Meetings

My life is a life where I have meetings which I know are important, on the one hand, and not thrilling, on the other.

This week I have been to Camp Christian 3 times for meetings - a personnel committee meeting, minister's preaching workshop and dinner, and today a regional council meeting.

I have been on the regional council off and on for 22 years. And today may have been my last meeting. I declined to continue my term as we get asked if we want to continue every three years.

When I was first on the regional board - I would usually say nothing. I would listen to everyone else, vote appropriately, tick off all the issues on the agenda and then go home. I remember being impressed by some of my colleagues who questioned what was going on and really seemed to understand better than I did.

Now, I am not at silent and frequently ask questions, give reports and even will state my position on things. It is so important in any group to have people who are willing to spend time on the inner workings of the organization - we have to vote on the budget, be apprised on what is going on and help to make decisions about the future. And I have been a good and loyal respresentative at these meetings. Over the years the regional board meetings have gotten a little shorter - today's was only 5 hours. It used to be over night and all day on Saturday. I still am happy to be done with it.

As I serve a church I recognize how much people try to avoid meetings - and we try as hard as we can to keep them under an hour - although it really is impossible with our board meetings. Nobody likes meetings - but then the nedxt thing you know someone is complaining about the colore of a room, a change in worship or some new thing we are doing and they could have voted yes or no if they had just gone to the meeting.

Meetings - hate spending a beautiful Saturday at one - but I know we need em.

Gotta write something

Because it has been two weeks and I have not written anything.

Right now it is a Saturday afternoon and I am hanging out in the family room with Chuck and Tom. We are watching Basketball! And it has been pretty interesting so far and when we are not watching tv - they are reading and I am playing a computer game. This is what we call relaxing in our advanced years.

I am preaching tomorrow on Isaiah 43 - "God is going to do a new thing" And I have thought a lot about that. This was written for people in the exile who were going through "dislocation." Their country had been taken over by the Babylonians and the righteous remnant were actually living in Babylon. They were in a place of instability, loss, grief and alienation.

I ended up finding a wonderful quote from Walter Brueggemann about dislocation and how we experience that today. I have to say - especially as you get older and everything seems so different. Everything like media, the institutions we used to count on, our famjlies and our health. It is just different and I have many, many conversations with people about that. We are living in the midst of change, of dislocation, of - we hope - transformation. But it is so often unsettling.

Brueggemannn says (and of course, I will quote him tomorrow!) that our response to dislocation is often denial and despair. The denial is the denial of our feelings of loss (anger, sadness, grief) and the despair is lived out with a cynicism and a detachment. The despair is also founded on a belief that things are getting worse and worse and worse. The glory days are over.

So, this is the word - God is doing a new thing,. In the midst of it all, I trust that. I preach what I know - that God is doing a new thing

But at the same time - especially as we live in the losses of change (like the loss of my sister which I think about a lot with Tom visiting) we all want things the way they used to be. I want her back, I want my parents back. I would like my old more fit body back while we are at it.

But I do trust that here - today - and tomorrow. God is doing a new thing with me, with Tom, with Karl Road Christian Church. With everyone of us.

Diversity in the church

This is what I love about serving at Karl Road Christian Church.

- I just did a wedding for David Koomsen and Florence bassamami. David is from Ghana and Florence from Sierre Leone and they were married last summer in an African wedding and today I did an official wedding that is sanctioned by the state. It was "my wedding service" African style. We started about 45 minutes late waiting for Florence's 92 year old mother come from Pickerinton. I got to visit with her daughter and learn how the family came to America. It is really an inspiring wedding.
- the wedding itself was the one I usually do - but we had LOTS of pictures being taken throughout the wedding. It was really kind of crazy but in a good way.
- right now the reception is going on in fellowship hall. The food is African and the dancing is too - but it looks very much like the way we all dance at weddings except for the music different. The movements are the same. I sit there and just feel blessed to experience all of it.

This morning Charles Montgomery preached - he is our gospel praise service preacher, a gifted young African American man and a great preacher.. I had to encourage him to realize that 20 minutes was probably the max for this service - instead of 30 - 35 that he preaches in the evening. He was slightly more restrained - but so powerful that people clapped in the middle of the sermon. Trust me - I have never had that in my life of preaching!

Audrey was here and a friend came up to her after the worship and said she should have sat in the "gay row." I kind of liked that - we are not an officially open and affirming church - but we are a welcoming and accepting church. So, there is another form of diversity that I celebrate for our church.

This is absolutely the joy of my life - watching a white church become transformed into a place that is more and more accepting of the diversity of God's creation.

Charles Ferguson - our previous preacher for the gospel praise service - said the church is supposed to look like heaven. We are getting there.

Addictive

Watching "The Wire" At least it has been for Chuck and I.

A couple of weeks ago I suggested to him that we try watching this. It was a series that ran on HBO for 5 seasons which we can rent through Blockbuster. I had always heard that it was the best TV show ever.

The truth of our lives - for Chuck and I - is that we actually don't do enough together. Frequently in the evening, he will watch sports on one TV and I will watch junk on another. I am sure that is true of many couples. Anyway, I thought this would be good for us to do together.

And it has been. We started and we got hooked. Now - every season is 12 to 13 episodes and we are not in the 5th season after a couple of weeks. That will tell you something.

