April, though I already think of it as May

It's been a day of many moments, one might say. Sunday School was fun, even though I only had the one girl today. We rang bells and blew bubbles and talked about the Holy Spirit -- how do we know it's there, if we can't see it? Like the air we blow into a bubble or a balloon, like the sound of a bell when it's hidden from sight; like something hidden under a cloth. We hear, we feel, we know our breath lives inside us and inside a bubble; we know our ears hear the bell and that tells us the bell exists. Love -- received and given -- can be felt, heard, and like the breath in a bubble we know there's love in a kindness or an embrace. The Holy Spirit is like these -- it teaches us to love, and to live, it brings us knowledge and directs our thoughts. We can't see it -- but we can feel it, and we know its effects. We talked about Pentecost (a little) and about tongues of flame, we even made crowns of flame from orange and red construction paper -- but that was just for fun. The lesson was in the bells, and the bubbles.

We baptized a baby at church today, our second in as many weeks -- this one the child of former members, a loose connection, and this reminded me that we need to reach out to the parents of some of the infants we welcome, because they don't attend. Their children are members of our church body, but their parents seem to have observed a formality, which is a shame. Why do something half-assed? Of course, I'll refrain from using those exact words with the parents.

Baptisms are fun, a celebration and a healing hand on the wounds of loss left by members who die, members who leave us. We have weddings scheduled this year, and enough regular visitors to schedule another new members' class. We're a small church -- the stakes are high. And we voted today to sell one of our buildings. Turnout for the vote wasn't terrific, but this must seem like a formality to many at this point in the process.

It's a cloudy day, cold and wet at the back of several days' intermittent rain. I've made another pie -- today's was apple, French apple, yesterday it was rhubarb. We ate an early dinner, and not long afterward my son had a bath. In between folding loads of laundry and rattling around on the internet, my son helped me bake the pie (apple is his favorite). He and his father are on the couch now, watching a nature program. I feel sleepy, the combination of a long week (another one starts tomorrow) and the warmth here in the sewing room (which lays behind the kitchen, back of the oven.) A friend of mine grew up in a house with a similar configuration -- he tells me that this room was his as a boy -- the room with two doors, one to the kitchen and one to the hall. Safe and snug. But small, in our house, so my son has the larger of the two bedrooms.

I want to sew tonight. I may yet. We'll see. Outside, the greening is two weeks ahead of schedule.