Watching, At Advent, and at Other Times

Today is the second day of Advent.  It is also my day off, so I slept in a little bit and waited until the dog was good and ready before we went out for our walk together.

It wasn't raining, but it seemed a bit gloomy.  It was cloudy and cold and wet on the ground.  The sun wasn't even trying, I thought.    The dog wanted to go in a different direction than she usually does.  Without thinking, I went that way too.

Back home, it's snowing like crazy.  That's what I heard.  But it is not snowing here.  It does not snow here.  But truthfully, I wasn't thinking about that.  I wasn't really thinking about anything really.  I was just going where the dog was leading me, letting her stop and sniff and go where she wanted to go, within reason.

At some point the dog looked back behind us.  There was a woman standing on the sidewalk, looking toward the other side of the road, to a spot where there was some open land.  She had her phone out, and smiled when I glanced at her.  We both stopped for a moment and then kept walking.  I didn't think much about it.  We were on a mission, and that mission was to keep going and then turn around and walk back in the other direction.

We did that.  We walked a bit farther and then turned around, and walked back.  But, for some reason, when I got to the place where the woman had stopped, I stopped for a moment, and I looked across the road, where she had been looking.

It was then that I saw them.  At least four large deer, off in the distance, on the other side of the road.   One of them actually stood up on its hind legs for a moment.

The dog and I crossed the street, so we could get a better look.  I stood there for a moment, watching them and counting them.  I wondered if one of them would stand on his hind legs again.

After a few minutes we went back home.

I don't know what it is about seeing these unexpected living beings, almost in my back yard.  They are not rare, really.  I used to see them more often, but I have not lately.  I always used to see them in the same place, so that's where I looked.  Until I stopped looking.

Today I was reminded to be vigilant.  It was a stranger who reminded me, simply by her presence, by the fact that she was watching, that she noticed something that I did not see.

Today I was reminded that life is not always in the place we are looking, not always where we expect.  The Angel Gabriel will come to the old man in the temple, to the barren woman, to the unsuspecting virgin.  The conqueror will be a baby, and will be found in a manger.

It seems that this is something congregations need to learn, again and again.  I know it is something that I need to learn -- to learn to look in unexpected places, to to believe that God is leading us, and that we will be surprised.  To be vigilant.

It is the second day of Advent.  I went for a walk with the dog, and saw the deer, even up on its hind legs, rejoicing.

Why I Have A Clergy Coach

I am just a few months into a new call (my third, but who's counting).  I have also moved to a new community in a new state.  In the location to which I have been called, I learned that it is possible to apply for a clergy coach, so I did.

I do have a number of years in ministry under my belt, and a fair amount of experience.  So, why get a coach?  Why would I need a clergy coach?  Isn't it a sign of weakness, admitting that I might possibly need help?

1.  Ministry is hard.  I think that every single one of us needs all the help we can get.  Though I have a church full of people who are pretty invested in my success, it is great to have people outside my parish who are also praying for me, and who care about me as a person and a pastor.  Ministry can also be painful.  Besides the thrill of new experiences and successes, there is also the loneliness of being in a new place, and the pain of experiments that crash and burn.  At these times, it is good to have outside resources who will give a different perspective, and who will help me get back up and do it all again.

2.  It is a Defense against Isolation.  Ministry can be a lonely profession.  There are not many people that it is appropriate to confide in, to test perceptions, and with whom I can process what I am thinking about.  I also think that pastors sometimes get caught in the trap of thinking they are supposed to be "the resident expert."  No one is an expert on everything, and I hope that my coach will help me remember that, be another source of wisdom, and also remind me that i have other sources of wisdom and experience around me, if I can be humble enough and curious enough to ask.

3.  Good leaders are not just born; they are made.  You can be the most awesome natural musician and still have to put in 8 hours a day of practice in order to hone your craft.  You can have natural gifts for writing or cooking or gymnastics, but still have to study, to try different recipes, to stretch your legs and your skills.

4.  I Want to Build on My Strengths.  One thing I have learned:  I'm always tempted to try to improve in the areas of my weakness rather than recognize and build on the places where I am strong.  A good leader plays to her strengths.  My coach knows this.

5.  I Don't Want to Stop Growing.  I want to invest in my own leadership.  I love learning, and I want to be intentional about adding new tools and growing in leadership skills, not thinking that I know it all or have learned everything I need to know.  A clergy coach will help me to learn by practice and encouraging me to stretch myself, to develop new habits instead of staying safe.

What are some other reasons a seasoned pastor can benefit from a clergy coach?  What would you add?

Using GPS

Since moving here, I have become more and more thankful for an innovation known as "GPS."  I have some form of this in my phone.  I downloaded it last year and learned how to "start navigation" just in time to be lost on the way home from a book store in a strange city.

