This 'n That on Monday

I am apparently not as young as I'd like to think. This is the message my body had for me this morning as my feet hit the floor. "Ouch" said my back and my quads and my hammies. "Oooh" said my triceps and forearms. The bottoms of my feet and my hands chimed in, as did my knees and neck. This all resulted from the heavy duty hauling and schlepping that constituted most of my weekend. XDO and I have finally gotten around to another movement of our little symphony, that being the division of the last of the stuff.

My house, though it is in town, is graced with "outbuildings." I have two garages and a wee little pumphouse. Somehow in our six years here, we have managed to fill them, plus the four rooms of our basement, with an incredible amount of junk. A lot of it came with us from the Big City. In fact we moved an entire rental truck full of just yard and garden down here....including rocks, dirt and landscape lumber, in addition to the usual tools, hoses and such. We also have more flower pots and garden fol-de-rol than any two people could ever use in a lifetime. The basement is graced with crap and crud related to toolage and painting and pets and projects that will never be completed. Much of this, too moved here with us. Since XDO moved to an apartment, all such remained behind and pretty much was not dealt with last year. But I am now a woman on a mission and I want my three outbuildings and my basement CLEANED! So it has begun. Into the piles we go..XDO, burn pile, Habitat's Re-Use Store, Goodwill, the dump, the city's hazardous waste collection site....and once in a great while, a "keeper." I am ruthless in this. If it does not have almost immediate use or great value-GONE! The back garage and pump house are sorted as are two rooms of basement. Some of it actually got moved to XDO's. Other piles await their final destinations. Some, alas is still at the bottom of those awful basement stairs! There are still two rooms of basement to be done. One that, thanks be, is small and almost empty. The other, *sigh* is full of tools and other accumulated detritus that has the potential for a bit of wrangling. I must remember it is only stuff. Stuff I paid for, stuff I feel ownership of and want to say "mine, mine, mine" about, but stuff none-the-less. And it ain't worth fighting over.

We were, for the most part civil with each other. I worked very hard to let my spirit be one of lovingkindness. I asked for prayers. I feel sad and weary today. My muscles are not the only things that hurt. I listened with my heart to the comments on my "String" post. You are wise my blog sisters, and echo what I hear from others. Yes, loving XDO is a hard thing. It involves letting things go and letting things pass. It means allowing for and not reacting to. It also means that I say no to some things and yes to others (and we aren't talking about hoses and hoes, here). It means I have to watch and listen and discern. It means I have to walk carefully amidst the shards of this broken thing we share.

This part will be done soon. There will be other parts. Lives wound together as long and complex as ours were do not come apart easily. I slid for awhile. Now I get to do some work on this again. Deconstruction. If you do it well, sometimes you can make good use of the bits and parts that come out of it. It's not all trash in the end and you end up with more than simply sore muscles and a burn pile.

Friday Five: The Big To-Do

Kathrynzj says: "Greetings from the land of the Big To-Do!It seems like every year I enter into the summer with a growing list of HUGE projects/events/trips that seem to have a permanent place on the 'to do' list.This year I have a huge move pending so that takes up an entire list all on its own, but it doesn't take a big event like that for me to make plans bigger than my summer can hold!How about you?Is this the third summer in a row you have made a pledge involving your garage and actually getting a car into it?Did you once again miss the registration deadline for the continuing education event of your dreams ?Are you starting to think you couldn't even find the tents, let alone get it together to pull off a camping trip?Here is your chance to get it out into the open and OWN your Big To-Do! Who knows? Maybe making the list will help you move the Big To-Do to the Big Ta-Da!"

This comes to you this morning from the land of procrastination. It's 7:45 and I have just arrived at the day job office. I had planned to be here at 6 this morning. The "to-do" was the sermon for Sunday....It is, alas now a still-to-be-done. So WTH....might as well procrastinate a little longer and play this F5!
1) What home fix-it project is on your Big To-Do? R and I are building a deck on the back of the house this summer. I am optimistic that we will get it done. That's not so much about me, but what I am learning about him is that when I say, "gee let's..." we DO! We have already taken out a stairlift in the house and removed an access ramp out front, planted a garden and generally spruced up the yard, as well as done a number of small projects around the house that have been sitting literally for years. We find we work well together and have fun, too. I love that he is taking interest and ownership in a house that he won't even be living in for almost a year yet.

2) What event (fun or work) is on your Big To-Do? That would be that Big Event to which the countdown refers....One wedding that is now LESS than a year away. We really have a lot underway or planned already, but it's fun to talk and dream about details. We are talking about honeymoon spots...any suggestions?

3) What trip is on your Big To-Do? Mid-June we are planning a little road trip to my hometown in Iowa to see the places I haunted as a kid. Actually I think it's just an excuse to run away in the Mini Cooper! It's not a big trip, but it's another first, our first "real vacation" together.

4) What do you wish was on someone ELSE's (partner, family member, celebrity, etc...) Big To-Do? That would be having XDO have a list of getting the stuff out soonest. To be fair, it is on the list, we just haven't been able to mesh schedules to this point.

5) Getting inspired? What may end this summer having moved from the Big To-Do to the Big Ta-da? I think it's all coming along. Summer will find us cleaned, spruced, bedecked and minus the stuff XDO left, God willing!

String Theory

I have no idea what real string theory is about. It’s been briefly explained to me. It went past. It’s on my list of things to “go read about and understand someday.” In the meantime I have my own that I’m wrestling with, and that’s quite enough, thanks. I’ve written here before about how I function on at least two levels when it comes to my theological-spiritual self. There is the educated, 21st century person who thinks and knows and apprehends in a fairly sane, mostly wise and reasonable manner. And then there is that younger, primitive part of me who was steeped in mysticism and myth mixed with strong, strong doses of pre-Vatican Catholicism. The God of those two selves is not the same God. The God of the first is the God of love expressed in the Gospels and manifested in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. This is the God of whom I am (on most good days) also beloved. This God has dreams for me within the context of my own (prodigious) free will. This is not the puppet God or the bubble gum machine God. When I pray to this God it is not for the dispensation of favors with the “pleaseohpleaseohplease” desperation of a two year old. All of these things are not true with the second God who lives in my head. The second version is all tied up in my own little string theory and is accompanied by the “String Song.”

A week or two ago, R was playing with my cat Spike. R was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and tantalizing Spike with the hood strings while singing him this goofy little song that went, “This is not your string, this is m-y-y-y string.” (It’s to the tune of the snake charmer’s dance if you’d like to sing along). Well of course we laughed and had a lovely time with the cat. But that silly little song has taken up residence in my head and it will not let me go for some reason that has, of course, nothing to do with cats.

I have been struggling with some strings….the knots and tangles of my ongoing and (forever?) unfinished relationship with XDO. There is still “stuff” in the house over which there has been some ummm….discussion. There have been issues about boundaries. There have been perceptions on both sides of “things said” in the community that have come back around. And what this has all triggered for me has been a painful spiritual backlash as I try to figure out how to “love” XDO when I am feeling hurt, frustrated, angry, and even on a bad day downright spiteful! It seems that wherever I go I am confronted by that Gospel passage, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” It keeps turning up over and over and over again. In the lectionary, at a clergy conference GBD, on a Nooma at Y church. As an opportunity for reflection? Or…in my own personal little God-is-pulling-my strings-here theory….a shaming reprimand! God….not the God who has a free and loving adult relationship with me…about whom I can respond with love and some measure of reason….but the GREAT JEHOVAH who keeps the notebook of my sins. The one who always judges me and finds me wanting is yanking my darn strings again! This God is playing me the same way that R played the cat while singing that song. In that scenario XDO is here to provide me with the opportunity to be a better Christian. And I am failing. Again. These Gospels keep turning up over and over as object lessons to remind me that I have many chances to learn the lessons of how to truly love. Am I ready now? Now? Now? And just what will it take? What will it take?

I have been advised to exegete Luke. Yes. A good idea. I already know what I will find. There is no puppet God pulling my string. XDO is not my object lesson. R said it so well. It’s challenging to learn to love those whom we struggle to like. And right now, I’m finding it kind of hard to like my ex. Not such an abnormal thing, I think. And I’d say, probably the feeling is pretty mutual. I don't think I'm high on XDO's like list right now either.

This all of course is very exhausting. The back and forthing of heart and mind and soul. The soothing of the wounded spirit self. On the one hand I know to the depths of my being that this whole string thing is plain out silly. This is the God of my ten year old self who really is no longer part of me….really. Except….well, maybe a little. Obviously.

So perhaps I need to put the string song back in the realm of cat play and try to recapture that blessed moment when our presiding Bishop had us simply sitting and remembering that each and every one of us is God’s beloved child. And really it is that simple. If we start there, maybe we really can love one another, just kind of sitting in God’s love. It seems to work better than anything else I’ve come up with so far. And there is one part of the string song that is right on point….it’s really not my string.

