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.

adiaphora

Today was my first Sunday in New Congregation, and I realize there should be lots of important and theologically meaningful things to say, but it's also Oscar Sunday. So I need to get back to the good stuff. Thus far:

1. George Clooney is still the most attractive man ever. (I love Beloved, don't get me wrong, but WOWZA. Clooney in a tux is hard to beat.)

2. Renee Zellweger's dress is great but what the HELL is with that haircut?

3. Marion Cotillard's dress - amazing.

4. Sean Rogan (is that his name?) and The Other Dude from Knocked Up - hilarious.

5. Much as I otherwise love him, John Stewart as host...eh.

Gotta go. More watching. Meaningful reflection on first Sunday later.

I did say EVERYTHING was new...

New call = new office = new computer = new blog template.

Besides, it's really, really time for spring.

Hope you like it.

Everything Old is New Again

It's hard to start over. This is my first week in New Congregation (which won't be new for long, so I need another name for it) and part of me is just now starting to remember how much work it is to do the pastor thing in a new place. I feel a bit like I'm watching people in a raquetball court from that viewer window they always have upstairs: the only way to learn to play is to actually get in there and do it, but it's much more attractive to watch from above given that it looks like that little blue ball would really hurt if it hit you in the head.

Of course, I hate raquetball, so this is probably a bad metaphor.

Anyway. I started on Wednesday, and now it's Friday. I'm preaching on Sunday, and the sermon is actually done, though I'm not entirely pleased with the ending. It's also a bit on the long side (I'm typically a 12-15 minute preacher and this one is probably pushing 15-18). However, I'm not sure about this because I'm using a new computer with a new font, and it would seem as if more pages is a result of the font rather than wordiness on my part.

One of the many complications of sermon-writing.

My office is very beige. Literally. Blah. I've unpacked all my books (joy of joys, I have plenty of shelf space!) and that perks it up a bit, but I'm looking into a new paint color for a few of the walls. That and some pictures on the walls will help a lot.

Yesterday I had coffee with the quilting ladies and chatted with the newsletter-folders. I talked for a bit with two staff members about confirmation ministry and with another staff member about children's ministry. I also got to go to Office Max and buy things for my office, including a box of my very favorite pens. If it sounds mundane, that's because so far I've done a lot of mundane things - and that takes some getting used to. This morning, my colleague was in his office talking to the mother of a 26-year old guy who made it through his tour in Iraq but died last night after contracting a staph infection in his heart. I asked him if I could do something to help, but he said no - and truthfully, that's right. I really can't do much of anything for anyone right now, which is REALLY STRANGE (if also a bit of a relief). If I were the only pastor, it would be completely different. But being the second pastor when the first has been here for twenty-some years really does render me a bit useless when that kind of thing happens in my first week on the job. This is a little hard on the ego.

It will be good for me not to be so beloved. There's no way to say it without sounding like an arrogant jackass, but it's the truth: my former congregation loved me (okay, okay, not everybody, but the vast majority) and it made me wary. I feel like that level of beloved-ness makes pastors do dumb things because they feel invincible. I understand that pastors get a certain level of love because of a million different reasons, some of which have absolutely nothing to do with the pastor him/herself, but still...I get nervous. And I fear that I also get lazy. Becuase once they love you, you don't have to work so hard. That's not all bad. But it sure isn't all good, either.

So now I'm brand new again, and no one loves me. We will have to start over, which is very exciting and completely terrifying. This is the first sermon I have written in a long, long time for a group of people I don't know at all. Writing those kinds of sermons is hard, like throwing at a dartboard while blindfolded. Will you hit them where it counts? Or will you miss and poke a hole in the wall?

I'm not sure how this post about starting in a new congregation ended up being about raquetball and darts, but it might indicate something Freudian about my fears of being hit by unexpected flying things. Maybe I'll put a dartboard up in my office. This would take the edge off the beige, anyway.

This Post Brought to You by the Letter Q

This summer, Beloved and I went to New York to visit my brother and sister-in-law. Among the highlights: seeing Avenue Q, perhaps the best. Broadway. show. ever. At least for anyone in the Sesame Street generation.

This week I got a belated birthday peresent from said brother - the Avenue Q soundtrack. I listened to it four times as we drove to New Town, where I will start at New Congregation tomorrow. Beloved has taken the week off and we are staying at my parents' house, about 15 miles from New Congregation. He'll go home on Sunday and I'll stay here, thus beginning the temporary separation part of our marriage: a reflection only on the complicated process of selling a house, buying a new one, starting a job for me, and finishing up a job for him - not, in other words, a commentary on the state of our relationship.

But let me tell you this: staying in a house where you have nothing to do all day is not exactly the best thing for your marriage. Beloved is driving me not a little bit nuts at this point. This is a man who needs projects. And he is stuck in a house that is not his own, with almost nothing to do except bug his wife.

One of my very favorite songs in Avenue Q is called "The More You Love Someone, The More You Want to Kill Them." Ah, yes. How true. A selection of the lyrics (which, by the way, are sung by a woman with a highly stereotypical Asian accent - and if this strikes you as prejudicial, then be sure to check out the song, "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist"):

The more you love someone,
The more you want to kill ‘em.
The more you love someone,
The more he make you cry

Though you are try
For making peace
With them and loving,
That’s why you love so strong
You like to make him die!

