Spoiled or Blessed?

I am blessed.

Actually, I am spoiled rotten.

I suspect my sister would agree.  She's younger and a shy introvert.  I'm not only older than she, but the first born grandchild on both sides of the family, and a double-E -EXTROVERT!  So if I wasn't getting enough attention in any given situation I found a quick way to get it as a child.  I like to think I've matured in my forties, but I still love attention.  And I love gifts.

I love giving them and I love receiving them.

This past holiday weekend I invited our family to my father's for Thanksgiving dinner, suspecting I wouldn't be up to cooking so soon after surgery.  My father agreed to cook turkey and pheasant that we promised to provide.  My step-sister, Heidi, who lives in Chicago with her husband and their five children, decided to join us for the feast.  We had a wonderfully relaxing weekend in Galena, Illinois; my home town, a.k.a. The Town That Time Forgot.  I felt very blessed.

On Sunday my youngest asked if I would come to church in Hastings to sit with Kristen-the-Girlfriend.  Joren wanted to sing with his dad in the choir.  I reluctantly agreed, hoping it wasn't a "Contemporary Worship" Sunday.  I lucked out.  I had a thoroughly enjoyable time quietly welcoming Kristen-the-Roman-Catholic to the Anglo-Catholic expression of religiosity known as The Episcopal Church.  It was First Advent and she's from a liturgical tradition and parochial school background, so most of the worship felt familiar to her.  I was so pleased that we were using Eucharistic Prayer C (the Star Wars Eucharist) because it's the perfect liturgy for demonstrating our subtle yet significant theological differences from Roman Theology.  Kristen had good questions and participated faithfully, including breaking bread with us.  I love teaching young people about this tradition and find that doing so during worship is one of the best ways to illustrate why we do what we do.   I felt very blessed.

But wait - there's more.

At work I got going on my Two-Do list and started wading through our website to get myself fully up to speed on our diocesan activities and resources and low and behold, there's a fantastic Advent Calendar on the home page.  I love Advent Calendars and this one is rich with perspectives and possibilities.  I encourage you to check it out.  I felt very blessed.

And ONE MORE THING!

Today my friend and colleague Irma-the-Archdeacon walked into my office bearing a gift. I doubt she realized that I was suffering Da Bears Blues after the Vikings horrific victory last night.  Her face beamed as she triumphantly placed a tiny little fishbowl on my desk and announced, "There, now you have both Becket(t)s, Thomas and Samuel!" (Formerly I had a red Siamese Fighting fish that was named Beckett.  See here for previous post.  BTW - he died.) 

It is such a cool little thing.  It's a fish bowl of fake fish that from a distance look legitimate! When the battery in the base is turned on the fish swim around in random patterns!  I laughed with delight, thanking Irma for solving the loneliness of my fish less office with fish I can't kill.  (I suppose I will kill the battery at some point, but that's more readily replaceable than the fish!)  

I am very blessed.

And spoiled rotten, too.  Thanks be to Irma!