This Burden

 One of the first people I told that I was going to retire (after the council president at my church) was a woman I meet with occasionally for prayer.  The first thing she said when I told her was that she was not surprised.  The second thing she said was, "You've borne this burden for a long time."

I admit, when she first said those words, I felt seen.  I have felt the burden here in this call.  It has more than one component.  There's the burden of preaching and teaching and living the truth, as well as any flawed saint-and-sinner can, by the grace of God, in this place.  There's the burden of listening and understanding, of walking with people through dark places, through the valley of the shadow of death.  There's the burden of knowing that people will come to you with questions for which they want answers, and the realization that sometimes there are not really answers but only the mystery and the love of God.

And there is the burden of walking with a congregation that is declining, and feeling the pressure to know what to do to "turn it around", to "bring in the young families," to be this magnetic presence that brings people into the church.  There is the burden of feeling like I have to know the right strategy, talk to the right person, read the right book, figure out the right steps.

Truthfully, we have been through a lot here in the last ten years.  Personal tragedies that broke the hearts of this small community.  COViD lockdowns.  Broken relationships.  Steep learning curves, and also (I admit) things we didn't really want to learn.  I suppose these are part of the burden.  A heavy load.

But as I thought about this sentence, I grieved.  I thought of all of the times I sat with someone at their home, or in the hospital, or in a nursing home, and held up a small piece of bread, and said, "The body of Christ, given for you."  I thought about the stories I heard around kitchen tables, and in coffee shops, the joy of hearing the story of how you fell in love, the sorrow of leaving home, what it was like to be a small child moving to a new town where there wasn't anything yet, and seeing it built up before you.  I have heard stories of failure and victory, I have experienced the heartbreak of unanswered prayer, and have witnessed small miracles.  I have seen lightbulbs go on in Bible studies, heard young people pray for one another, and seen parents gasp at the wisdom of their children.  I have eaten at homeless shelters, and been prayed for by people who sleep in church fellowship halls.  

How can it be a burden if I will miss it so much?  How can it be a burden if I will miss them so much, the child who didn't want to be baptized, the pre-schooler who asked why Jesus had to die, the man who thought I was a terrible pastor, the widower he said he joined the church because of me?  How can it be a burden to witness the woman in the back of the church singing "this little light of mine" like her life depended on it?  

Maybe burden isn't the right word.  

Maybe the right word is "weight."

I have felt the weight of ministry.

But in my best moments I know that it is really weight of glory.

It is the weight of the glory of the light of Christ, shining in the darkness, shining in our imperfect lives, lives joined in faith and sorrow.  Our lives are joined to his life, and our lives are also joined to one another's lives, whether we know it or not.

Often we don't know it.  Then it becomes a burden.

So, as I prepare to retire, I pray that my congregation will be able to see -- even briefly -- the glory -- the glory in one another, the glory in the stranger, the glory in their neighbor.  And I pray that we will be able to bear one another's burdens, which is the weight of glory.

The Gift

  I got a call on Monday night from the church administrator at a neighboring congregation.  I knew that their pastor was traveling for ministry so I had an idea why she might be calling me.  

She told me that someone connected with their congregation had had a stroke, and was entering hospice, and they wanted a pastor to come out the next day.  I said I could come.  

It's not so common any more for me to do a ministry visit with someone I don't know.  I've been at my congregation for a few years, so my ministry calls are usually for people that I have known for a long time.  They are people with whom I share some history.  My colleague and I often say we will cover for each other while we are gone, but frankly, it hasn't been that often that we have had to make good on our offer.  I spoke with a daughter in law, and prepared to go to the hospital and meet the man.  

Also, I had a brand-new communion set, that I had not used yet.  I packed it up in the morning, and was looking forward to using it for the first time.  It is cedar, and it smells so good when I open it.  The smell reminds me of the verse in the Old Testament, "let my prayers rise before You as incense."  The cedar smells like prayer to me.  And this one has a place for anointing oil  I have never had anointing oil in my communion set before.  

I will be retiring in just a couple of months.  So perhaps it seems like an odd time to buy a new communion set.  But I got an unexpected gift, and decided that this was the way I would use it.  I'm not sure what this says about me.  I will still have a couple of months to visit people and give communion, to sit with people and pray and read scripture and talk about our lives.  It is all communion.

And then there was Tuesday.  I got to the hospital at about noon.  I introduced myself to the man.  His son had not arrived at the hospital yet.  I introduced myself to him, and we tried to have a conversation, but his stroke made it difficult for either of us to understand the other.  I tried to tell him what church I was from.  I asked him about himself.  Once in awhile I understood something.  He did keep saying, "Open the door."  The door was open, but I opened it wider.