Another of Life's Lessons

Yesterday on Facebook I commented that I was " coming to terms with not always getting what I want, even when I wasn't sure I wanted it---till I didn't get it." For a very long time I have wanted to play the role of Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music. As a little girl I had a love affair with that movie. At first of course it was Maria's role I coveted, but let's face facts here....I have been a little past playing her for more than a few years. So for a long time now, it's been Mother that I just knew was mine. "Someday," I told myself....especially since moving here and getting back involved in community theatre. I even hassled the production folks over the past few years about when, oh when would they do SOM so I could play her. Never in my wildest did it occur that, yes they would do the production, I would audition, and....someone else would get the part! And even more strangely, by the time it all happened, so many things would have come between, that I was of two minds about wanting to do it at all. Until I wasn't chosen. Now of course I know how very much I did want to. Now how much complexity is that over something that's supposed to be fun!?!

When I moved here almost seven years ago and didn't know anybody, I made up my mind that I would "do things" to become part of the community. One of those things was to audition for a part in Fiddler on the Roof. I went in blind, willing to do anything, expecting a bit part. At that point in my life I had never sung a solo in public, hadn't acted since high school and had never had more than a small cameo role in anything. I auditioned with laryngitis and was cast as Golde! I was stunned! I had a great time and the whole experience was a wonderful confidence booster. I guess you could say I found my voice there and was finally able to shut down the voice of that nun in my head who told me I could not sing. (She and her sisters of the trinity "you cannot write" and "you can't do art"). Well SisterCritic is back this morning! She says it was fluke that year....now that the more professional folks are running the show (and clearly they are...college faculty are directing and doing the music for this year's production) I have been culled from the herd and put back where I belong....and not even in the chorus, or as a walk-on, but out in the audience with the rest of the folk! So there, Missy!

And the irony of it all is....I had gotten to the point of feeling lukewarm about even being in the production. Summer is shaping up to be full and busy with travel and projects, and I want to have time to just savor some lovely nights under the stars in that hot tub with my sweetie as well. So it's not so much the actual not doing it that's rattling around in my heart and my head today. It's plain old out and out rejection and all that it triggers. The woman who will play the Mother Abbess has a stunning voice. She is a vocal music teacher at one of the local high schools and sings semi-professionally. Most of the folks who were cast in the singing roles fit this description. It should be a great performance, better than most. My friend CCM who is going to sing at my wedding got one of the nun roles. If she's good enough for the wedding, after all! I'll be there cheering her on. So I will get over it. All is well. I'm just feeling a little bruised. And embarrassed. For putting myself up there with all the talented people--yeah, I know, that's SisterCritic's voice and I need to give her the boot. There were a whole lot of us folk with perfectly fine everyday voices who didn't get cast because we happen to live in an area that grows amazingly talented people whose voices are more than everyday quality. And they got the parts that are rightfully theirs, and we get to enjoy hearing them.

And while they are off sweating in a hot dark theatre, I'll be in the hot tub having a beer, laughing with R and looking at the lovely evening sky. That is, after all, I'd say a pretty good consolation prize.

My Boyfriend's Back!

Yeah well...I really don't call R my "boyfriend," not in any seriousness, anyway....but he is back from Norway where he has been for the last seven days visiting his daughter. This is the longest separation we have had and also the most "complete" one in terms of no cell phone, no regular e-mail...and it was hard! I've been perversely proud of how very,very independent I am when we have been apart before...he's traveled, I've traveled...and I've bragged a bit on how we don't "need" to talk every day....I'm cool that way, you know, not a glommy sort of girl at all, at all. Well, Norway is a very far away place to send this person I love fiercely and rather newly still. And I found myself falling back my old routines of energizer bunnyhood. My schedule, I've discovered, will allow itself to be filled in nicely without much effort. I had something every night and several events on the weekend, including a trip to the Big City and back. I cleaned and gardened, putzed and fiddled. It was not a bad seven day stretch, but by Sunday I was wearing down and starting to feel like I might just glom a bit when I saw him again!

And last night he came home safe and sound. When I saw the little red car pull in to the driveway I turned into sort of a puddle. I don't care so much if I am cool, or independent or even if I am displaying some incipient glomminess for a moment or two. I know we will be apart for times again. It is the nature of our lives that we will be called to go separate places and do individual things. That is good and as it should be. We might even be on different continents again at some point, time zones apart. And when we return we will share our adventures. In Arizona I was attacked by a cactus (a misadventure about which R much enjoys teasing me) and loved the Grand Canyon. In Norway, R climbed a mountain and stuck his feet in the sea, about which I am duly impressed. But for now, across town is far enough, and if I get a vote, I think I'd like our adventures to be shared ones for the next little while.

Friday Five: Friends

In her debut as Friday Five hostess, Jan says: "Ever since I found out I could be the hostess for the third Friday Five of each month, I have not been able to get the thought of friends out of my mind. Being an only child (all growed up) who moved around a lot in my lifetime, friends have always been very important to me. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "The way to have a friend is to be a friend."So today let's write about the different kinds of friends we have, like childhood friends, lost friends, tennis friends, work friends, and the list goes on. List 5 different types of friends you have had in your life and what they were/are like.As a bonus, put a link to a new (to you) blogging friend and introduce us!"

• Very Real Though Virtual Friends In May of 2007 I started this blog. To say that it changed my life would not be hyperbole. I began "meeting" people in the RevGals ring, first in this virtual space, then in a memorable meetup with Diane , then with many more wonderful face-to-face meetings at BEs 1.0 and 2.0. and last year at the Festival of Homies. All of these relationships have helped me trust more in the reality of human caring and concern and widened and deepened my world in so many wonderful ways.


• Soul Friends No friend list could be complete without my soul friends. My Soul Sisters of course head the list. We began as Bible Study companions, but have become so much more to each other. We do still study together, but we also learn to paint together, laugh together, take road trips to look for wedding dresses, go geocaching, cry, pray, share the ups and downs and life and are just "there" whenever. Also in this list for me is C. I cannot even begin to imagine where I would be as a priest and as a human without her. Her honesty, humor and wisdom have seen me through these last four or so years of major life change and transition and she keeps hanging in. She is one of those rare friends who really gets me and from whom I can and will "hear" the hard stuff. God has so blessed me with these women.


• Work Friends This is a new one for me. I always sort of (perversely now I think) kind of "prided" myself on saying "Oh I keep my work life separate." Well now I wonder whatever for.....My workmates are a great bunch of folks. They are funny, committed, smart, professional, and um, yeah, interested in a lot of the same things I am. Maybe it's because it's a smaller town, or I have finally stayed put in one place for a longer time...but I'm finding socializing with these folks to be an additional benefit to my job.


• Old Friends Sad to say, I don't have a whole lot of these. For whatever reason, I have not tended to stay in touch with people from college, or even grad school. I did have someone resurface recently on Facebook from my days in the Big City and we have been chatting both on-line and by phone and that has been great as there was a time when we were very close.


• My Best Friend That would be the one I am going to be marrying one year from today. There is no doubt that friendship came first. Both R and I were ever so sure that neither of us ever wanted to be married, or even in a serious relationship when we began dating. I think that was a good thing, it freed us up to just get to know one another, have fun and not think about anything serious or future-oriented. When love sort of crept up on us, it rather surprised us both. We laugh that we kind of backed into the whole idea of marriage, but now that we are here, neither of us can imagine the idea of a future without the other in it. And there is no doubt that we are friends. We can talk about anything and we don't take ourselves too seriously. I told him I think I have laughed more since I met him than I have had in my whole life up to this point. And I know that I feel safer and more loved than I ever have before. I get to marry my best friend. How much better does it get? (Oh, and if you want to see the dress....it's on yesterday's post)

Bonus: Meet Altar Ego whose blog and comments I have recently been enjoying. Her blog title, Reverent Irreverence says it all!

Ok....so here it is.....

It was the one that made me cry.....

And then there was that HAT

I guess anything that makes you feel like this and doesn't break the bank must be IT, eh?

So there you go....One year from tomorrow it's the real thing. Oh. My. Grace does abound.

Tethers and Freedom and Bits and Pieces

Freedom by Hugh Prather

No one grants you freedom.
You are free if you are free.
No one enthralls you.
You enthrall yourself.
And when you have
You may hand your tether
To another
To many others
To all others
To yourself

Perhaps this last is the worst of all
For this slave master is the hardest to see
And hardest to rebel against
But he is the easiest to hate
And to damage

I do not know how to tell you to be free
I wish I did
But I do know some signs of freedom
One is in doing what you want to do
Though someone tells you not to
Another is in doing what you want to do
Though someone else tells you to.