Now I use it almost all the time.  I use it and I follow the directions slavishly.  I put in the address where I am going, and I put in my address again when I am on the way home.  That voice has to know more than I do, doesn't it?  Because I don't know anything about the area where I have moved.  I have a map, it is true, and I have even stared at the map, on occasion, but it is by driving around and listening to the voice saying, "in 1,000 feet", turn left, that I have begun to get my bearings.

Not that there haven't been some rough spots.  The GPS knows much more than I do, it is true.  But it doesn't know when a road is under construction.  On the rare occasion we have had to disobey instructions because, well, the road GPS was telling me to take was CLOSED.  I thought the voice sounded rather insistent and perturbed then ("take a U turn"  "get back on that road!") before giving up and re-routing us.  And a couple of times I have been traveling a route that I have sort of gotten to know when the GPS will give me an unexpected direction.

Once it (she?) told me to get off the freeway several exits before I usually do.  Another time she instructed me to turn right instead of left.

This created a trust dilemma.  Should I obey?  Should I take a different road?  Or should I disobey and go the way I have been accustomed to traveling?

So far I have been too timid to obey.  I have stuck to the route I know.  Last night, I did take a very short GPS-inspired detour, it's true, but it wasn't much of a risk, at that point.

Too timid to obey.  It's one thing to admit that I do not entirely trust the mysterious voice of the woman who gives me directions from my phone.  It is another thing to admit that I do not entirely trust the mysterious voice of God, that this trust is a work-in-progress, that I would rather stay on the tried and true route even when part of me senses that God might be calling me to choose an unknown pathway.

Too timid to obey.  That is where I am, a lot of the time.  It is a failure to trust.

It occurs to me that there are many ways to speak of 'sin' in our world, and a lot of them have to do with morality.  A lot of them come down to behaviors:  the things you do, the things you don't do.   But what if at its very core, a definition of sin is:  a failure of trust.  Then we're all in it, a work in progress, trusting in one moment and not trusting the next.

Too timid to take another road home.  Too timid to say something I have never said before, even though I suspect that God wants me to say it.  Too timid to jump, when God says, "I'll catch you."

One of these days I will turn at an unexpected intersection, just to see where it leads.  And I will trust that the mysterious Voice, though perhaps alarmed at first, will still show me the way home.

Beginner's Mind

I am about three weeks into my new call, in a land and to people who are still pretty unfamiliar to me.  I just got an email from my former colleague asking me for the names of people who worked with me on an adult faith formation vision process.  That simple email reminded me of how well I had gotten to know my congregation, at least in some ways.  Then of course I thought again about the geography that I left:  the landscape of my home community and state.  Even the places I had never been, I considered that I knew well.

Here I have preached two sermons, have played with the children at Vacation Bible School.  I have had dinner at a couple of people's houses.  I have co-led a pre-school worship service.  I have found some grocery stores, and a local veterinarian for my dog.  I have held one communion service at a local assisted living residence, and I thank God that it was pretty easy to find, and that the residents were hearty singers.

Often I feel disoriented.  A friend counseled me that a lot of what I am doing I know how to do, which is correct.  I tell myself that when I begin to meet the shut-ins (and find my way to their homes), when I do a few more of the familiar tasks, when a few more of the roads become well-known to me, I will find my sea legs.

On Sunday afternoon I was officially installed as pastor here.  On Sunday morning I presided at the early service.  On the way out, I greeted one woman, who said (I thought conspiratorially), "I'm new here."

I don't know what got into me, but I found myself saying, "I'm new too.  Let's be new together."

I'm not sure that was an official line for a about-to-be-installed pastor to say.  It didn't sound like the resident expert that I suspect some in my congregation hope that I will be.  And yet I'm sticking with it, for now.

I just re-read a sentence from the classic "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind," by Shunryu Suzuki.  I had read it long ago and forgotten most of it.  But this sentence stuck out, 'In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few."

It is not simply expertise that a new pastor brings to a congregation.  It is openness and a willingness to learn:  stories and streets, geography and grace.  It is that tension between expertise (the things I know how to do) and curiosity.  I suspect that to be successful, a new pastor will bring a sort of Beginner's Mind to a congregation, a belief that there are a lot of possibilities and that we can uncover and discover them together.  I'll be honest:  this is part exhilarating, and also terrifying.  It is like an invitation to go sky-diving (an invitation which I recently received, by the way).

Even so, I'll say it again, an invitation:

"Let's be new together."

Singing Harmony

I went to church on Sunday.  I am not settled into my new call yet, but somehow I just wanted to worship with people, so I went to a church service where I knew the musician, and sat by myself in the middle of a row.  It felt a little odd, and I will confess that I wasn't entirely sure that I belonged, sitting alone in the middle of a pew like that.  I will also confess that while I felt a little lonely, I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to be noticed, either.