I did sing a couple of songs:  "Amazing Grace, "What a Friend in Jesus," "Jesus Loves Me."  It is one of the things I do when I don't know what to do.  

Then his son arrived.  I introduced myself, and asked what would be most helpful.  His dad was on a feeding tube but he could be anointed.  I could read scripture and pray.  His son said, "He is afraid.  Help him to know he doesn't have to be afraid."  I asked, "Is he afraid of leaving you, or is he afraid for himself?"  "For himself," he said.  "He knows we will be okay."

I remembered how my dad worried before he died.  He worried about his salvation.  Even though he had believed his whole life, now he was worried he was not good enough.  And how I asked my dad, "Do you trust Jesus?" and he said, "Yes."  And I told him, "Then you are okay."  And my dad said, "You mean it's that simple?"

So I said to the man who had had the stroke, "Do you believe that Jesus loves you?"  He nodded.  I said, "Don't be afraid."  And I stretched out my arms and said, "He is ready to welcome you, just like this."  And I read from Isaiah 43, and John 11, and prayed.  And then I opened up my brand new commuion set, and took out the vial of oil.  It smelled a little like balsam.  

And when I anointed him, the oil got all over my hands, like the oil running down Aaron's beard, and it was messy and smelly and wonderful.

All the way home I thought of how the man said, "Open the door", and I wondered what he meant.  The door was open.  And of course I don't know, but suddenly I thought of how Jesus said, "I am the door."  

May Jesus the door be open to him.

May Jesus the door be open to us, all the days of our lives.

It is this I am called to do -- to make the sign of the cross with oil, and remind people who are dying that they are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked by the cross of Christ forever.  

For two more months and forever -- I am called to remind people they are marked by the cross of Christ.  I am called to remind them of the door that is open, the grace that is wide, the oil running down the beard of Aaron.  The gift.

The Blue Ridge Parkway

 The first stop on my short sabbatical this summer was Atlanta, where we could spend some quality time with our grandchildren (oh yeah, and the kids) over a couple of weekends.  But during the week, we drove up to Asheville, North Carolina.  Part of me wanted to do something new, but there's another part that always wants to go back to that part of the world, the roads, the hills, the mountains.  We have visited a few times since our son moved to Atlanta for work.  We enjoy the street musicians in Asheville, the food, the Famous Bookstore, and we always drive a little part of the Blue Ridge Parkway.  I think at first I wanted to go there because of the history of how it was built.  One year we drove to Mount Mitchell.  Another time we found Mount Pisgah.  This year we looked at the tourist information and decided to find Linville Falls.

We knew we could get there simply by taking the Parkway, but the problem was -- we didn't know how long it would take.  At least, that SEEMED like a problem at the time.  So I did what I have learned to do over the past several years -- I turned on GPS.  All I wanted to do was get an arrival time.  

But GPS had something else in mind.  It gave me directions that took me OFF the Parkway and back on the regular roads.  We decided "oh well" and we went with it.  We were running late anyway.  But we knew that when we got to the area, we would want to find the Falls and the Parkway again, which was slightly challenging, as GPS didn't work some of the time.

I told a clerk at a convenience store my problem, and she said, "GPS doesn't like the Blue Ridge Parkway."  I thought about that.  In other words, GPS will not tell you that you should take the Parkway from Asheville to Linville Falls.  It will give you another route (there were some interesting things on this route as well, thankfully).  

When we finally found the Falls, we hiked around a bit, and decided that we didn't have time to take the Parkway all the way home.  If you have to BE somewhere, it is definitely not the fastest road.   There are many places to stop and get out and look around.  And if you don't do that -- if you don't stop and look -- what's the point?  So for most of the way we took the highway.  But for a little while I wanted to be on the Blue Ridge.  

I just wanted to BE there.  And I thought, as we were driving, and stopping and looking -- maybe that's why GPS doesn't like it.  You don't take the Parkway to GO somewhere.  You take it to BE somewhere.  The road itself is a place.  

There is something holy about that, about considering a road which is not just a means to an end, but an end in itself.  There is something holy about wandering the Blue Ridge Parkway (they call the whole 469 miles "meandering').  So much of life is getting somewhere else -- and not paying attention to where we are right now.  I'm learning about mindfulness, and the Parkway seems like a place to be mindful.

