Birmingham

This past weekend, went to Birmingham. But we didn't go to Birmingham. We went to Stratford, which is just outside of Birmingham, and we went to a church that is based in Birmingham yet has a satellite church in Stratford--we went to church on a satellite!--then watched Ireland play poorly and lose and England play poorly but win in rugby at a house in suburb of Birmingham that is not Birmingham--it's a suburb--but, like the New Jersey suburbs of New York City, these suburbs get called "Birmingham" by people far away, but really people?! Poor suburbs and their self-identification issues.

We are in Birmingham/not-Birmingham because Val and Trevor have whisked us away. They are pensioners, like most everyone in our congregation, and Trevor has hearing aids which mean that he sometimes rather humorously doesn't hear us when we speak to him, but their wit is sharp as new Armani. Their 37 year-old daughter, Lucy, lives here, and it is at her house we watch rugby in between visiting William Shakespeare's birthplace and eating handmade burgers and drinking English bitter, liking in particular a company called "Badger" because animals make anything better--we sojourners here are easily amused--and badgers are especially random and wonderful.

To top it off, we visit Lucy's church, a recently-charismatic-but-now-switched-to-Free-Methodist-for-reasons-I'm-not-sure-of-but-aren't-because-of-any-ill-will, and it is called "Renewal." We go to two services with her, one in Stratford--the satellite!--and one in Birmingham proper, and it is warm to be in the company of modern worship, preaching that we can really can sink our twentysomething teeth into because we relate to it, and, as ridiculous as it sounds, the renewal we feel being the the company of young people and, in particular, pretty girls. For some reason, out of all of the single ladies in our patch, the fifty-year age difference at minimum is just off-putting. I say this in jest, but perhaps it is like a freshwater fish swimming up through brackish water. We are moving fine, doing good things in our part of the sea, but it feels so good to spend some time back in our stream, where the wonderment about future and catharsis about the state of the world are shared, the sense of excitement it brings to take a deep breath and just be oneself among a school of friends.