It was the late service, not particularly full, but not too empty either.  Respectable, for summer.  Instead of preaching, I listened to someone else's sermon.  Instead of leading worship, I prayed the responses, sang the hymns and liturgy, listened, reflected, meditated.  Okay, maybe my mind wandered a little at times as well.  But I did all right, for someone who hasn't sat in a pew much for many years.  I even sang harmony on some of the hymns.

Back in the day, that was one of the things I did.  As soon as I learned how to read music, I used to try to sing the alto parts on hymns, sometimes.  It made things more interesting.  Later on, I tried singing the tenor part an octave higher.  During my time of evangelical fervor in college, I made up my own harmonies sometimes.

My sister and I used to sing together.  She played a little guitar, and we had a few songs that I could sing harmony on.  Sometimes she sang alto, and I sang the melody.  At my dad's funeral, we were sitting together and she was singing the harmony parts, just like we used to.  I tried it too, but the lump in my throat got in the way.

We all have a place in the body of Christ, and I used to think that mine was singing harmony from my pew.  It turns out God had a couple of other things in mind.  But singing harmony from your pew is not a small thing, even though it is not as flashy as some other gifts.  Back when I sat in the pew, I also used to be one of those adults who would make eye contact with babies, and make faces at them until they responded to me in some way.  Often, they would end up fussing.  (I have occasionally wondered whether God thought I should be a pastor so that I would stop annoying babies and their parents in that way.  Who knows?)

On Sunday, at the end of the service, the woman sitting one row in front of me said hello, and said she enjoyed listening to me sing the harmony.

It was a small thing, but it made me feel glad that I came.  It was good to be there, not just to receive, and not just to 'be fed', but also to give, and to lead, but in different way.  There are leaders hidden all around the congregation, and in the world too, doing important work, even though only a few ever hear or see or touch it.  They are singing harmony.  They are showing a stranger the right page for the hymns.  They are speaking up for the children.  They are making sandwiches for the hungry.

It is important work.

Soon, I'll be standing in front of a different congregation, finding my place, looking out into new faces, singing the melody with them.  But I hope to get a chance to sing harmony sometimes too, and to give thanks for the gift of all of our voices.

Between

My last Sunday in my congregation was May 31st.  Technically (and really) it was my last day as a pastor there, although (truth be told) I haven't quite moved everything out of my office yet.  Some things happen suddenly, and other things take more time, it seems.  I had meant to be done earlier, but it turned out that there were things hiding under things, and the books and papers multiplied while I wasn't looking, and there were the unintended pauses while I remembered, and said goodbye, again.

I have been called to another congregation, in another state, some distance away from the state where I live now.  They have asked me questions and I have asked them questions, and we have visited with one another and even begun to dream, a little.  I now have a (still mostly empty) apartment, and three boxes of my books have arrived at the church.  So I have a place, although I am not there yet.

I went to church on Sunday, and enjoyed sitting in the pew with my mother, singing hymns and listening to someone else's sermon (which was good, by the way, and I'm not just saying that).  I enjoyed it, but I had this sort of uncomfortable realization that I missed the feeling I have when I am leading worship and preaching, and then just afterwards.  It's a hard feeling to put my finger on, exactly.  I have worshipped with them, and together we have borne witness to the truth.  It feels a little like how I imagine the conductor of an orchestra might feel.

I have been on vacation before, and technically that is what this is:  a few weeks of vacation before I begin again.  But it feels different somehow. I am between congregations.  My old congregation is not my congregation any more.  I realized on Sunday how much of my identity has become bound up in the rhythm of my week.  I am not sure this is entirely a good thing.  It is not bad to find purpose and meaning in my work, and to derive satisfaction from a job well done.   But I wondered on Sunday if I need it a little too much, and if the between time is a good break, to help me to remember to receive and to be.  

I Found a Sermon From the Past

In going through my office (over-filled as it is with 17 years of books, memories, and papers), I found some of my old sermons.  I never know whether to save or toss.  This one I preached the year we decided to read the whole Gospel of Mark between Advent and Easter.  The text I preached on comes up only rarely in the Lectionary it is about a blind man who is healed by Jesus.  When Jesus asks him, he says, "I see people… but they look like trees walking."  So, Jesus heals him again.  (Mark 8:22-26)  Anyway, here's what I wrote, back then:

"A Second Touch"

One of my favorite books as a girl was called Half Magic.  It was a fantasy pre-curser to the Harry Potter tales.  In this book, four children find a magic coin.  Of course, they don't realize that it is magic right away.  They simply pick it up from the street and put it in their pockets because it looks interesting and shiny.  Innocently enough, they discover that when they wish for something it comes true.  Sort of. The first thing they wish for on a boring summer day is for something exciting to happen, like a fire.  As soon as the words are out of their mouths, the fire truck races by and they discover that a child's tree house is on fire.  By trial and error, they discover that their coin is actually only half magic, and for them to get their wish to come completely true, they have to wish on the coin twice.

When I hear the story of Jesus healing the blind man, this is the first connection that comes to mind for me:  "you have to wish it twice",  For, amazing enough, when Jesus first touches the blind man in Bethsaida and makes him see, it seems as though he is only half healed.

