Thursday, May 30, 2013

"Why Does the World Exist?" by Holt

Since I lost a Facebook posting of my and my friends' reviews of Star Trek: Into Darkness, here's a book review. 

My review from GoodReads:

Why Does the World Exist: An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt
I hate this book. It's a bunch of (White) men pontificating on an obtuse topic that has no practical value. Despite my best efforts, I did finish reading it. But I will be blaming my book club for years to come about the waste of my time.


The only vaguely positive thing that might have come out of reading it is that I now know that people have tried to answer this "Why is there Something rather than Nothing?" question for centuries.  That's it.  I learned it's a tough question.  An impossible question.  And that  people have wasted their time on it for a very long time.   

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Membership Care Committee

Recently, I joined the Membership Care Committee at my fellowship.  Because it's such a small congregation, this small group (of women) are in charge of both membership stuff and the, well, caring stuff.  I joined to contact new visitors since that's an effort that many congregations aren't very good at.  But joining this committee also means that I'm asked to do some of the caring part.

I'm not a touchy-feely person.  I mean, I'm all about cuddling with people that I care about, but being empathic and supportive to just anybody?  Not really my thing.

Today, we had a memorial service at the fellowship.  The 33-year old brother of one of our members, another young adult, died suddenly.  I really wanted to be there for the young adult and her family, so I was willing to do this caring bit. 

I helped set up tables and chairs, I laid out platters of cookies, and helped keep the drinks cool.  During the service, I also took the 4-year old daughter of the young adult to the playroom. 

I found that I really enjoyed being of service.  Being able to support someone, or some family, during a really hard time for them was very gratifying.  I'm still not touchy-feely, but I guess I can fulfill all duties for the Membership Care Committee.