confusion, chaos and Christmas

Everywhere I look, I see confusion and chaos in our house. The kitchen trash can is overflowing. Toys are underfoot and children are playing the "Roar" game in our shower to hear the echoes. Meals are a cacophony and symphony of sound. The refrigerator is full, stuffed with leftovers and supplies for meals yet to come. The house is also full of laughter and frustration and glee and fatigue and love.
In the middle of morning breakfast shifts and showers and crying babies, the phone rings. Michael’s voice,"Come to the garden in the mule. Barney has hurt a cat." I fly down the stairs in my robe and pajamas, put on my boots, drive down to the garden and find Hal, a black and white barn cat, terribly injured. I wrap him in towels and we drive up the hill. Alison checks him out and the decision is made to take him to the emergency animal hospital. As I drive, I am remembering the other trips made to this same animal hospital for beloved pets. Hal dies before we get to the vet and I stand weeping at the reception desk as his body is placed in a box and my towels bagged by sympathetic helpers.
What to do about Barney whose breed is known for killing small animals? How to intervene and circumvent Mother Nature? How to tell the grandchildren... do we have a funeral this afternoon... how to tell my mama about her cat being killed by my dog... my mind is flying in circles as I slowly drive home on the interstate. It has been a dark, cloudy morning after rain all night and my mood fits the weather. Suddenly I see it... a small, pale rainbow in the middle of an isolated blue patch just to the left of the highway. A rainbow... a promise... a reminder that God is present.
And suddenly I remember another Christmas, the first Christmas, Mary and Joseph on the interstate headed to a strange town not to meet family and friends but to obey a law requiring their presence for a census. Mary must have been frightened and sad. Her first baby, a baby with such an unusual beginning, would be born without any of her women friends or family with her. I was scared enough with doctors and nurses to help, not to mention the epidural. After a 24 hour labor process, I was worn and weary and ready for this grand event to be over. How must Mary and Joseph have felt, surrounded by strangers, in pain, in a barn not even an inn, no bed, just straw. I do hope they weren’t alone. I hope the innkeeper’s wife came and held her hand, talked her through the birth, cleaned the baby up and told Joseph how to help. Surely God sent them a rainbow person for the birth itself not just shepherds and kings coming after the pain of birth had eased.
I pulled over on the shoulder to sit with the rainbow for a minute, to let the colored light ease the ache in my soul for us all. And as I sat, tears flowing, like the Psalmists of old, I began to recite my pain and my blessing. I called the names of all those I have loved, four and two legged, who have died, blessed their names and grieved their absence. I called the names of those who still walk in the land of the living, blessed their names and presence in my life. I called on the name of the Lord. I called for peace and joy and hope. I called for the Mystery to be born again in me as I celebrate and survive yet another Christmas, another beginning again the walk towards new life and death and resurrection. Like the "begats" at the beginning of the Matthew gospel, I am a part of a long list of those who have walked with God. When it is my turn to die, my name will be remembered by those who have loved me. God will remember my name and I will be finally whole and on the other side of the glass through which we see darkly. Thanks be to God for life and death, for rainbows in the midst of dark clouds, for all of life in its complexity, for babies and dogs and cats and noisy celebrations of the present that keep us in touch with the One who started it all. Amen. Peggy Hester

Christmas Cheer... or not

I am inundated with feelings, swamped with the overflow of tears and laughter, drowning in suffering and anger and laughter and joy. It is Christmas and suddenly everything seems to be more intense, more of itself now than in real time. The joy is more joyful, the sadness a heavier weight to bear, the anger and frustration seem unending with no solution or resolution, the expectations of hope, love, joy and peace are fragile and subject to breaking in shipping. Yesterday was a day full of all this and more.
Mama is leaving in one week to return to Georgia for two months (maybe). She wants to see her doctors, live in her house a little while, see friends, go to church, get her taxes done, be home for a little while. She is full of anticipation and fear. So am I. I fear loneliness for her and for me. I worry about her aloneness far away from us. I celebrate her network of friends and church and the feeling of being home. At the same time she will feel daddy’s absence more keenly in the home they built and the farm they loved. What is a daughter to do but let go and pray?
Friends’ feelings are in turmoil, raging PMS responses in menopausal maidens, children over the moon with the holiday hilarity, undone gift selection, parents in nursing homes, family members and friends who will not live to see another Christmas, hurtful convoluted communication, confusion and consternation on every hand. What can a friend do but pray?
Children and grandchildren coming with joy and laughter, Christmas Present. Hopes of riding Junie B. Jones and the tractor loom as large in their holiday season as Santa Claus. Three year old Mason walks around holding his nativity ornament singing songs of the season. Matthew is holding on, hoping his mother will not have to call Santa Claus about his behavior, playing his part in the Christmas pageant, a beaming shepherd. Adam and Michelle, Megan and Mike, Alison and David, Matthew, Mason, Meade and Aidan will gather here at the farm for Christmas. We will have a candlelight service with family and neighbors in the tobacco barn chapel Christmas Eve and remember why we are gathered. What can a mother and grandmother do but pray?
Ghosts of Christmas Past arrive as well. "Wouldn’t daddy be proud of his great-grandchildren?" "Mommy Anne would have loved to be in the center of all this celebration." Remember...the fall Grady and Gayle died and we drove through the night singing Muppet Christmas songs and weeping... the Christmas Daddy O and Mommy Anne wheeled out a rack full of sweat suits for everyone in bright colors...the first Christmas on Sabbath Rest Farm...our first Christmas when you gave me something black and brown and medium sized...remember? What can a woman do but pray?
My prayers are not for peace and love and hope and joy. I have those in abundance. Nor are my prayers for the easing of pain or the resolution of anger and confusion. I have those also. I will not be praying for the way to be made plain nor the lion to lie down with the lamb. I will be praying prayers of gratitude for all of Christmas, the lions of loneliness and fear, the lambs of love present and love lost, the horses of hope and despair, praying for the fullness of Christmas to come to my heart. I will pray that my heart might be open, like the birth barn, so that Jesus might come once again to live in my soul manger. I will pray that Christmas will come and we will all, for a little while or for the rest of our lives, remember and give thanks for all that is, all that has been and all that is yet to come.
"And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, Look now! For glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing: O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing." Edmund Sears

they came bearing gifts...