A post or so ago I wrote about feeling "untethered." At the time I was feeling like it was kind of a not so good thing. It was interesting as the comments I got sounded much more positive than I felt. And then I started thinking back to this poem from the first BE. It hit me hard at the time, especially the part about tethering myself to myself. And I started thinking that maybe being untethered right now was not so bad after all....if freedom was the other side. So I thought I'd share Hugh Prather today.

I will be posting pictures of the dress tomorrow. I've not done so till now as R is a faithful blog reader and he has expressed a wish not to see the dress until the day. But he is safely off in Norway this week visiting his daughter and won't be in the proximity of technology and has agreed not to back-read on his return. Also, since Friday starts the one-year till the wedding count down, I thought it would be fun to do it this week. So for all of you who have been waiting for the froth....stay tuned.

May remains a busy church month. Articles due, extra preaching, weekend meetings....this weekend our Presiding Bishop is visiting our Diocese, so it's off across the state again on Friday. I would not miss the chance to meet and greet KJS++ for all the world, but driving on the summer detours....sigh! But staying busy is good. I am missing my guy more than a little. It was one thing to have him in Florida or me in Arizona....but Norway....that's a different horse entirely....no cell phones, no e-mail...yep, a little R withdrawal here, owned and admitted. So busy it is....and back to work.

Home again, Home Again....again

I've been back now from clergy conference two days. I'm finally unpacked, the laundry is at least sorted, if undone, the suitcase is stashed, and I am starting to feel settled in at home again. Phyllis Tickle was truly amazing! She did brilliantly for emergence what I so longed to do for psychology in my ill-fated History and Systems class and contextualized this "church thing" as a part of something not only bigger in this time in our development but as a part of a larger arc that sweeps and repeats through all of human history. She told us these cycles repeat about every 500 years....the last one being the Reformation. And, according to PT, here we are in a new one! Or as she refers to it, the church's garage sale.

She herself is very impressive. I who cannot do a twelve minute sermon without a manuscript, sat in awe as this woman, whom I don't think would mind my noting is more than a couple years my senior, went for six hours with no notes rapidly firing names and dates and history, events and people and places, linking and connecting....this leading to that...that bringing us here. And it was more than head stuff. For me at least, it made me think about how emergence either is already occurring or could happen in the places my ministry touches. M and I found ourselves asking one of the big city deacons how he does his Theology and a Pint programs. We have tossed this around before half in jest. We are after all across the street from one of the locals. It's a landmark for finding us...."Oh, St. J's? Right there on Main. By the big Catholic church...No? Can't place that? How about right across from the Nickel Bar?" And they always know! We are thinking this might be just the place for outreach!

It also got me thinking about the "WhY Church" that R and I attend as our second worship on Sundays. It is clearly in the emergent category. And it is on a cusp right now as the founder and designated leader is moving away. He is a charismatic person who has much passion for this ministry. In fact his move comes as he goes away to plant a church in another place. What will become of WhY is on the table. Will the members take ownership and claim this young church as their own and will it continue to emerge...or will it wither and die? One of the things PT said that is key to emergent churches is covenant....that those who come together to form these emergent communities really have the sense that they are covenanting together to "be church" with one another, almost in the monastic sense, even to the point of some self-sacrifice. She also talked about authority in emergents....from where does it come, both in the sort of the "big A" sense as in theology and doctrine, but also in "who decides," or at least that was where my head took it (practical theologian that I am!) These are all things that are clearly front and center for WhY at this point. I see hopeful signs. Some good decisions have been made changing the meeting place to make better use of resources. From what I've heard about the discussion that took place last Sunday, leadership is happening.

In my own place, I'm not sure how this translates yet, either. Perhaps we will go to the pub. I also had thoughts about an "alt service" at the campus at some point, or taking church to the park some lovely summer evening. Phyllis told stories that made me tear up about some things that people did...but they seemed organic to time and place. I think this will have to germinate for a while. But the grace of this was that I feel a stirring in my soul of some new life and energy that has not been present for a while in the "church" part of my life.

The rest of CC went quickly. There is never enough time to talk with everyone I want to connect with, to walk the lovely grounds, to just be. I had lunch with my Bishop on the last day, as one of our canonical requirements is that priests must request his permission to marry. I was able to tell him how wonderful R is and how happy I am. The Bishop was truly delighted for me and for us and we had a lovely chat. Though he can be publicly somewhat formidable, one-on-one, he is a very pastoral man, and I always come away from talks with him feeling cared for and blessed.

So now it is on to the home front. I spent real time in the yard for the first time last night, pulling up dead things, pruning and clipping and tending. It looks better already. This weekend, R and I are putting in the garden, doing the first mowing of the season and some other assorted outdoor chores. I emptied and cleaned and refilled the hot tub last night, too, so hopefully it will be warmed and ready for our garden-weary selves to get a glass of something refreshing and have a soak or two. We are finding the doing of projects together to be a fun and wonderful thing. We seem to have a compatible work style (a good sign!) and have a good time working on things. We have a "big one" in the planning....the building of a deck this summer. That did not happen previously because I learned that XDO and I could not do projects together so well. SO the ability to this is yet another gift I am grateful for.

At this moment however, it is time to get to work. There is still a Friday to complete before the weekend begins. So off to it!

Reminiscing

There is something about coming back to the same place for the same event year after year....it seems take me to a place of reminiscing about the whens and wheres of of other times. I was thinking this morning about last Spring's clergy conference. It was right after the BE 1.0 and I was in such transition. Like the BE, it came at a time when I was both wide open to the movement of the Spirit and also terribly vulnerable. And like the BE, it was an event that was balm to my soul, and both fed and nurtured me. I found connection and safety with my clergy peers, many things to think about from the speaker and a profound sense of peace and connection with God. Not bad for a scant three days.

As in so many other ways, I am in a different season this year. Things had been leading up to that conference...life for one thing! And Lent had gone deep. The BE was that whole trip to liminal space. Everything was about change and transformation. It was hard and scary in many ways, but it was also very wonderful and connected me to God in a very profound way. I think that is what I'm struggling with right now...I feel....untethered....I am profoundly happy and deeply in love...some people have accused me of things like "floating" and even being giddy at times. There is nothing I would I would change or trade for this....R is the best thing that has ever happened to me. He is complete gift and blessing and I have no doubt (despite the fact that it makes him squirmy when I say it) that he is totally a God-thing in my life! But there is no doubt that my energies have taken a shift, and I feel a little off-balance as yet. Much of what used to be my focus now feels like a distraction. My gaze used to be an inward one. Now it is not. And I am struggling a bit....oh, not with where to find God in all of this. Clearly God is all over it. It is not God who is missing in action. But I feel a bit like I am....like I have not found a way to be here and present in this way and connected at the same time. Still a work in progress, I guess.

Today we will hear Phyllis Tickle...our day will begin with prayer from her book of hours and then she will speak with us about the emergent church. We have been assured this has been designed more as retreat than business, so I am hopeful that there will be some space to simply be....and so we begin.

A Little Fluff and Cover?

Monday morning....sitting in a coffee shop in the big city. I am killing a little time this morning. That's so far from the norm...that there is time that's not scheduled, not planned for. But here it is. Clergy conference starts later this afternoon, my friend has gone off to work, and I have nothing I have to do today. I have some want tos....checking back in on a wedding dress we looked at this weekend to see how I feel about it on a second glance, running a couple errands to stores we don't have in rural land....but mostly the day is mine to fritter away.

Dresses. Oh. My. The whole world of ivory satin lace and tulle and such. Who knew it was so complicated? I thought I was starting way early on this. Apparently not, as the nice "dress wrangler" told me some dresses take five months to come in once ordered! And then there are alterations and all manner of things. I have now tried on maybe ten dresses in varying styles...and mostly I am confused. There was of course that one dress. The one I put on that made me cry....the one that made me feel like Cinderella, the one that I knew was "my dress" until I saw the price tag. That was the first shopping day....a hard lesson learned...don't even try them on until you know what they cost! There is one other....the one I am giving the second look today that looks like the dress my mother was married in back in 1921. It defies the rules my Soul Sisters have suggested....emphasize their take on my best features....curves and collarbones....this dress is simple and straight and pretty much covers everything....but it's also very pretty and frugal of price....but what if I get this one and then find that one! Oh dear. I feel so shallow! People are getting sick with swine flu and I am fretting about a dress.

But it's today's obsession. I know I will move on. I will go back to the real world. It is partly escape. Our diocesan meeting on Saturday was frustrating. We were not our best selves. Why is it sometimes when the church gathers we have such a hard time moving past fear? As someone in my small group pointed out it is much easier to talk about bricks and mortar than harder bigger truths, even when those are not bad things but maybe just personal or uncomfortable ones. We are trying to reform and transform and change culture....this is squirmy stuff...so it's back to the safeties....but it makes me tired and it makes me sad....and so I think I'll just go look for dresses instead...just for today. Sometimes we need a little fluff, don't we?

