My summer vacation

I am almost embarrassed when people ask me about our recent trip to Europe.  We left Chicago on a Monday evening  and eight hours later it was  Tuesday  morning in Amsterdam. We were very tired but ready for this week of travel and sightseeing.   We eventually made our way to the Viking Ship Hermod where we spent a beautiful week.

 Every day we went to a different city in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Switzerland.  Every day we took a tour and walked at least 10,000 steps and learned about history and people and events of the area.    And now, two weeks later, people ask me where I went and I have trouble remembering the names -  Cologne, Speyer, Strassbourg, Amsterdam.  I have impressions of a week that went so fast and was so full and is almost now like a dream.

Our first tour was in the Netherlands seeing the  windmills of Kinderdijk . We toured a windmill that dated from 1738 and heard stories about life lived then.  The base of the windmill was the home of the miller and there could be a family of ten who lived in this small space. It is clear looking at the beds and the furniture that people were smaller then.  The blades are massive and shine bright against the blue sky of the day.  We learn about how the miller could manually move this large machine to catch the wind. We marvel at the ingenuity of those who designed this amazing form of water management which exists to this day.

I take pictures of all sides of the windmill.  I take a selfie of me and John in front of it, so that we have a record that we were here.   I buy a Christmas ornament that will be a memento of this trip.

But it is just a picture, a snapshot that might remind me of the imagining one does traveling in another country.  A country that speaks another language, with different customs and a older yet shared history with the United States.   I wonder -  not only life in 1738  - but also life in the succeeding three hundred years.  Wondering especially about what effect World War 2 had on this place and these people?

I learn  that while the Netherlands was initially neutral, the country was eventually invaded by the Germans.  Rotterdam was blitzed, Amsterdam was occupied but these windmills were spared.   

Throughout the week we walked through European cities, visiting ancient Cathedrals and seeing  medieval Castles.  We recognized the distinct gift of  - not only windmills  -  but important buildings  which remain after the destruction of war   to tell a story of faith and life of ordinary people . I find myself sitting  in a thousand year old cathedral  and pondering  the centuries of people who had walked on these stone floors and sat in this pew.  It is almost overwhelming.   In the midst of the beauty and the wonder, we frequently were made aware of the scars and the sorrow left behind that exist to this day. And at the same time the guides remind us of  current issues - like climate change, immigration, pluralism – that affect Europe just like they affect us.

Then we would leave and return to our ship.  We enjoy delicious gourmet meals, the company of interesting people, afternoon naps, reading, podcasts and eventually  go to bed waiting for the next adventure.

.It was a wonderful vacation. We travelled thousands of miles and saw many

sights that I had only seen in pictures.  We took lots of pictures and brought home

souvenirs.   And covid.

Henry Miller said: “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

A Viking cruise is a lot of experiences crammed into one very short week  and in many ways it still remains a blur.  However, on reflection,  I realize that this trip demonstrated for me  our common humanity.  We are  people who are given the opportunity to do three things:

-         Take the time to appreciate  the wonder of life

-         Learn from the mistakes of the past

-          have the courage to move steadfastly into the unknown future.

I hope I am doing all three.

Retirement AGAIN

This is my last week working at Gender Road Christian Church and yesterday was my last sermon and a luncheon in my honor.  It was a beautiful day and I felt the warmth and love of the congregation.  It was a hard decision to decide to leave, but I feel that it was the right one.  My time there included the difficult year of the pandemic and it was really good to be on staff to plan for worship and small groups in that environment.  

So, the question is - what is next?  And the answer for me is this:  I am going on sabbatical.  That is, I want to just spend time and rest in God's love.  I know that there is something more for me to do, I have gifts for ministry that bring me joy in using.  And I will again.

But for now, my plan is to sit by the water in the woods, to read, to pray, to sing, to think, to be....with God.

I got as a retirement gift a wonderful book called Love Poems from God.  I will be including some of them in this blog.  Here is a great one by Hafiz

TWO GIANT FAT PEOPLE

God

and I have become

like two giant fat people living

in a tiny 

boat.

We 

keep bumping into 

each other 

and

l

a

u

g

h

i

n

g

Pickleball and the Keys to Happiness

Pickleball - And the Keys to Happiness

Anyone who knows me knows that over that past two years I have become a pickleball fan or maybe a fanatic

 - does having three paddles, a net, pickleball shoes, special pickleball clothes make you a fan or a fanatic? 