They came, dressed to the hilt in party dresses and high heels, coats and ties, make-up and jewelry, Santa hats and faux tuxedos, full to overflowing with themselves and the season. It was the second annual formal sit down dinner for the youth group at our house last night. Michael, Pam and Dianne planned this for the first time last year. It was such fun for us all that we decided to make it a tradition. Michael is the chief cook and begins planning the menu early. Last year it was Lemon Chicken a la Michael. This year it was pork tenderloin with loaded mashed potatoes and home canned green beans. Pam provided chocolate fondue for dessert. One of the adults at church, Carol Duin, volunteered to come, wash dishes and serve as way to meet the youth A trip to Sam’s to buy food, a week spent cleaning and decorating, setting up the tables to seat twenty, putting out my great-grandmother’s and great aunt’s and Mommy Ann’s silver on the red tablecloth with white china and red and green glasses, lighting every candle in the house... getting ready for a party with cherished young adults in the making.
I stood and watched them as they ate... good table manners, conversation, behavior that would have made every parent proud. Many of these children I taught in Sunday School for several years. I remember them then and see them now... it takes my breath away. In the blink of an eye, they have been transformed and are now beginning to fly... and drive... on their own. Two of the group came back from the land of college as first semester freshmen. They had stories to tell of cafeteria food and eight o’clock classes. Our single senior, as is the custom, was allowed to pick her seat of choice for the dinner, She chose the gilded chair at the head of the big table. Laughter, mock fights over white elephant gifts (I think they were pretending to fight over the gum ball machine), chatter and giggles, sharing of home made cookies, comparison of high heel styles... nothing of substance and yet everything of importance was present at the party last night.
Adults who love these almost grown up children served them dinner, a visible sign of our respect for them and the world they inhabit. They are our future and we honor the adults they are becoming. We gave them our best last night. A pretty, safe, comfortable, warm, hospitable environment where they could relax and practice community. Snow swirled outside with winter winds blowing. Inside, a warm fire burned and Christmas music played. All were welcome and all were made welcome in different ways. The group picture taken in front of the fireplace shows bright faces full of promise and joy. For a little while, they do not have to be anyone but themselves and it gives us all such joy to be included in the fun.
They have no idea what gifts they give those of us who love them. Some came bearing hostess gifts... pecan pie in a jar, a cartoon book about farm life... but all of them brought the gift of their presence in our lives. I cannot imagine a life without the energy and enthusiasm, fractiousness and friendship, laughter and tears shared with these special children.
They give me the gift of remembrance. I remember who I was at that age... remember hot dog cook outs at the Zipperer farm and Sunday night youth group... remember and give thanks for adults who loved me into adulthood in the church. I remember other grown-ups in other churches who loved my children on mission trips, at parties, at Sunday night gatherings and at camp. I am grateful for the important gifts of friendship given to my children at church.
They bring me the gift of the present, a right here and now enjoyment that leaves behind the worries of tomorrow. Their ability to live in an immediate state of being, still children under the glitter and glitz, reminds me to enjoy the moment because that is all I am promised. For the moment last night, we were present to the present of the present... living in the pleasures of the moment with gratitude.
They give me the gift of the future. When I watch them I see adults of great promise emerging from the cocoons of childhood. Dancers, peacemakers, writers, engineers, musicians, actors, doctors, teachers... a world of talent and giftedness is contained in this small community of soon to be grown ups. The world needs their compassion and love and humor and laughter. So do I. I thank them for all the hostess presents they brought last night. They were gold, frankincense and myrrh for my soul, wise women and men in the making bearing gifts for all the adults who love them.
P.S. Lee, who took the gum ball machine, after several exchanges, endured much verbal abuse (I hate you, I can’t believe you did that, etc.) gave the machine to Peyton as he left. He had gotten it and saved it specially for her since she loved it so.
P.P.S. Special thanks to Carol Duin who donned a waiters apron to come serve and wash dishes
P.P.P.S. Extra special thanks to parents who share their children with us at church.
Peggy Hester

Joyful, Joyful, I Adore Thee

It is the Joy Sunday of Advent. I am making a joyful list. Grandchildren singing "pum pa pum pum" and "fa la la la" over the phone, children coming home for Christmas as healthy, happy adults married to those they love, clear crisp cold air, rain in the night, Junie B. Jones who is the leader of the cow herd, Michael’s good health, my mom’s presence with us this Christmas, the sight of the sunrise over the mountain top, pine trees dancing to the accompaniment of the tune played by winter wind, good friends who surround us at every turn, a farm where we can work and play and savor the natural world that surrounds us, deer grazing by the high barn standing still and watching us watch them... I am overflowing with joy.
Joy for me is not happiness. Happiness is fun but temporary. I can be happy with a new dress or a clean house or a good book. Joy for me is happiness and gratitude combined, a permanent way of living life. Joy ripples through my soul like a song that never ends. I have much that gives me joy and much joy to share.
I remember how I felt when I walked the aisle to join our church when I was twelve. I was filled with joy, overflowing with joy, bouncing down the aisle to begin my life of faith. I am so grateful that pilgrimage began in joy, a joy that has sustained me when the way has grown dark and narrow at times. That joy kept me coming back to church, the place where God’s people gather. Even when we weren’t behaving like Christians in church, the memory of the first joy held me fast and would not let me leave the church. There is joy to be found at church.
I remember the joy I felt when each of our children were born. The overwhelming soul full busting out all over joy of seeing and holding new life that was created by Michel and me. It still brings tears to my eyes when I revisit those days in my memory. There were many days of joy as a mother along with many days of trials and tribulation, but the joy was always the dominant melody line. Now when I hear our daughters’ laughter with their children, see the delight they experience with them, my joy is expanded and increased. Mary felt the same wonder and joy I did but her joy must have been tempered by the mystery of the incarnation. Not everyone gets angels singing for a birth announcement, and shepherds and wise men dropping by for adoration and gift giving. The Bible says Mary kept all that happened in her heart and pondered them.
Pondering joy... pondering mystery... pondering God’s presence among us... cause for joy and celebration. I am ringing the bells of joy in my soul today, anticipating the birth of Love among us, a baby boy named Jesus. Jesus, like all boys, will grow and play and get into trouble and make his parents wonder if he will ever amount to anything. He grows in to his calling and becomes the Face of God living as we live, a brotherly bridge to the One who births us all.
Joyful, joyful, we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of Love... Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day...Joyful music leads us Sunward in the triumph song of life. Today I choose to live joyfully, adoring the One who made me, who fills my soul with light and laughter, who has lead me all my life and leads me still with joyful heart music as I mosey on home to the Source of all Joy. Thanks be to God. Peggy Hester

too young and too old...

