In Fear of the AOL Account

No, this isn't a diatribe against AOL.  But over the next few days, I could be getting some emails to my AOL account (since my church's members don't know about the Gmail account yet) that will impact my summer plans.

Today at church, the preacher announced she is resigning at the end of May to take a full-time job as chaplain of a local nursing home.  Thus, my church is in the market for a new pastor.  This means a search committee has to be formed and preachers chosen to fill the gap of time between June and whenever a new or interim pastor has been chosen.  I see a couple potential tasks for me:

1. As arguably the most active younger member of the church, I am not ruling out the possibility that I may be asked to serve on the search committee.  I don't think distance will get me out of it; after all, I did serve six months as council president while residing in College Park.
2. The church will need someone(s) to fill the gap as preacher.  As a member who actually preached a couple of times, well, you see where this is going.  Fortunately, the Sunday during Reunion Weekend as well as the Sunday after a certain event in July are "off" Sundays for my congregation, i.e., I know I won't have to preach those days.

This worrying may be for nothing, though.  I'll have to see.  And if I have to preach at all, I'll let those of you who want to attend know the dates.

April = Bad

If any month should be stricken from the calendar, I think April is it.  Yesterday, a plane carrying many high-ranking Polish government officials crashed in Russia.  Add that to the mining tragedy in West Virginia last week, and it appears that April 2010 is aiming to live up to the reputation of its predecessors.  Granted, it has a lot to live up to.

• First death of a sitting United States President (1841)--although this was mainly because of Harrison's stupidity
• Lincoln's assassination (1865)
• Birth of Adolf Hitler (1889)
• Sinking of the Titanic (1912)
• Death of FDR (1945)
• King's assassination (1968)
• Apollo 13 mission (1970)--okay, this one wasn't that bad
• Oklahoma City bombing (1995)
• Columbine shooting (1999)
• Death of John Paul II (2005)
• Virginia Tech shooting (2007)

But a third of the way in, April 2010 has not screwed me (well, except for the 90-degree days last week).  Hopefully, it will stay that way.

In fact, I had an enjoyable evening last night in DC.  Next time, we should try for something during the day, since the weather is getting nicer.