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

Waiting

For healing. 

Last Wednesday I had a basel cell carcinoma removed which produced a hole in my face.  Not large - between my nose and cheek.  Thursday I had stitches put in.  And now I am waiting for them to be removed in 10 days and for the wound to heal.  I check it several times a day because I want to see something happening!  The good news is that it is healing.  The swelling is mostly gone and so is the redness on my face.  There is progress.

Right now the decision is - to bandage or not.  Part of it is the question - do people want to see your wounds?  At what point is it "in good taste" to share them?  Does having them "air out" help to make them heal faster?

I write this and wonder about the emotional wounds that we carry.  Many of them are covered up and no one knows about them.  And if they are not acknowledged, it is possible that they will continue to fester and do damage.

I am part of a group called "The Readers and Writers Salon" which has been a real gift to me for over three years.  Over these years I have written quite a bit about grief and loss and the wounds of daily life.  It has been a blessing - not only to put it down on paper in words - but to speak those words to trusted friends who have become closer over the years because of this sharing.  

I think all of us are waiting for some kind of healing.  And the gift is trusting in the presence of our healing God and finding ways to "air out" the wound as it become smaller and over time healed.

 Whenever something happens - either physically through sickness or emotionally through life hurts - there is a part of me that thinks it will never get better.  Will I be disfigured from these stitches?  Will I ever be happy after the death of my husband?  Will I ever feel better after I have covid?  I have thought all these things.  That is, a part of me has thought that.

At the same time, I live in faith that our invisible and loving and powerful God is working and bringing healing that comes slowly.  But it comes.  And I wait in faith and doubt.  I wait.

A Prayer by Maxine Shonk

May God be soothing ointment for all that is hurting in you.

May this God cover you with healing grace and presence as you are nursed back to health.

May the balm of God's love bring you to a place of perspective on your life while the pain and hurt take their proper place in your experience.

May this new perspective bring understanding and wisdom into the lives of all those who know hurt.

May God HEALING BALM of your life, Bless you

Amen