everything was so temporary at the time, so different. Now we are entering a new period ... partner will be starting a new job soon, my job responsibilities may be changing, and we may be moving within the City.

The preacher at his ordination preached on being a deacon -- we are all called by our baptismal vow to diaconal service to others -- and transitional -- we would like to think that life is about arriving and settling, but it really is about movement and change, and he encouraged us to embrace the unsettling, boring and uncomfortable.

I've thought about that as we start the next period of our lives, and realize more and more that life itself is not something that is infinite but very finite.

While the year 2000 didn't really feel that much different than the year 1999,I think it is becoming quite clear that by July 2009 we are leaving the 20th Century behind in the sense that everything is subject to being quite different than it used to be.

The 20th Century was full of change (cars, cell phones, man on the moon). But even as we drag all our 20th century experiences into this new period, feeling oh so not hip or cool or cutting edge, we have some obligation to note what it is like to live here and now. Not the royal we here, but rather the folk who write and think about our lives.

I feel a little like the voices in the Monty Python skit who make up outrageous stories about what they did when they were children (when I was a child we were so poor we lived in a shoe box in the middle of the road and licked peoples boots as they walked by followed up by the line, try telling that to people now days, they don't believe you).

It has been raining this afternoon in New York City. The holiday weekend started in early afternoon. Two friends on Facebook refer to the loss of their long-time pets. Another friend is getting a marriage license in CT and will soon legally marry his partner. I am going to General Convention in Anaheim next week. I doubt if I will ever be a twitterer or a tweeterer.