Friday Five: Decisions, Decisions (deja vu edition)

Today I am the guest host of the RevGalBlogPals Friday Five! 
The inspiration for today's Friday Five:  I have been in a long discernment process specific to place and kind of pastoral call.  In the past month, I have let my current congregation know that I am ending my ministry with them in September. I have accepted a call to serve as an interim for a nearby congregation.

I remembered a fun Friday Five from awhile back that I enjoyed playing, so I started thinking up pairs so we could play it again.  When I looked back, I saw that Songbird had come up with that post when she had been in heavy-duty discerning mode herself.  The post was almost exactly a year ago!  It felt like deja vu!

So, after making sure that I hadn't repeated anything from last time, I came up with these pairs and here are my own choices:

1) Sunrise or Sunset:  SUNRISE
2) To the Mountains or To the Beach: MOUNTAINS

3) Coffee or Tea: COFFEE

4) Advent or Lent: LENT

5) "Raindrops on Roses" or "Whiskers on Kittens": RAINDROPS ON ROSES

BONUS -- RAINDROPS ON ROSES:  I grew up in the desert of El Paso, Texas, so raindrops events were special occasions.  When it would rain, we would go outside and stand in it and let it splash on our faces and make our hair wet and stomp in the fleeting puddles.  El Paso got most of its rain in August, as I recall.  I didn't own an umbrella until we moved to Baton Rouge when I was 13. 

My paternal grandmother had roses! Because they were west Texas roses, they rarely got raindrops on them.  Her rose garden had about 40 different varieties and they were all close to the road.  People would stop their cars and take pictures of her amazing roses.  The secret to her roses, she told me, was daily watering to soak the roots and fertilizing with manure.  There's a profound metaphor in there somewhere!