The more you love someone,
The more he make you crazy.
The more you love someone,
The more you wishing him dead!

Sometime you look at him
And only see fat and lazy,
And wanting baseball bat
For hitting him on his head!

Don't get me wrong: I do love this man. But we HAVE to find something for him to do. RIGHT BLOODY NOW.

Of course, the end of the song is accurate too...

So if there someone
You are wanting so
To kill ‘em.
You go and find him.
And you get him.
And you no kill him.
‘Cause chances good
He is your love.

Damn, I must really love this man.

Farewell

It's been two weeks since I left my first congregation and I'm still not sure quite what to say about it. I've been searching for some kind of biblical link, or a metaphor, or an image which would summarize it - and I can't find anything. What I wanted to do was write a really meaningful, tightly-constructed reflection on leaving. But that doesn't seem to be working out. Which in and of itself might be the only image I have for leaving; it's kind of a mess, which is not altogether a bad thing.

This was my first call, and I stayed for eight years. I started as the associate pastor and (although this is wisely frowned on by the powers that be) became the senior pastor after my colleague was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Had I been blogging at the time of his illness and catastrophic biopsy procedure, I'd have a thousand entries by now - it's enough to say that that experience changed my life in profound ways. Among which was my decision to stay in the congregation, which I had been preparing to leave (not that they knew that). Which led to five more years of ministry there. And to a very tight bond with a great many people, and a fondness for that place which seems hard to believe could be repeated again. I've said that before, though, and been gratefully wrong: I thought no friends could be better than those I found in college, until I went to seminary. It's a good thing God sustains hope a lot longer than I can.

I was worried about my last Sunday, because there's no way around the fact that you, the pastor, are the center of attention that day. You're always up in the front, of course, but not as yourself; you're there to facilitate worship, to lead the service, and to offer something meaningful in the sermon. The office of pastor is your reason to be there, not your own personality. On your last day, however, this is not true at all. It's all about you. This is a bit intense for me.

I did fine through the first worship service, although I choked up a few times here and there. During the children's sermon; at the end of the regular sermon; and during the benediction, which I knew would happen. The standard handshaking time was very emotional, but I did quite well until the very end.

At the very end of the line of well-wishers came the high school youth group. Keep in mind that these kids were in the first or second grade when I got there, and in many ways, that is how I still think of them. I did their first communion class and trained them as acolytes and spent the night with them at camp for the grade school retreats. They are not children anymore, and they regularly tortured me during confirmation class given the fact that several of them are constitutionally incapable of shutting up for more than thirty seconds at a time.

They had been sitting in the balcony, so I couldn't really see what I realized when they came down the stairs to hug me, which is that they were sobbing. I do not exaggerate here. Sobbing. And I lost it. It was lovely and wonderful that they were so sad to see me go (some note must be taken of the general tendency toward drama in this group), but let me tell you this: there is nothing worse than knowing you have made children cry. You feel like the devil. Hands down, that was the hardest moment of the day. Because I remember when our youth pastor left, when I was in high school, and I remember how much it hurt and how I wondered why he would want to leave us and knew that I would never, ever, ever like a pastor the way I liked him.

This turned out not to be true, of course, but it hurt like hell at the time. And all the stuff I can tell myself now about how these kids will be just fine, and how they will remember this years from now and smile a little at their dramatic overtures - none of it matters when you know that you have hurt the kids you love. There are some things about leaving a congregation that, to be perfectly frank, are just fucking hard. There is nothing you can do about the fact that you are going to hurt people. They will get past it. But in the moment, that cliche doesn't help much.

So, the rest of the day went up from there. Surprisingly (to me) I didn't cry at the second service at all, until communion. We have a round altar, and as I came around for one of the last times to serve communion, I met the eyes of the woman who was congregational president when I came to the church. Next to her was an elderly woman who is, on the surface, the most unemotional person you have ever met - but who has survived, during my time there, the lingering illness and death of her husband and the completely sudden death of her only daughter, killed in a plane crash. Both women were crying. There is nothing harder than the tears of someone you have only seen cry once before, at the death of her daughter.

And, at least for me, there is something so intensely personal about serving communion. I managed to convince the congregation after a few years that we should be celebrating communion every Sunday. I gave them all the standard reasons, about the fact that worship is really meant to include this meal, that the ancient church did this all the time, that the piety of "less often makes it more special" was really invented by Scandinavians who lived so far north that the pastor could only make it there once a year so they had to give themselves some kind of meaning behind the infrequency of the sacraments. But what I didn't tell them was this: I also wanted them to have communion every Sunday because it means that they are guaranteed to get something meaningful every week. Even if the sermon sucks, they will have the body and blood of Christ. This takes the pressure off a bit. On the Sundays when I feel less-than-great about the sermon, I serve communion with extra fervor, taking refuge in the reminder that nothing I do up here changes the essential grace we receive in that meal. I cannot screw it up. (I have, in various ways, done very human things up there, like cough or forget the words of institution or spill wine or run out of wafers, but these things don't matter in the long run).

