Remote Living, Part 5: Churches and Libraries

A few more questions popped up . . .

How far do you travel for church? 

Our church is in the village ten miles from us, so that's not a big deal. But our larger parish (we're Catholic) is an interesting one. There are three churches in our parish that have a regular schedule of weekly services. To get to all three on Sunday morning, our priest drives a total of 100 miles. Every Sunday. Plus various midweek services at different churches, although he doesn't go to all three any day but Sunday.

There are also at least three "mission" churches, which means they don't have enough of a congregation to have weekly services. Instead, those mission churches have once-a-month services, and also some special occasion ones, like Christmas Eve. Those mission churches are even more remote, but so incredible to visit. We go sometimes just because they're so old and beautiful. 

Beautiful churches are good for the soul.

On the days the priest celebrates Mass at those churches, he drives over 100 miles just to get to one.

Obviously, this assignment for priests is not for the faint of heart. Or the hater of driving.

What about midweek church activities?

There are no midweek church activities, because there aren't enough parishioners for committees, groups, meetings, and so on. Calvin was the only child at our church to receive his First Communion this year, and will probably be the only one until Jack does his in a couple of years. So no religious education or anything. We essentially homeschool that. 

HomeSundayschool? Whatever.

Oh wait. I think our priest is doing an online Bible study class, but I've never participated in it.

Can you get to a library, or will they mail you books? Or are you on your own?

Well. Buckle up, Kit, because I have MANY WORDS on this subject.

Books are very important to our family. We are readers (well, all of us that can read so far, anyway). My first job as a teenager was as a library page. I am a Library Person without doubt, and visiting libraries had always been a regular part of our lives. Until we moved here.

The library situation here is complicated. There are three small cities, all 90 miles from us in different directions, that have small libraries. However, we don't really use them anymore. Those cities all have different services. So, for instance, we might make our Town Visit one month to the city that has the mechanic, but then the next month we might have to go to the city that has the dentist. This means we can't reliably check out and return books.

There is also the issue that A. almost always goes alone to do all the Town Visits, because the kids and I don't really want to do the drive. And when we DID go with him, it takes so long to do all the errands, visiting a library is just one more thing that makes the trip way too long.

Book Baby checks out the selection (this is Poppy two years ago.)

So. The brick and mortar libraries aren't really an option. Which leaves us with what the library system calls "Rural Services."

There are two of those. One is the bookmobile. This is an RV with bookshelves in the back that drives all over rural New Mexico, bringing books to people. They just started up again after COVID, and last month was the first month patrons were allowed to go inside the bookmobile. 

I appreciate the service, but it's not entirely satisfactory. For one thing, the selection in the actual bookmobile is necessarily limited, and is mostly current fiction of the sort I don't really care for. It is possible to request books from their larger collection and they'll bring them, but you have to know what you want. Also, they don't seem to have reciprocal agreements with any other libraries and their collections, so it's still pretty limited.

For another thing, the bookmobile only comes once a month to the village near us, and stays for just one hour. So if you miss that window, you're out of luck until the next month.

During the pandemic, when the bookmobile wasn't running, I was also able to sign up for Books by Mail. This is a state program out of Albuquerque that, as you could have guessed, mails books right to you. They come in a zippered nylon bag with a return card, so when you're done, you just put them back in the bag and mail them back.

This is a great idea, but the problem with this is the same as with the bookmobile: limited selection. They don't offer books from the larger Albuquerque system, instead maintaining their own small collection. Again, you have to know what you want, and I often can't find what I want. They do have a pretty good selection of New Mexico-specific things--I got quite a few books about native plants for Cubby, for example--but they're pretty lacking in fiction. That we want to read, anyway.

I have used all of these resources in the past, and now I mostly just get a few things from the Books by Mail and buy other books used on Amazon or Thriftbooks. Keeping track of books from so many sources was too hard and stressful. Now I have too many books in the house, of course, with more all the time, but at least I don't have to worry about losing them or returning them to the wrong entity.

Maybe I should start my own lending library.

Okay, I'm all caught up on my answers! Unless you've thought of more questions. I'll be standing by . . .