After all, God is where we are right now, as well as up ahead of us, and behind us, and below and above us.  Maybe it's all right to turn off the GPS and just be, pay attention, listen and wonder.  Maybe it's all right to stop at the scenic outlooks, not to be in a hurry all the time.  

I meant to write this earlier but I was too busy, and now my heart is heavy with the devastation that I'm seeing from hurricane Helene, lives and places wrecked, catastrophes everywhere.  But God is where we are right now, here as well.  In grief and work and love.  May we pay attention.

Lost in Translation

 It was back in April, right after Easter, and we were traveling home from Brenham to Montgomery.  Even though we've lived here for awhile now, we still take notice of the geography and the names that we encounter, so different in some ways from the geography and names in our homeland of Minnesota.  I noticed at some point that we were in Brazos County, and that we had traveled over the Brazos River.  We both wondered what "Brazos" meant.  My husband thought that maybe brazes meant brown, because that seemed to be the color of the river, at least from where we could see.  So I did what people do these days:  I googled it.  I googled "Brazos" and discovered that it did not mean "brown."  It was Spanish for "arms."  I thought of all the other words derived from this one:  brace, embrace, bracelet, bracket.  I'm sure there are more.

And then I learned more:  that the full name of the Brazos River is this:  "Rio de los brazos de Dios" -- the River of the Arms of God.  That's what the Spanish explorers called it.  They didn't simply see a body of water, flowing -- they saw something of God -- wide, embracing, stretching out.  Somehow it made the river seem alive to me.  What else was I not noticing?

*****

Then it was July, and I was in Minnesota, a place I know well, or so I think.  We were staying a little north of the Twin Cities, near the City of Anoka, a small historic town that rests on the place where the Rum River flows into the mighty Mississippi.  We walked around the town and peered over the bridges, and drove along the edge of the Rum River, where there were flowering bushes and trees and picnic tables and swings.  I got out of the car and looked around.  I didn't know anything about the Rum River, although I had lived in Minnesota all of my life and knew plenty about the Mississippi and the Minnesota, the St. Croix and the Root Rivers.  So I did what people do these days:  I googled it.  I discovered that the Rum River flows from the great Mille Lacs Lake in north central Minnesota to the Mississippi.  Mille Lacs is French for "thousand lakes".  The Ojibwa people called it "Zaaga'igan" (grand lake), and in Dakota it was called "Bde Wakhan" (Spiritual/Mystic Lake.).  It was a place of spiritual importance, as was the river that flowed out of it. 

The Rum River.  The name is a mistranslation.  When explorers first heard its name, "Spirit River", they thought it meant "spirits" -- like rum.  But it really meant Spirit, as in God.

*****

The River of the Arms of God.  The Spirit River.  The water flows, and shimmers, and gives life.  It is true, what Jacob said.  "Surely God is in this place, and I -- I did not know it."

Contemplative Prayer

 One of the most consequential experiences of my short sabbatical this summer happened almost at the end of my time away.  I had spent a good deal of necessary time with family, both in Atlanta and in Minnesota.  I had finished my certification in Spiritual Direction course in South Carolina, had hiked in areas along the Blue Ridge Mountains, listened to music, and spent a week on the North Shore of Lake Superior, writing and hiking and just being near the water.  There is something about being near water, isn't there?  

At the back of my mind was something I wanted to do in July:  go to contemplative worship one Saturday night at Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church, in Minneapolis.  They offer the Saturday night service twice a month, as part of an emphasis on sabbath.  I had first thought about going on the second Saturday in July, but somehow we got distracted by a River Festival in a small town near my brother's place, so we went there instead.

Kara Root is the pastor of Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church.  Back in 2020, I had read her book "The Deepest Belonging".  Then, this year, she published a follow-up, Receiving This Life, which also tells stories but offers prayers and faith practices as well.  Somewhere along the line I learned that her church offers a contemplative service, and I was genuinely curious.  My time was running out.  I knew I couldn't put it off again.

So we set out for this little church (she often describes it as a "tiny congregation").  Maybe that's one of th reasons I was a little nervous.  I couldn't be anonymous there.  Would they notice us?  How would it feel?

We got to the church a little bit before 5:00 when worship would begin.  I discovered that, due to the heat, they were meeting in their small fellowship hall.  The sanctuary did not have air conditioning.  

And it WAS a small group.  I didn't count, but I think that there may have been twelve people, including us.  We were greeted warmly, and initial awkwardness disappeared during the first few minutes.

