Getting Ready

It's been a while since I've written. I feel like so much of my time recently has been spent getting ready. At the church, I'm getting ready to be gone for three months with all that entails. I preached a going away sermon on Sunday, and we had a time set aside in the liturgy for a sabbatical sending away.

I've been making travel plans and such, and some of that has been fun. We'll be leaving in just a couple of weeks, and I'm getting ready to go.

I went about ten days ago to spend an afternoon and evening working with the kitchen staff at Highlands. They were so gracious and helpful, and they work really, really hard. There's an amazing camaraderie there, and I look forward to joining them for six weeks when I return from Argentina.

On my way over to Highlands, I stopped by the cleaners and picked up my white alb and stole for Easter Sunday. I experienced a deep moment of re-cognition of what lies ahead. I get to celebrate Resurrection with the people at First Presbyterian Church and then I embark on this journey of communion. There was something powerful in that moment about preparing for both Easter and Sabbatical in essentially the same motion.

I've been reading some of my wine related books recently, as that is the first part of this journey. I finished My First Crush: Misadventures in Wine Country by Linda Kaplan. I've also been reading Romancing the Vine: Life, Love & Transformation in the Vineyards of Barolo by Alan Tardi. Both are about folks who left their life behind to work in the world of wine. Linda Kaplan and her husband left Des Moines, Iowa, and moved to the Williamette Valley of Oregon to make Pinot Noir. Alan Tardi left New York and moved to Piedmont, Italy, to immerse himself in the world of Barolo. Both have offered glimpses of the wine making process. I found the sentiment of Kaplan's journey personally a bit more interesting. While I plan on just being in the wine country for a month (Mendoza, Argentina), it's been helpful to learn a bit about what's involved in this amazing process from vineyard to vine to grape to cup.

I'll leave you with a couple of quotes I've run across in other readings recently.

From Frederick Buechner's Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC:

WINE
Unfermented grape juice is a bland and pleasant drink, especially on a warm afternoon mixed half-and-half with ginger ale. It is a ghastly symbol of the life blood of Jesus Christ, especially when served in individual antiseptic, thimble-sized glasses.
Wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk-making. It makes the timid brave and the reserved amorous. It loosens the tongue and breaks the ice especially when served in a loving cup. It kills germs. As symbols go, it is a rather splendid one.

(Thanks to Steve Stockman for pointing me to that one.)

And finally, from none other than John Calvin himself - for all you Reformers out there:

Wine is God's special drink. The purpose of good wine is to inspire us to a livelier sense of gratitude to God.

Peace...