Jesus, like a doctor checking to see if his operation was successful, asks him "Can you see anything?"  He reports, "I can see people, but they look like trees walking."  Sounds familiar to all of us who wear corrective lenses, doesn't it?  So Jesus needs to touch his eyes a second time, after which he finally "sees clearly."  The sights are no longer blurry for him.  There are no fuzzy edges, no mistaking a human being for a street sign or your garbage can for a pedestrian.  Not only can the ma see, but now he can successfully interpret what he's seen.

In case you are wondering, there is no other story in Scripture where Jesus needs to heal someone twice in order for them to completely healed.  And this particular story is found in no other Gospel.  If it seems unfamiliar and puzzling, that might be the reason.  It is uncommon and out of character for Jesus.  We have seen many sides to Jesus' healing so far.  We've seen him heal with a word or a touch.  We've seen him heal people who have simply touched the hem of his robe.  We've seen people who have immediately gotten up and walked, or who immediately gotten up and walked, or who immediately were cleansed of their leprosy.  The deaf man was commanded "Be opened!" and his ears were opened and he spoke plainly.  So why should Jesus need the touch the blind man twice?  Somehow, like the coin that was only "half magic", it seems that Jesus is less powerful than he was before.

Yet if we were only to focus on Jesus' power here, I think we would be missing the point.  For some reason or another, the blind man needs a second touch.  He needs to see again, and then to see clearly, and there is something that rings true for us in this healing.  Perhaps it is because we don't experience healing so often as immediate, but gradual, and in stages.  So it's comforting to know that there is a second touch available, if you feel that you are on the way, but not quite there yet.  Perhaps it is because we understand the complexity of our senses, sight and hearing and taste and touch, that this healing rings so true to us.  There is seeing and there is understanding what is seen.  There is hearing and there is comprehending what is heard.  For those of us who wear glasses, there is that moment when we saw for the first time when leaves really looked like -- the sharpness of color, the distinctiveness of their shapes.

In the let couple of years, I've learned a little about the procedure called "cochlear implants."  They allow people who have had hearing loss to begin to hear again.  But the effects of the implant are not immediate.  They are gradual.  People begin to hear and distinguish different sounds, then words, more and more.  And every person's hearing comes at a different pace.

Why is this?  It seems that the brain needs to re-learn how to interpret what it is receiving from the ear, and that this is a process that doesn't happen all at once.  It is one thing to hear the sound, and another to understand it.  It's the same with sight -- at least it seems so from this gospel.  It's one thing to see -- and quite another to understand what you are seeing.  It might be the difference between fuzzy and clear vision itself.  But it might be the difference between seeing something and really seeing clearly what it is, and what it means.

Remember that just prior to this healing Jesus becomes frustrated with his disciples once again.  They have not understood his reference to " the yeast of the Pharisees" and are discussing the fact that they don't have any bread.  (Actually, they do have bread -- one loaf.)  Jesus hears them and responds, "why are you talking about having no bread?  Do you still not perceive of understand?  Are your hearts hardened?  do you have eyes, and fail to see?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?"

It's clear that Jesus believes that the disciples need a second touch.  They see, but they don't perceive.  They hear, but they don't understand.  Their brains have not quite learned how to interpret what they have seen and heard so far.  There is something missing, something for which they need a second touch, so that they can see clearly who Jesus is and what is his mission.

do we need this second touch as well?  Are there blurry places in our lives, where we are not able to see clear or speak plaint about what we have seen and heard?  Right now in our national life we see war with Iraq coming into sharp focus -- but so many things still seems blurry that we aren't sure what to make of it.  The right course of action is not clear to everyone -- the risks of action or inaction are not clear to everyone.  And the same thing is true as we seek to live out our faith in our daily lives, in our work and in our families.  What vision informs our priorities, our values, how we spend our time?  In the busy-ness of our daily commutes to work, to sports events, to evening classes, to doctor appointments, to worship, to school concerts, to family gatherings, what is important to us can become blurry and unfocused.

Oe thing is clear:  the disciples lack of vision focused on bread.  They saw it, but they didn't really see it.  They had seen it multiplied, but somehow still worried whether they  would have enough.  They had seen it broken and shared, enough for everyone with leftovers, and still they missed its significance.  They Syrophoenician woman saw it and demanded the crumbs.  She saw that there was enough for her.  She saw the abundance of bread with left-overs, even though she had not seen 4,000 people fed.  The first thing the disciples missed, that their eyes failed to see, was the abundance of bread.