The 5 o'clock postscript....I bought a dress! Rest assured there will be more details to come. For now, the attention turns to clergy conference.

Friday Five: Celebrating the Seasons of Life

Sally says: "It is the first of May, or as I have been concentrating on dialogue with folk interested in the new spirituality movement this last week, it is Beltane, a time to celebrate the beginning of summer. The BBC web-site tells us that:
Beltane is a Celtic word which means 'fires of Bel' (Bel was a Celtic deity). It is a fire festival that celebrates of the coming of summer and the fertility of the coming year.Celtic festivals often tied in with the needs of the community. In spring time, at the beginning of the farming calendar, everybody would be hoping for a fruitful year for their families and fields.Beltane rituals would often include courting: for example, young men and women collecting blossoms in the woods and lighting fires in the evening. These rituals would often lead to matches and marriages, either immediately in the coming summer or autumn.
Another advert for a TV programme that has caught my eye on the UK's Channel 4 this weekend is called Love, Life and leaving; and is a look at the importance of celebrating the seasons of life through ritual and in the public eye, hence marriages, baptisms and funerals.
I believe that we live in a ritually impoverished culture, where we have few reasons for real celebration, and marking the passages of life;So...

1. Are ritual markings of birth, marriage, and death important to you? Absolutely! And I think that there are others as well that we could (or should) mark ritually and liturgically that we don't do such a good job of particularly in the realm of closures and endings.

2. Share a favourite liturgy/ practice. After I had done a lot of work in both therapy and spiritual direction about releasing some of the pain around the dark voices of my past, I wrote a small liturgy which my spiritual director and I shared. It was centered around the theme of forgiveness and release both for those who had hurt me and for myself. While it was not "the end of the story" it was very powerful and I think, opened me up for some even deeper work to come.

3. If you could invent ( or have invented) a ritual what is it for? I would like to create a liturgy or ritual for the decent, prayerful and holy severing of a relationship. I know this is very high-minded (believe me I know!) but in my wildest fantasy it might even include some pre-ritual counseling time and have a focus on releasing one another with some sense of peace and forgiveness and wanting what is best for each other, or at least putting them in God's hands.

4. What do you think of making connections with neo-pagan / ancient festivals? Have you done this and how? Since so many of our Christian feasts have links with these ancient festivals it seems fitting to know and understand this part of our past. And besides....they are fun! When I lived in the Big City I often had the chance to celebrate some of these festivals with friends including Beltane and Solstice celebrations.

5. Celebrating is important, what and where would your ideal celebration be? Well it just so happens that I am planning one of these for myself! R and I have set a wedding date (05/15/10) and we have started thinking about the who, what, and where. We will of course be married in my beautiful little church by my team members and my friend C (one can never have too many RevGals on the altar after all!) My friend CCM will sing, my Soul Sisters will be my attendants. There will be all of the beautiful liturgy and music one marriage ceremony can contain! It will be spring and there will be color from flowers and the glow of candles. Since the party is also important, afterwards, we plan to eat and dance well into the night. Our goal is to have our wedding reflect who we are and to have it be a wonderful and joyous celebration of our love for all who attend.

On the Road Again

I'm about to get on the road again. It's actually not until Saturday. And I can wait. It's that peripatetic time of year again when I go traipsing around the state doing my clergy thing. And the month of May is going to involve a fair amount of that.

Saturday it's off to the big city for a convocation on the mission strategy networking effort that our diocese has been about for the last few years. I volunteered to be a group facilitator. What was I thinking? We have been instructed to gather at 8:30 for our marching orders....and I am not making the three hour trek until Saturday morning as I have an obligation Friday night on the home front. Oh, dear....departure at O-dark thirty before the birdies are up I fear.

And since I am over on that side of the state it makes no sense to trek back, as clergy conference starts Monday up thataway, so I'll spend the rest of the weekend hanging with friends and maybe taking in some fine retail therapy options. I'm looking forward to CC this year as Phyllis Tickle is our presenter, and it should be fabulous.

Then Wednesday it's back home to the day job where I can settle in till the 15th when it's back to the cities again for an exciting opportunity to get to visit with our PB Katharine. And then the next day I'll hop down the freeway to worship with her at the "other cathedral" a couple hours away....then home again, home again across the state. Love that windshield riding life!

At the end of the month it's off to another part of the state for the "Total Ministry Summit" where we gather with all the teams who do what we do to catch up on who's who and what's what. Love those folks and all the meet and greet....but whoosh! There goes another weekend! And here comes another drive.

I am so grateful for books on CD. That and really raucous music to keep me awake. I mean let's face it. After almost seven years of driving back and forth and back and forth, I have seen this scenery. I could almost make this drive in my sleep, but would prefer not to if I can help it. So good amusements and quantities of caffeine are in order.

This coming month really is shaping up to be busy. All of the above, the day job, preaching twice and finding time to miss R who will be trekking off to Norway to visit his daughter who is studying abroad. And there are tryouts coming up for the summer musical about which decisions must be made. It's The Sound of Music and I have always had the Reverend Mother fantasy. Well, now's my chance....but thinking about the time commitment is a little daunting....especially looking at how much the summer already holds. I've been realizing lately how jealous of my free time I have become....and how much I used to fill my time with things to avoid having that same free time. Hmmmm.....

I realized I have hardly posted about the BE2. And I have yet to share my pictures with the RevGals. Perhaps after clergy conference there will come a time "when life slows down" and I will have some time to reflect on that as well as what Phyllis will offer us. Well I can dream, can't I?

"It's a Bucket List Friday Five, Gals and Pals!"

Singing Owl asks "...do you have a "Bucket List"? In other words, from the movie of the same name, five things you want to see, do, accomplish, etc. before you kick the bucket?"

Well of course there are way more than five. I often think I'll have to live to be very, very old to accomplish everything on my list, but here are some of my top ones this morning.....

• Travel to Ireland and try to connect with some of my relatives there if possible (which would mean I'd have to get serious about my genealogy again and find them!)
• Learn to play that cello that has been sitting in the corner of my dining room since 2004
• Go back to school....maybe distance learning....in something related to Scripture studies or preaching....or to learn to speak fluent Spanish!
• Take a hot air balloon ride
• Go on a Mississippi River boat cruise from St. Paul to New Orleans

And after we left the Retreat.....

Today I am here in my office trying to get back in the swing of the day job....Monday night I was here at Chase Field, Phoenix. The Diamondbacks won!
Monday afternoon I was here in amazing Sedona
Monday Morning I was here for sunrise at the Grand Canyon
Sunday afternoon I was just......
What fun! More to come....but I really DO have to get to work now.

To BE...

All my bags are packed....and except for that pesky niggling sense that I have that I have forgotten something important that always comes with travel...R and I have been over the list, it's all covered, and if it's not, either I don't need it, or Mompriest will have brought it anyway...I'm ready to go. Blessings on all who travel tomorrow. Until next week.....

Fitting Room

Last Monday's list is history. Somehow it all got done and I am now down to a packing list. Things like camera batteries and cat food so they won't starve while I am off basking in the warmth of desert sunshine, the companionship of good friends and the peace of retreat. Retreat. What a good idea this. To call a halt to all daily events and go off somewhere, where one assumes there might be a little space.....for thought, for prayer, for ordering up the priorities.

My life these days is kind of like my wardrobe. I had this little meltdown Easter morning as I pulled out one Spring top after another and they hung there on me looking....well, big! "Nothing fits!" I groused, as it became clear that some changes really have occurred. It is not a bad problem....in fact it is quite a lovely one. And I am not complaining. Far from it! But it does complicate things. And requires that I take some action.

For a time I had this rather orderly little spiritual life. Practices and disciplines that were tidy and predictable and fitting. I knew what I was doing when and where. It was a routine that worked nicely for a single priest with a day job. And for a while there, I must say there was time that was begging for filling with something other than my very raw emotions. And I found that my church life obliged nicely by expanding to fill it. Taking a whole Saturday to write a sermon worked for me, as did spending many quiet hours in reading and reflection. I also was very willing to overfunction and spend as many hours as needed (or beyond) being involved in churchy things. Whatever there was to do, I did...and more. But the shape of this too has changed. And like my spring clothes, the shape of this no longer fits me. I have said no to requests to attend extra meetings, take on extra tasks. I have even told people they would have to (gasp) "do without me." And by and large, the other folks in my life are adjusting with a minimum of fussing. I on the other hand am still having the equivalent of my Easter morning clothing meltdown. "Nothing fits!" I wail as I look at my former wardrobe of spiritual disciplines and tidy routines. "And just what were you expecting?" asks my wise friend. "It has only been such a short time." Ah yes that time thing again. I forget that. It feels like forever I have known him....I forget how new we are. So, yes, I suppose it does make sense that I have not yet figured out how to be. How not to be the priest who used her call to hide from her life as in the past, or the single, solitary contemplative priest I have been for the last year .... but a woman who serves God as a priest in the context of a full and loving and healthy relationship. Finding what fits and helps me continue to grow spiritually in this season of new life.