And honestly, I didn't feel all that great about my last sermon. It's too much damn pressure, you know? It's too much to expect of yourself that it be the BEST SERMON EVER, because that's not realistic. It was okay. I felt alright about it, but not great. So I was especially grateful for communion that day. And when I saw those two women and the tears in their eyes, I began to cry. Not horrible sobbing, but also not just misty eyes. I stopped for moment, and then kept going, and then I cried through the rest of the service. Especially during the closing hymn, my very favorite: Lift High the Cross.

After the service, we had a potluck. It was more fun than I had thought: I was worried about being emotionally exhausted, but that turned out not to be true. I was also worried about the "open mike!" invitation, but that turned out much better than I had anticipated (apart from the guy who talked about my initial interview there and mentioned that I was wearing "white silk stockings." What the hell? I bet no one says that kind of stuff at Rowan Williams' farewell potluck).

And then we left. I had packed up my office the day before, so we put a few last things in the car. I took the church's keys off my keyring and left them on the desk (that was a weird moment). I worried about what I had forgotten, which turned out to be a few minor things I came back to pick up later that week.

There is never such a thing as tying up all the loose ends. Not everyone I had hoped to see was there on my last day, though there were few significant absences. Thankfully, the weather cooperated for the first Sunday in a month and we had very little snow so those in outlying areas were able to come.

If this were a novel, there would be some great story that summed everything up. But there wasn't. It was just a good day, and a hard day, and a treasured day. I'm grateful to have had these two weeks off between calls, and it's still a bit unreal to me that there is another congregation waiting for me to begin.

Saying goodbye is hard. This is a good thing, of course, because it means you have formed real attachments, that you have really loved and been loved. There is nothing better than that when you are there, but there is a price to be paid when you go. I wish there was something more profound to be said, but I can't seem to find it. All I find is this: that even the best of farewells will break your heart a little bit, and the best hope is that it breaks it open for a richer life to come.

Well, it is LENTEN soup...

So one of the things I have enjoyed doing on my two-week break inbetween congregations is showing up at church (a neutral site church, neither old nor new) and not having to do anything. As in, I was the happiest person at Ash Wednesday services, perhaps the happiest person ever considering the assignment of the evening is to seriously consider one's sin and mortality. Why was I happy? Because I just sat there. I didn't have to run around remembering where I had put the ashes from last year's service, or collapse during the recitation of Psalm 51 in a coughing fit (actually happened last year, after which kind congregation members handed me a pocket full of various and sundry cough drops during the imposition of ashes) or any other random pastoral duties.

So tonight I am making soup for Lenten supper, which I never do. And going to church across the street, where Beloved has been a member for many years and where we were married. Neutral Site Church is one of my favorite places in the world.

I am making Minnesota Wild Rice soup. I love this stuff (if you are a midwesterner and know of Byerly's Wild Rice Soup, this is the recipe I'm using). Unfortunately, there has apparently been a run on wild rice in our town and there was none left anyplace I went today, so I had to settle for a similar-looking brand of wild rice from China. I did notice that "beautiful purple color" was on the package as one of its fine attributes, but I didn't think much of it. Plus I didn't have any choice.

You know where this is going. I am leaving in five minutes for Neutral Site Church with my pot of PURPLE wild rice soup. I don't mean lavendar, or mauve, or anything in the pastel family. I mean full-on, royal, PURPLE. I'm the Bridget Jones of Lent.*

I have, however, just remembered that purple is, after all, the color of Lent. So this is not just purple soup, people. Oh no. This is LITURGICALLY CORRECT Lenten soup. Ha. Take that, bizarre Chinese rice.

*If the Bridget Jones reference doesn't make sense to you, check out the scene where she makes the soup and it turns blue from the string used to tie up the leeks. At least my soup is colored by an actual ingredient. That's better, right?

Working On It

For the hordes of readers out there, let me reassure you that I am not dead. Nor is my internet service. I'm still thinking through the leaving-congregation experience and deciding how to blog about it. Hopefully tomorrow.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled life.

Stuck

Yes. Writing this Sunday's sermon - the last one I will give in this congregation - is every bit as hard as I thought it would be. And then some.

Mary

I'm not an artist by any stretch of the imagination. But sometimes you just see a piece of art which speaks to you, and you can't necessarily explain why.

Today I bought a painting - something I have only done once before (Beloved and I bought a small oil painting of Banff while we were there on our honeymoon). For Christmas, my parents gave me some money to buy a piece of art before I leave this place, so between that, a small fund I'd been saving for a painting of some kind, and a price cut by the artist, I actually had the means to buy this piece I've been admiring for months. (It wasn't all that expensive - I'll keep the numbers to myself, but it was well in the three-digit range.)

Almost every Wednesday morning, a good friend and I have coffee at a local bakery. They always have local art there, and for awhile this particular artist has had a display of ten or twelve paintings on the walls. One in particular attracted me on the first day, and I've been staring at it ever since. It's called 'Mary.'

When I spoke with the artist today, he said he was inspired by Russian icons. Normally I dislike a lot of religious art (particularly of the Precious Moments, Footprints, Thomas Kinkade-type, of which there is way, way too much in the world) - but icons are a definite exception. Aside from a print of a stained-glass window in Germany (featuring Luther, imagine that) and a large sheet of music whose notes create the shape of the Koln cathedral, I have no art in my office except this icon replica: Trinity, painted by Andrei Rublev around 1410.