"Why are you talking about having no bread?"  Jesus asks, and you can't help hearing his frustration.  As our eyes wander through this sanctuary, and out in our community, do we see the abundance -- or only the scarcity?  It's easy to be focused on budget cuts and shortfalls, on what we lack and what we fear.  That is easily visible.  But do we have eyes to see the abundance in this congregation and that surrounds us?  Do we have eyes to see all the gifts of grace that are available to us?  As I have come to be acquainted with this congregation, one by one, I have come to realize the incredible gifts that you bring with you here.  Someone has great artistic skills -- another an inspiring singing voice -- another a passion for working with families in conflict -- yet another a desire to work with new immigrants.  In church-based organizing there is a particular skill or tool we use to uncover these gifts, called a one-to-one.  In an intentional conversation, we respectfully listen to one another, hear each other's stories, frustrations, hopes and disappointments.  We learn about the unique gifts and calling we bring together for the sake of the gospel.  We learn to see in each other the abundance God has given us.

The other thing the disciples missed when they saw the bread was its brokenness.  It was after the bread was broken that it could be shared.  As Jesus goes on to predict his suffering and death, the disciples are steadfast in their lack of understanding.  They never quite get the necessity of it.  And the cross is still a puzzling sign for us -- a sign of victory, but a sign of defeat as well, a source of shame and failure.  In a culture that is success and wealth oriented, what does it mean to see, to really see that the bread that is broken gives life?

Just this:  that God can find we can find a meaning for our own pain, our tragedies, our sufferings.  It means that God has not abandoned us, but is at work in those very places in our lives where we grieve, where we question, where we suffer, where we struggle.  Author Elizabeth O'Connor considers that Alexander Graham Bell's mother and wife were both deaf, and that Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb, was afraid of the dark.  "At the center of our pain," she writes, "We glimpse a fairer world and hear a call."  When we receive God's second touch, we see bread broken, we see bread shared.  When we receive God's second touch, we understand our mission both to share the world's pain, and to heal it.

Every week we see bread -- bread that is abundant and bread that is broken for us and for our lives.  Every week we see -- but do we really see that the bread broken and shared, the bread of suffering and abundance, is the bread of life, our Lord?  Do we see that we receive his suffering and his life, to heal and to share with one another?  Or do we need a second touch as well?  A second touch to see Jesus as the bread of the world, enough for everyone, with leftovers.  A second touch to see his power working in us, broken but abundant.

It's the way our brain works, you know.  We hear, and bit by bit we learn to understand.  We see, and finally we learn to understand.  We see, and finally we perceive.  We do need a second touch… and God gives us a second touch.  That is why there are two sacraments -- baptism and the Lord's supper… one happens only once, and one happens again and again.  For we always need a second touch, and another taste…. to see our Lord more clearly.

Between Psalm 1 and Psalm 43

On my last Sunday as a pastor in Minnesota, my sermon text was from Psalm 1.

It was not my choice, exactly, except that, in a way, it was. The reading from Psalm 1 on this particular Sunday was the result of my advocacy, last fall, that we try an experiment with a new set of readings (lectionary).  The Narrative Lectionary runs from September through May, and then suggests that congregations spend the summer doing sermon series'.  May 31st is designated for the beginning of  sermon series on the Psalms.

So my last sermon introduced this series on the Psalms, even though I won't be around to participate in it. I won't get to imagine the sermons, or write the sermons, or listen to the sermons, either.  I won't be arm-wrestling the Psalms (which I love but have never found it easy to preach on), demanding a blessing from them.  I won't be lifting them up to the light, in front of my congregation, inviting them to 'ooh' and 'aah' over them.

Oh well.

I also felt the weight of these being my Last Word to this particular congregation.  What did I want them to hear, I wondered?  What did God want me to say?  I have put my roots down deep in this community, and now I would be uprooted.  I thought about the tree planted by streams of water, and roots sunk deep, not in any particular place, but in the grace of God, the unearned love of God.  I thought that this does not make it easier to leave any particular beloved place.  It just makes it possible.  I thought about what a tree planted by streams of water looks like, and the lives of sinners and saints who reflected this grace, whose leaves did not wither.

I thought about all that, and said a little of it.

I won't be there to study the Psalms this summer, but I found all of these cut out leaves in a school supply store.  I wrote the number of a psalm on the back of each one (but not every Psalm; I selected a few choice ones), and invited everyone to take a Psalm and make that Psalm theirs for the summer.

"Read it.  Sing it.  Pray it," I said.  "Wonder about it.  Meditate on it.  Memorize a verse of it.  Argue with it, even.  Just this one Psalm.  Because someone told me one:  it's not how many scripture verses know, but how well you know them, that matters."

I don't know how many people actually took one of the leaves.

But I took one.  So that I can follow along.  So that I can bring something along with me, from one place to another, when I uproot myself, and then put down my roots in a new place, with new people, but trusting the grace of God has gone before.

My Psalm is number 43.

So this summer, these are the words I will hold up to the light, meditate on, pray and argue with:

'O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling."

May the leaf not wither.