-  Does playing two, three, four  times a week make you a fan or a fanatic?  

- Does talking about it, teaching it and bringing it to lots of people make you a fan or a fanatic?

OK I am a fanatic

I have a lot of lines I use about pickleball - like “working out is work and playing pickleball is play.”  And that I am a self described pickleball evangelist: “I have led more people to pickleball than I have to Jesus.” What I know for sure is that playing this game is my happy place - and it has everything I like - the release of hitting a ball, short games, angles to explore, exercise and sociability.

It also has provided - like racquetball did for me in the past - an opportunity for reflection on life.  I find here five  keys  that lead to happiness both on the court and in my life. 

1. Appreciate my  body  and learn to trust it.  One of the hardest parts of getting older is watching my body get bigger, softer, more wrinkly and less muscular.  I take longer to walk down stairs and just getting out of chairs than I did twenty years ago.   But when I play pickleball, my body frequently pleases me like when  I perform  my fierce backhand slash or  a powerful , strong, in the corner serve.  There are times when my reactions are so fast that I can hardly believe it is me returning the ball. 

 I have learned that if I just keep playing -  my body usually figures out what to do - where to move and how hard or soft to  hit the ball,  and how to angle to get it in bounds.  One of the most satisfying parts of teaching people pickleball is watching them - almost effortlessly - get better as their bodies relax into the game and figure out what to do. 

Sometimes I play with younger males who, of course, can play much harder and faster.  But my comparison is always with myself and there is no one like me on the court - a 73 year old widow and retired minister.  So I frequently inwardly celebrate the amazing resilience of this old body and mind that work together to score points and make plays  that surprise even me. 

2.  Avoid negative self talk.  There are plays that happen to everyone who plays this game - we hit it into the net, we hit the ball  too hard and say “home run” as it goes well out of bounds, and we swing and we miss which can make us feel particularly foolish. A Whiff!  I do it, everyone does it. The beauty of pickleball is that another opportunity is coming in thirty seconds and we don’t have to  hold onto the  blunders, but wait for the next point. Our imperfections and mistakes do not define us. 

3.  Compliment everyone’s great shots.  It makes everybody feel better but most of all it makes you remember that with a really good shot -NOBODY could have gotten it.  I feel myself relax everytime I celebrate someone else’s strategic overhead  hit or down the side shot.  And I also think - I am going to learn how to do this shot too, eventually.

4. Savor your own good shots.  I watch some people when complimented say - it was luck.  Maybe yes, but often no.  Instead it was a great shot and we need to enjoy when we do something well.  Thirty years ago I read an article in Esquire magazine about different kinds of people who played sports .  There is the “hate to lose” player  and the “love to win” competitor.  I am a love to win person and I enjoy my good shots - and winning.  That is why I am out there.  But the reality is that I will not always win. The danger of being a “hate to lose” person is that  you only enjoy the game when you are winning and usually  that will be half the time. What I know is this - that even when you lose, even if you are “pickled” (losing 11-0) you can have some fun volleys and pretty awesome shots. Savor them!  That is why we play.

5. Let it go - and that is when there is a disagreement about line calls and scoring.  If the ball is on the line, it is in play (unless the line is the kitchen) and there can be a real difference in vantage point.  I play with many who are - like me - senior citizens and they genuinely  get confused about whose turn it is to serve and who scored the last point.  Sometimes  I can feel my body start to tighten at times so  deep breathing and saying “let it go” does work.  I either say - “It’s your call” or “let’s play it again..” It also helps to believe  in “karma.”  - the one who gets all worked up  and maybe cheats? about the game is often the one who loses.  Or they don’t have as much fun as I do.

All of which is to say that pickleball lessons directly relate to the rest of my  life.  

As I look at these five keys they represent what I keep learning on  my faith journey.  There is a path of choosing gratitude, grace, and trusting in the unknown future. And what it most interesting is that the happiness is not about winning and losing - but really how you play the game. How about that?

Writing a blog

This evening I am going to speak at a writer's group in Canal Winchester about writing a blog.  Of course, I will talk about this blog - among others I have done.  I started this blog 15 years ago when I was working as the senior pastor at Karl Road Christian Church.  