I have said before I am not sure I know how to have a spiritual life in a time of joy. Pain has always been a good motivator for me. I'm not sure how it works without it. And right now there are some things that are not feeling too good in one dark corner of my life, so there is some push to get moving on this. The BE comes at a good time I know it will all come together. I will find my way, with the help of God and my friends, I will find a balance. New things will come, perhaps even old things will find their way back. It is likely that I will pray and read again on some sort of a regular and disciplined basis. Perhaps I will do yoga and meditate. These things did feed my soul. It is not the first time I have left them for a time. They call me back. God calls me back and calls me out. It's not all supposed to keep fitting, the same stuff, for all time, I guess. Just another adventure in God's fitting room.

Easter Sunday, and #500

It seems so right some how that this Easter post should be my 500th post on this blog. It's also rather amazing that I have had that much to say in just two years. Two years. Those two that I have been thinking about a lot today. It was two years ago on Easter Day (April 8 to be exact) that I baptized little K. That was quite a day. We began at seven, M and I, bringing communion to one of our homebound folks. We did a full service for him at his request. Then we headed off to church to get ready for the baptism. It was my first and I was nervous, but it went fine...I managed to baptise the sweet baby without dropping her, drowning her or any of my other horrid fantasies. I didn't even get chance to get my alb off that day, and I was called to the ER to be with a client in crisis. It was a long day and one I will never forget.

There was something else about that day. K's godfather. He was a friend of her family, nothing unusual there, but there was something about him that I found interesting, attractive in a way that did not usually happen for me. At the time, I gave it little further thought, as neither he nor I were single, and I certainly had no plans to be at that point....as far as I knew.

There has been a lot of emotion in this week. Lent seemed like it never really got off the ground, Holy week came in spades, and now I'm having a little trouble launching my Alleluia balloons. I ended up in tears more than once through this Easter day, but, thanks be to God, there have been strong arms to hold me and assure me that on this Easter Sunday, and all of those to come, at times like like this, there is a soft place to land.

Yes I have come a long way since I baptized that baby....and so has K's godfather, R.

Sermon for Maundy Thursday

John 13:1-17, 31b-35

Through Holy Week we gather as a community to remember through liturgy and ritual the last hours of Jesus life. On this night in particular we recall the last night he spent together with his friends. Depending on the lectionary, we hear either the story of the first Eucharist or the story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples as we did this year.

Jesus and his disciples are gathered at supper. They are tired, dirty, carrying with them all the stuff of the day….literally. When people gathered for a meal, the typical custom was for someone to wash the feet of those gathered. It was a practical thing, it made gathering for dinner much more pleasant. Most often it was a slave who did this, sometimes a peer, but never the rabbi, the teacher. But Jesus takes it upon himself to wash their feet. No one else was doing this necessary act….so during supper Jesus does this act of servanthood, this act of love.

Having loved his own…he loved them to the end….he did indeed….and I think not simply in terms of loving them to the end of his life….but to the end….to the greatest extent they could be loved…..unconditionally. He loved them when he called them as disciples and they dropped everything and came. He loved them when they had faith and seemed to actually get what he was about. He also loved them when they were completely faithless and seemed to lack the most basic understanding of his message even after being with him day by day for three years. He loved them even when he knew that one of them would betray him.

Love. What passes for love for us so often is really a complex stew of so many other things! Want, greed and unmet need. The demands of our undifferentiated egos, the cries of our wounded inner children. The strident calls of the culture that tells us that our needs must be met and that “all we need is love” and that surely it can be purchased in some shiny packaged form of whatever they are hawking at the moment.

We are not talking about “love as a feeling” as we often think about it, but rather love as an action. Writer and theologian CS Lewis talks about this as “gift love.” He says that this is love born of fullness. The goal of gift love is to enrich and enhance the beloved. Gift love, Lewis says, is like a bountiful, artesian well that just overflows, arcing out to bless all it touches. Lewis says that God's love is gift love. And then he says, "We humans are made in the image of such everlasting and unconditional love."

Theologian the Rev. Dr. Brooks Ramsey has said the point of the incarnation was that “God became like us so we could become like God.” In our becoming more Godlike we are called to a love that becomes a particular kind of transformative act that changes and shapes us more and more into the kinds of persons who can love as God loves, who can indeed follow the commandment that Jesus gave his friends that night. Of course this isn’t easy. It means that we must stoop to serve and wash the feet of those who hurt or frustrate or betray us. It means we must continue to act in love and to serve in love. It means that we have to do the countercultural things, the difficult things….the things that require us to remember who and whose we are. John says that Jesus got up during supper to wash the feet of the disciples becasuse he knew that he had come from God and was going to God. Jesus sense of who and whose he was was clear and strong. His sense of his identity and of his mission was sure. Remember Ash Wednesday when we reflected on the idea that the "dust" that we are is the same as that of all the matter of the created universe, the same as that of the supernovas and the stars, the glaciers and the canyons, the earth and the air... and that really it is all really part of God? What I said that Ash Wednesday night was that as I marked the cross on each forehead, it seemed as if what I was really saying was "Remember that you are of God, and to God you will return." Jesus Knows with an unwavering certainly as C said on Sunday morning, that he is of God and it is to God he will return. And while he is still on earth for this short time with his friends, he wants to give this them last message, this last commandment so that there will be no mistake that they indeed are his friends, his followers…..Love one another in this way….as I love you….in this way. We are loved in this way. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that we too could know who we are, beloved of God, the God who loves us beyond belief who longs to grace us and transform us with His love into such lovers. In the ACTION of such loving we change…..become the gift lovers.

Lewis' depiction of gift love really is the foundation of the way Jesus loved. And the great good news for us is not only that we are loved by God, but also that this is our deepest identity as well. If we were not capable of this we would not have been created for it! Theologian Karl Barth once said, "Jesus is the name of our species, in relation to whom we are still subhuman but, nonetheless, called ultimately to become." Jesus would not have given us this new commandment if it had not been possible for us to accomplish it.

While we do not do a traditional foot washing service, the symbols of that act are here before you as a reminder of Jesus’ willingness to do whatever was needed in love, and his command to us to do the same. Over the next three days we will see just how far he was willing to take his love for us. We will see the gift of his willingness to undergo the loss of his earthly life by painful and humiliating crucifixion in order to defeat death for our redemption, giving us his ongoing gift of himself in the presence of his spirit among us forever. And we remember not just the end of his life, but the whole arc of it, as we hear again that final commandment “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

The Middle of It All....

It is Wednesday. It some ways that is the middle of the week and in others it is simply the beginning. As far as the checklist goes, much has been accomplished. Meetings and appointments are completed. The sermon for tomorrow is sitting neatly printed on the table in the hall near my newly washed alb. The article for Friday's paper is off two hours before deadline. And despite the fact that I grouse and complain every year that it comes in the midst of Holy Week....I feel refreshed and renewed for having gone to the Renewal of Vows yesterday. Yes, we do this every year. And no, it's not like being re-ordained, or re-baptized. Once, for either of those is most surely enough. This is renewal. Recharging. Refreshing. What it does for me each time I go is to help me remember why it is again I signed on for this....and do we not all need to be reminded now and again? Yes even (or maybe especially) in Holy Week. The Bishop preached from John 21:15-18....how Peter was hurt that Jesus would question his loyalty and how we too, get hurt by so many things....the slings and arrows that get tossed at us from without by the all too human folks of our little flocks, and the even sharper points of the self-criticisms with which we wound ourselves when we feel we are falling short of being who God calls us to be as priests and deacons. It was powerful. It made me cry. And it made me glad I was there.

Oh, and the Bishop knows I'm engaged now, too. As with other important people in my life, someone else beat me to the punch and told him for me. Ah, well. He seems pleased, if a tad surprised. "We will talk soon," he says. And I'm sure we will.

Tonight we begin the Holy Week services. We will start with Tenebrae. We have not done this before. The liturgy consists of the gradually extinguishing candles while psalms are chanted interspersed with scripture readings, until only the Christ candle remains. Tomorrow we will have our traditional Maundy Thursday service. We will have Eucharist and I will preach. We will chant a penitential psalm that says to me...."Yes it is Holy Thursday" all the way to my bones. We strip the altar and leave the church in empty darkness. Good Friday there will be the Stations, though not with our amazing organ accompaniment this year as he is on sabbatical. Our organist has composed interludes that are so interwoven with each Station....the organ groans, it hisses, it whispers and shrieks....I will miss that this year.

