I am taking the day off from posting to hang out with my wife and kids here at home. On behalf of all of us, may the joy of the birth of our Lord rest upon you and transform your life!

May God’s abundant blessings be with you this day and always!

Have a blessed Christmas!

Tommy+

Well we are finally done with all the Christmas Eve services….five total tonight with two of the groups gathering for one service. It was a great time and a very meaningful night. And, I had the great pleasure for the last service to have my brother Mike as the musician. It was pretty great to have him, my dad, and my sister (as well as Amanda and the kids) all together for the service.

One of the things I often do on Christmas is to process in the Christ Child for the creche that has been missing Him all Advent. I always give that job to a child and it is always a moving part of the service. I honestly had hopes that little Ben might be able to do it this year, but at home we have a couple of creches and though we have hidden the bab(ies) Jesus, Ben when he has found them has smiled, held them up above his head, shouted “to infinity and beyond,” and chucked them across the room. I am pretty sure that would not be acceptable on Christmas Eve. So we went with the ever-reliable Gabe Lingenfelter…….he did a great job too.

So we are now in bed and Ben is in between us more wound up that ever. We are exhausted, and hope he gives it up real soon.

It has been a blessed day. I hope and pray yours has been blessed as well.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Perhaps thinking I was doing okay was a bit optimistic! But I am clearly a bit behind. We have FIVE services tomorrow (that I know of) and it is going to be a busy day…..perhaps you could come and join us at one.

Anyway, it should be a blessed day….that is if I ever catch up! Pray for me (okay, and for our other clergy too) By the time we really start it actually WILL LOOK a lot like Christmas!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

I am not sure what it means, but it seems every time I mention to someone that I, like most clergy, as a busy as all get out this time of year I hear the words “Well, there is no rest for the wicked.” Really? I always thought that this was a reference to hell, and though there are a few weeks during the year we often are all bogged down (like this one), I really have never thought of comparing it to the hot room.

Regardless of course, unless Jesus Himself returns within the next 48 hours, I will still have to work. And, though I would certain rejoice, if He did come back this week, the way my life goes, I would have probably done all the work I needed to do beforehand anyhow! So while everyone else is shopping and wrapping up presents, I am just plugging through my usual get it done before the Christmas services “to do” list. The list is still quite long, and my patience is wearing thin at times, but in the end it is all worth it. Everything seems to get done, and everything seems to go well. And since I tend to forget everything, I will be delivering a sermon in a couple of nights blissfully ignorant of any of the list I had to do at all!

But please pray for me as I finish up! It is a really good work for the Church at anytime of year…..pray for the clergy as they also pray for you! It keeps us all going, but more than that, it connects us in the right way. And I appreciate it more than you could know!

Hang in there…..Christmas is coming! May your “to do” lists be far shorter than mine, and may you at least have the patience of Job….I have given that one back to God personally.

I hope to see you somewhere on Christmas Eve.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+

Although people SAY this is the shortest day of the year, it certainly does not feel like it. I am exhausted, and it is still before 9. Somehow I still have a whole lot of work here to do on my plate as well. I am plugging away at it, but I feel more like I am treading water than making progress. Some days I don’t need a clone, I need many clones….today is such a day.

I suppose when I look back realistically on the day I will see something far different from how I currently feel. It always seems to work that way, but it is frustrating when in the midst of it. It’s like traveling in fog or a blizzard….it all looks the same until you get to where you are going. I like progress…..but I also like to see how it’s going. Today I apparently cannot have both!

For now however I am going to get Ben to bed, and Scotty and I will take the tables we used for the St. Patrick’s cookie decorating party back to the church. I am excited because it will be a tangible move. Oh for this small bit of clarity! It will be a great way to end the day!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless, on this, the shortest, but clearly the longest day of the year!

Tommy+

Ben, Scott, and I began our day this morning at St. Matthew’s Nashville. We occasionally take this trip together, and generally have a great time. Often we head from there to another stop, either another service or visit, and today was no exception. Today we headed home via downtown Indianapolis so that I could visit one of our parishioners from St. Anne’s who is a patient at the Indiana University Medical Center.

The IU Med Center is a huge place, and we started by heading from the parking garage into the lobby. I got the room number and walked Scott and Ben up to the train. There is a train that runs non-stop between the Med Center/Riley Children’s Hospital and Methodist Hospital a few miles north. It gives a great view of the city and they were going to ride it while I was on my call. They actually rode it three full times, and Ben had a blast, but that is not the best part of the trip.

When we got back to the desk in the lobby, the same fella ho gave me the room number was still there at the desk, but it was Ben who was the observant one, not Scott or I. As I was holding Ben as the man validated my parking pass, Ben said to him, “Hi Santa Claus.” And Holy Smokes, he was right! The man was a dead ringer for Santa! It cracked us up. And he said to Ben, “Be sure you leave me some cookies.” Ad as we walked away Ben said, “Bye bye Santa Claus.” it was pretty cute.

Ben had a great adventure today, and I was happy for him. He is a real trooper and he and Scotty made doing my ministry a lot more meaningful today.