Language School

When I was learning to be a missionary in Japan, I went to language school.  Five mornings a week, we got together in small classes with only about eight students in each classroom, because the emphasis was on oral language learning and drills.  There, we met missionaries from other traditions as well as students in Japan for more secular pursuits.

Eventually we would go to our assignments, either as pastors or as English language teachers.  But for now our main responsibility was to learn the language, at least enough to get started at communication and relationships.  Our language classes did not give us the ability (for example) to understand or speak in religious terms, but we learned to ask questions and understand the answers, and we learned some basic sentence structure and vocabulary.  After six months were were launched into our prospective vocations, where we would (presumably) continue to learn Japanese at the same time we were sharing the gospel.

I think language school is a good idea.  I sort of wish I had language school right now.

I am about to leave the congregation I have served for 17 years.  This congregation is located in a part of the country where I grew up.  I know the culture here so well that perhaps I take it for granted.  I am an expert on the upper Midwest, its language and its idiosyncrasies.  I know that you can call a casserole a "hot dish" and that it is all right to invite someone to go along with you somewhere by asking the question, "Do you want to come with?"  I know that you should not park on certain streets after it snows.  I know the variations of city, suburban and rural life here.

My new church is in an area of the country I have only visited a couple of times.  They have alligators there.  And they don't have winter, really.  Different flowers bloom at different times.  I know I will have to learn to say "you all", and I suspect that "you all" is just the tip of the iceberg.

I sort of wish I had language school, a time set aside to learn the language, but not just the language.  One of the things I remember about the time of "language school" was the time spent doing other things:  the afternoon we spent at a sumo wrestling match, the time I got lost because I took the wrong train, wandering around Shibuya station one day and seeing the statue of "Hachiko", the famous dog that waited for his master every day.  I remember going to Yokohama and eating octopus, visiting parks and admiring tea sets, learning to read, but not just the language.

I am pretty sure that I never really mastered Japanese, although I did improve over the years.  I may be fooling myself as well that I have mastered "Midwestern", too.  I have lived here most of my life, and perhaps I take it too much for granted.  Now, traveling to a new place, I suspect that I will be learning a new language, one that I will not master, although I hope to improve.

I don't have time set aside for "language school" this time, but perhaps it would be wise to set some time aside for it anyway.  Perhaps it would be wise to remember that I am not just called to speak, but to listen, not just teach, but to learn, not just to find, but to get lost, and be found.  Perhaps it would be wise for me to remember, as missionaries have told me before, that I am not bringing the Word to people, I am not bringing Jesus to people, I am not bringing the Holy Spirit.  God is already there.

For the Word became flesh, and He inhabits each particular language and culture, breaking bread, eating rice, getting lost and found, with us.

Sunday

"This might be the last time I take communion from you," someone said to me after worship on Sunday.  It made my heart jump, a little.

"We will be gone the next two weeks, so maybe I should say good-bye today," said someone else.

I have three more Sundays in worship, and one of them is Memorial Day weekend.  Everything seems to be moving very fast.  Sometimes I want it to go faster, and sometimes I want it to slow down.

In the meantime, there was a baptism on Sunday.  The baby was the child of a young woman I baptized, many years ago, when she was in eighth grade.  It was my first year as a pastor in this congregation.  I remember her well, how she was not self-conscious at all, but very poised and confident as she stood before the congregation at the late service that morning.

I remember the young woman who was her best friend, too.  They are still best friends, and she was one of the godparents for her friend's baby.  I saw them both there, and remembered that first year in confirmation class, the creative ideas I tried, some huge failures and others a modest success.  I remembered the chaos, kids bouncing off the walls, including these two best friends.

That year, for part of the confirmation lesson on Easter, I decided to tell the story, "The Tale of Three Trees."  I have always loved that story, and wanted to connect it with the Bible stories of the resurrection.  Besides, I do believe that I am good at telling stories.

So, I began.  And I thought that the confirmation students were listening, too.  Then, sometime in the middle of the story, I saw these two girls, these two best friends.  They were standing in the back of the crowded room, and they were swaying and doing hand motions.  My heart sank.  I thought that they were dis-respecting me.  I just tried to ignore them and kept going.

Later on, I talked to our youth and family director, expressing disappointment.  But, she had another view.  She said she thought that they were listening, that they were in fact engaged, and that they were standing there, acting out the story.

Acting out the story.

On Sunday, four Sundays before my last Sunday here in this congregation, I am sitting in worship, and I am remembering back so many years ago.  I am remembering a confirmation class, and best friends, and how they acted out the story.   I am remembering a young woman who stood at the baptismal font, and who leaned over with great gravity and allowed me to pour water over her head.  I am remembering every baptism, and I am remembering the confirmation students in their white robes and I am remembering those moments of chaos and clarity, the ways we have acted out the story.

And how this is the gift of worship, but also its challenge:  will our worship leave space to act out the story of God, which is our story too, by the grace of our baptism?