Art is personal, so I have no idea if you will love or hate or feel indifferent about Mary. I love her. Here she is.



Check out artist Rick Garcia if you'd like to see more.

T-minus Nine and Counting

The "it's the last ________" has begun.

Today was my last staff meeting (I should have one next Tuesday, but I'll be out of town). I'm not super emotional in public, but I wanted to say my thanks to the staff and I managed to do this without out tears. They really are great.

This Sunday will be the last "normal" sermon - I'm not counting my last day as that, because it won't be a normal day at all.

This past Sunday was (please, please, please God) my last drive in horrible snow conditions. The 70-mile round trip commute in winter is one thing I will most definitely not miss.

Today I had a last lunch with one of the really wonderful retired pastors in our congregation. He filled in for me during my sabbatical last year and I'm so grateful for his presence: good advice when I ask for it, good listening when I don't (even if I should).

I have come to the conclusion that seven weeks in-between announcing my leaving and actually leaving is too much. I thought it wouldn't be enough, and frankly, I can hardly wait to leave at this point. You can only drag out the goodbye-ing for so long; I knew it would be emotionally draining, but this is a lot harder than I thought.

Now I'm in the last two weeks: technically, nine days left of work (hence the title of the post). I find myself caught between drinking up every second of these two weeks and wanting to get out of here as quickly as possible. I'm sure that's perfectly normal, but it's not the most comfortable experience of life.

Friday Five: Read Any Good Books Lately?

The website promoting this piece of art says, "For the first time, the worlds most influential religious texts are brought together and presented on the same level, their coexistence acknowledged and celebrated”. The shelf is made of reclaimed wood that contains seven religious books. The designers have put them – literally – on the same level.

Well, pish posh! I think that some books ARE better than others! How about you?

1. What book have you read in the last six months that has really stayed with you? Why?

Proof that I read too many books: I can't remember just one. Right now I'm reading Falling Man, about a guy who survives the World Trade Center disaster on September 11. It's frustrating and fascinating and bizarre. I loved the seventh Harry Potter. I also enjoyed Loving Frank, about Frank Lloyd Wright, and Here If You Need Me, and Pontoon, and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Three Cups of Tea is truly amazing too. I'm about to start People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks (author of March, another fantastic book).

2. What is one of your favorite childhood books?

Again, because I can't pick one, I'll go with the holy three instead:
1. Harriet the Spy. Proving once and for all that girls can kick ass.
2. Anne of Green Gables. Less ass-kicking, but so much beauty and joy and wonderful language. And also Gilbert.
3. Nancy Drew. Nancy "kicks butt" (more proper language for her. Carson Drew would freak out if his daughter said "ass").

3. Do you have a favorite book of the Bible? Do tell!

Honestly, not really. I love Isaiah and Luke and pieces of John, and huge portions of Genesis, and Psalms (of course) and Ruth and Jonah. I couldn't pick one.

4. What is one book you could read again and again?

I'm generally a big re-reader of books I really love. I've read the Anne of Green Gables series numerous times, and all of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries. Every few years I re-read September and Shell Seekers, both by Rosamunde Pilcher, and in a slight twist of the question, I've listened to Tara Road by Maeve Binchy on my ipod at least four times. I've also re-read Me Talk Pretty One Day and a book of sermons by Barbara Brown Taylor called God in Pain more times that I can count.

This is just a start. But I'll stop there.

5. Is there a book you would suggest for Lenten reading? What is it and why?

That God in Pain book of sermons is amazing. Of course, I think all of Barbara Brown Taylor's sermons are amazing. I also really like a devotion on the cross by Walter Wangerin, and naturally I'm blanking on the name of it. (Include it in a comment if you know what I'm talking about.)

And because we all love bonus questions, if you were going to publish a book what would it be? Who would you want to write the jacket cover blurb expounding on your talent?

Hmmm...I would love to write about preaching. Or, to be honest, I would also like to write a book for seminary students about what's really going to happen to you in the parish. Fun stuff along with the crap.

It's more than a fuzzy dream that some others and I might one day work on a book about fertility and faith. I would really like that.

And as for the book blurb - well, I'll take a combination of David Sedaris and Barbara Brown Taylor. Is there anyone out there who matches that description?

Cleaning Out

Somewhere in my personality lives a powerful procrastinator. She doesn't rule the roost all the time; mostly I keep her under control. But she shows up at certain times. Most especially when I have to move.

It's been over a month since I announced my leaving, and I have just over two weeks to go. I put off packing up my office before Christmas, because there's more than enough going on at that time, and the last thing I wanted to do was make an intentional mess in my office (thereby compounding the unintentional one that always shows up during high holy seasons). But with just two weeks to go - and very busy ones at that - it's past time to start cleaning out and packing up. I've made a few half-hearted efforts, doing things that aren't immediately visible like clearing out old files. But yesterday, I started in earnest. My office is now a mess, and it's not going to get any better until it's altogether empty.

This clean up, certainly not coincidentally, began as I started to feel really, really ready to leave my congregation. I remember the summer after I graduated from high school, I worried for nearly the whole summer break that I was not really ready to go to college; that I would be homesick, that I wouldn't like it, that I'd be miserable, etc. And then one day I was at the grocery store with my mom and my then-twelve-year-old brother, and I sort of snapped: something about them was so irritating to me that I thought, in the middle of the cereal aisle, "I have to go to college. RIGHT NOW." Naturally, that moment said everything about me and almost nothing about them.

