It being a brand new year, tonight was the kick-off meeting for all the councils for the church. Even though I’ve attended this several times in the past, this year I got to attend in a very different role. I am no longer the secretary of the Administrative Council – no, this year I am now the chair of the Board of Trustees, which is the group in the church responsible for the physical needs of the building – painting, repairs, landscaping, that sort of thing. When they asked me if I’d be interested, the woman doing the asking noted that they knew they could count on me to push to get things done. And this is certainly true – if something *must* be done I can side-step those pesky procrastinating tendencies and get it finished, dragging people along with me kicking and screaming if necessary. It’s all those things that *should* be done, but aren’t as important, or have no end date, that I have a problem with.

One of the other members of our 20’s and 30’s group is also on the board with me, and when it came time to figure out who was going to be the vice chair, since no one else wanted to do it, she volunteered. Each of the new councils sat around the table and came up with a quick list of projects that we wanted to focus our attention on in the first part of the year. And then we all came back together to give an overview of those lists and to tell everyone else who the officers in each group would be. When she and I identified ourselves as chair and vice-chair, both our moms, who were attending as members of a different council group, took one look at each other, raised their hands, and to much laughter of everyone else, objected. Seems that the perception of people on the Board of Trustees is older people, and neither of them felt old enough to have children who are now heading that sort of group. Heh. Admittedly I'm not sure either my friend or I feel quite old enough to be heading a committee of this nature either, but such is the price we pay for becoming responsible adults (shh, I'm still trying to fool myself that I'm not quite old enough for that either!).

Of course, by volunteering to be involved in this committee, while I no longer am responsible for typing up minutes, this does mean I’ve signed myself up for few years of workday Saturdays spent at the church doing little repairs and such around the building. I am telling myself it will be good for me.

Addendum: Richard, upon reading my entry from yesterday, wryly remarked that it does not read as if written by an agnostic. It made me laugh, since I can see his point. But I guess *my* point is that I can still be excited by being involved in this project; energized by the enthusiasm around me, and looking forward to participating, even though I may not necessarily share their same beliefs. My section focuses on service – something that I find important, and something that I know I can write well about. One can still be agnostic and believe in that.