New begnnings

 Which involves a new church for me - Gender Road Christian Church.  I will be working there part time for a while.  They have had two disappointing tries at securing an associate and I am going to help out the senior pastor for awhile as they regroup and eventually try again.

I went to church on Sunday and discovered that I am listed on the bulletin as the "Minister of Engagement" which I kind of like.  I am going to be working 10 hours a week and preaching once a month.  I am also going to start a six week "Grief Group" - actually two - that meet bi weekly with one in the afternoon and one in the evening.  And after that, we will see how I will serve the church. 
I am both excited and anxious about this new call for a season.

What I keep learning is that everything I do is essentially "for a season" so that there are always beginnings and endings.  Another beginning for me is to live into my new role as Supervisor in the Wellstreams program.  In two weeks I will meet with the woman who I will be supervising.  She is learning how to be a spiritual director and I will be supporting her for the next two years.  It is both daunting and exciting for me to consider my role in her spiritual journey.  I look forward to this new relationship and this new season for me.

Last weekend I taught two boundary training workshops in Akron for a total of 26 people.  When I do boundary training I am always very aware of the ways I have crossed boundaries over the years in my ministry and if I had known then what I know now  I would have made some different decisions in the daily life of my time as pastor.  But I think it was Maya Angelou who said - "When you know better, you do better."  And that in essence means that life is optimally a continual time of new beginnings.  Because  - looking back - there are so many times I have not known what exactly I was doing.  Anxiety, self centeredness, blind spots, and ignorance can lead to all kinds of boundary violations.   But learning means new behavior and new attitudes and doing better.  A new beginning.

So, here I am starting over again - with a new church to serve and new ways to be a spiritual guide. 
And always aware of the grief I carry for the loss of Chuck and the mistakes of the past.
May I be open to God's leading and trust that all will be well.
Here's a blessing by Maxine Shonk

May the God of BEGINNING AGAIN be with you.
May that God hold you near as you grieve what is past and move with faith into what is to be.
May the hand of God carry you across the darkness of loss into light.
May your courage and your trust become for those around you a living witness to the mystery of death and rising.
May the God of BEGINNING AGAIN bless you.

Preaching

It is Sunday morning and I am at the computer looking over a sermon one more time before I take a shower and prepare to drive to Canal Winchester to preach two services this morning and one tomorrow evening.

I now preach about three times a year and that is enough.  The familiar concerns about whether this makes sense, whether it is too simple or too complicated,  whether it is the gospel message - come back to me. The weight during the week of knowing I need to work on it and then after I do the continual self doubt remains.

But I am done for now and it is what it is.  What I like about preaching is a week of thinking about whatever the scripture is.  And this week it was a good one - the lost sheep

³So he told them this parable: ⁴“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.

⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’

⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

I ended up talking about being "lost and found" which is the human condition.  Brene Brown writes about "the stories we tell outselves."  and for me, the story I tell myself is found in this text - there is a shepherd - our God - who, when we are lost, is looking for us.  And when he finds us he will heal us, unite us, protect us.  And rejoice that we are found. That's a good story and I believe it.

A corollary to this story is the fact that sometimes when we are lost, we cannot find our back on our own.  We need to wait for the shepherd to come.  It sounds passive, but that really has been my life experience. 

The seven day retreat for me was invaluable in being "rescued" by the shepherd.  The whole time I was aware that I was really broken inside and the healing was only going to happen when it was going to happen.  My spiritual director spoke of "inside out " healing.

Ever since I have been home I know that I feel different.  I have literally not cried as I did before and just feel a greater peace within my soul.  If repentence is "turning around" then I have turned around and feel like I am moving more completely into this new life.  I am part of a ten week class called "Geography of Grace" in which we are reading and writing and sharing together.  One of the writings had this line in it this week"
"My heart and my spirit needed to be held in all of its brokenness until I could give birth to my way forward."  I think that is what happened on the retreat.  And I am grateful.

Do you see?

The last few days the message to me has been about looking.  Looking within, looking without, looking for God, looking for beauty.  Do you see? Are you looking?

Saturday night Melanie and I went to the movies to see a documentary called Jay Myself.  We knew nothing about it, and it turned out to be the story of a photographer Jay Meisel .  Here is the description of the movie from Rotten Tomatoes:


"JAY MYSELF documents the monumental move of renowned photographer and artist, Jay Maisel, who, in February 2015 after forty-eight years, begrudgingly sold his home--the 36,000 square-foot, 100-year-old landmark building in Manhattan known simply as "The Bank." Through the intimate lens of filmmaker and Jay's protégé, noted artist and photographer Stephen Wilkes, the viewer is taken on a remarkable journey through Jay's life as an artist, mentor, and man; a man grappling with time, life, change, and the end of an era in New York City. "


Fifty years ago he had bought a commercial building with 8 floors and 72 rooms and he filled them with artifacts and pictures and what some people would call junk!  He has taken thousands and thousands of pictures because he sees something beautiful or arresting in the most ordinary sights.  His collecting, curiousity and wonder all reminded me of Chuck.  He had the money and the space to keep his treasures for years and now he had to sort through them and either store them or throw them away.  It was about that process but also the man and his way of constantly looking and seeing the beautiful in the mundane. 

Yesterday I was at a Wellstreams class and they are preparing for their next year of working as Spiritual Directors for the first time.  I will be a supervisor this year. 