Literally I will miss that....R and I will leave on Friday to be with his family until Saturday evening. This is perhaps how we try to have the clergy/family balance thing? I don't know....it's my first shot at it. I just know I want to have some time with them, even part of them, on this my first Easter in this clan. I have observed the operation of this family net now and have felt its power in my own life and I know with sure certainty I want to be there, within, belonging.

And so the "real" Holy Week begins....may we all be blessed by whatever it brings.

The Last Week.....

Sermon writing procrastination.....

Two things wrangle for space in my head and heart today....The first is, there is too much in this week and it will never get done. I feel overwhelmed and tense and a little frantic about it all. And the second is that it is Holy Week! And suddenly yesterday at the Palm Sunday service....I just fell in. The reading of the Passion, the anthem we sang, the whole bringing back once again of the whole holy cycle....I'm there. Yes, bring it on.

The second does not, in any practical way change the reality of the first. There are too many things and not enough time. My schedule, like all of yours this week, is frightening. The bullet list:

• Dentist appointment today at noon
• Meeting tonight
• Get the Maundy Thursday Sermon finished
• Trip to the Big City 3 hours away for renewal of Ordination Vows Tuesday which will pretty much cover the day
• My own Bible study Tuesday night
• Article for the Newspaper (Wed noon deadline)
• Holy Week Services and choir practices starting Wednesday
• Wednesday night Bible study at church
• Shopping and prepping for Easter dinner with guests
• And I still don't have my taxes done and am in no way ready to get on a plane in a week and half and go anywhere.

But it will all get done, and by Thursday night I will stand in the pulpit and preach the Good News that God so loved the world that Jesus gave the ultimate gift for our salvation. I might, if I feel like I do this morning, even cry as I preach it. And when I look at it that way, the rest just kind of falls into place.

Friday Five: Time-Out Edition

Sally says:"Holy Week is almost upon us, I suspect that ordained or not, other revgal/pals calendars look a bit like mine, FULL, FULL, FULL.....Jesus was great at teaching us to take time out, even in that last week, right up to Maunday Thursday he withdrew, John's gospel tells us he hid! He hid not because he was afraid, but because he knew that he needed physical, mental and spiritual strength to get through... So faced with a busy week:"

1. What restores you physically? Depending on the time of day....a hot shower with my favorite Amber shower gel, a walk with Maggie and perhaps a friend, some yoga, or a good night's sleep if I can get it!
2. What strengthens you emotionally/mentally? Talking to people who "get" me, blogging (both writing mine and reading others), journaling and writing, reading.
3. What encourages you spiritually? Prayer, meditation, music, yoga, my SD.
4. Share a favourite poem or piece of music from the coming week. My mind is an absolute blank....and since I am procrastinating on sermon writing by doing the F5....the temptation to go searching is strong....but I will resist and simply enjoy what you provide here.
5.There may be many services for you to attend/ lead over the next week, which one are you most looking forward to and why? If there aren't do you have a favourite day in Holy week if so which one is it? I really do like the Maundy Thursday service...the commemoration of the first Eucharist, the winding down to silence and stripping of the altar, there is so much symbolism in the liturgy on so many levels, I find it very moving.

Two Weeks Until Launch

I just realized that two weeks from today I'll be in Arizona. This is a wonderful thing. However it also involves a whole lot of logistics that somehow up until now I haven't been giving a lot of thought to. On Sunday I did figure out the Park and Fly thing and have a reservation for that set up. But there is the matter of my little menagerie. Last year, even though things were dicey between us, XDO was still "in the house" to cover pet care. Now this is in my court and arrangements must be made for Maggie and the kitties. I will ask Soul Sister S about having Maggie stay, though sometimes I feel like I presume on her hospitality a lot. She has another sitter she uses for her pup, so I don't get the chance to reciprocate, and the people whose dogs I sit don't sit mine....and so it goes. She doesn't want to be paid....so it makes me feel kind of funny sometimes to ask....but perhaps this is my stuff about "receiving" from people. I have been informed by some pretty astute folks in my life that I seem to have some issues in this department. I think I can prevail on R to stop by to visit the kitties now and again. They are pretty self-sufficient and don't need daily calls, just a little top off on the food and water now and again.

And then there is the whole packing thing. I did get a couple pairs of shorts and some tops as I seem to have a little problem with last year's summer wardrobe being a little big for me. Nice problem, but it can complicate things a bit. My intentions are to pack light. I seem to always have those intentions and then end up dragging far too many things to wherever I am going. Someone suggested putting everything out and cutting half....we'll see how that goes!

And somehow between here and there is life. This weekend the Soul Sisters and I are taking a road trip to a bridal shop two hours from here to peruse the end of season clearance sales. Then we slide into Holy Week , and in the midst of the day job, I still have a sermon to write before Thursday. Easter weekend there will be some time with R's family on Saturday and with friends after church on Sunday. And someplace in there the dog needs a rabies shot and I need a dentist!

I know it will all get done. It always does. And what doesn't won't matter. Because it doesn't either. So off we go into Thursday....and the countdown continues.

Egads...It's April 1st!

And it's snowing. Not a lot. Just a little powdered sugar dusting. Nuisance snow. April Fool snow. Just enough remind us that even though the calendar says Spring....we are in Minnesota and anything can happen.

Today is Soup and Sermon at noon. I'm up as preacher with Lazarus as my guy. There was just something about recent weeks that called out for a good back to life story. Actually I have to confess to a back to life sermon....this being the last one in the marathon stretch, I did a little resurrecting myself of an Easter 5 sermon from years past. With some tweaking, it fits the need and speaks to where I hope folks are today. The S & S crowd is a mixed bunch, mainly older, mostly Catholic (since we meet at the RC church), but with a good sprinkling of all the other folks as well. I love that we do this ecumenical stuff here....the community Thanksgiving, this series in Lent, our active ministerium. It feels very right to me that we should all gather as believers now and again and pay less attention to the stuff that divides us and more to what unites us.

I found myself volunteering yesterday to preach Maundy Thursday. I was completely off the docket for Holy Week...but with one thing and another, M was going to have two services to preach and me with none....well, it didn't seem equitable....so, there you go. I have had the last two Easters, but I've not had a Holy Week service, so it's time anyway. And there is that vacation right after Easter to look forward to, after all!

It is time for a vacation. Winter has been long. Despite the fact that I have pretty much floated through it, I'm tired and feeling sort of meh right now. My clients are not getting the best of me, I know. Some days my inner dialogue is more critical towards them than I like....always a sign I need a break. My spiritual life feels a little dry and dusty. Lent really never did get off the ground. Physically, I've been dragging from a cold and sinus-y stuff. On the positive side, my personal emotional life is about as wonderful as I can imagine it being. And despite the bits of burn-out, I really do love what I do job-wise and feel very grateful to be employed and secure and doing something that feeds my soul as well. But I am so looking forward to the BE2.

Sixteen and counting......

It's All Rather Re-Lentless.....

It's the Monday before Palm Sunday and I'm still wondering what happened to Lent. Not just as in "Oh. Where did it go?" But also as in "How is it that it seems to have gotten away from me so thoroughly without me ever really having had it?" And (rather guiltily)....I don't seem to care as much as I should. And I seem to be in good company. From the sounds of my RevSisters...blogging and other....it does go on...and we are not sure we can....but we know we must, and so we do, though from the sounds of it with more or less enthusiasm.


I will say, I did have a rather lovely weekend full of a great deal of nothing. I am not used to this. Nor am I used to having someone around who encourages self-care and playtime. I did what I was committed to, which was my worship service at the nursing home. Otherwise, R and I basically hung out. We saw Whale Rider on Friday night as part of the movie series my friends the Presbies are doing. A great movie which I had missed along the way. On Saturday we putzed with errands, made cupcakes for the WhY church potluck and made "our" first purchase...a new gas grill. It will live at my house, but we know who will get the best use of it...the one who cooks in this relationship (and let me tell you...it's NOT me!). R made us a lovely meatloaf for dinner Saturday night and I felt very pampered. On Sunday I slept in until 10. I seriously cannot remember the last time I did this. It made a 12 hour night and I think was a turning point in the sinus crud that has been afflicting me for the last week or so. It also meant of course that I was not at "my" church for worship. This afflicts me with some guilt, though not nearly as much as it once would have, back in the days of the Energizer Bunny Overfunctioning Mad Priest. That crazy woman who was running full tilt from herself has slowed down....a lot. I don't think I could whip myself back into that frenzy if I tried. And I have no inclination (or need TBTG) to try.


Sunday was a lovely slow day. We walked Maggie a bit, actually got to sit on the front porch awhile, and did the thing we do best....hang out and talk. We also worked on the SWAG for the BE2 this weekend. That brought back memories of last year (again) of getting ready for "that boat" and all that entailed. C helped me with SWAG last year. On Easter Sunday she and I madly beaded away on the Anglican rosaries after she and D took in this lonely stray for Easter dinner. I was in shell shock as I recall. Not sure of what was happening or where my life was heading. And certainly not sure why on earth I was going off on this cruise...but just as certain that I was supposed to be there! What a difference a year makes.

