Settling In

I've been at New Church for nine days. On the one hand, it feels like about nine months. On the other, about nine seconds.

I find myself more caught up than I had anticipated in the grief process for my previous congregation, and like all grief journeys, it takes me by surprise when it shows up. I'm doing fine, I'm not thinking about them at all, and then I meet someone with the same name, or who looks like or sounds like, a previous parishioner, and poof! I'm back at stage one again. I suspect this will go on for a long time. It helps to know that the interim pastor there is someone I trust, who will shepherd them well into the next phase of their ministry. But still - I'm not there. And they are fine, of course, which is even harder than the idea that they are NOT fine without me.

This tightrope between then-and-now hit me full force last week on my first Sunday. I suppose it would have in any circumstance, but it turned out that two of my former parishioners showed up to hear my first sermon here. I found myself torn between gratitude that they would make the trip and, to be perfectly frank, irritation that I was being pulled backward on a day when I wanted only to try and leap into this new place. It felt a bit inappropriate for them to be there, even as I appreciated the gesture. I know those people will be in my mind and heart for a long time to come - I just didn't figure some of them would be there in the flesh on Sunday Number One.

So that threw me off a bit and I was relieved that they only stuck around for the first service. New Congregation has three worship services (aack!) but that was less difficult than I'd imagined (though boy, did I sleep like a rock that night). I think that preaching the same sermon three times on a routine basis will provide a challenge for me, since I was fairly sick of my words by the time the third service rolled around. I'm a manuscript preacher, so although I don't read my manuscript - it's more or less memorized by the time I give it - I do have weaknesses when it comes to spontaneity from the pulpit. I have also had some bad experiences with spontaneity, so it's not a virtue I hold in too much esteem when it comes to preaching practices. (Bad experiences as a listener, to be precise. As in, wondering what on earth the POINT OF THIS SERMON is and WHEN we might actually GET TO IT.)

We had a staff retreat on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Bad: didn't get a day off. Good: great, great staff. I'm so excited to work with these people. And it turns out that one of the staff, four years older than me, has gone through in-vitro twice (unsuccessfully, sadly) and is now in the process of adopting their second child. She had shared her faith story, including a tiny sentence about infertility, before it was my turn, so when my turn came around, I - to my own surprise - shared quite a bit about our infertility challenges.

This was a huge change for me. In Previous Congregation, I never told anyone about that struggle except for one colleague who was, in many respects, like a spiritual director. Otherwise, I did not feel ready to share that story nor did I want it to be a topic of discussion in the congregation. I told the staff the gist of the story and, although I did say that I do not want to talk about this with parishioners, it felt very good to include other people in this struggle. I know that our decision-process will speed up this summer and chances are, we'll have doctor appointments of one form or another which might prompt questions. I shared partly to explain what might yet come.

But I also shared because I realize two things: one, as much as I might believe with every fiber of my being that people ought to talk about infertility when it affects them because there is no other way to get rid of the shame around it, I am only adding to the problem if I can't talk about it myself; and two, that this has become a huge part of my faith story and I would not be telling the truth about myself if I didn't include a real description of the valley in which we find ourselves these days.

It came to me when I was writing the sermon for Sunday about the woman at the well. She came trying to hide the deepest pain in her life, and Jesus went straight for it. He refused to let her hide, and then he refused to walk away. When, "I have no husband" came out of her mouth, I'm betting that, "Oh, God, why did I say that out loud" immediately followed in her mind. Naming your pain out loud is terrifying.

But it is also freeing in the most amazing way. Now these people know me, the real me. And they did not walk away. And I have another conversation partner along the journey. Pain transformed by being borne among the many instead of one. Praises be for that.

So week one is down - week two is underway. This is the right place for me, and praises be for that as well. Now if we can just find Beloved a job and sell our house and buy another one...but these will come.