I am too old to be middle aged and too young to be old, an awkward developmental stage, teenager in reverse. It is an interesting, sometimes painful and funny way to live. Teenagers are bursting at the seams with all they think they know. So am I. Teenagers can’t wait to get out on their own so they can do it better, whatever "it" may be. I’ve been there, did some things better and some things worse, learned being on your own is harder than it looks. Teens can be preoccupied with their bodies and appearance. So can I. My bad ankle is giving way, my cute freckles have transformed into age spots and my body is settling towards the earth to which it will return. And like teens whose wisdom is often discounted because of their youth, I find my wisdom and experience discounted because of my age. I am not yet old enough to be revered for living a long time nor old enough to have my lapses in keeping up with the times fondly overlooked. It is not always a pleasant or warm fuzzy feeling to be my age. It is however, profoundly meaningful.
A friend and I were talking about the changes in our person as we age. Neither of us are as nice as we used to be. We spent years letting others’ opinions and thoughts and behavior glide over us as we laid low being nice. We raised children, taught Sunday School, served as deacons, decorated the church, cooked food for the sick, led Brownie Scout troops, ran car pools, attended numerous sports events and plays and recitals, did volunteer work, held part time jobs, cleaned houses, showed up for our family and our community, gracious and nice and pleasant and smiling. We were the unseen underbelly of family life, church life, community life, work life, that made the wheels of growth and progress run smoothly. There were no pay checks or retirement plans or health benefits for the job we did. Even though we were not able to have all the perks of a two career family, we were able to live comfortably on one income so we were freed to be the grace notes, the hard working grace notes for our families and communities. We are proud of that part of our lives. It was a busy, productive, meaningful time but it is over. Now we find ourselves full of wisdom, humor, perspective, patience and knowledge that is often devalued and under estimated.
And we don’t give a damn about being nice any more. Manners, paradoxically, are now more important because they provide a way for us to say and be who we really are, not camouflage ourselves. We are clearer about who we are, know where we have been and where we are going, see a little more of the big picture, able to shed the unnecessary trappings of what others perceive to be "important" for our own translation of life. And it is in our churches that we find ourselves most adrift.
My friend is in a church where she wishes the pastor would own his convictions about peace and justice more openly from the pulpit. I am in a church where I often feel the lack of spiritual depth because we spend so much time on peace and justice. We struggle to find solid rock on which to stand in our respective communities. We both yearn for a flexible, open community that can affirm all of who we are without feeling like we have failed the course in religious language and theology. What makes this funny is we have church communities that have been home for us in many ways from opposite ends of the spectrum but we are both seeking the same ground on which to stand, a hard to find balance between grace and works. We decided it has to do with our age.
Having lived long enough to see the failures of the Great Society and welfare and Social Security and government and the civil rights movement and the Peace Corps to provide peace and justice for all people, in spite of the best intentions of those who were workers in these programs, we find ourselves relying on God more and people less. We still work in programs and ministries designed to create change, provide service for those who are least among us, and do our best to be salt and light in a world that is short on both. But we no longer expect to be able to arrive at some perfect place where lions and lambs lie down together. That is God’s domain. We just try to keep them from eating each other alive in our here and now.
So here we are... undiscovered wise women on the road to Bethlehem to find the baby boy who has come to show us a new face of God, traveling under a star that leads us on our individual journeys, each of us coming home to God on the blue highways of life. It is enough. We are grateful for the journey and anticipate every turn in the road, knowing where we have been and where we are going. It is enough. We come from different hometowns, have made different stops along the way, travel in many different languages but we are all seeking the baby under the star, the one called the Son of God. It is enough. The road to Bethlehem is full of those who seek to find God, the company of joyful uncertainty, and it is more than enough. Thanks be to God. Peggy Hester

What if????

We put up the Christmas tree last night. Mama and I were remembering Christmas Past, mine and hers, as children. She and her daddy would go to the woods on their farm in Virginia, Cloverly, find a cedar tree and cut it down. Some of the ornaments came from her mother’s home in Richmond and were blown glass from Germany brought over when her father emigrated to America. In our home pine trees were the tree of choice primarily because there were so many of them and they grew so fast. Buying a Christmas tree was not one of our family values. We would carefully unwrap the ornaments stored in tissue paper and place them in the perfect spot after wrapping the tree in large colored lights. The final touch was the placement of the tinsel. Mother still has some of our old tinsel stored in the linen closet. A magical time, a time that lives now in our memories and warms our heart as it brings tears to our eyes grieving the loss of so many who stood by us during those dear days long ago.
I was a child who believed in magical people and events. Fairies and fairy rings could be found even in sandy south Georgia. Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny brought fantasy and life and color to my interior life, expanded my vision, taught me some lessons about giving and sharing. I am always grateful my parents did not restrict my entry into the Land of What If because of religious principles or fear of watching my disillusionment upon discovering the jolly old elf was my mama and daddy. What fun to play the game of make believe, explore all the possibilities... what if Santa Claus started early down south so he could have time for everyone (used to explain early Christmas for a trip to grandparents)... what if the Easter Bunny could bring fancy socks that matched your new Easter Dress as well as candy in your Easter basket... what if fairies and leprechauns emigrated from Ireland and made their way to south Georgia taking up residence in the old barn across from your house...what if all the animals do talk at midnight on Christmas Eve... what if for one blessed day the whole world could be free of hunger, suffering, death, and war with the peace that passes all understanding settling down like an old, worn quilt over the tired, aching bones of this world.
Faith during Advent for me is the "What If" of life. What if God is speaking Hope to me in the poem I just read? What if I could share my Junie B. Joy with others and my joy could be multiplied? What if I called everyone I Love instead of sending a Christmas letter? What if I could find hope and peace and joy and love just for this small slice of time in this one year of my life? Perhaps I could learn some new way of being that would carry over into the year to come.
Jerene Broadway, our preacher Sunday morning, sent us to the prophet Zechariah for an Advent image that captures the "What Ifness" of this season. The prophet has been having visions right and left, full of mysterious stories, predicting the future. One of the well known images for Jesus is found in Chapter 9, an oracle, "Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass." My favorite image, highlighted by Jerene in her sermon, is found in verse 12. "Return to the stronghold, O prisoners of hope." This year I choose to live hoping, held fast in the vision of what might yet come to pass in the land of the living, the land of what if? I will not pack away my Advent Hope like a cherished ornament, to be kept safe until next year. I will live in hope held fast in the clutches of possibility, trying to catch a glimpse of the fairies living in the barn next door. May it be so.

Family Reunions... Lynchings or Love-Ins?

Michael and I are talking about going to a family reunion in January, a Baptist family reunion. It is the first Baptist event that has caught my imagination in a long, long while. The purpose is not to start a new denomination but to establish connection and respect between many Baptist groups. There will be African American Baptists and white Baptists, liberal Baptists and evangelical conservative Baptists, political Baptists, southern Baptists and northern Baptists, many races, cultures and theologies but all Baptist. Some of the public Baptists like Marian Wright Edelman and Bill Moyers and Jimmy Carter have earned my respect through the years for the living out of their calling in the glare and gaze of an often unsympathetic culture. Other Baptists attending and leading have lived their calling as pastor or teacher or lay person or minister at large somewhat removed from the hurly burly world of public religion but all are searching for what is common and shared among them, not what divides them. There will be women ministers, women pastors of churches and folks who don’t believe women should be ordained in this group, probably. There will be Republican and Democratic Baptists but political affiliations are not the measuring standard for this group. The planning committee has chosen Jesus’ words from his first (and only) sermon in his hometown as the guiding light for this gathering.
Jesus quoted Isaiah... "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" as his text. Jesus then announced that this scripture had been fulfilled that day, in Nazareth, in that synagogue, and everyone was so pleased. They were bragging on Joseph’s boy. The RSV version says "They wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of his mouth."
But then Jesus began to meddle. He reminded them that God had done wondrous things for all God’s children, not just the Jews. God had used people from alien lands and religions and cultures to accomplish great things. They were filled with wrath and launched a lynching party, pushing Jesus out of the city and up to a cliff where they intended to push him over. Just like us, whatever our religious identification, our first instinct is to cast out the one who bears a message we do not want to hear.
This powerful text calls Christians to follow in the steps of Jesus and Isaiah by tending those who are overlooked and undertended. It reminds us that we are all strangers in a foreign land and the only way we can survive is to care for one another. Those who can, do and those who need, receive. The give and take, the receiving and giving, flow from the Source, The Spirit of the Lord. Often when I find myself weary of peace and social justice work, I need a balancing act. The Spirit of the Lord, the seeking first for the Source of our Being, the Love that called us all into existence must be the Ground on which I stand, the Rose that lifts my spirit with a sweet fragrance, the Breath that keeps me living in hope, love, joy and peace during times that offer precious little of them. And when I read this text, I find all the doing of good flows from the Spirit. Battle fatigue sets in when we forget to whom we belong and do not visit the Home Place often enough.
"Who are your people?" is a question heard throughout the South and a question that demands an answer. My people are the ones who love God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit in all the shapes and forms and names that we have created to describe the indescribable. My people are the ones doing the work of the Lord in many different ways... visiting women’s prisons, visiting the nursing homes, working to abolish the death penalty, serving as guardian ad litems, sitting with the old and the young, bringing food to the grieving, serving meals at the shelter, those who provide shade in a weary, hot land that has little mercy for the weak and weary.
So bless you all, you angels of mercy who spring from the Source and walk among us as bright beacons of the Light. You are my people and I am proud of you, my kinfolk. May we all, whatever our calling and however we define our faith, remember from whom we come and to whom we will return. May the Spirit of the Lord fall upon us all these holy advent days so that we might show how greatly we have been loved by the breadth and width of our love for others. Amen.

