pulpit yoga

One of the things I knew would be a challenge for me when I accepted a call as an Associate Pastor was the change in preaching frequency. As in, certainly not every week. Because of a few things, including the arrival of Easter only a month after I started here and the fact that Palm Sunday does not include a sermon in this congregation, I preached on February 24 and will not preach on a full Sunday again until March 30. I'm preaching a children's sermon on Palm Sunday, and a homily on Maundy Thursday, and at the special baptismal service on Easter Sunday, all of which are great and do require a certain amount of preparation, but none of which are 'normal' preaching moments. This is a very odd feeling.

It's one of the things I was looking forward to, of course, the sharing of preaching with a colleague. I remember my internship supervisor telling me about the first day he arrived in his new solo call and looked at the calendar, and realized that Sunday after Sunday after Sunday stretched out in front of him with no one to preach but him. I had a similar moment in my previous congregation when I knew I was truly on my own after my colleague's illness made it impossible for him to return. It was a strange feeling. And so is the fact that all those Sundays no longer belong to me.

It's not entirely a case of "be careful what you wish for - you might get it." My colleague here is a very good preacher, and I have already enjoyed the privilege of listening. For someone who is accustomed to climbing into the pulpit week after week, simply sitting in the pew and hearing the word preached is a huge gift. It's also a great opportunity to hear a different perspective and style than my own.

At my previous congregation, a retired pastor who became one of my closest friends and who was glad to preach any time I asked him, was often teased about how his sermons were always longer than mine. I teased him about that once myself, and he laughed and said, "well, I don't get to do this very often, so when I get up there, I have a lot of stuff saved up that I want to say!" I might have to watch out for that myself. Then again, I also have a chance now to do 'preaching' in different ways which do not include a pulpit. In classes, in meetings, with individuals, with groups, in ways I haven't even imagined yet. And I am prompted to realize that preaching is something I do love. This is easy to forget when it becomes such a part of the weekly routine that it can feel more like a burden than a gift, at least some of the time.

I went for a walk the other day for the first time in a long time. The lack of outdoor exercise has been partly due to horrible weather where we've been living, and also due to my particular brand of a combined laziness/busyness attitude. As in, "I'm too busy to exercise, so I am going to lay on the couch for three hours and watch reruns of Law & Order." Obviously that busy girl has no time to exercise.

Anyway. The point is, I woke up the next day with that good sore feeling you get when you exercise after a long period of being sedentary. It hurts a little, or maybe it's just a bit uncomfortable, but it also feels good - that you're stretching yourself in good ways and using parts of you that you'd forgotten about. It's how I felt when I started yoga classes this winter: you think you can't possibly bend yourself that way, but after you try it for awhile, you build the strength to do things you thought you could never do. This call is good exercise for me. Parts of me are a little sore now and again, but it's a good sore: it's good exercise.

And Beloved is coming tomorrow night for a weekend visit, so that feels good too.