Among other things, it has been a record of my life during those years.  I have written about vacations, the birth of grandchildren, the grief of losing my sister and my husband.  During this time I entered and completed the Wellstreams program and became a spiritual director. I retired from full time ministry, entered retirement, learned to play pickleball, worked part time at both a funeral home and a church.  It is a record of my experiences, reflections, struggles and joys.

I also wrote about books I have been reading, movies I have watched and television shows.  It is a record of family and church projects - the ordinary stuff of life as well as extremely holy and extraordinary experiences of a pastor's life.

It has  been a spiritual experience for me.  There were years when I wrote more and less. One year I wrote 131 posts and another year 39.  One year I wrote every day during Lent reflecting on the readings of the day and pondering God's work in the world and my life.  The heading on the blog says:  this is a creative outlet in a journey that is constantly intersecting the muddyness of life with the movement of the Holy Spirit.  I invite you to join me as I reminate on the walk to discern God's movement in the midst of the mess.

I reread my very first post that shared that this was a new (and public) way for me to process my life.  I wrote that this would be another venue for the God stories that are part of my daily life.  I also have spent a little bit of time just rereading posts from the past 15 years.  What a gift I have given myself by keeping this record.

One question is - why a blog - a public record?  And the answer is - I really don't know.  Except that I like the idea that someone else may enjoy and relate to the experiences of my life.  I tend to see everything with a sense of wonder about how God (spirit) is at work and it really has been an invitation to ponder with me.

My audience has - I think - ebbed and flowed over the years.  There are a few people who look to see what I am writing, but for others they may check in occasionally.  I used to get more comments than I do now - but some of that is because of the audience.  I know that if I put something on facebook, I will immediately get more readers for that post.  It doesn't really matter.  I just trust the process.

And the process is this:  I kind of wait to see what is bubbling up inside of me.  I write most mornings in a journal when I do the "Pray as you Go" ap.  Sometimes, there is something that seems important to work through on this blog.  Sometimes - like my last post - I have written something or read something I want to share, so I do.  Other times, there is an event in my life that I want to examine a little bit on paper and this is the result of that. I tend to write very quickly and that is why there are often typos.  It is what it is - a work in process - very much like the one who is writing.  Not ever finished but always a rumination along the way in this mysterious,  wonder- ful  and often messy life that is mine.

I find I like to end my writings with some kind of prayer or quote or something.  I often turn to the blessings of Maxine Shonk who usually says things better than I do.  So I will end  this blessing for creativity - which is really what it is all about.

May the God of CREATIVITY be with you,

helping you to brave new ground and test new horizons;

calling you to trust and risk being a co-creator of the Kingdom.

May the gift of creativity bring you to a recognition of ever new revelations of God's goodness.

May the blessing of CREATIVITY be on you.

Sunday Prayer

Here is my pastoral prayer from Sunday

Loving God, we gather today in this sanctuary to be with you.

We thank you for this day and the promise  you offer us.  It is spring and a  time of greening and graduations and new life.

May we recognize and savor all the gifts that you give us.

 

At the same time we know that there is struggle and sorrow for so many. 

We are aware of shootings in Buffalo and a horrific  war that continues in the Ukraine

We know that suicide and homicide are in the news and sometimes in our lives.

Some who are here are  living with heartbreak, grief, declining health and fear about the future.

 

It is  easy to fall into hopelessness and walk away from your love. 

It is easy to seek meaning and identity in material possessions, 

It is easy to find ways to numb ourselves to  escape life and fall into self protective patterns.

Forgive us Lord and guide us today.  Surround us with your love that will not let us go. 

May we slow down enough so that we can hear you calling our name and know that we are your children, beloved by you.

May we be people of gratitude living in awareness of the beauty and the blessings of every day

May we continue to try to follow Jesus in loving all people including ourselves.

May we trust you God, even when we are not sure what the future is bringing,  

may we live in faith every day - trusting  in your presence and your power and your love so that we might be a source of light and love to others.

We pray all this in the name of Jesus who taught us to pray saying

Our Father who art in heaven - hallowed be thy name

Thy kingdom come thy will be done - on earth as it is in heaven

Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our sins and we forgive those who sin against us

And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever - amen

Endings and Beginnings

Yesterday we announced to the church via email that I will be leaving my position at Gender Road at the end of June.  I made this decision two months ago and am happy in many ways that the news is OUT that I am leaving.  I shared it with my wonderful Bible study yesterday and there were the reactions that I will be missed and that they understand.  What I have realized is that I am tired of working weekends after thirty years in ministry. 