I've hit the same moment here. I love this place, and I love these people, but I have to go. RIGHT NOW. And one way I can both remind myself that I need to be attentive about my leaving in every way is to incarnate it physically by making a big ol' mess in my office and stacking up boxes and giving myself no more excuses to put it off. I hate a mess in my office, though its usual state would appear messy to most people. (This is only because they are unaware of my personal organization system within the piles of paper.) Certainly one thing I hate about a mess is how out of control it makes me feel. For that reason alone, it's completely appropriate to make a mess now: to remind myself that I am not in control, and that that alone may well be my salvation.

So, here we go. Time to make a mess. Time to trust what I said in my own sermon last week: that Jesus doesn't always clean up our messes, or at least not immediately, but that he also never leaves us alone in them.

I did discover yesterday that there is a certain joy and freedom in tossing things out. I threw a few piles of things into the trash bin with almost too much glee: I thought of them as burdens I've carried while I've been here, and I imagined throwing out the burdens along with the stuff. That part I enjoyed, and I'll try to keep at it today. There are also moments in the cleaning to treasure memories, and that's good work too.

Big mess, here I come.

A Birthday Gift

Yesterday was my birthday. Thirty-five, to be precise. It got off to an uneven start.

At 3:00 in the morning, Beloved woke me up with his trademark "I have a headache so I'm breathing like I'm dying" wheeze. This is where he holds his breath for a moment and then lets it all out - and hey, I realize the guy is uncomfortable, so I'd like to be patient and all that, but it's 3am and my patience level is not at its best at that time of the day. After awhile, he went downstairs to sleep on the couch. When I got up at 7:30, he was gone to work. Except that he came back at 8:30, having gotten a sub for the day, and laid down in his armchair and went back to sleep.

He did not mention that it was my birthday.

I realize that I might come off as a truly heartless wife here, and hopefully that's not the case. I did feel badly that he was sick. But I was a little cranky about the lack of birthday wishes. Unreasonable: perhaps. But true nonetheless.

So I went off to work, where I received many kind birthday wishes, which was very nice. And had a reasonably good day, mostly free of the generalized anxiety around here about my leaving. Then I had a marathon council meeting that night, which I had been dreading for a few reasons: one, it was my exit interview and that's kind of a load; two, the treasurer is currently butting heads with the financial secretary and it's coming to a head more quickly than I thought; three, the council's anxiety level has been really high about my leaving, leading them to suggest things like "hey, we could speed up the interim process by doing the congregational survey before Pastor leaves" (which is a lot like planning your wedding to the second wife at the hospital bed of the first wife who is NOT, yet, DEAD), etc.

It was one of those meetings I should not have dreaded. We had a very good chat during the exit interview portion, and I got to say the one thing I really wanted to say: namely, that I sense a lot of anxiety in the congregation about my leaving, and that's normal, but that I hoped and prayed the council would not let that anxiety take over and especially that they would not make decisions out of that anxiety. They seemed to take that seriously. I felt good about that.

But the gift came at the end. We usually close with the Lord's Prayer. But instead, the council president - a normally reserved guy who isn't much for displays of emotion - suggested that we all hold hands, and that everyone who was comfortable should pray about something they appreciated or were grateful for about me.

Glad I was wearing waterproof mascara. It was lovely, and it was a gift. When I got home, Beloved (feeling much better as evidenced by having dragged himself out to the high school basketball game) smiled and immediately said, "Happy Birthday. I feel bad that I didn't say anything about it this morning."

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Friday Five: Las Mananitas

From Mother Laura at Rev Gals...
Éstas son las mañanitas These are the morning verses
Que cantaba el Rey David, That King David used to sing,
A las muchachas bonitas To the beautiful young ladies,
Se las cantaba así. He would sing them like this.

(The Mexican birthday song, sometimes sung as a dawn serenade).

My forty-third birthday next Wednesday will inaugurate the "Birthday Madness" season in the Grimes-Honkanen household. The next day Katie will turn five and just over two weeks later, on Feb. 3, Nicholas will be eleven. In the middle, on January 30, we celebrate the gift of Grandma Di; Nicholas and I were both due on my Mom's birthday but I was uncharacteristically early and he was little late. We will be doing a trip to Disneyland to celebrate them all in a couple weeks; in the meantime I offer this birthday-inspired Friday Five.

1. When is your birthday? Does anyone else (famous and/or in your own life) share it?

My birthday is this coming Tuesday! This is a perfect Friday Five for me. It's Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday too. I've always loved that.

2. Do you prefer a big party or an intimate celebration for the chosen few?

I like me a party. It's been awhile since I had one (the church threw a whopper for my 30th) but that's always fun. Dinner with a few good friends is good too.

3. Describe your most memorable birthday(s)--good, bad, or both.

Hmmm....probably that 30th birthday would be the last really memorable one. It was a surprise, which the congregation had planned without any knowledge on my part. When, at the end of the service, I stood up to make the announcements and a crash of cymbals came from the balcony - along with a trumpeter - I realized something was up.

4. What is your favorite cake and ice cream? (Bonus points if you share the cake recipe). Or would you rather have a different treat altogether?