On Sunday, after the baptism, I got to take the baby in my arms and walk her up and down the aisle while we sang a lullaby.  And one thing I like to do is get the baby up really close to the people on the aisle, so that they can reach out and touch her if they want, or so that the baby can reach out and touch them too.

I can't help thinking that this is what we really want, what we really need, in worship:  to act out the story, where the story of God touches us.

On Sunday, I remembered.  I gave communion.  I held a baby.  I sang.  I acted out the story.

The Destination, Not the Journey

So, I have been called to a new congregation, in a new city, in a new state, some distance away from the city and state where I live and serve right now.  I have a few weeks left in my current position, a handful of weeks of vacation (so to speak), and then I begin.

I begin to meet people and drive on roads I have never driven on before.  I begin to write new sermons and ask new questions and meet a community and probably get lost.

In the meantime, I am here.  I am calling moving companies and figuring out what will go first with me and what will go later.  I am getting pictures and imagining apartments and trying to make decisions.  I am making lists (fix car, get new glasses, close checking account).

And the lovely sentiment, "it's the journey, not the destination" occurs to me, except that on this occasion I do not consider it lovely.  I am not loving the journey.

I want to be there.  I want to be there, with the furniture all moved in and the washer and dryer hooked up and all of my books on the shelves and the vase from Japan in the entry.  I want to be there, meeting the children and reading them stories, going to the hospital, drinking sweet tea with a new friend, asking questions, finding a new road.

I want to be there.  And, I want to be here.  I want to be here, doing crossword puzzles and going to restaurants with my husband,  seeing my friends one more time, having coffee with my mother, going up to the Falls with my dog, getting left-handed knitting help at the shop that I love best.  I want to be here, making sure I notice the beauty that I have taken for granted, because I was always on the way somewhere.

Is this "journey, not the destination" thing in the Bible?  Oh, I know, there are a lot of journeys in the Bible, including those forty years in the wilderness, where the Israelites ate manna and quail and prepared to enter the promised land.  But the promised land WAS the point, wasn't it?  It was the destination, not the journey.

Or, maybe the wilderness was a destination too.

So, I breathe deeply (my new spiritual discipline) and try to be there, in the mess, in the lists and the packing and the coffee with friends, in the crossword puzzles and conversations:  here, there, and in between.

Today, I Cried

For a long time, I have seen a certain hand-made book on a shelf at the Book Arts Center, and coveted it.

I realize that a "Book Arts Center" is an odd and mysterious place, perhaps one you never knew existed.  At the Book Arts Center I learned to make a couple of basic hand-sewn books, and learned a little about the construction and history of books, as well.  And at the small gift shop, where the tools for making your own books are sold, I also saw this book.

It was called "Sightings."  Inside it there were beautiful small poems and colorful drawings.

I wanted the book because it was beautiful.  It was art.

I also wanted the book because of its title.  When I saw the title, "Sightings," I thought of God-sightings, and trying to teach my congregation how to see God in their lives.

But, it is a hand-made book.  It would have been an extravagance.  There were other books more extravagant, of course (some that took my breath away), but this one was just enough out of my price range to make me sigh.  So I just coveted it, and looked for it on the shelf every time I went into the book arts center.  It was always there, although sometimes they moved it to another location so I would have to hunt for it.

But, this month was my birthday.  My husband has known that I have coveted this book and he gave me the money so that we could go get it.  On my birthday we went to the book arts center, ate lunch at the small cafe and hunted for the book in the gift shop.

We didn't find it.

I asked the clerk to hunt for us.  They said that they were sold out.  I asked if they could find out if the artists had more, or if the edition was sold out.  They said they would try.

Then the emails began.  They were indeed sold out.  There were no more copies.  I sighed and asked the "hail Mary" question:  if they found out that someone didn't want their copy, would they give me a call?  That was it.

And then I started getting emails from one of the book artists.  There were, indeed, no more copies, she said, but one:  the artist's proof.  Would I like to see it?  I might not like it, but if I did, she would sell it to me, for slightly less than the finished book.  She told me about another of her books that I might like, and I told her why I had a special affection for "Sightings."

She said, "If you decide to purchase it, I will tell you the story about it."

So today, I went over to the book arts center, and found the artist, and she showed me the book.  The pages are stitched together, and the title is hand printed in marker.

She told me that she first began to think about this book when she was taking care of a friend who was dying of cancer.  And while she sat with, cared for, her friend, she started to see, and to write, and to draw, what she would miss, if she was dying.

My eyes started to hurt.  I have sat with many people who were dying.

Today, I officially announced that I have taken a call to another congregation, to people I have just met, and to places I have only seen once or twice.  I am thinking about what I will learn, and who I will meet, and what we will do, together.

And I am thinking about what I will miss.

Sometimes, many times, that is just where I see God.

But, it makes my eyes hurt.

