breakdown

it seems like every piece of electronic equipment at the church decided to fail in the past week.

Last Thursday when the boiler inspector stopped by, she noticed that our hot water heater was squirting water everywhere!

Monday the internet wouldn't work at the church and I was on the phone with tech support for an hour and a half before they decided to send a replacement modem.

Tuesday the copy machine decided to jam every other copy while we were trying to print the newsletter.

Oh my. Everything is back up and working today - thankfully. It just has been one of those weeks where nothing that was planned seemed to go right. And having things not work made everything take so much longer than it should have.

One thing that did go well was a funeral I did this week. It was my first graveside service. I have done about 12 funerals, most of them at the funeral home with a graveside committal, a few in the church, but this was the first where we did the whole thing out at the cemetary. It was also my first where we buried the cremains instead of the casket. While so many things were the same - the same liturgy, many of the same familiar scriptures, there was an entirely different feel when everyone was standing up together around this little grey marble box. It felt very different to stand in the wind and the cold and to watch people huddle not only for warmth, but also for comfort. On the way home today, I listened to a segment on NPR about home funerals and in many ways - felt like what we did out there on Tuesday was more like a home funeral - family and friends, putting their loved one to rest. There wasn't a big fancy tent to sit under or mechanical things everywhere. It was nice. and simple. And I have a feeling that the man we laid to rest would have appreciated that.