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. No ice cream.

5. Surprise parties: love 'em or hate 'em?

Love 'em!

Bonus: Describe your ideal birthday--the sky's the limit.

Honestly, I'd love for Beloved to invite a bunch of friends over for dinner or dessert and just have fun. Won't happen this year, I know (because my very special birthday present is a council meeting that night! Woohoo!) but someday.

Snow Day!

There are very few words which bring such universal joy and childlike wonder as these two: SNOW DAY! (Well, if not universal, than at least for me.) My teacher husband, ever the practical one, reminded his students yesterday that cancelled school today would mean an extra day at the end of the year...but I, like they, don't give two cents about that. Why care about June when you can stay home and have fun today? It's the American way!

The bonus for me, of course, is that I don't have to make up the day - though I will work on the sermon from home. But it's 9:15 am and I am still in my pajamas! Because it's a snow day!

I took some photos around our house of the 8 inches that arrived last night (4 more expected tonight). Without telling you where I live, suffice it to say that this is quite a lot of snow for us. Most area schools, except for Beloved's district, are closed for the day. We won't have our usual kid activities at church tonight. So I'm going to stay home and have fun. Oh - and work on the sermon. But only a little. Because it's snow day!

Sometimes, exactly when you need one, God and the universe graciously give you a snow day. This one came just in time. Thanks and Amen.

This one comes with bonus information about my pajama pants. Which are now covered with snow, by the way.

I have this thing about snow in trees. It's the most beautiful piece of it, to me - like lace from the universe. And also significantly more beautiful than the roads, since you don't have to drive on the trees.

I'd like to get off this ride for awhile.

I find myself with a few unexpected hours this Sunday afternoon, and you would think I'd do something enjoyable, like take a nap or watch a football game or at least read the paper. But I am having a hard day, a bad day, one of those days you wish was already over the way you wish a bad movie was over so you could walk out of the theatre and remind yourself that it wasn't real to begin with.

It's nothing dramatic. Nobody died, or got a terrible diagnosis. Church attendance was a bit light, but we had a fairly decent snowstorm last night, so that's probably the reason. Nobody said anything bad or mean to me; nothing broke or leaked.

I think worrying runs in my blood. My maternal grandmother was famous for it, so much so that we stopped telling her some things until after they were safely over: things like somebody taking their driving test or having their wisdom teeth out. Most of the time I can keep my worrying under control. For the past few days, it's been simmering, but I've kept the lid on - barely. Until last night, when it boiled over and now I can't seem to put myself back together. I was sick the other day and queasy again this morning (please don't suggest I'm pregnant, because it's not possible today) and at first I thought it was a mild flu, but now, I don't think so. My stomach is churning all the time. I think I'm making myself sick by worrying.

I think what pushed me over the edge was putting our house on the market. We love our house, and it's a desirable house. But the market is slow. And we are moving to a much higher-cost housing area, so we need to make a decent amount on this house. Because we have quite a bit of time before it needs to sell, we priced it at the high end of a range our realtor gave us for our area; gives us some room to bargain and hey - you never know until you try, right?

It's been on the market four days, and there have already been five or six showings. That's good. Of course, when we bought this house just under two years ago, we made an offer the first day the house was on the market, and there were four other couples waiting behind us if we had dropped out. The market is different, I get that. But I worry.

Last night we went to dinner with some friends. It was her birthday, and it's nearly mine, so we always go out together for a little celebration. There were three showings of our house, so we were at Beloved's parents all afternoon. Beloved forfeited two really big basketball games he wanted to watch in order to go to dinner. After which we went to their house and played some games and chatted until about 10pm, when Beloved abruptly walked into the next room, grabbed my coat and his, and hinted in no uncertain terms that it was time to go home. I was not particularly happy about that, but it wasn't the time to argue. Also, I had consumed several glasses of wine.

When we pulled into the driveway, the argument started. It really wasn't that important - he felt like he had "taken one for the team," as he put it, by going to dinner. I felt that he was insinuating I never did the same. I got mad. He got mad. And we each said things we probably shouldn't have. We talked through it, but today I feel a little shaky. We argue so rarely that it really throws me off when we do.

The agent told us we've gotten tons of good feedback on the house, but all I can hear is the one negative thing she said: that a few people have felt it's on the high end of pricing. Beloved and I are kind to each other again today and no permanent damage was done, but I keep replaying my frustration over and over again. As I type I'm listening to the washing machine, and it occurs to me that that's exactly how I feel: trapped in a cycle, tossing the same things around and around again, and I just want to get out and I want it to be OVER so all this anxiety can go away.

I drove to church in a snowstorm today so it took longer than usual, but fortunately I had just checked out Anne Lamott's Grace (Eventually) on CD from the library. So I listened to her (I love her, and I'd never heard her voice before) and it was the beginning of what I needed. Her chapter about Sam, her son, trying to sleep in his new room but only able to move away from her about three feet every night, scooting in his sleeping bag a few feet closer to his new room every day. Sometimes having to go back a little. "Sometimes that's the lesson," she said, "scoot, scoot, slog, move backwards, scoot a little again."

And about trying to get her Sunday School class to understand the wailing wall, telling them that sometimes you have to let things go in order to let God have them for awhile. Like if you are thirsty and someone offers you a juice box during snack time, you have to let go of the crayons in your hand so you can hold the juice.

