What season are we in?

It's early September, LB has just started nursery school, and I just finished worship plans through Christmas Eve. While I shake my head in disgust at the way stores now bring out Christmas decorations around Halloween, in the church, planning almost has to begin this early if you want to do anything out of the ordinary. Since I've only been here a few months, almost everything feels at least a little out of the ordinary. I still have to fill in titles and other information, but scriptures and themes are set-- unless I wind up changing them. In the past, I've been overjoyed to have worship plans a month in advance, but the choir director here handed me the whole Fall schedule today (with just a little bit of wiggle room for changes), and I felt the pressure to line up services to compare to the anthems. I have this need to work on cohesive services where scripture sermon, hymns, and other pieces have a dialogue with one another and hopefully with all who participate. Now it feels like I'm chasing after the anthems, but with integrity. I had planned to preach on Fruits of the Spirit furing October and November,mostly using the lectionary, and I think it will still work. I'm just not preaching them in order. It's not like Galatians ranks them by priority -- at least I hope not.

Meanwhile, I haven't done much for THIS Sunday, but at least my long-term planning is way ahead of schedule.
On a completely different note, I learned today that LB passed his latest food trials (see earlier post), and we get to add four new foods before we have to do a scope again (sometime late November or December). Four doesn't sound like a big deal, but right now, he only has nine approved foods plus his special formula. I'll take strides forward wherever I can get them.