Not to count chickens prematurely...

BUT -- I must record this here because it is just too...full, I guess, to hold in my brain alone any more.

• Amazing things are happening at my little church.
• The carpet in the sanctuary has been torn out.
• To do that, the junky funeral-home organ and piano and everything else have been moved out.
• The gorgeous hardwood floors under the pews have been refinished.
• While the carpet was torn out, a group of folks decided that we may as well change the chancel while we are at it.
• We got bids and hired a contractor all within a week (it took 7 (SEVEN!!!) years to actually agree to getting the carpet replaced.
• Work begins tomorrow.
• The built-in pulpit and weird railings are coming out. It will be opened up into a lovely design a la my sweet love.
• Work should be finished on SATURDAY!
• The new carpet -- a completely new color -- goes in on Monday.
• We should be back in the sanctuary on Easter.
• There has been talk of not moving the organ back and getting a clavinova instead!!
• There has been talk of taking down the picture a friend calls "the Olan Mills' portait of Jesus" that hangs over the baptistry in the very front of the church where normal churches have a cross (I know, I know) and getting stained glass windows to hang in the baptistry window instead.
• I have not been part of any of the discussions, for the most part, and have been doing behind-the-scenes scheming and influencing instead.

And, lo, it came to pass in year seven that...something changed. And the place where the minister was confronted about an affair in worship and the children stopped being baptized because they were no longer there and half of the congregation walked out of worship after a pastor was fired -- was suddenly -- not the same.

This is big.