Sometimes it helps me to write things down (hence the blog, I suppose). So right now, I am going to write down all my worst fears at the moment and see if it helps. Here we go.

1. I am afraid our house will not sell.
2. I am afraid our house will sell but it will take a really long time.
3. I am afraid we will have to take a really low offer and Beloved will be upset.
4. I am afraid Beloved will not find a job he likes and he will resent me for taking him away from his family.
5. I am afraid I will hate this new congregation and wish I had never left where I am.
6. I am afraid I will not like living near my own parents anymore, 12 years having passed since I did.
7. I am afraid Beloved and I will keep fighting over stupid things until the house sells and even though I think we will be fine in the end, the idea of this exhausts me.
8. I am afraid we cannot afford a decent house in the new town.
9. I am afraid my current congregation will fall apart when I leave and that will mean I did not do a good job at empowering them while I was there.
10. But I am also afraid they will not fall apart at all and they will instead choose to do all the things I tried to keep them from doing or go back to old ways I tried to change.
11. I am afraid we will never have children.
12. I am afraid that I DO NOT KNOW HOW NOT TO BE AFRAID ANYMORE.
13. I am afraid Rudy Guiliani will be the next president.
14. I am afraid I do not really know to pray anymore.
15. I am afraid that I am giving myself an ulcer.

I think seeing them in black and white helps me feel less afraid, a bit. But the only one that really terrifies me is # 12: I am afraid that I do not know how to stop being afraid. I can't sleep. I wake up panicking and even though I try to tell myself to let God handle it, it doesn't work. I am really grateful Anne Lamott has experienced the same thing and can talk about it, but it doesn't actually solve anything that she has. The irony of this is that people who go through similar things and can write so well about them are an amazing gift, but I also hate them a little in the midst of my own turmoil because they are safely on the other side of what they're writing about, whereas I am stuck in the spin cycle.

I know that I am responding to all the anxiety around me about my leaving. I keep trying to tell myself not to do this, but it's not working.

I am going to put all of this in God's inbox, as Anne Lamott suggests. I am going to try to leave it there a little bit at a time. But I am going to fail at that, so I will need some help. My prayer life has been shaky for awhile, kind of like I felt about Beloved last night - not terrible, but weak. So I will need some help with that too.

If you have time to pray for me, I would really appreciate it.

Friday Five: New Year Resolutions

Sally writes...Well it had to be didn't it; love them or hate them, I bet you've been asked about New Year resolutions. So with no more fuss here is this week's Friday Five:

1. Do you make New Year resolutions?

Nope. The only one I've ever kept was to use hand lotion more often, a rousing and life-changing resolution I made when I was about 15 years old. Other than that, I've never kept one and gave up on them a long time ago.

2. Is this something you take seriously, or is it a bit of fun?

Since I don't make them, it doesn't really matter. They can be fun, though.

3. Share one goal for 2008.

To work more diligently on my prayer and devotional life - a goal I've had for quite some time (so not a resolution, per se).

4. Money is no barrier, share one wild, impossible dream for 2008.

Successful in-vitro fertilization process - maybe even twins! (Not impossible, but definitely expensive...)

5. Someone wants to publish a story of your year in 2008, what will the title of that book be?

I'm choosing "Good Courage," a piece of my favorite prayer (below) and the title of the publication from one of my very favorite places in the whole wide world, Holden Village. It's certainly the year we're moving, and if we're really, really fortunate, it might just be the year we become parents (or at least get pregnant). Here's hoping God sends enough good courage for both!

This prayer will appear in the front page of the book:

Lord God,
you have called us, your servants,
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden,
through perils unknown.

Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go
but only that your hand is leading us
and your love supporting us
through Jesus Christ our Lord
Amen.

Indecision Theology

Just before Christmas, one of my parishioners told me that he had accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. Let me explain why this troubles me.

This gentleman is about sixty years old, a kind if somewhat socially bumbling guy. He has hair like a televangelist or an anchorman, the kind that wouldn't move in hurricane force winds. He's a salesman, in every sense of the term. He and his wife have been married about fifteen years - a second marriage for both of them, with children from their previous marriages but not this one. His wife struggles with bouts of severe depression. Her adult son recently completed thirty days in alcohol rehab; while he's sober for now, it was a hard time for all of them.

So this guy has a lot going on. I get that.

But. It's Sunday, December 23rd. Worship is about three minutes from starting, and the usual rush of hand-shaking, family-introducing, 'oh-no-you're-leaving-when-is-your-last-Sunday'-conversing, so-and-so-is-in-the-hospital-informing is going on. Said gentleman comes up to me with a beaming look on his face, his wife walking behind him. "Pastor," he says, "I just wanted you to know that at a conference this weekend I finally accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior!"

Said pastor is a little confused, seeing as how this gentleman has been active in the church for a long time and, one would dearly hope, had heard of Jesus' love for him a time or two over the last, you know, twenty years.

He handed me his testimony - two typed pages - and asked if I would like to read it. Naturally I said yes. Two days later, at Christmas Day worship, he asked if I had read it yet. I gave him my honest answer: that there had been simply no time, and that I knew this story was important enough to warrant taking real time to read it. He seemed very touched by that.

