Lenten Internship

I've decided that internship is like lent. For those of you who are wondering what internship is like, just reflect on your own lenten journey (or the cartoon).

First, you are all excited and wait in eager anticipation for lent / internship to begin. Oh, those ashes on Ash Wednesday. I love those! Finally, a chance to be with others and remember our mortality in this world that tries to tell us we will be immortal if we buy more, be more, more more more!
The same with internship. I'm going to Norway! Yeah! I'll get to find out what it feels like, what life is like as a pastoral person. Finally, no more grades, no more tests. Oh, and the added bonus of getting feedback on one's ministry and even personhood from so many sources. Oh, this will be great, I'm sure.

And then we move into week 1 of lent: This is still great. We're starting a rhythm. Weekly worship gatherings that are a bit smaller and provide time for reflection, and maybe a communal meal. This is nice, it feels slower.
And the first quarter of internship: this is great! I get to schedule my own day. I'm meeting so many interesting people, who are sharing their lives with me. This internship thing should be a piece of cake.

And then the weeks start to blend together: week 2? week 4? what week are we in? Shouldn't Easter be coming soon. I think someone got the calendar wrong. We're tired of carrying the cross. Can't we celebrate. Uff-da, this lenten discipline is hard! How is this drawing me closer to God anyway. Yuck, who likes reflection anyway. Let's party!
And so too do the weeks of internship blur together, but in strange ways. This year that once stretched out in front of me like waving prairie grass, now seems like a muddy field. I am enjoying internship, but this middle time is so strange. So much left to learn, and be, and do. Yet, this time is already and not yet. I am viewed as a pastoral person, with responsibilities, with abilities, with trust. Yet, I am not yet a pastor. I am not yet given full responsibility. I am still developing my abilities. And I'm still not quite sure what this call is all about.

Time is blurring. This learning experience of internship is becoming heavy, just as lent is becoming heavy. Easter is just around the corner, but its not yet here. But, the big secret is that we know it is coming, Jesus has already died and risen again. We hope and trust in this.
The same for internship. Even though I have not yet been ordained - I don't even know for sure that I will be ordained - I hope that I will be ordained. I trust that this call from God is true. I hope and trust that my internship will be successful. In order for internship to be a success I must hope and trust.

Jesus has already died and and has already been resurrected. But, each year I wonder if we will get to Easter again or if we will be engulfed in lent. This is my first time through internship, but others have been through it before. I am surviving and thriving, but its not easy. I suppose its not supposed to be easy. But, like lent, it is true, it is good, it has reminded me that I am not God, but am called by God to live faithfully and truthfully. Yes, this is lent. Yes, this is internship.

Uggh.

Goings On

My mom recently told me that I couldn't talk about the weather anymore. I'm sure that she will now tell me "no more knitting". Maybe I'm a bit obsessive compulsive, but maybe its just that my life tends to focus on certain things at certain times (or maybe I lead a very boring life). The funny thing is that when I'm actually trying to focus on something in the moment (like reading a textbook), I can't. I will read or do the task at hand for 15 mn or if I'm lucky a half hour, and will then have to do something else. So this general blog focus on one area is quite strange for me.

So, after that long and confusing preamble, I have some more knitting fun to share. The Norwegian mittens are coming along, but will most likely be too small for me, so some lucky person may receive these as a gift at some point. I hope you like them! I hope they turn out.

The new knitting creation is actually much more simple, and is also norwegian. Here in Norway, it seems that just about everyone wears "pulsevarmerne", which translates, as you can probably guess to pulsewarmers, or wristwarmers. Most people wear these under their coats, with sweaters, all the time. Its like an extra warmer, that I'm told really works! I always thought, oh, I don't need those. Plus, they'll make my arms look chunkier, I don't need more bulk at my wrists. That's the skinniest part of my arm. (I learned long ago from Trinny and Susannah that for those of us with sausage type arms, we are not to wear bulkiness on our wrists.)

But, one day I saw one of the high schoolers wearing some that were quite light and airy looking (not heavy and bulky. She looked so great. It was like she was wearing funky knitted bracelets instead of pulsevarmerne. So, I decided that yes, I would give these pulsevarmerne a go. I had been accumulating wristwarmer knitting patterns and had bought some great sparkly yarn while in Turkey. I decided to combine the two and make some fun wristwarmers that hopefully wouldn't give me chunky wrists. Or, if that did happen, these pulsevarmerne would be so cool that I just wouldn't care (shh, don't tell Trinny and Susannah, or Stacy and Clinton).

Last night I finished the little sewing bit that I had been putting off, and the new fabulous pulsevarmerne are now completed. I can now have warm wrists like many Norwegians!
OK, so yes, they just look like wings laying on the chair like that. But look how sparkly they are! oh my! But, never fear, here's a pic of them actually warming my wrists.
P.S. If you are a fellow knitter and would like the pattern, you can get it for free here. Somehow the bottom portion of mine came out a little different, not sure what I did. But, they are very easy. Enjoy!

Oops...

So, I have to boil my water, right? Well, sometimes its possible to forget that water is boiling away right in your very own kitchen, because, well, its quite quiet. Really it is, try it! As you have probably guessed by now, I forgot that I was boiling water last night. Oops! Suddenly, I heard the stove make some sort of noise and I remembered. "Shoot! I put water on to boil! How long ago was that? Shoot!"

Rushing into the kitchen, I walked into a sauna and was confronted with this lovely site. Steam had accumulated on the window and had converted my kitchen into a sauna.


Then, looking at my boiling water, I found none. Instead, I found this my recenlty new, but has now been 'gently used' pan. It was just shiny, bright and new a couple weeks ago!

I scrubbed the pot this morning and it looked better, but still smelled burnt. But, then I learned a secret at church this morning. If you boil some water and baking soda in the pot, it will take away the burnt smell and residue. Just don't forget that one is boiling water. I tried this this afternoon, and it seems to have worked. We'll see what happens when I actually use the pot with food!

Can I drink this?

 
Hmm, you thought I was living in the great northern paradise? Well, here's some news for you! Oslo's public water has been found to have giardia (which I've heard of) and cryptosporidium (no idea what this is)! For the next 2 weeks we have to either boil the water for 3 mns or buy bottled water. It was first reported on Wednesday, but the people who test the water first reported it last Friday. On Wednesday, most of the convenience stores sold out of their supply of bottled water, which was quite funny! Now, some stores have signs up that say "vi har vann" or we have water. Never thought I would see that sign, especially in Oslo.
 
Being as I have some sort of problem, ethical, environmental, monetary, not sure with buying bottled water, I've been boiling water like a fiend. And, you have to let the water cool after boiling before using it. This is the worst part, since it seems to take forever to cool. I can still shower, etc with the water, but when brusing teeth, making coffee, cooking pasta, etc. I use the boiled water. I've never realized how much water I use, and how precious it really it. The first day I was so thirsty because I hadn't boiled any water yet. Uff da!
I can now say I have lived in a place where I had to boil the water! Funny how all the people at our international training this summer, everyone laughed that I wouldn't need to know any of the safety precautions we were talking about. Little did they, or I know what was coming. Enjoy your water!

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