Despite my lack of "lentishness" I am sailing in calm waters as I look forward to some post-Easter time in the desert with old and new friends. It seems I am looking past Easter a lot....and perhaps that is what we are called to after all. It is not so much about that one set of events...the dying, or even the rising....but the going on beyond...what happens when the risen Christ becomes part of the earthbound ones and the Spirit blazes forth. At least that's where my head and heart are this morning. How about you?

Lent Moves On...

My mind wants to finish that quote with some variation on Shakespeare's...."in its petty pace from day to day." But it is surely not creeping. Hurtling perhaps? That feels closer to my pace sometimes. And hurtling and Lent are surely not compatible. It seems that most of my solitary reflection time has been of the necessary variety driven by sermon prep, or at the direction of others like at our recent ministry team retreat day. Until I finish my Soup and Sermon offering next Wednesday for our local ministerium, I'm feeling pushed to get things done, rushed by deadlines and, I have to admit, more than a little cranky about it all at times.

I am still having some euphoric recall about last Lent, though I have been reminded more than once that life, in its seasons, changes, and clearly, I am in a different one now. Last year was an interior time, and I needed it to be so. I was learning and facing new truths about myself and my place in the world and I needed space and peace and time away with God as a holding place in which to accomplish that soul work, and to heal from some of the buffeting my spirit and psyche were taking in the outside world as well. The outside world in which I live today is a much warmer, safer place, and I am just as likely to encounter God without as within. But it is for me like learning the beauty of a new landscape. It is just as lovely as the old one, it feeds the soul every bit as much...it simply requires an adjustment of the inner eye to realize this, to acknowledge and remember.

R and I went to his uncle's funeral yesterday in a little Catholic church out in the middle of nowhere. There were probably two hundred people there....most of them related to him in some way or another. As his uncle's family came up from the church basement to process behind the casket it seemed as if the line of them would never end...his children and their children and theirs. The siblings who survive and their spouses...on and on they came, filling half a side of the church. The priest talked about C, how he was authentic, real and true, "What you saw was what you got with C." he said. And that he cared deeply for others, was there for them, stepped up, reached out. There is a strong strain of that here in this family. C was not related by blood to R...but he might as well be, for that priest was describing him as well. It is, I think, the culture of this people I am blessed enough to be joining. It runs deep in them. As we walked to the grave and stood in the drizzle in the small country cemetery to send C to his final rest, I thanked God that I am loved by this fine man and that I have come home at last to family.

Lent...Week...Um.....

I told myself I needed to blog today. But I also needed to pay bills and do laundry and go buy some black pants (preferably at Goodwill) for the funeral R and I are going to across the state tomorrow, and work on the two remaining sermons. I did get the pants. And now it's bedtime. I have one load of laundry in the washer and one in the dryer and the bills are still languishing on my desk. We leave at 5:45 for the other side of the state, and I really do need to go to bed soon, so this is going to be a very quick little blog post, I fear. I am taking the lectionary readings for next Sunday and Wednesday with me. I will, I hope, read and reflect on them in the car. I have some thoughts about the whole "grain of wheat" business for a nursing home audience. I think they may know something about being broken and crushed and bearing crosses. Actually the whole nursing home pastoral care thing has me kind of tender right now. I had been asked to come visit a lady there. She was not "mine" as in "of my congregation," but she was having some mental health issues as well as spiritual ones and the chaplain thought I might be a good fit for her. I've been seeing her every week or two since January. She died last week. Tonight I learned that her husband, who, as of the last time I saw her, was still substitute teaching at the high school, had a heart attack and died the day of her funeral. I had met him a few times at the nursing home when I visited her. He was your typical high school coach and teacher combo....hale and hearty. She was fragile, frail and always afraid. I'd ask her how she was and that was her stock answer..."Afraid, Pastor." Of being sick, of being, alone, of dying. I don't know that I did her any good. I visited, I talked with her of God's love, I prayed with her. And one night I went and she was gone. "Discharged" the staff said. To the hospital and to hospice where she died, I found out later. I hope that sweet M is no longer afraid and that she is happy that her husband is there with her. His visits were the high point of her day.

Friday Five: Signs of Hope

Songbird says: "My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. Song of Solomon 2:10-13

In the late, late winter, as the snow begins to recede here in Maine, we begin to look almost desperately for signs of spring, signs of hope that the weather has turned and a new day is on the horizon. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Easter and Spring twine inextricably, the crocuses and daffodils peeking through the Earth as we await the risen Christ.

Share with us five signs of hope that you can see today or have experienced in the past."

1. Looking desperately for signs of Spring....oh yes, I can surely relate to that! And just in the past week or so the birds are returning. The geese are flying over in their amazing formations, there are new songs in the morning to greet me as I start the day. I have seen two robins, and a friend has spotted a cat bird. The snow is melting fast....and leaving in its wake a lot of yard work, but also some dreams about a new deck that R and I will build together this summer, and a garden we will plant...the first of some projects in the house that will in the future be "ours."
2. Hope is a big thing for me. I tell my clients that I will be their "hope-holder" for a time when they do not have any for themselves...I will keep it alive for them. And I watch for signs in them and give them back...little improvements, use of coping skills that were not there before, less falling back into old ways of doing things. Sometimes I have to remember to do this for myself as well.
3. The second of the sermons in the "month of sermons" is done. And it's only 8am on Friday! Now I can go off to the retreat with a clear mind and actually enjoy the time with my team learning how to do the gifts discernment process.
4. It's never too late. For pretty much anything. That is a big part of hope for me. I am not sure about old dogs, but even old humans are pretty amazingly capable of change. I had a friend say to me not too long ago that I give new meaning to the term "late bloomer." I said to R the other day that if someone had told me as I boarded that boat for the BE that one short year later I'd be happily engaged to this wonderful man....I would have wondered if they had taken leave of their senses. So this may sound kind of strange....but I am a sign of hope to myself....because I know that truly....anything can happen!
5. The light. And of course, the Light.

Monday....the Third Week

Lent moves on and so do I, not necessarily in any kind of synchronicity, or decently or in order (which given that I am only Episcoterian, perhaps is a forgivable offense). Today has been a hard day. I know that I am a Pollyanna about people, tending to believe the good in them, and that most of the time they mean well and to do good. This works for me most of the time, and often people will rise to the challenge and be who I believe they are. Sometimes, however, it backfires, and people are not who I hope or think they are and I get disillusioned and hurt. That is what happened today, and I am heartsore and weary and sad. It is very hard to be friends with a person with whom one has been more. I'm sure that is true on both sides. And when the one moves on....well a chance to give a little jab....perhaps that is understandable, especially when the other is hurting and life on that side is not going so well. And when there is a long history of an inability to "do anger" in a direct way....well perhaps one can be forgiven if one does a little go around, creates a little drama if given half a chance. It will all pass. It is nothing in the larger scheme. It just comes at a time when there is already too much going on. Too many things in not enough time, a Lent that does not feel like one, a steadily growing impatience with an unresponsive distant body that sits still with a chunk of my future in their hands, the reflexive snap-back from another person who I thought was someone she clearly is not....and I missed it....so thoroughly that it stuns me, people whose needs just keep coming, and whose boundaries I do not seem to be able to set strongly enough. I am grateful for the presence of those who get me. Those who make me laugh at unrelated things and forget myself for awhile. Who encourage me to take time doing nothing of importance, go to bed early, indulge myself as necessary. I am grateful for love in times of trial. For the net that now surrounds me. I need that net tonight and intend to fall into it. It is of God and I am grateful.