It is about the city of Baltimore and covers lots of ground. There are multiple plots and characters and it takes you from the drug culture, to the police, to the dock workers, to the mayor's office, to the schools and to the newspaper. Eventually. I am very curious how it is all going to wrap up - we have 2 episodes to watch today.

It is showing all the ways in which our country is broken as the schools, the police, the government are all affected by people caring more about personal power and money. I can hardly describe it in words - you have to see it. The characters in this are memorable and I would love to show clips of it in a sermon but the profanity is throughout and....oh well.

I find myself thinking about all of it....and am happy to recommend it to anyone.
But it is addictive - hard to stop watching -

Presidents Day

Monday was my day off, Presidents day and a snow day. We got a lot of snow here in Columbus and as the day started I stopped by blockbuster and got movies to watch.

Chuck is still in Phoenix so I am on my own. Which is in some ways kind of nice. A day to myself. Too bad I also have to do the shoveling, but....

I watched 2 movies which are up for best movie of the year for the oscars - "A Serious Man" and "The Hurt Locker." They were both excellent and thought provoking movies. And with both of them I was happy to have rented so that I could watch the directors and actors commentaries afterward. I am still ruminating about them both.

What I realize this morning is that they were both about finding meaning in your life. In "A Serious Man" physics professor Larry Gopnich had his life fall apart - or maybe his illusions about his life stripped away. He went to the rabbis to help him in his confusion and they were no help to him. This is a Coen brothers movie so it is funny and quirky and has a lot of sub text. But as I reflected on the movies this morning I just thought about the essential mystery of all of our lives that we want to avoid through lives of "normalcy" or explain in some coherent way. And our lives are so complicated.

I have found meaning in my own life through my experience of God and through my faith which is both tied to the ancient stories and very personally tied to my own story. And the more I "know" both stories - the more able I am to live in the mystery of it all. And in Larry's case - he didn't even know his own story - let alone the stories of faith. Clearly I am still processing this.

"The Hurt Locker" was a war movie about an elite squad of soldiers who disarm bombs. This war in Iraq is notable for the roadside bombs and these men are so valuable. As I started to watch this movie, I thought about the war movies that have been so meaningful to me over the years - The Deer Hunter, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan. With all of them, at some point I want to stop watching - it is so hard to see what war does to people. It hurts my soul.

At the same time, we need to see these movies to understand what it means to put people in harm's way. What also struck me was how perilous life was at times in the movie and then what could they do with the emotions that came out of it? Life could change in a moment and they were sometimes responsible for that moment. How to live through it and to not be damaged forever by the experience. What a movie.

We all have experienced times in our lives when everything changes in a moment. We just don't realize it - like when someone is diagnosed with cancer or has a car accident or a loved one dies. Everything changes in a moment. And then you have to keep going. And make sense of it.

So, it is not for nothing that I call this blog Margot Ruminates. This is what I ruminate about. And am grateful to have a sense of something more behind what is going on in the present. It is mystery, of course - but it is also a loving presence. And I am talking about my experience of God who gives us comfort, strength and hope as we walk through some difficult times.

Life is hard - and very confusing at times - but God is good.
That much I know.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Not me - Chuck

I am home after dropping him at the airport this morning. He is going to Phoenix where he is going to be the nurse/companion/cook/handyman for Ken Felt for 10 days.
Ken is having eye surgery tomorrow and Chuck is going to help out with everything.
What a guy - and what a blessing it is. For them and for Chuck

Chuck has learned that his greatest joy is helping other people and that is what he does best. In his own inimitable style.

This year for the most part it is Chuck who is picking our granddaughter Addie up at the babysitter and taking her to kindergarten every day.

It is Chuck who is on call at church for all kinds of things - fixing toilets and cleaning carpets and of course shoveling the walks.

It is Chuck who has gone to many elementary schools to be the "cookie man" surprsing the classroom with homemade cookies and this crazy man who is delivering them.

It is Chuck goes to the doctor's office and brings cookies or to a golf course and brings home made cupcakes for the staffs who work there.

It is Chuck who will give children and grandchildren milk shakes and footmassages and home made french fries and onion rings on demand.

It is Chuck who is always bringing home surprises for me - food and dishes and all kinds of things trying to make me happy.

And he does. Life is never boring when you live with this man. So I pray for the Ken in the next few days of surgery and I know that he will be taken care of by Chuck.

And my life will probably be a little dull for a while.

Halfway

Last night was the end of the 3rd semester of my Wellstreams program to become a spiritual director.
I am surprised to find that I am halfway through this process. Already.

And I have three more semesters - a year and a half and I will be through. Amazing.

I am about to enter into a really daunting part of this process. We will not only have class, read books, write papers, and have triads where we do direction with each other - but we will start doing direction on people outside of the class - for a year. I have two people to guide and I will also have to meet with my supervisor once a month.

What I have learned is to do everything as it comes and not to worry about how to get it done.

Because this clas is really about deepening our spiritual life, and growing more and more into a trust of God's presence and power - I find that my anxiety about performance has really gone down over the past two and a half years.

I have no idea where this is all going to lead. I know that the spiritual direction that I will not do will not involve parishioners, friends or family. So, we will see where God is leading me once I become more skilled in this ministry.

Anyway, it is stunning to me that time is passing so quickly on this - and I know that it will be a blink of an eye and this whole wonderful experience will be over.

I am just so glad that I took the risk and the effort to enter into this program.
It is all about following your dreams.