Grief and Glory

**Adam Penn** (0:02)
I'm pretty sure we just pulled a hard 180

**Sarah Wank** (0:04)
Yes, we did.

**Larry Frank** (0:09)
It's October 4th at midnight, and we know it's been a long time, but we're back. So strap yourselves in, welcome back to Midnight Theology, the late night ponderings of four pastor friends. I'm your host for today, Larry Frank, and I am joined by Gabe Wank.

**Gabe Wank** (0:24)
Hey everybody.

**Larry Frank** (0:25)
Sarah Wank.

**Sarah Wank** (0:26)
Hey y'all.

**Larry Frank** (0:27)
And Adam Penn.

**Sarah Wank** (0:28)
Howdy.

**Larry Frank** (0:29)
Guys, I really missed Midnight Theology. It's been too long since we've done this. The last time that all four of us were together was April's episode.

**Sarah Wank** (0:40)
That's insane.

**Larry Frank** (0:41)
And then, yeah, life happens, right? And in May, Adam and I had our spouses, Brittany and Jessica, on to talk about Wesleyan perspectives on health. We talked about mental health, physical health, nutritional health, all of those things that we promptly, completely ignored right after.

**Adam Penn** (1:03)
But we hope it was enlightening to everyone else.

**Larry Frank** (1:05)
Yeah, we hope it was good for everyone else. Just didn't happen for us.

**Gabe Wank** (1:09)
Creation of the choir.

**Larry Frank** (1:10)
Yes, right. And Gabe and Sarah were in the midst of moving at that time. We had every intention of being together this summer, but we'll get into that in a minute. So just as a re-gathering of sorts, let's update our listeners, all five or six of them, on what's going on with us so they don't forget who we are. We talk all the time. We know what's going on with each other. But let's share that out there. Adam, what's going on in your world?

**Adam Penn** (1:36)
Well, there's been a lot of changes in the Penn household over the last couple of months. My wife, Jessica, has returned to work full-time as a sign language interpreter. She's interpreting remotely for a school up in Iowa, and she's really enjoying that. And then our oldest went off to kindergarten, and our youngest is now in preschool. So we've got two kiddos in school. Jess is working full-time, and I'm still living the dream in Armstrong United Methodist Church. So that's what's going on in our world.

**Larry Frank** (2:09)
All right. Wanks, how's the new digs up there?

**Gabe Wank** (2:12)
Go ahead, Sarah. I'll let you start. You're hanging out in your new, amazing Zoom room, brought to you by...

**Sarah Wank** (2:19)
Yours truly.

**Larry Frank** (2:20)
We're broadcasting live from the Zoom room.

**Sarah Wank** (2:21)
It's from the Zoom room. Yeah, we moved. So we are now in the Quad City area up in Northwest Illinois on the Mississippi-Iowa border. I have been here since middle of June, and I spent a couple of hours last night unpacking boxes, if that tells you anything. We're still in the transition process, but it's been so good. So this is the first time since right after we were married that Gabe and I are serving together in the same church. It's the first time that we're serving together as a clergy couple. And we are six Sundays in, I think, to our new appointment at Christchurch, maybe seven. So the people have been so kind, so generous, so loving. We feel like family already. And just really thankful to be here and keep figuring it out. Hudson's adjusting like a champ. He turned 10 this summer in the middle of the move. And Minnie, our little dog, she runs the backyard to make sure she runs off any squirrels and raccoons, which is a new job responsibility for her. She's really living into, she's living her best life, honestly, the dog.

**Gabe Wank** (3:34)
Yeah, that's what I was thinking about. She is living her best Cavalier King Charles life, chasing all the woodland animals.

**Larry Frank** (3:43)
And you've got plenty of them in the backyard. It's a really nice wooded sanctuary.

**Adam Penn** (3:48)
It is beautiful.

**Larry Frank** (3:50)
Minnie's all in for it. So.

**Gabe Wank** (3:51)
Yeah.

**Larry Frank** (3:52)
Yeah. Sarah, have I told you my theory on keeping an unpacked box for a while to remind people that you're new? Like someone gave me that advice as a new pastor. They said, leave an unpacked box in your office for like the first year to remind people that you're new. And so I'm in year four right now. I'm in year four. I just started year four in this appointment, and I still have an unpacked, rubber-made tote right inside my office door. And I don't know if I can claim it is new, but I mean, I'm OCD about every other area of my life, but I mean, there's something freeing about saying, you know, I'm still new. Yeah.