Our opening devotional had this reading:

A blind child

Guided by his mother

Admires the cherry blossoms

(Kikakou)

Then we hear another reading by Mark Nepo and reflected on the reality that we are sometimes the blind child, sometimes the one who guides others  to see and sometimes the - and I love this word - the "unsuspecting" cherry blossom.  And what I realized is that often I do not see what is right in front of me.  I can be distracted, busy, blind - whatever! - but I do not see.

So, thank God for  artists and photographers (even though they may be slightly crazy) and spiritual guides and friends along the way.   Here was the ending poem

Holy Mother, Loving Guide,

Do not let our blindness keep us from admiring your creation.

Allow us to freely offer our eyes for each other

and to receive the sight you give to us through each other.

It is through this shared sight that we will see beyond the superficial, so that we will not be led astray by our misperceptions.

Help us to be, in our turn, the blind child, the loving guide and the unsuspecting cherry blossoms.

Cemetary Musings

Cemetary Musings

I spent pleasant afternoons this week strolling through a large cemetary in Fremont. Ohio, seeing loss and love displayed

Pondering the gravestones that were so old that  I could not read the name or the year

Some  had no name – only the word FATHER or MOTHER was clear. 

Some stones had been damaged by time and weather  and were crumbling off their footings.  I wondered if “their people” had died or moved away or were just unable or uninterested in repairing the damage

Graves that were newer may have  a name and only the date of birth - attesting to the preparedness of the person who is yet to die.  There were many double stones where one partner’s life was over and the other  was waiting to join them.

One section by the road held several older  graves of very young children.  They have angel decorations and often noted the number of days that they had lived.  I can only imagine the heartbreak of a stll birth or perhaps birth defects.  

The recent graves often have pictures and details about the life that has been lived  Children and pets names are listed on the back of the stone and maybe a tractor, a typewriter, a race car, a fishing rod, a college on the front. The years in military service are often listed as are the dates of marriage.  One stone pictured the wedding rings and “17, 955 days.”  (I did the math – 49.1 years)

I take a picture of the gravestone of a young boy’s grave  with a half dozen pictures of him from toddler to teen. There is a quote from Dickens:  “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

I see a plate with a line from   Sarah McLaughlin ‘s song “In the arms of the angel.”  And I find myself humming that song as I walk among these who are remembered.

It is all life affirming for me as I realize that I have already lived longer than so many who are resting here.  And that Chuck lived longer than most.

I have peace with my decision to not put Chuck’s ashes in the ground. Instead I wear them in a heart on a chain and he goes everywhere with me.

But as I walk through this holy space I picture the stone that could be his:

I would include a caricature of  him running that he had on his stationary that captures his spirit of adventure.

His name – Charles Truex   and also: “Chuck”  “Walleye Willie”

The years – February 7, 1936-December 24, 2018

And like the plaque that Audrey put in the bench in the back yard it would say:

“We miss you every day,”  

Home again

Yesterday I arrived home from the silent retreat and I feel different, - I guess the best word is peaceful.

I never know what to say to people after a week like this - it is hard to put into words what happens when you spend a week in mostly silence, with lots of time for walking, reading, praying, reflection.

The blessing for me is that there is one hour of being with a spiritual director.  In my case, it was Ruth, a sister from the Cincinnati area.  I had never met her before and instantly liked her and felt comfortable in her presence.  With her I was able to share the struggles of the week and the ways in which I was experiencing both desolation and consolation. She gave me suggestions for prayers, music, activities and most of all she listened.  She witnessed God's work in my soul.  It's good to have a witness!

When I arrived, I sat on a bench in front of as the night was closing in and wondered if it was going to be a week of walking in the dark or diving into the abyss of grief.  And I would say, that is part of it.  It is really easy in my everyday life to either numb myself from pain or bandage my wound, so to speak, and go out and be present with others.  This was a week for me to allow myself to feel the pain of loss of Chuck in addition to the other challenges I feel with aging.

As I write this, I am sure it sounds like it must have been terrible, but it was not.  Instead, I was able to experience God's presence through nature, music, prayer., silence .....in other words, experience God's great love for me.  It is in times of reflection that I am also able to look back on that past year and see so many blessings and so many ways in which God provided people and circumstances which were almost magical.

One of the statues of Jesus was a depiction of the "sacred heart" which has its own history and meaning in the Catholic tradition: Wikipedia says:
"it is one of the most widely practiced and well-known Roman Catholic devotions, taking the heart of the resurrected Body as the representation of the love by Jesus Christ God, which is "his heart, pierced on the Cross", and "in the texts of the New Testament is revealed to us as God's boundless and passionate love for mankind".

The first morning I sat at a bench in front of Jesus and found myself singing to myself - "Into my heart, into my heart, into my heart Lord Jesus."  And I had this sense of my Jesus as companion as we experience the wounded heart that comes from love and loss together. .  As always, it is hard to describe but I remembered that  we are not alone in that "lonesome valley" of grief. 

I am privileged to be able to have the time to spend in such a way.  This was not my first week long silent retreat - but it was my hardest and possibly the one with the most lasting effects.  I will end this post with a prayer with which we began the week together.  It expresses much of what happened to me.

Silent Retreat

by Dorothy Hunt

Retreat

Sit quietly

Strip off the masks

of self-deception,

self-reflection,

self-improvement,

self-judgment.

if you want truth,

these activities waste energy

Sit quietly,

what is peering out

from behind your mask?

without relying on a single thought,

who are you?

no matter what you see,

there is more unseen.

Always, the mystery invites itself deeper.