Lost & Found

After a few days of sifting through my Liked Songs, I found the song that I was looking for in the previous post. Since this isn’t actually the first time I’ve tried to find it, I’ve added it to a Spotify playlist called “That Song You Can’t Remember The Name Of”. I’ll link it as my usual YouTube at the end of this post.

The last week went pretty well, and pretty quickly. Of note: Lori and I are transferring our church membership to a church that we’ve been attending for about a year. Part of this process is having an informal interview-of-sorts with an existing member, so they can make a formal recommendation to the rest of the congregation on our behalf. After putting it off for a while I reached out to somebody that used to teach English in my high school, though I never had him myself. We’ve had some pleasant interactions but it turns out we have more in common than I might have thought, especially when it comes to struggling with cynicism and doubt.

We had an excellent, energizing Zoom conversation on Thursday night, one that I had been anxious about earlier in the week. I found myself thinking of the interview as a sort of job application rather than the encouragement / excuse for connection that it really is. I worried that I hadn’t memorized enough verses, or didn’t have a serious enough daily practice to be a “real Christian”. I know it sounds ridiculous saying out loud, but I was sure getting low-grade nervous about it. Finally I noticed what I was doing to myself, said “Just Worrying” about it, and spent the rest of the week being generally fine with it.

I think we’ve found a good place. The congregation is small, but very welcoming; sermons are thought-provoking and a good source of discussion for myself and Lori; and people seem interested in digging into difficult issues and tough questions, while not necessarily coming up with One Answer for Everybody. It checks a lot of the boxes we had when we departed our previous church and started looking for a new place. I’m looking forward to growing there.

Thing I Saw: Entirely too much grass (not enough snow) for a February in Southern Manitoba. Our winter has been mild to a degree that would be nice if it weren’t making me concerned about climate change.

Thing I Learned: Aliens is streaming on Disney+, which seemed like a weird fit until I remembered that Disney owns the Fox catalog.

I’m Grateful For: Tools to communicate instantly with people halfway across the world. Work on the Low German textbook I was doing illustrations for has picked up again, but this time I’m armed with the ability to WhatsApp the author and layout person for translations and guidance. I used to be able to email, but turnaround times were slow; now I can get the answers I need almost instantly. Amazing.

I’m Dreaming Of: Going to the two Korean grocery stores I can think of in Winnipeg, and buying every box of Hotteok mix I can find. Just look at these saucy devils:

What you can’t see is the delicious melty brown sugar / peanut filling

Song of the Moment:

I watched this video and thought “‘sa bit Lynchian, innit” and then read the description and was proven right! Huzzah!