What To Take Along When You Don't Know Where You Are Going

I remember a particular Sunday during our pastoral transition.  It was a Sunday designed to be a pivotal event in our congregation's life.  We were gathered to celebrate our past while we looked to the future.  Our congregational profile had been completed; the "transition team" was about to morph into the call committee.   Every choir and music group had a part in the worship service.

The sermon revolved around a particular event from Israel's history:  just as they were about to cross the Jordan and enter the promised land, a representative of each of the twelve tribes took a stone from one side of the river, and brought it along with them to the other side.  The idea was that although our congregation was embarking on a new chapter in our life, we honor our past and take a part of it along with us on our journey.  I think that there were even some stones on the floor by the baptismal font, and a paper cut-out of the river Jordan, so that the children could move the stones from one side of the river to the other side.

I have to admit that, though I have more than a passing acquaintance with the Old Testament, this particular story had escaped me up until then.  I know that I read almost the entire Old Testament during seminary, but I must have skimmed a few parts, a feeling that came back to me a couple of years ago when I decided to read the whole Bible over a summer.  (Wait a minute.  When did David do THAT?)

But, I digress.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I thought that the story about the stones was a little more nuanced than I had at first suspected.  I remember re-thinking the story a few months later, and coming to the sudden realization that the stones were not simple reminders of the past.  They were specific reminders of 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.  As the people of Israel was about to cross over into the promised land, they were to take stones from the wilderness, to remember when they were settled the experience of wandering.

The stones were reminders for people coming into the promised land, but they weren't reminders of the 'good old days.'  They were reminders of God's goodness when they grumbled, of God's anger and forgiveness, of dancing around a golden calf, of manna and quails, of manna hoarded that went bad.

I can't help asking myself now:  What does this mean for us?  What stones should we take with us where we are heading, and what do they mean?

The pastoral transition has ended, but in some ways we are still in the wilderness.  Getting a new pastor is not the same as entering the promised land.  In fact, I am not even sure where we are, or where we are going.  Are we in Egypt, living in a culture foreign to us?  Is God leading us into the wilderness?  Or are we in the wilderness now,  wandering without a home, learning to be God's people without the benefit of accustomed markers?

Sometimes I think we need to go back all the way almost to the beginning, all the way to Abraham, to know where we are.  We need to go all the way back to Abraham, who was on the road, on the way to somewhere or another when he heard God say, "Go.  Go to a place where I will show you.  You will be blessed, and you will be a blessing."

What do you take along when you don't know where you are going?  I am not sure, but I suspect you take your family, some stories, a little bread and wine.   You forget about crossing the river Jordan and entering the promised land, and feeling like you have arrived.  You just live here, on the road, sharing stories and bread and wine with the strangers who cross your path, and somehow where you are now becomes the promised land, because it you have come to realize that the promised land is not a place, but the promised land is in the face of the strangers, and in the eyes that look into yours, and in One who called you and accompanies you and will not abandon you.  Somehow you come to see the fleeting vision, where the kingdom of God is in everything you gave away, and somehow (who knows how?) you have finally become a blessing.

Why Interim Ministry is Good, Mostly

Though we haven't chosen an interim minister yet, our congregation is going to use the services of an interim minister while we go through our current pastoral transition.  And I think this is a good thing, mostly. 

I think of two situations that illustrate the pitfalls inherent in calling a pastor without a time of interim:

1.  A beloved pastor leaves suddenly for a new call.  The congregation is heartbroken, and angry and confused, and maybe feels betrayed.  There is perhaps a knee-jerk reaction that the church needs to get someone just like the pastor who has left, to replicate the experience which they thought was so good for them.  It's not difficult to imagine the problems this could cause, as no two pastors have exactly the same gifts.  As well, the church which loved the pastor may not have dealt with their feelings of anger and betrayal, and might take them out on the new pastor.

2.  A pastor leaves a pastor call where there has been conflict and dis-ease, or where the congregation is foundering.  A knee-jerk reaction on the part of at least some of the congregation might be for the next pastor to be the EXACT OPPOSITE of the one they just had.  If the congregation has a little more time to think about it, they might realize that this wouldn't be the best idea.

A good interim period forces the congregation to wrestle with the mission God has given them, to consider their own leadership, and not just the leadership of the pastor.  Effective ministry requres a partnership between clergy and lay leadership, and an understanding of the uniqueness each.

HOWEVER, I recently read this post over at the blog 8th Day Planner, and am pondering that there may also be pitfalls in interim ministry.

It seems to me that congregations in interim might get the mistaken impression that there is a Holy Grail of Pastoral Leadership, That Perfect Pastor for them.  Also, a period of interim might be mis-interpreted as a period of internal reflection, and give the mistaken impression that a congregation needs to have Everything Worked Out Internally before they can turn outward to their community and the wider world.

But a healthy congregation is one that is doing what God calls it to do:  loving their neighbors, doing good in their community, doing justice, loving kindness.  You can't get healthy and then reach out.  If you are a congregation, you get healthy (at least in part) BY reaching out.