It is Christmas Eve!

...and I have no running water.

Everyone else seems a great deal more concerned about this than me. (Everyone Else: church family. They sneak up on you, with love and jokes and concern. I still am not sure how I got adopted by about half the church, but they are awesome people and I do not complain. Our rector teases me: "You've got about twenty-five showers to choose from in this town alone!") Anyway: I have never lived in a house that did not occasionally stop working in one area or another, so at this point in my life I have taken the stance that humanity lived without electricity (outside our bodies, anyway), running water, or non-open-firepit heat for most of our history on the planet, so I can probably survive a couple days in a house that is not doing those things. Concerned sort-of-parental-units have pointed out that this also means showering is not a thing. (I'm more worried about the toilet; my hair's been grosser, if it gets too bad I'll just cut it off or something. But using drinking water to flush seems wasteful, so I'm not sure how to handle that.)

Anyway! It's actually a beautiful day, and I've not got much to do (other than wrestle with the well/pump and try to figure out a way to wrap Dan's present... oh damn, and practice the passage from Luke I'm supposed to be reading tonight).

I'd forgotten about that; got a call yesterday while wandering through campus about doing a reading for the Christmas Eve service. I'm not going to freak out, except by worrying that there are more people than usual there (because Christmas). But mostly not going to freak out, just take the dog for a walk and poke tentatively at the strange inner workings of the well pump outside (turns out the plumber doesn't get back until the 27th, which means interesting things over the next few days).

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

I haven't actually been to church for Christmas... quite possibly ever, or at least not since I was very, very small. Even the little Baptist church that consisted of three-four families in our pastor's living room had our own family celebrations (or not, it being too pagan of a holiday for my mother). I remember going to our grandparents' house for Christmas night, a few times; I remember, very dimly, going caroling in the days before Christmas with our pastor's family. If we had a service for Christmas at the Pentecostal church of my adolescence, I don't remember it - ah, yes. There was a pageant, one year, in the Church Is Cool style that congregation embraced. Ouch. Anyway - that makes it about a ten or eleven year gap, which I am quite happy to close at last.

Merry Christmas, internets; may God bless us, every one.




Minor water update: after posting this, I shut down the computer and video-called my family to say Merry Christmas; upon learning that I had no running water, my dad and grandpa started brainstorming solutions. This is what we do, and possibly why my first impulse was not to call a plumber but to go poke at the well. My dad eventually had me look at the circuit-breaker, and turn the one for the well on and then off again. This initially appeared to fix the problem - the filter started filling up again, and the pump housing made encouraging noises - but after I hung up, we returned to waterlessness. Regardless, I am now optimistic about the possibility of fixing the running water once again.

Post-service update: our rector got sick - really sick - and the Ladies of the church - everyone who is his backup and support - rallied together and sent him home. The worship leader carried off the prayer service quite well; it was lovely and beautiful. I'm trying not to worry about Fr V, and so far mostly failing. I'm sure he'll be okay, but poor guy, what utterly rotten timing. (And I wound up reading Matthew instead. And no, the water still isn't working.)

Merry Christmas anyway; God bless and keep you all.