So, I am getting ready for this ending again - retiring a second time.  When I retired from full time ministry seven years ago I felt like I was walking off a cliff because I did not know what the future would bring.  It took a while to put together my post retirement life as I found myself preaching around the state, doing volunteer work and continuing as a spiritual director.   Then, after Chuck died, there were even more hours to fill and I found pickleball and the job at Gender Road. 

Now I will be ending this work and beginning again with something new.  Now I am not sure in what ways I will fill the hours that I currently spend working.  Maybe more reading, exercise, writing?  I really do not know.  I know about the ending - I just don't really know what the beginning will be.

.

What I have been told by those closest to me recently is that I am "too busy."  I am taking that to heart . 

I believe I am creating space for a new thing that God has for me to do.  And that space necessitates emptiness for a while.

Here is a prayer that seems helpful from Maxine Shonk

May God come to fill your EMPTINESS and the poaces that yearn for meaning and value.

May you open your heart to the God who created you with unconditional love and 

breathed divine purpose into your being, filling you with treasure beyond measure.

May you find this gifting God waiting and yearning for you in your empty places.

May the God of FULLNESS bless you.

Baptism

Yesterday I preached in Paulding Ohio at First Christian Church.  I was supposed to preach this coming Sunday as the regional elder for the district.  They do not have a minister and are filling the pulpit every week as they can.  Paulding is a 3 hour drive for me and so I will go once - but not more than that.

Allen Harris, our regional minister, was supposed to preach yesterday and do 5 baptisms and he has covid.  So at the last minute came to the rescue.  It was a real blessing to me.

It has been a long time since I have done a baptism.  As Disciples of Christ, we baptize by immersion which has its own challenges and blessings. The challenge is in the details.  When I got there, they assured me that they had waders.  I have never used waders and I did not yesterday - instead I wear a bathing suit under my robe and walk in the water in bare feet.  Hoping it will not be too cold.  Yesterday the water was chilly but manageable.  

Usually, when I was the pastor of the church, I had taught the kids in pastor's class over six to eight weeks and really gotten to know them.  We would meet weekly and often have an overnight.  I still remember having two girls spend the night at my home as part of pastor's class.  We really get to know each other.

This time I was walking in cold and did not know the kids.  So, I learned their names and had a little bit of a conversation with them before the service.  What I wanted was for them to feel confident in the process and not afraid of anything.  They walk down the steps gingerly - sometimes holding the railing.  I am in the water with my hand outstretched and a welcoming smile on my face.  I whisper to them to bend their knees and cross their arms and some of them hold their noses.  I say the words - "I baptize you in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit for the gift of the holy spirit and remission of sins"  or something like that.  I put them under and when they come up, I hug them and tell them that Jesus loves them or something like that.  It is all very fast and at the same time very intimate. The challenges are - my forgetting what I am saying, me falling, them falling, me not being able to get them under.  Just things like that.

The blessings are to be in that moment with them.  Not knowing what it is like for them, but trusting that this may be an experience they remember for the rest of their lives.  I sit here and am grateful for all the people I have been with in a baptistry - those I have hugged and told them how precious they are to God.  (and to me and to the church).  The hope is that these words may remain within them somehow so that when they go through times of self doubt and even self loathing, they may remember.  

Believer's baptism is a commitment made by the person to follow Jesus and contains within it the promise that Jesus loves them, forgives them, and gives them God's spirit.  I think it is a sacrament - meaning that God is in it in ways we cannot see or control but trust.  Besides everything else - it symbolizes the NEW LIFE that God offers us as we - again - die to ourselves - and open ourselves to the Holy one. 

I like this quote from Pope Francis: We are called to live our baptism every day, as new creatures, 

clothed in Christ."

May the God of NEWNESS be with you,

freshening you with renewed energy and awakening you with new perspectives on old vision.

May you be free enough to let go of what is stale and used up 

and to embrace what is new and full of promise.

May God's grace be with you as you wrap yourself in what is right, if unfamiliar.

May you look upon your life and your ministry with the eyes of God,

ever new and ever transforming.

May the God of NEWNESS be with you.

Amen