bottle my tears...

"Thou hast kept count of my tossings; put thou my tears in thy bottle!" Psalms 56:8
Tossing and turning... night time exercise in bed... tears that come with holidays along with smiles... we are programmed, hard wired for both. So often, however, I find myself impatient with my tossing and turning as if it were some lack of faith or my inability to control my brain that produces this restlessness, this combination of joy and sorrow and worry.
Since childhood, night and darkness have felt comfortable for me. I have never been afraid of the dark. Perhaps my comfort comes from hours spent sitting on porches watching twilight and dusk creep into the yard with darkness gentling over us as we sat, rocked, talked and listened to the katydids and whipoorwills sing. Observing the coming of darkness was a daily ritual in the summer time that followed the early evening meal.
Winter time darkness had a different quality. Because of the cold and the early darkness, my sister and I would come in from outdoor play and sit by the huge old oil heater that dominated the landscape of our home. Light from the single light bulbs hanging down from the ceiling bathed us in a soft amber glow as we ate supper, did our homework and went to bed. As I lay in my little bed in the shed bedroom I shared with my sister, the winter night lights kept me company as I waited, waited, waited for sleep to come. Even as a child my tossings made sleep an often tardy visitor.
In my childhood there were very few "security lights", large malls bathed in night light, or down towns that glowed all night long with street lights. Darkness surrounded us and we were able to see and find the gifts offered when the sun went down. We heard mysterious rustlings of unknown life passing us by. The half light of the stars and moon softened the sharp outlines of the day and we spoke softly, moved slowly, and listened carefully. Our daytime energy was transformed into a night time peace if we would take the time to sit, wait, watch and listen.
The star light and moon light are constant reminders of my finitude and a comforting wonder at the magnitude of God’s creation. I live in the country so I can see the stars, sometimes the Milky Way. In our town the ambient light has erased all but the brightest stars from the sky. On my drive home from teaching last night I began to drive up the hill to our home and looked up. I stopped the car in the driveway, got out and looked up. What had been a dull sky in town was now filled with stars and planets reflecting their tiny shiny lights down on me. I don’t know much about the physics of stars or the facts about their creation. But I do know that in that moment, my tossings stilled and I marveled at the dark night polka dotted with mysterious star light. Tears were bottled. Hope... blessed hope... the first gift of Advent wrapped in star light and given to me last night on the way home to Sabbath Rest Farm. Thanks be to God for tossings and turnings and bottled tears that come in the blessed darkness to help us see beyond the dark to the star shining in the east... the Light that is coming to live among us, Emmanuel.

It's not all sweetness and light...

I spent the afternoon with Mary Etta yesterday. She is a poet and a dreamer who has a call to nursing that has been lived out in many places and many ways. Old age and illness have slowed her body down but her spirit runs and leaps still in green fields of joy. Remembrances of our growing up in north Florida and south Georgia ran faster than our mouths could speak. Our age differences are as naught because we share a common history in many ways.
Remember when it was cane syrup making time? The brothers would gather and strip the cane the night before. Everyone would rise early to watch and work as the mule pulled the cane mill and the juice flowed into a barrel. Neighbors and family visited and there was always an adult peeling short pieces of cane for children to chew... candy straight from the fields. The juice cooked in a large, flat iron kettle over a fire that was carefully tended to keep it at the right temperature. I have one of those kettles in my flower bed now. The cane juice would bubble and cook down, constantly being stirred and skimmed. It took talent and knowledge to produce good cane syrup. Just like making candy, you had to know when the right time came to remove the liquid from the heat. And, in those days before candy thermometers and gas fires, it was a knowledge that came with years of watching and doing. Even the masters of the craft could on occasion miss the mark and produce an inferior syrup. Cane syrup and biscuits... Mary Etta and I had watering mouths as we remembered eating the home grown and home cooked cane syrup of our youth.
Advent is cane syrup making time for the soul. We are gathering ourselves together in the pre-dawn darkness, gathering our busy holiday lives up and bringing them to the cane mill at church where we can be transformed. Our juice flows into the kettle and we watch, anticipating the sweetness to come. The rituals of Advent, like the rituals of syrup making, are steps along the way that lead us to new light, a light that returns year after year as we wait and watch for the birth of the Light Bearer, Jesus Christ.
And like the syrup makers of my childhood, knowledge comes with practice. My first Advent celebrations were happy, banner making, table decoration, church decoration, Christmas tree trimming explosions of joy as I waited for the coming of the baby Jesus. As the years have passed and Advent seasons have passed the forty year mark for me, I see more of the skill required to fully celebrate Advent.
This is a season of darkness and light. The Bible is very clear in its description of the time before... Isaiah the Old Testament prophet and Matthew the disciple use the same words... "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death, light has dawned." We sit during these days in the region of the shadow of death, remembering the past and hoping, having faith in the dawning light.
Every morning now when I wake up, it is dark outside my window, too dark to see the mountains in the distance or the dead locust woodpecker tree. If I wait, lie quietly in my bed, I can watch the light come, slowly creeping up over the far mountains until my whole world is once again bathed in winter light. I wake up every morning with hope and faith... hope for the quality of light that will provide warmth and illumination... faith that once again, like so many mornings before, light will come. God said, "Let there be light" and so it has been... light in the star that both marks the place and leads the way to the Christ Child. Mary Etta and I are waiting this Advent season in the darkness before dawn for the star light to shine on us, showing us the way to go, helping us find the stable where Jesus waits for us... new light, fresh syrup for the homemade biscuits of our lives.

