Reverend Ref +

IT WAS A DAY

Today was long, hard and (mostly) productive.

It was yard-work day at Christ Church. We needed to mow (or cut hay, as one parishioner said), trim, dust, mop and generally clean up.

Since it was my bright idea to lay that labyrinth, I figured it should be mainly my job to maintain it. You may recall last summer when we went and hauled three truckloads of rock tailings into the south yard to create it.

Some Nice Things: all that rock keeps the moisture in the ground, so even when the rest of the yard dies, the labyrinth is still a lush green; it always open, and many people from passers-by to local kids have been found wandering through it.

Some Not So Nice Things: it's under a couple of trees that drop their leaves all over it; it's deceptively large -- it took me 2-1/2 HOURS to run my weedeater through it and make it semi-attractive again.

My forearms are still shaky.

Turn out for this little event was less than ideal. We had a total of nine people, and four of them were my family. Ish.

But we did get alot accomplished. Most of us worked in the yard, while two of the ladies worked hard on the inside of the church. It's not ideal, but it is better than it was. If I knew how to do the little picture thing, you would be able to see a before/after; but I'm not that technically savvy. So if you need help, imagine The Addams' Family place versus . . . oh, anything else.

So ... I'm tired, sun burned, and hoping that this body will respond in the morning. Mainly I'm hoping that my arms don't give out during the elevation and I drop the chalice and paten. Yeah, that would be bad.