I noticed that the small room was filled -- with a couple of floor murals (one was a map of the world, one, I think was a large heart), a stand with candles, a table with notebooks, paper, crayons, playdoh, and some other things.  There were coloring sheets, and there was at least one art display.  There was also an outdoor labyrinth if anyone wanted to go outside in the heat and pray by walking.

The service opened simply, with a few instructions, a prayer, and a little singing without accompaniment.  They were simple songs, and some people sang in harmony (including us!).  The pastor read scripture, someone lead a responsive prayer, and then there were directions about how to use the next half hour for prayer and meditation.  There was one particular station that was new and related to praying for either a current event or based on a sermon theme for the summer (I don't remember which).  

I wondered what to do for a half hour, but my husband settled in quickly with colored pencils and a coloring page with the word "Alleluia" on it.  I walked around for a few minutes, stopping to light a candle at one station, putting a couple of candles on the map for places I wanted to pray for.  I noticed a large heart and then small pieces of paper with names of people and occupations on them -- words like "EMTs", "single parent families", "abuse survivors", "nurses", "teachers","clerks".... and many more.  The large notebooks that I saw earlier had many directions for ways to pray during this free time.  Afterwards, Pastor Kara said that the book had developed organically over time, as they discovered, learned and incorporated prayer practices that worked for them.  There were sheets of papers and pens; one of the options was simply to journal your prayers.  So, for the rest of the time, that is what I did.  I simply wrote my prayers, my worries, my hopes, to God.

Somewhere during this time it occurred to me how odd and wonderful this was:  I wasn't rushing through prayers to get to the next thing.  I was simply allowing myself to sit, and to be, and it didn't feel lazy, it felt full.  I was simply allowing myself to be in the presence of God.  Why don't I do this more often, I thought?   

A bell called us back together for closing prayers and a closing song.  A few people stayed to help clean up the room.  Some people said it was nice to have a couple of Lutherans worshipping with them (possibly because of my husband singing the bass parts).   I introduced myself to Pastor Kara, and told her I had just completed a spiritual direction program.  She said that she was a spiritual director too.

Just one hour.  That's all it was.  But somehow, in just being, in listening, in prayer, God found me.

Openings

 Last week we headed up to the North Shore of Lake Superior for a one part of my sabbatical.  Most specifically, our destination was my friend Anna's retreat, called, "The Spent Dandelion", a place she created to offer respite and reflection time to clergy (and others, I suspect; we all need respite and reflection).  Her place is right on the border of Two Harbors, Minnesota, in the forest and close to the greatest Great Lake.  Besides reflection and respite, one of the virtues of Two Harbors in the summer is a break from the summer heat.  It rarely gets above 75 degrees Fahrenheit and almost no one has air conditioning.

When we drove in Sunday afternoon, Anna was standing in the driveway, waving her arms and pointing us to our designated parking space.  Her husband and their four dogs were also there to welcome us (their cat, not so welcoming).

Almost the first thing Anna did was apologize, though.  It was not 75 degrees.  It was unusually warm for the area that week, and was around 90 as we spoke.  In fact, we had been commenting as we drove north, that we were expecting it to cool down any minute, and it didn't.  Like everyone else, they didn't have air conditioning, but all the windows were open and the fans were going, and they were expecting some "weather" that would cool things off.

Living just north of Houston as we do right now, we are used to hot weather, but also to air conditioning.  So it was a slight disappointment, I'll admit, to go to bed hot, with the fans on and the windows open on both sides of the apartment.  Only the dog didn't mind.  She delighted in looking out the window, and curled up on the bed to sleep.

But during the night, something magical happened.  Indeed, it was just as my host promised.  Some kind of weather came in (although not a huge storm), and the breezes coming through our open window were cool and refreshing.

I remembered this experience from childhood, although I had not felt it for a long time.  In our house growing up, there was no air conditioning, and I remember the windows open at night, box fans in the windows, sleeping with just a sheet on those steamy night.  Then, sometime in the night, the wind would turn, and the air coming in would  be cool and refreshing.

These days it seems like we keep the windows closed most of the time; in the winter, to keep it warm, and in the summer to keep it cool.  I didn't realize how much I  miss the feeling of air coming through open windows.  I didn't realize how much I needed cross-ventilation.

We keep the windows closed for many reasons -- excessive heat and cold, certain noises, the highway is too close, we are distracted by the neighbors, their music and their conversations.  (I remember hearing through the wall a very loud telephone conversation in the middle of the night in my first apartment.)  But I forgot how much we need fresh air, not just cross-ventilation, but cross-fertilization, to be stirred up by the breeze or the music or conversations that float through the air (well, some of them anyway).  I forgot how much I needed fresh air, open windows, open eyes, and ears.  