birds of a feather... friends of a feather

The white car pulled up in front of our house and Fran got out. We came out and hugged all round before we came back inside. It had been some years since we had actually laid eyes on one another. We were pew buddies at church, our sense of the absurd kicking into gear at the most inopportune times, leaving us shaking with silent (mostly) laughter, until we could regain control, then descend into giggles again when we caught each others eye. I taught her two children in Sunday School and loved them. They gave me as much pleasure in friendship as their parents.
Our catching up conversation, accompanied by pictures, quickly morphed into Velveteen Rabbit quality sharing. Our worn and tacky places, the spots where we are broken, some healed, some not, were offered up in the communion that comes when true friends, who can say anything to one another and it will be alright, do. Our joys and sorrows, our struggles, our family stories were the melody of the conversation song with a descant of giggles and laughter as we drank the bottle of wine Fran brought as a peace offering. Fran knows her wine and I found myself drinking a mighty fine red wine(Herederos del Marques de Riscal Elciego Rioja Reserva 2003). I don’t usually like red wine but I drank that wine with gratitude and laughter, two perfect feeling accompaniments for communion.
I sometimes wonder how our observance of communion would be if we used the best wine money could buy, like the water Jesus changed into wine at the wedding... if we laughed and like Carol’s grandson, made silly faces at one another as we came down the aisle... if we held up all our worn and broken places to be inspected and tenderly embraced by loving hands...if we got a little giddy on the fine wine of grace and gratitude for the gifts of body and blood poured out for us... if we could shed tears for one another’s sorrows and offer our bodies as wailing walls standing strong in the midst of great grief... if we could pour out our blood and laugh and giggle as we, like children taking blood oaths, share the red wine of life with each other, sacrificing our lives for each other.
Here we all be, sinners all, gigglers and weepers, funny faces and sorrowful faces, young, smooth faces and faces as old as Methuselah, some whose voices soar and stay on pitch and some who croak along in joyful noise, those who run freely and those who walk with canes and roll in chairs, fat, thin and in-between, meat eaters and vegetarians, all welcome at the extravagantly prepared Table of God. What we each need, sits on our plate. What we do with the gift of the table is up to us. We can choose to sit and eat or like Judas, rise and leave early before the Velveteen Rabbit times begin.
I am so very grateful, so unspeakably thankful for all the friends in my life who are a living communion table for me. Friendship, true friendship, is such a rare and fine wine indeed. I am also grateful for the ritual of communion, the remembrance of the body and blood of Jesus. This person lived here on earth as a Son of God, came as a baby boy and grew into his manhood just as we all grow into our adult bodies. This one named Jesus sat with his friends, shared a holy meal and bared his soul to his friends knowing his death was close at hand. In spite of this knowledge, or maybe because he knew, he chose not to run away but to stay, to wash the feet and eat the bread and drink the wine. This ritual sustains and feeds my soul in the company of other believers. Friends of a feather who flock together, gathered around in remembrance of all that was and in hope for all that is yet to come. Amen and amen. You wanna drink the wine?
In memory of Heather who died this week after nineteen years of life, surrounded and held by the loving arms of her family.

scooping the poop

Two of my friends, Caleb and Katy, came to work at the farm last Saturday. This was their first job for pay and they were very good workers. The first job was picking up all the scrap wood around Junie B’s new fence. Then the wood boxes for three houses needed to be filled with kindling and wood. The final job was scooping the poop.
One of the ways we are reducing the amount of hay we need to feed is by letting the cows out to graze on the unfenced hay fields. Naturally they do not stay on the unfenced fields but roam at will, ending up in my side yard for their siestas. I must admit as the daughter of a farmer, it is sweet to look out my window and see Ferdinand the bull in all his humongous splendor, resting and chewing his cud. His calm friendly phlegmatic personality always gives me pleasure and reminds me of my daddy. The little bulls cuddle up next to him and they lie in a family circle, all the boys snuggled up together. They drink from the old syrup kettle in my side flower bed that was their water source on my parent’s farm. I have to watch and make sure the koi don’t get left high and dry. All this cow activity in my yard results in large deposits of cow poop, a veritable minefield of poop, that snags the unwary and unaware. So before the grandchildren come for Christmas, we needed the poop scooped.
I handed Caleb and Katy two shovels and gave them instructions... scoop the poop, put it in my flower beds, rake the left overs so they will dissolve when we get rain. Katy’s shovel was a little heavy and the piles were really big but she managed to scoop by dividing the piles in half. It didn’t take long for the yard to be cleaned up. We leaned on our shovels and surveyed the yard, proud of our work, and watched as Ferd wandered through the front yard pausing long enough to deposit another fresh pile.
On this first day of Advent, I am reminded that my life, like my yard, needs some cleaning and clearing. During the past year I have often wandered on my way and lost the hopeful expectation of love, joy and peace. Piles of frustration, grief, hopelessness, hurt and anxiety dot the landscape of my heart weighing my soul down, keeping me stepping from one little clearing to another without a sense of direction or purpose. Before I can celebrate Advent, I must stop and settle, survey my soul’s yard and begin clearing away the messes left from the year past. It will require an examination, a close look at the painful places, the messy piles, so I can honor them as silent witness to my passage through the year 2007. My darkness, my shadow self is a balance for the reflection of my shining soul.
Darkness is as necessary to our soul’s growth as it is for flowers to bloom. Poinsettias and Christmas cactuses require a certain amount of darkness or they cannot bloom. My soul cannot bloom without time spent in the night that gives time for rest and renewal and recognition of my truest self. In darkness I can see the places where I have faltered, stumbled, wandered, hurt myself and others, lost the sense of the Presence that calls me to the light.
In honoring my imperfection, I can release my failures, ask God’s forgiveness and once again search for all the hope, love, joy and peace that surround me everyday. After I have passed through the darkness of Advent, the dark night of soul cleaning, new light will come. I will see clearly again, walk without worry, wait for the coming of the Christ Child with a whole hearted soul, clear eyed vision, songs of praise and a straight path full of hope, love, joy and peace. "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who have dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has the light shined." May it be so, Lord, this Advent. I yearn for the light to shine on me. And, I want to be your Light for those around me. Let me be light, let me walk in light, let me share the light, let me see your Light, let me find your Light in my life this Advent Season as I walk through the land of deep darkness.

Why Do You Wait?

