Fresh Start

I spent today at a monthly meeting of Fresh Start, which is a Diocesan program for priests starting new positions. It meets monthly to discuss church transition theory, learn skills, and share stories. Much of the value comes from being able to hash through actual cases in a high-trust, collegial environment. It involves several people that I know, including Lisa Newland (St. Matthew's, Oshawa), John Stephenson (St. Timothy's, Agincourt), and Drew MacDonald (St. John's, York Mills). Thoughtful group--exactly the kind of people to do some serious pastoral problem solving.

The "old" Rectory is still causing me heartburn. I'm meeting with someone tomorrow about it and hopefully we can come up with a plan. Stay tuned.

My mom is coming this weekend for Canadian Thanksgiving--should be lots of fun to see her. This will be the first time she has seen the new house. We are planning to do the whole turkey thing. It's not thanksgiving without Tryptophan.

Tryptophan is the chemical in Turkey that makes you sleepy and promotes feelings of well-being. Here's a snippet from Wikipedia:

For some time, tryptophan was available in health food stores as a dietary supplement. Many people found tryptophan to be a safe and reasonably effective sleep aid, probably due to its ability to increase brain levels of serotonin (a calming neurotransmitter when present in moderate levels) and/or melatonin (a sleep-inducing hormone secreted by the pineal gland in response to darkness or low light levels).

Clinical research tended to confirm tryptophan's effectiveness as a sleep aid and for a growing variety of other conditions typically associated with low serotonin levels or activity in the brain such as premenstrual dysphoric disorder and seasonal affective disorder. In particular, tryptophan showed considerable promise as an antidepressant alone, and as an "augmenter" of antidepressant drugs.

Tryptophan is also available as a prescription ("Tryptan") and is mostly used by psychiatrists to augment other anti-depression drugs. So eat your turkey!

I'm thinking hard about adopting another cat. Denise is absolutely thriving in our house and I think she'd love to have a companion to be with while we are away. There are many cute kittens available and it's hard not to be seduced.

That reminds me, I need to get some fish and some plants for my office. If you want growth you need to orient yourself to living creatures.

It's a slightly odd Gospel lesson this Sunday. And I'm supposed to do something with the kids. It's the parable of the mustard seed, so that has potential, I suppose, but what to do with the rest of the passage? Hmm.

-t