pasta salad, church

Today I made pasta salad with whole wheat penne from Trader Joe's. It has garlic, broccoli, and sun dried tomatoes chopped up very fine. It's in olive oil and red wine vinegar with lots of basil and oregano, salt and pepper. It's served with toasted pine nuts sprinkled on top. It's really good if you're in the mood for a vegetarian pasta salad.

Today I had a really nice time at church. Worship was enjoyable as usual. Swami's in New York right now, so Jaya did worship. It's good to hear it in English for a change. We sing a Christmas carol for Jesus every Sunday in December, and today was "Joy to the World." It was fun.

Then the social time afterwards was okay. I talked to R, who I'd seen around a lot but never actually sat down to converse with. A man with dreds who came last week too was talking about a Tibetan Buddhist sand mandala that he saw made last night, and then this afternoon was a ceremony for unmaking it. I wanted to go, but B couldn't go bring me because he had to make lunch for the men of the monastery. So I didn't go. Normally, I would try to go with Erik, but he's scoring 10 hours a day and doesn't have the time.

Then instead of lecture, they played a movie about Sri Sarada Devi. It's recollections of her by people who met her. It's their voices speaking about her with the text of what they're saying on the screen (some of them have strong accents) with pictures of Sri Sarada Devi and some nature scenes with subtle music playing in the background. It's mostly well done, and the content is first rate. I found it moving and not too long for my attention span.