It is one of those nights. I forgot the realities of my age for a moment and drank a cup of hot tea before bed (English Breakfast), with caffeine, and am paying the price for my comforting ritual. So, here I am at 1:45 in the morning, unable to sleep and mulling over various and sundries. One of my mulling points is how much time I have spent waiting.
When I was a child, I was waiting to grow older, not grow up, just older. I wanted to be old enough to go to school, old enough to wear lipstick, old enough to drive a car, old enough to leave my parent’s home. Then I was "grown up" and I was once again waiting... waiting to get married, waiting for Tim to come home from Viet Nam, waiting for the grief to ease, waiting for a new life to take shape, married again and waiting for babies to be born, waiting for teeth to come in and potty training to happen, waiting at soccer games and dance performances and piano recitals, a lady-in-waiting. While I was waiting, life happened and it was good and hard and wonderful and funny and sad. Everything I was waiting for, came to me.
There is an old invitational hymn, Why Do You Wait, that floated through my cloudy mind as I lay pondering my particular waiting game. "Why do you wait, dear brother, Oh why do you tarry so long? Your Savior is waiting to give you a place in his sanctified throng. Why not? Why not? Why not come to him now?" I did come and yet I waited still.
My waiting, however, has not been a passive state, lying abed like Snow White waiting for the Prince to come kiss me awake. It has been a quiet, expectant, hopeful way of living that knows there is more to come, more than I can see or touch or smell or taste or hear. All the mile posts that have whizzed by as I was living were not all I was waiting for. I was and am still, waiting for God to come.
God has come many times to me in my life. In the frozen silence of grief and loss, God’s voice whispered in my ear, "Wait for me". I waited and there God was in the arms and faces and voices of those who loved me. In the frenetic fun family times when children were young and silence was rarely available, God spoke to me in my children’s voices affirming the joy of creation and the wonder of life. And now in the quiet of my sixties, I hear and see and taste and smell and feel God all around me. My waiting is rich with possibilities and promise. Like the Psalmist of old,
"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman waits for the morning."
Advent is coming and I am waiting once again... waiting for incarnation and a baby boy to be born who will be named Jesus... waiting for hope, love, joy and peace... waiting for God to show up.

my thankful list....

I am thankful for the gift of life in this world and the world to come. The package of life is never neatly wrapped and topped with a bow but in spite of its messy exterior (or maybe because of it), the present of existence is a wonderful jack-in-the-box experience. How could I not be grateful for a life that has such joy... grandchildren, children,a loving husband, Sabbath Rest Farm with cows and a horse, sunrises through my bedroom window, the laughter of friends gathered around the Thanksgiving table, candlelight in the twilight darkness, the ability to make a fool of myself in forty eleven different ways and have fun while doing it, Grady Nutt’s phrase,"friends who are family and family who are friends", a reasonably healthy body and a somewhat sound mind, good food full of flavor, the sound of Aidan’s giggles and chuckles and belly laughs as we played his favorite game, Roar, in the store yesterday, peaceful night times in our farmhouse living room watching the fire light play, the smell of damp winter earth covered with the crop of autumn leaves, friends whose differences from me help me see the wonderful wholeness of life (Republicans and New Jersey people and conservative Baptists can make great friends), clean water from a well that is full, home sweet home in a part of the world that feeds my soul every time I look out and see the beautiful rounded outlines of the mountains that surround my place on this planet Earth.
I am thankful for the sorrows of my life. They have taught me how to be grateful for all of life. Loss and grief have rounded the sharp edges of my soul. I am a testament to the power of transformation through the purifying process of painful deaths... deaths of loved ones, deaths of dreams, deaths of self perception, the death of innocence that is ignorance disguised, death of my religious home place... little deaths and earth shaking deaths... all a part of my life and a counter balance to the "joy, joy, joy, joy, joy" mode of my American culture. If one can have courage, take heart and just wait, there is much to be gained in experiencing loss. Great sorrow often weighs one down, making movement of any kind very difficult. In the stillness of sorrow lies the gift of new life, new ways of being, new depths to be sounded, and new heights to be flown when the tears on our butterfly wings dry. How can I keep from singing when even griefs and sorrows hold the promises of life to come?
I am thankful for all the beauty in my life. I am surrounded by green mountains, rocky rivers and streams, deer and wild turkeys, hopping toads and brightly colored salamanders, Carolina blue skies and grey snow days, soaring hawks and circling buzzards, graceful evergreens and tree skeletons, emeralds of rye grass and blueberry bush rubies. The wonderful shine of polished friendships with those near and far lights my heart and soul, and keeps me warm during the dark, cold winters. The purity of Gabe’s voice singing in worship Sunday, the joy of singing a fast and furious Shaker song in choir, watching Serena draw an interpretation of star light, matting collages and pictures created in our Art Extravaganza Sunday, rejoicing in the variety of creative gifts of beauty that are a connection to the Creator... these beautiful reflections of souls find a home in my heart and I am grateful. This is a beautiful world filled with beautiful creations.
I am thankful for the abiding presence of the One Who Loves in my life. From earliest memories I have always been aware of and grateful for the gift of God’s presence in my life. The assurance of being loved when I am most unlovable, being loved "just because" has sustained me when I could not love myself. The everlasting Love, the Love that knows no end, Love that will not let me go, Love that calls forth Love from me and pushes me to share and see the Love in others... the first Bible verse I learned as a child and do truly believe... God is Love... when all else fails, this blessed assurance remains. I am loved. I am called to be a lover. "Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. And walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us , a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."Ephesians 5:1-2 Today I will walk surrounded by Love, bathed in Light, remembering to whom I belong and live as a beloved child, grateful beyond measure for this most amazing gift of life.

and your name shall be... wonderful?

Names were special when I was growing up. At church, adults were addressed as Brother Calhoun or Sister Calhoun until the friendship was firmly established. Then you became Sister Shirley or Brother Tommy. Children were not allowed to address adults by their first name alone. If they had a special relationship to you, you might call them Mr. Howard or Miss Jeanette but only with permission. Public boundaries for relationship were clear for children and adults alike. As a child I discounted these etiquette rules. I saw them as artificial and unnecessary. I have changed my mind.
Perhaps it is the sales calls I get on the phone where I am addressed as "Peggy" by someone who does not know me, will never know me and doesn’t want to know me even if I buy something... or it could be the doctor who calls me by my first name while I still don’t know theirs... or it could be I am just tired of feeling like I have no protection from a world of people who presume they know me and feel free to use my first name as a sign of a non-existent relationship. My, I sound grumpy, and old. Children, all children, are exempt from this rule for me, however. They can call me anything they want to and I will love it. No prefixes are needed and my first name will do just fine. Kids are all about relationship and have no special axes to grind beyond loving.
Our individual names have meaning. Some of that meaning may come because of a definition attached to the name word. Margaret means "a pearl". In my family that name is given to the oldest daughter. So my Aunt Peg (Margaret), me (Peggy), and my oldest daughter (Megan) all share a version of the same name. In some families names are handed down from generation to generation. Year after year, John David or Mary Elizabeth or Mary Samuel or Stuart Alvin is passed on to the next generation of children providing a context and a connection to the past from which they have sprung. Sometimes the past is too heavy a connection to bear. It feels oppressive or artificial, not really a reflection of the person who carries the name.
None of our names, I suspect, feel like the real "us" until we have lived with them for awhile. For those who never feel settled in their names, legal name change is an option. For some women who marry and take the name of their partner, we have another name shift to accommodate. We leave the name of our birth and add a new name to our list, creating a new name history. The visible sign of names’ importance is the custom of creating hyphenated last names that incorporate both last names. At some invisible point in our lives, we grow to fit our names or we let our names begin to fit us.
I remember trying out different names as a child. I wondered what I would look like as a "Mary Jane" or a "Taffy" or a "Margaret". What would I become if I were named Katherine or Mary Samuel (one of my cousins) ? Would I live up to that name differently than the name "Peggy"? I’ll never know who or what I might have become if I had been named Mary Catherine or Maria Irene.
It has been an adventure figuring out who "Peggy Joyce Calhoun Cole Hester" was and who she could be. Peggy is not a very dignified name and I am not a very dignified person. On any given day you might see me in overalls with hay in my hair, or kneeling down in front of the communion table in my Sunday best taping up the bright green table cloth with no thought for my posterior view presented to the congregation, or sliding down the home made slip and slide at the Fourth of July party at the farm, or falling gracefully off Junie B. Jones as the saddle slipped to one side. I am a person with a clear sense of my place in this world partly because of all the family stories my Grandma told me, but no illusions about my importance in the grand scheme of things. So the name Peggy suits me just fine, thank you. It is down to earth, non-threatening, easy to say, playful and it suits me.
The Bible pays attention to names. All those lists of "begats" and stories of name changes... Simon to Peter and Jacob to Israel... names are of great importance in the Bible. New names come with a change in purpose or a new self definition. Sometimes they come in struggle with unknown angels and sometimes they are given to us by others. But in Isaiah 62 a phrase in verse two gives me another source for a new name. "...and you shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord will give..." I wonder what new name God will call me? Maybe I have already been given that name and didn’t hear God call me by my new name. What a soul loss that would be, to have been given a new name by God and missed it because I wasn’t listening. I am going to start watching for the clues to my new name, listening for the sound of God’s voice in my daily rounds calling me by name, calling me to a new name adventure, a new holy place with a name to match my calling. I do hope it isn’t something too dignified or righteous or heaven forbid, something I have to live up to.

