Last Monday I fully meant to write a post about my day, but then I got sick. I have been knocked out by a crazy headache and some serious seasonal allergies. I am still not feeling my best, but since I have been out for a week, I need to get back to work and get back to my daily updates.

Mondays are my communications day. Because of the pandemic and changes in staff, communications at St. Luke’s in the City have not been as efficient or consistent as they could be. To fix part of this issue, I have been tasked with trying to build and keep up new patterns of communication based on the systems already in place.

This morning I woke up early again cause the sunrise is getting earlier and earlier. I had a rather slow morning since my nose was all stuffed up. I had some oatmeal with cranberries and walnuts for breakfast since I needed something simple, filling, and hot. Then I hopped on the parish’s morning prayer on Facebook. Part of the rule of life for the Tsedaqah Community is that all members make an effort to pray at least one of the daily offices per day.

After morning prayer I got ready and out the door as fast as possible to get to St. Bride’s as fast as possible so I could get on zoom for a 10 am meeting. I probably should have just stayed at home for the zoom, but I wanted to get to the office early so I could get things printed before my 11 am in-person meeting. My plan for a successful morning was thwarted by the gate being locked. I have keys to the building and to the offices, but until 10:30 am I did not have the code for the gate. This minor issue meant that I had to turn around and walk back home as fast as possible to get on the zoom late. Thankfully it ended up being not much of an issue, but it was not a great start to the day.

The zoom meeting was with Rev. Miranda and Rev. Laura. During this weekly meeting, we go through the calendar for the next few weeks and make a list of things that need to be promoted in the fortnightly parish email. Some weeks there is not much that needs to go out. However, in weeks like this week, I have so many things to put into the email. This week we have special services, conserts, conferences, sabbatical announcements, summer office closers, and so many more things.

After finalizing the communications to-do list for the week, I had to walk back to St. Bride’s for a meeting about Lauda, the Romanian Roma program I work with on Wednesdays and Thursdays. In our Monday meetings, we generally plan for the Thursday Kids Group and talk about any behind-the-scenes work we need to do for funding or projects we are involved in. This week we talked over the plans for an event we will have a booth at on Saturday called Celebrate L8. This event focuses on celebrating the vast diversity of ethnicities and backgrounds that make up the L8 area of Liverpool.

After all my meetings for the day were over, I went out to lunch with Rev. Laura and Leah (the heart of Lauda). We walked into Toxteth to try a restaurant that all of us had wanted to try. Sadly it was not open on Mondays, so we wandered back towards the church and found a little cafe inside of the Toxteth TV studio building. It was a kind of surreal space but the food was simple but good.

After our meal, I headed home to get to work on my communications to-do list while the others headed off to another meeting. I did some blurb writing for a few events and tried to find pictures for them to prep for the parish email. I still have work to do on that before it is sent out on Wednesday, but I ran out of energy since I am still fighting some really bad seasonal allergies. After calling it quits, I took a nap.

After that much-needed rest, I got up and got to work on making soup for our weekly Tsedaqah community meal. I made a delicious ginger and carrot soup that we served with some garlic bread. This week was a smaller meal than usual since there were only 6 members present. There was Ian, Christi, and I, Cathrine (an associate member), David (a trustee and one of my mentors), and Mike Kurby (the community chaplain). It was a great night of conversation, laughter, and community.

After the meal, I was feeling pretty beat for the night and headed upstairs for a relatively early night.