My mind was taken back a few years ago when Stephanie and Scott went with me to deliver Last Rites to a wonderful priest friend of mine at Community North Hospital in Indianapolis. I left them in the waiting room as I went back to his room, they stayed with Bill’s two boys and talked…..Bill was well into his 90’s and his boys had at least ten years on me. But they all shared stories with each other of the adventures of being priest’s kids. You see they too had a life of the same type of experiences with their dad. It was a fraternity that they only could understand, yet one that provided a joy and connection that meant a lot to all of them.

Someday I imagine the story will be told of meeting Santa and riding the train on a cold day in December while supporting their dear old dad. The train, Santa, and a great story……..I am blessed to have been a part of their day.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+

She had 20 years on me at least, but when our carts almost hit each other at the Meijer I apologized and offered her the right of way. She smiled at me, not just in a thankful way, but in a flirty sort of way and as she looked at the 8 bottles of wine in my cart mentioned that maybe she should head off with me, because I looked like I was going to have fun.

I didn’t understand of course, not just because I am a priest, but because I am married…..my wife talks to me about craft rooms, baby duty (and dootie) and trash. There really are no suggestive or seductive remarks. But when I finally “got it” I just laughed and confessed that I was actually a priest, and all the wine was for Communion, which I didn’t think was going to be the kind of fun she was thinking of! Maybe I was wrong, but I don’t think so.

She was clearly embarrassed, which I felt bad for, but she laughed it off. We both probably have a good story for the night.

Of course as a priest I have rethought my response time and time again. Maybe I should have invited her to church, maybe I should have stayed around and talked. I do not know. But I have a pretty good feeling it would have not been that effective. She was being funny, and she really was. After all, what are the odds of meeting a priest buying Communion Wine at Meijer?

Anyway, it’s a great story, but with no ending…….just like today apparently. I still have a lot to do before bed, but I am getting there. I just thought I would share my one of my many adventures tonight before bed!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Tonight we had a great time with our spouses at our annual clergy/spouse (before) Christmas gathering. Food and drink, great company, and a time to relax with each other rather than concentrating on the work. It was a great time.

It brings to mind how blessed I am, and really how blessed this ministry is. It’s more than just the guys who are called to work in it, it is a great group of wives who step up and out to support all they do. We certainly don’t recognize them enough, but without them I am certain we would be far less than we are now.

With that insight, I am going to call it a day. The annual “Children’s Christmas Cookie Decorating at Our House and Making a Big Royal Mess Where We Will Find Sprinkles in Our Furniture for Months Extravaganza” is tomorrow. It is a blast, but lots of work. It’s one of my wife’s big things. Pray for us….there will be about 20 kids. It is going to be a wild time!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+

One of the challenges of “doing church” the way that we do is that we do not own some big building to store things in. I certainly would love to have one, but last I checked they still cost money, and a lot of money at that. So we store things here and there, and for the most part we get by pretty well. Our house has quite a few things stored here, so when we decided to give up dog breeding for a time, I decided to convert a room we used for whelping and grooming the dogs into a storage room for a lot of the stuff.

With my schedule it is hard to find a lot of time to do what is a pretty significant project. But I worked hard and late, and then just a couple of days ago, when I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, I heard Stephanie and Amanda talking about Amanda’s new “craft room.” I of course was fascinated by their conversation. It must have been a dream of hers I thought for when we move……OH NO….they straightened me out! I apparently had been working my tail off on that craft room the whole time! If there was any fantasy at all it was that I was going to have a storage room for all that stuff.

The “craft room” officially opened tonight at 10. It has nothing in it, not even crafts. I knew I should not have painted it with leftover paint she had picked out, or put down that old (but nice0 flooring we had left over. I should have just painted the floor, put up white on the walls, and maybe some Chicago Bears poster to ward them off. It’s apparently all flowers and bunnies down there from this point on. It is hardly worth what I have done to my knees over the past week just to get a cross made from Popsicle sticks and a potholder. (I am just guessing….I have no idea what women do in craft rooms OR craft stores……I really don’t want to either)

As for me, tomorrow I am onto my next project. What it will be I do not know. I apparently need to be careful how I choose. You see, I am not sure what follows “craft room.” But “day spa” comes to mind……Lord we are heading in the wrong direction!

Goodnight and God Bless!

Tommy+

Museums apparently make Ben sick. At least that is my take I have on it. Amanda and Ben went to the Children’s Museum this morning along with our babysitter and another little girl, and after having a blast for an hour or two Ben got sick in the middle of the food court…..all over his mom.

Of course getting barfed on by your kids is just a normal part of being a parent. But in these times of pretty scary flu going around, you can imagine our concern. Ben came back home where I already was waiting, and he hung out in the basement with me while I did some work. He got some juice, some Motrin, and some rest. And although he still is running a fever, we are thankful it has been relatively low. He will be sleeping with us tonight, not just because he is sick, but because he has his mom in the palm of his hand!

It doesn’t surprise me. He’s pretty smart, hanging out in the museum and all. I will head up to bed and see how he is doing. I probably can learn a lot from him……last time I was that sick she talked to me through the door! He is a pro I tell ya!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+