The Parsonage

There are advantages and disadvantages to living in a parsonage, especially one that is directly across the street from the church. For some pastors I know, this would be a nightmare situation, but it suits me. For one thing, we have a church member who volunteers to mow the lawn, and every Thursday he brings his ride-on mower down to the church, and has so much fun hot-wheeling it around the church property that he just keeps going when he gets to the end of the lawn, crosses the street, and mows my yard.... The downside is that, every Sunday morning, he complains to me that I'm not giving my lawn enough water.

In addition to having a parsonage, I also have my office right in the house. Again, this has advantages and disadvantages. Today, I went jogging (even though I know from last week's experience that staying fit can be hazardous to one's health). I needed to pick a check up from our church treasurer, who works one mile west down Cornelius Avenue, at the Water Reclamation District office. Since my office is in my house, I just slipped out the door, down the hall to the bedroom, changed into some clothes suitable for jogging, ran down to pick up the check, ran back, showered, changed, and went back to work at my desk. Very convenient.... The downside to having my office in the house is that, at least among the youth in the neighborhood, the perception is that I never work, since I'm so often at "home."

Last night, no less than seven of those youth stopped by. Some of them were just dropping off their registration forms for camp (yesterday was the deadline for the early bird discount). Some of them, however, stuck around for awhile. They did some homework, tried to learn some new chords on their guitars, rummaged through the cupboards to see if we'd been to the grocery store yet (we hadn't, and are still out of red vines), and watched me spend the entire evening putting together our new computer desk. It's nice and big, some five and a half feet tall, with a slide-out thingy for the keyboard, and doors that open and close, so you can hide everything out of view when the computer's not in use. My wife picked it up at Ikea yesterday, and brought it home for me to assemble. I did so successfully, with none of the 255 pieces left over, thank you very much. If I can do that, then I can do just about anything....

Anything, that is, except go on a 380 mile bike ride. Whooo, that's a whole separate story, which I'll work on and post here when it's ready.