Neurofeedback and me... it is all in my head

The first glimmer of understanding my ADD’ness came in the midst of a major crisis. By the grace of God (and Michael’s connections), I found myself working with a therapist who used neurofeedback as well as talk therapy. Jill was wonderful. Native to the mountains, ADD herself, funny and gifted, she walked with me as I began to see and understand the way my brain works. Her premature death set me adrift and I used medicine, Ritalin, for two years to cope and maintain. Medicine was a temporary fix for me. It worked but killed some of my creative edge that is a necessary part of who I want to be. Neurofeedback, however, gave me some tools for feeling my brain work (doesn’t that sound strange), seeing the patterns in my brain work, exercises accompanied by visuals that satisfied my need for creativity. I now have some sense that I can appreciate and affirm the peculiar structure of my brain without having to always measure myself against others and come up short. My new therapist, Terry, took one look at my brain patterns when she first hooked me up and I felt so much better to hear her say, "No wonder you have so much trouble living in the world. You have busy brain and slow brain (my words, not the technical description) working at the same time against the middle. Most people have only one out of whack. You have two!" What grace that was... to hear it is all in my head and it is different.
Our sessions are simple. We talk some and check in... see what is happening in my world as she hooks up the bells and whistles. When I am connected to the computer, the games begin. I seem to be wired just right for neurofeedback. Many people try it and some it helps, and some it doesn’t. It began helping me the first week. My sleep, often interrupted in the night and fitful, changed and I began to feel rested in the morning. My "fight or flight response" which is strong and often out of control began to moderate. Tasks and chores and lists are still a growing edge but it feels more "doable" now. I have moved from living life always feeling overwhelmed to only feeling overwhelmed now and then. There is a faint glimmer of hope that I might be able to actually finish some of those myriad unfinished projects I have stored around the house.
Years of living with ADD can put a dent in your soul. All around you are orderly people, not all of them Presbyterians (a little clergy humor), who seem to float on the duck pond of life with nary a ripple. They appear to live calm, competent, complete lives with very little of the confusion and careening that characterizes my life. Life for regular people maintains a balance on a broad plain with occasional dips into gullies of suffering but the plain is always there. For me, life has been lived on a narrow path bordered on either side with steep drop offs. Tumbles result in long falls to the bottom and the climb up is long and hard.
I think I love the book of Psalms because I find in it whatever I need at any given moment in my days and nights. If I am feeling afraid and scared to death... Psalms 27:1; sunk in depression... Psalms 13; needing the reassurance that God is present in my life... Psalms 139; full of thanksgiving... Psalms 100 and 138; full of joy and laughter... pick one that starts with the word "Praise". This book, full of ancient songs, full of life and longing and death and despair, speaks to my soul always without fail if I can just make myself sit still and read. It is a book written for people with ADD... no apparent organizational chart or topics neatly arranged... but everything that is needed is there if one has eyes to see and ears to hear.
My verse for today...Psalms 17:8 "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings..." Today I will be the ADD apple in God’s eye. I give thanks for all things dappled, striped, crooked and out of whack, all things and people who are tilting towards Tildy, all of us perfect apples in God’s eyes. Amen.

the two step dance of transfiguration and transformation...

In memory of Hugh Eichelberger...