The open windows reminded me of something else too:  they reminded me of a childhood enchanted with God's presence, in the mysteries of the world, of nature, of all the things I was thirsty to know, and didn't yet.  They reminded me of the stories of scriptures, and the stories in fairy tales, and the stories from the books that I was starting to learn to read.  When did I close the window and learn to live in artificially comfortable temperatures almost all the time?  

I am thinking about this.

I just completed a course on spiritual direction.  Theoretically, I can go and be a spiritual director now.  I am still learning what that means, though.  I am by no means an expert.  I need spiritual direction myself, someone to remind me that the Spirit is out there, and in me, and to open the windows that are closed in me and catch the breeze.  I need someone to remind me to be open to the enchantment that is already in the world.

I think, in its most basic form, this is what spiritual direction is.  It is to remind each other to open the windows in our lives, open the windows to the voice of God in scripture, to open the windows that point to God's presence in tears and shouts, in maple leaves in fall, in red-tailed hawks circling, in the wind.

Turn

 We haven't been up on the North Shore for ten years, I think.  I moved down to Texas in 2015, and although we have visited our family in Minnesota, there hasn't been the time to drive north.  But we used to go, every summer, for three or four days, and take our dog along.  Part of my sabbatical this year was one week on the North Shore at a theological retreat center run by my friend Anna.  It is a place to unwind and relax and get inspiration from the forests and lakes and the cool breezes.  

Of course, it was 90 degrees when we arrived on Sunday afternoon --with no air conditioning, because no one has air conditioning around here.  They promised that the weather would change, though and sometime during that first night, coolness rolled in through the open windows.  It was a feeling I hadn't experienced since my childhood, pre-air conditioning.  Fans in all of the windows, my mom coming into our rooms late in the night and changing the direction of the fans so that they would blow the cool air in instead of blowing the hot air out.  

On Wednesday we had planned to go to Grand Marais.  We had so many good memories there -- hiking trails, eating at restaurants (with our dog), the local artists, the World's Best Donuts (really!).  But some of the places we remembered weren't open (although the fabulous Drury Lane Bookstore was).  However, I couldn't decide which book to buy and ended up leaving empty-handed.

On the way home, we kept looking for places to stop and hike and get good views of the lake.  Inspiration.  That was part of the reason I came, right?  As Anna's tagline goes "Retreat Reflect Restore".  But retreating reflecting and restoring is not a straight line.

We stopped at Tettegouche State Park but decided that wasn't the right place, at least not on Wednesday.  So we continued driving, debating where to stop, until we remembered a Scenic Overlook close to "home", at Silver Creek Cliff.  That is where we stopped, and that is where we walked.  We walked part of the way up and back, because we were already tired.  There is a tunnel there, but it wasn't there until 1994.  Before that, the narrow road ran right along the cliff.  There were spectacular views, but with some unfortunate downsides -- for example, sometimes falling rocks would close the road for days (or perhaps longer.  I don't know).  The tunnel opened in 1994 as well as the walking path, so you can get close to the edge of the cliff (without rocks falling on you).

I walked with my camera out, because I always want to take pictures of what I am seeing, but I was disappointed in every picture I tried to take.  They just weren't spectacular enough, I guess.  But the walking was good, and I did see a monarch butterfly and some milkweed.

Then we got to the part where we decided to turn around.  I don't remember if it was right away, but in my memory it seems like it was.  I turned around, and there it was.  The Lake.

All I had to do was turn around.  Which doesn't seem like such a hard thing to do, but, at the heart of it, that is what repentance is.  Turning.  Turning around.  Returning.  I don't know about you, but when I usually think of repentance, I think of it in my head.  My brain.  My heart. Thinking, or feeling, differently,  But somehow I think that repentance, like faith itself, is really a whole body experience.  No offense to Paul, but we don't just change our minds.  We turn our heads, our bodies, our lives, in a different direction.  

Turn.  That is what Jesus asks us to do, and not just once, but every day.  You never know which moment it will be, when you will turn, and see something different, or see something, or someone, in a different way.  We will be astonished by beauty, by vastness, by grace.  

That is what repentance, that is what turning, does.  It is re-orienting ourselves to God.  But not just our minds.  Our faces, looking up into rain or sunshine. Our backs, leaning over a garden.  Our whole bodies, our whole selves, repent.  And it seems to me that this turning is also at the heart of our lives.  Again and again and again -- we turn.

The Kingdom of heaven has drawn near.