Sermon for Lent 3B 2009

Exodus 20:1-17, John 2:13-22

From Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday here at St. J's there are twelve services in which the Scriptures are read. This doesn’t include Wednesday night GBD and the LifeCycles Bible Study groups which add six more bringing us to eighteen. This is a lot of grappling with scriptures whose main focus is preparing the people of God to participate in the experience of the crucifixion of Jesus. The Old Testament readings in Lent focus on Israel’s salvation history
We were reminded over the last two weeks of God’s promise to Noah to never again destroy the earth and God’s people, and then last week, we heard about God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah to bring about that which seemed impossible to them and make them the parents of many nations. And indeed, God was and through all time continues to be faithful to these promises. This week we hear another Old Testament reading in which God makes a covenant with a particular people. In the covenant God made with Israel through Moses ,the Ten Commandments, are God’s instrument for forming this people their unique relationship with Yahweh.
The Gospel readings over the last few weeks have been from Mark, telling us the story of Jesus life and ministry to help us understand more about who this incarnate redeemer was who chose to undertake this crucifixion journey. We see him calling disciples, healing, teaching, even transfigured. But always Mark makes sure that we know that we are focused on the fact that this is Jesus, the Son of God, and at least since the Transfiguration, the one who is heading for the cross.
Today, at first glance, it seems we make a shift. Both of the stories we heard in the Old and New Testament readings are familiar to us. We have heard them in church and Sunday school since childhood. We have seen the pictures depicting these events, maybe we have even seen the movie of the Ten Commandments. And we may have reactions to these stories as well. Or to their contents. The Ten Commandments. Laws. Rules. The “Thou Shalt Nots.” More things to feel bad about that we do not measure up to. And this Jesus who is making whips and getting angry and creating havoc in the temple precincts. Well, he just makes us more than a little uncomfortable. I mean, where did our gentle Jesus meek and mild go, anyway? Frankly this might be some of the stuff we’d all just as soon ignore.
And yet….if we are willing to take that deeper look, there is much here that is worth the discomfort. Those commandments for instance. I don’t know about you, but in my religious upbringing, the notion that they were about relationship was not something that was up there on the radar screen. But in reality that is exactly what the commandments are about. Theologian Larry Gillick says that while the commandments can be heard as have-tos and should-dos, they can also be heard as forms of seeing and respecting God’s presence in all of life’s relationships.
The “sinfulness” of things, the breaking of commandments really is about the breaking of relationship. That first one about having idols and false gods, for example…..We know that it is easy for us to get off track, out of right relationship, with God, with others, with the better part ourselves. We can lose sight of what is important. Work, money, success, stuff, anything can become all encompassing to us….can become….gods. We become so focused on “the one thing” anything….that we lose sight of what’s truly important. And when this happens, well, things fall apart. We have only to look around at the current state of things in our economy for a little evidence of that. And honoring the Sabbath…well, maybe that is about slowing down long enough to remember that everything is holy, and we need time to catch up, not on our work, but on how God is at work among us. Sometimes we try so hard to do it ourselves, forgetting that we really are not in control, can’t do it alone. Perhaps keeping Sabbath better would help us remember that we really are not God after all, we really are not in charge, and don’t have to do it all.
In a relational view, breaking the commandments is saying loud and clear that I value what you have more than I value you and will go to whatever lengths to take it from you, whether it is your property, your spouse, your reputation or your life. There is no honoring here for one another as a beloved one of God. There is little justice, little goodness, little right relationship. So it seems that maybe rather than a set of constricting laws designed as something to should and ought us into submission, the commandments really are invitations to fullness of life in relationship with God and with each other.
Jesus as an observant Jew of his time would have been well-schooled in the “ten laws.” He would have understood them in depth as he understood the Hebrew Scriptures. He would have understood about the covenanted relationship and the faithfulness between God and God’s people and the importance of not letting anything stand in the way of that. And if he saw something that did stand in the way of that relationship happening, especially in sacred space, it may well have been enough to arouse the kind of anger we see in him in today’s Gospel. Jesus would not have been angry because the sacrificial animals were there for purchase, or because the money-changers were there changing coins from all over the realm into the temple currency. That business was necessary for the temple to be a place for the people from all over to come and make sacrifices in worship. Certainly it was easier to travel and purchase your animals in the temple courts than to bring them with you across the country. Possibly, as some scholars suggest, it had become a corrupt and exploitative economic system that made sacrifice increasingly impossible for the poorest of worshipers, and made access to God dependent on economic circumstances. Everything Jesus was about would have been offended by this. In his mind, no obstacles could be put in the way of being able to access God’s grace and compassion. No limits can be put on the way to God’s forgiveness. If the temple itself is the limit, then even it must be destroyed.
Unlike in the other three Synoptic Gospels where this scene happens much later, in John’s version Jesus comes on the scene early in his ministry. He is still an unknown quantity, fresh from his first miracle. The disciples are still trying to figure out who he is, what he is about. And in this moment he is about change and liberation, about allowing access to God and eliminating whatever might be interfering with access to that relationship, whatever form that interference might take.
So, too in our own temple precincts, we find our own chaos and rabble, our moneychangers and our dove sellers, and Lent is a good time to reflect, to ponder, and to cleanse….what kind of interference do we have going on that limits our access to God? What is it that we need to be purified of during these days of Lent? Perhaps a relational review of those commandments would not be a bad place to start.

Friday Five: Mid-Lent Check-In

Sophia says: The pastor of my grad school parish once gave a fascinating reflection, at about this mid-point in the season, called "How to Survive the Mid-Lent Crisis"! As I recall, his main point was that by halfway through the season we have often found it very challenging to live up to our original plans....But, he suggested--on the analogy of the healing and reframing of our life plans that can happen during a mid-*life* crisis--that that can be even more fruitful.So here's an invitation to check in on the state of your spirit midway through "this joyful season where we prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed" (Roman Missal). Hopefully there's a good deal of grace, and not too much crisis, in your mid-Lenten experience!
1. Did you give up, or take on, anything special for Lent this year? The plan was to give up anxiety and take on joy.

2. Have you been able to stay with your original plans, or has life gotten in the way? Um, er....No and Yes

3. Has God had any surprising blessings for you during this Lent? Oh yes, as always. God has a very interesting sense of humor, as always.

4. What is on your inner and/or outer agenda for the remainder of Lent and Holy Week? I need to survive March. Two sermons at my own church, a nursing home service to plan and a sermon for there, a "Soup and Sermon" sermon (all by April 1) with two weekends gone and the day job...and then we come to Easter. We are having five services Easter week. I am sure it will be wonderful and most holy when we get there. Right now....it feels like a marathon at the end of another one.

5. Where do you most long to see resurrection, in your life and/or in the world, this Easter? I need a little attitude adjustment involving my church life right now. It would also help if the weather would cooperate. Light (courtesy of Daylight Savings Time) going on into the evening accompanied by minus 24 is just all wrong!

Bonus: Share a favorite scripture, prayer, poem, artwork, or musical selection that speaks Lenten spring to your heart. I think I need to share in the bounty of others. I know I have such...they are just not "springing" to mind right now.

The Second Sunday in Lent....The Dance Class

I told R last night that I thought it might not be a bad idea to send pre-marital couples to a few dance classes. Oh, not to teach them to dance....but to see how they handle the up close and personal of follow and lead, how they are with rules, what happens when things fall out of step, and how well they play together. Because those are all things I have been learning about me and about us in the last five weeks as we have taken ballroom classes together.

What I have learned about me has been that I am still a lot more uptight than I want to be and that I don't follow well at all, at all! I care more about rules than I ought when the object is fun and I will get growly at my poor partner when he does not do things the way I think he should be doing them! Ouch. What I have learned about R is that he is just as patient as I thought he was, though I do try him at times. Overall, he cares more about having a good time and being playful than "doing it just right" and following the rules. Particularly since as he reminds me, "we are here to have fun, right?" As we waltzed and foxtrotted around the gym, there were moments when it felt like we were actually dancing. Then I of course would have to start to THINK again! And look at our feet (my biggest fault) and get messed up. My "correction style" is to come to a complete halt, feel terrible, say "my bad" and want to start over. Him...not so much...."just keep dancing, hon....it'll work itself out."

Despite the fact that I have been in some pretty long relationships, I have never experienced interdependence with someone before. I have always had to be the "strong one" where the buck stops. So, clearly I know how to lead. And I was taught from little on that you simply must follow the rules, always at all times! And life, as anyone who knows me will tell you, is a pretty serious thing for me. Play is not something I have known much about until rather recently, and I'm still getting used to the idea that doing something that has no outcome other than my own enjoyment is an acceptable use of my time. So dance class brings me head on into a whole bunch of walls, and I am doing so in the arms of someone with whom I am experiencing a whole lot of new ways of being. To say that this is a big learning experience would be to put it mildly.

Last night was the last class. From here on in we are on our own to practice dancing. Speaking strictly for myself, I think I better keep the rug rolled up and the CD's handy.

Friday Five: Hasty Pudding Edition

Songbird says: "Our regular poster, Sally, having been oppressed by Blogger today, I bring you a hasty Friday Five on the subject of pudding. If you are not a fan of pudding, then you will feel solidarity with Sally, except that you will be oppressed by pudding instead. ;-)"
1) First of all, thumbs up? or thumbs down? Do you like pudding? Love it! All flavors.
2) Instant or cooked? (Does anyone make pudding from scratch?) Cooked preferred but eat instant because...well...it's instant!
3) If you had to choose, would you prefer corn pudding or figgy pudding? Never had either as far as I know, would give them both a go!
4) Have you ever finger painted with pudding? But of course, I like to play with my food.
5) Finally, what is the matter with Mary Jane? Too long on her diet, perhaps?

Bonus: Share a favorite recipe that includes pudding! My mother's Sour Cream Raisin Pie...which no one since she left us has been able to duplicate!