Today I finally read the story. It's very simple and fairly chicken-soup-for-the-soul, but I know it means a lot to him. My trouble is figuring out how to talk with him about it.

I know a lot of this is pastoral care stuff, and that I have no problem with. Here is someone whose life has been turned upside down lately, and whose primary relationship can be difficult at any given time. His step-son's rehab was terribly draining for his wife, who spent a fair amount of time beating herself up about her son's struggles. He's getting near retirement, and this is a guy who defines himself largely by his job. Throwing yourself at the foot of the cross makes perfect sense in all of that.

I suppose the problem isn't really with him, but more within myself. Of course it's entirely possible that someone could come to worship for years and years, could be involved in leadership, could say all the right things, and still not feel a personal relationship with Jesus. I'm sure that's true more often than I would care to know.

I'm also sure that when life falls apart around you, re-claiming your faith is not only attractive but necessary, and making a commitment to that faith feels hopeful and energizing.

But, even considering all of that, I'm pretty damn opposed to decision theology. And I'm not sure if there's any way to talk about that in this circumstance. Part of me worries that, in my eight years here, I wasn't able (apparently) to convey Jesus' great love for him enough; that all this time, he sat in the pew empty, until this random occurrence at a sales conference. Part of me worries about how many other people in the pews feel the same way.

And yet another part of me suspects that this whole decision thing is a crock of shit. I'm curious to know why he felt the need to do this - and to tell me about it - and to write it down as a story. Where's the appeal? Why now, and like this? Is he telling me that he had never understood Jesus as his savior until now - or just that he recommitted to that? Is there any way for me to ask him some of these questions without sounding as if I am attacking his very personal spiritual experience?

I suppose part of my struggle is the role of the pastor in all of this. My first instinct, in being 'pastoral,' is to do the listening, supportive thing: "tell me about this experience," "it sounds like this was really important for you," etc. I do think it would be a bad idea to pull out the theological guns and give a lecture about decision theology and original sin and simul iustus et peccatur (you know you're getting a little too heavy when the Latin comes out).

But what about the prophet? I can just imagine David bringing his "I decided to accept Yahweh as my personal Lord and Savior" testimony to Nathan, and Nathan reading it and tearing it up and telling him he had completely forgotten the real scandal of God's grace and gotten full of himself and that the extraordinary thing is God's faithfulness, not ours. Not to mention that most of our decisions last about fifteen minutes anyway, so it's probably nothing to get too excited about.

Don't worry: I'm not going to pull a Nathan. But it's all made me think again about who the pastor ought to be in a community. Listener? Counselor? Cheerleader? Even for dumb ideas?

Or can there be times for you to be a prophet? Or a truth teller? Or a theologian? If not, what's the purpose of theology if it never intersects with actual daily life? How can you consider yourself a theologian if someone hands you a story whose theology galls you to the core but you can't figure out any way to talk about it?

Where's Fabio when you need him?

Yesterday we kicked off the new year by signing papers to put our house on the market.

Last night I kicked off the first night of the new year by not sleeping.

Coincidence? I think not.

It's amazing how much time in the change-of-call process is taken up by the gritty details of reality. You want to believe (or I do, anyway) that this will be a follow-the-star, sense-God's-voice, leap-out-in-faith kind of thing, but in fact, it's a lot less romantic than that. It reminds me of the first Christmas Beloved and I had as a married couple (keep in mind that we had been married about a month), when we went out to choose our Christmas tree and put it up. I had a very Barbara-Cartland idea about this, the sort of swoony romantic scene featured in the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter commericals (though Fabio-free), wherein we would tromp through the snow and choose the perfect tree, come home and put it in the perfect place, drink perfect cups of hot cider, and then decorate our perfect tree with all our perfect ornaments.

Now how could that idea possibly have gone bad? Instead, we ended up bickering over which tree, and then over where it should be placed in the house and how to move the furniture to accommodate the tree, and at some point I remember sitting dejectedly on the floor thinking to myself, "This is not how I thought this would happen." On a side note, all further Christmases have gone much more smoothly.

THIS SHOULD BE EASIER is the theme of my fall and winter. It should be more romantic - sensing God's call to a new ministry, leaving gracefully a place I love, throwing myself faithfully into the future without precise directions. Also, there should maybe be some applause.

Instead, it looks much more like finding your spouse a job, working like a crazy person to fix up the house for sale, spending most of your post-Christmas "vacation" house hunting in the new town, deciding not to buy the great-deal flannel sheets at Macy's because it's just one more thing you'll have to pack, flailing desperately to get someone else to chair the worship committee for the synod assembly in April, realizing you have to sort through your entire office within a month which makes you want to THROW UP, putting up with all your kindhearted parishioners and their kindhearted suggestions that "now you'll have time to have a baby" because you'll be an associate, and hoping against hope that your house will sell in a sluggish market.

This is not romantic. Fabio is nowhere to be found. The good news, on the days I have the heart to see it, is that disillusionment is practically the theme of the entire bible. Almost no one signed up for what they got, or got what they signed up for. And yet God remained faithful through it all. The key is remembering that on this side of the journey, not just when you get to the promised land. Although remembering it once you get there seems to have been a bit of a problem too.

Lord God, you have called us, your servants, to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Somebody remind me to pray that every day.