The small Episcopal Church of the Transfiguration in Saluda was full with some folks standing at the back of the sanctuary. Hugh would have loved knowing he had a standing room only crowd for his funeral... maybe he did know. He had asked three minister friends to officiate ... one the abbot of his spiritual homeplace, Mepkin Abbey, died the year before of leukemia; another, a UCC minister had also died leaving Michael as the Lone Ranger to do the honors for Hugh. It was a simply elegant service, rich in tradition with the Bible passages, comforting words and hymns of faith chosen by Hugh and his family. Michael did his best for his friend using Hugh’s sermons and Hugh stories to help us remember and honor the complex showboat tenderhearted brusque pastoral confrontational bright short tempered patient flawed perfect man we knew and loved. One could never ignore Hugh. He lived large with outstanding successes and equally outstanding regrets. He will be sorely missed.
After the service, we gathered in the fellowship hall for a reception and story telling time. It was a Presbyterian wake... coffee, tea, water, cake and sandwiches... but the stories flowed like new wine. We laughed remembering Hugh’s penchant for tardiness, his ability to talk to anyone who stood still for more than thirty seconds, his motorcycle riding and accidents, his inability to stop smoking permanently and his famous question, "How are you?" followed by another question, "No, how are you really?" But the showstopper story came when a tall man wearing a bow tie stood and introduced himself as one of Hugh’s reclamation projects. The crowd grew quiet as he began to speak, telling his story of coming to Hugh with a broken life and a broken marriage. Hugh helped him and his wife mend the broken places and in the process, became their pastor and later their friend and neighbor in Saluda. We heard his expression of gratitude for Hugh’s presence in their life as a wounded healer and were for a moment, each of us, back in time to a place where Hugh had been our healing presence. Sandra, Hugh’s oldest child, read the Dylan Thomas poem "Do not go gentle into the night... rage, rage..." as a part of her tribute to her daddy. Hugh did rage and wage war against death. Three of the doctors who had predicted his early death from heart disease years ago had died while Hugh still lived. His fierce appetite for living sustained him long beyond the time allotted him by his diagnosis. Hugh’s last years were not easy but remained rich. He did not always bear the losses gracefully but he always faced them straight on and without excuses. His transfiguration, like our own, was painful and funny and honest and true and sad and graceful and awkward.
None of us leave life on this earth without being transfigured, changed in some fundamental ways. Our choice is the direction of these changes. We can choose to shut down, ignore the possibilities of the painful and remain stuck in a closed in stall, safe from the storms of life and slowly shrivel away to a dried up remnant of who we might have been... transfiguration into a mummy, a dry replica of a formerly juicy soul. Or, we can turn our heads into the wind, brace up and get on with the process. Afraid...yes... but willing to risk living large for God’s sake, for our soul’s sake, for the world’s sake.
Jesus, on a high mountain, was transformed into a beacon of shining light with Moses and Elijah talking to him. Peter was so bedazzled by this experience he wanted to build three dwellings for them and keep them there, in place, available for consultation and worship. But that is not the way transfiguration works. It cannot be contained, remain the same, continue to shine without ceasing. There would be no room for the future of the soul, no more growth, no possibilities for other transformations yet to come. God’s work in us is never finished in our lifetime. Our call is to keep climbing mountains, looking for the Light, facing our selves revealed in all our flawed glory, never giving up hope for the final transfiguration that comes when we die.
Hugh’s words from the last sermon he preached at First Scots Presbyterian in Charleston, South Carolina...
And finally, in the midst of change we must live our lives not in the light of the evidence, but in the light of the promises of God. It takes no great creativity or deep searching to gather enough evidence to say that there is no God. It is not hard to find evidence to support the conclusion reached by the poet who wrote, "Men must die and women must weep, and the sooner it’s over the sooner we sleep." On the Isle of Patmos, John, who was a prisoner in exile with no prospects for any good future, had a vision. He recorded it in the twenty first chapter of Revelation when he said, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old had passed away." And in that day God will be with us, and he will wipe away every tear, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, or cancer, or AIDS, or heart disease, or deadly illnesses that tear our children and loved ones from our arms, and there will be no more parting. The old will have passed away, and in this final, great change, the new will have come because God is a God who makes all things new.
My heart is filled with thanksgiving for a God who transfigures and makes all things new, the God of the seventy times seven chances to get it right. God give us transfiguration here on earth and in times to come. Let us not be afraid of change but of good courage. Let us take heart. Fill our hearts with loving kindness and shine your light on us now and then so that we might find our way to you and all those who have gone on before. May it be so.

a jazz improv life

Improvisation... the ability to trust your intuition with a foundation of skill and information
The retreat leader was a tall, elegant jazz musician who had traveled the world with his music. Illness forced a change in his life plans. My friend the minister had not planned to become a minister. He wanted to teach in a seminary but denominational change and job opportunities pushed him to Plan B. Unlike these two people, I never had a plan. My life seemed to be a series of happenings, each one leading to another one.
At age twelve, I walked the aisle (Baptist speak for making a public faith announcement) one Sunday morning to dedicate my life to full time Christian service. I was convinced God had called me to something special, set apart, a vocation as my Catholic friends would say. In later years my daddy told me how scared he was I would end up a missionary far away from home. He never let me know his fear and watched as my life unfolded no farther away than Texas. Actually, Texas is pretty far away in mind and spirit from South Georgia, but I digress. All through high school and most of college I kept that feeling of hopeful expectation of a call realized. Then life happened. I met Tim at a student mission work camp in Cherokee, we married, he was killed in Viet Nam. I went to seminary, met Michael, married, had children. We lived in Texas, Kentucky (three different times), South Carolina and North Carolina. Michael has been an associate minister, a pastor, a seminary professor and a pastoral counselor. I have been a wife, mother, piano teacher, day care provider, fund raiser for a private school, psychiatric social worker and now teacher in an adult continuing education program. Except for the social work jobs, these jobs were all part time. Now in my sixties, I think I am beginning to find my vocation, my call, my sense of what I can do that is special. I can write and I can teach.
The funny thing about this discovery... Years ago daddy and I would argue as he drove me to class in the morning about my determination to become a social worker. He wanted me to be a teacher. Our compromise was a minor in music so I would always have something to "fall back on." Daddy had respected my piano teacher, Mrs. Drew, and thought I would make a wonderful teacher of music. Now I am a teacher, not of music but creativity. I love teaching folks who think they haven’t an artistic bone in their body... seeing them come alive with the joy of making something special from little or nothing. I love teaching children at church. Their questions never cease to amaze me and their open, honest questions keep me in a child frame of mind.
My life has been one improvisational moment after another and I used to wonder why I couldn’t settle down and grow up and do what all the other grown ups were doing... go to work and pay bills on time and have a career and build a retirement account and be a responsible person. I loved being a wife and mother, two professions that have no fringe benefits or insurance plans. I wouldn’t trade the time spent with our children as they grew up for all the tea in China. Nor do I regret being able to follow Michael as he moved to different places in his career. My "lack" of a career or more formal calling allowed me to live the moments of my life as I was needed. A soccer mom, a Brownie and Cub Scout mom, a pastor’s wife who could entertain and play the piano and give a good Training Union part and sew her own clothes, a room mother, a field trip mom, a seminary professor’s wife who loved the students that ended up a part of our family and are now stretched from China to New York to North Carolina, a daughter who could take her children home to my parent’s farm every summer for two weeks of farm fun... I have had an improvisational life.
Now when I look back, I see the grace notes scattered throughout the jazz composition of my life, the riffs, the melody expressed in different rythmns and keys. And, I am grateful. I see that my calling was simple... to be... to be who I am... to become who I was gifted to be... to be for others... to be for myself... to be for God. Much like Paul, I have wandered through my life, setting up my tent in the places I found myself, and waited for God to show up. God has shown up in Texas and Kentucky and South Carolina and North Carolina and is here now in my life on Sabbath Rest Farm. I am thankful for all the different ways I have been able to work and grow and laugh and love and weep and rage in my life. But most of all, I am keenly aware of the gifts I have been given... a loving family, children, a steadfast husband, a soul connection to this small piece of earth, people of faith who are my family, life its own self.
Thanks be to God for improvisational living and the grace that accompanies us as we pilgrims in a weary land head towards home at the close of day. Like Junie B.headed to the barn at night, let me run with joyful abandon and graceful gait through the life that awaits me still. May I never lose the ability to set up my tent, waiting on God, wherever my life leads me, whatever awaits in my future. I am most grateful, dear God, for your showing up in my meandering life. I love you still. Peggy

Giving your testimony... speaking your truth

We called it "giving our testimony" and it was a periodic part of worship. Giving one’s testimony was a skill learned in Training Union class on Sunday nights and was considered an important part of our religious education. Generally in the Baptist church of my youth, the "age of accountability" (the time when children were considered old enough to understand the importance of joining the church and "being saved") was twelve and up. I began wanting to join the church at nine years old but Daddy did not give in to my pestering. He remained adamant and I was required to wait until my twelfth birthday. The first Sunday after my birthday I marched down the aisle and I was off to the church races.
Baptists had a system for teaching children and adults. Sunday School on Sunday morning was designed to teach you the Bible. All the lessons centered on the Bible, verses were memorized for each lesson and you got credit on the eight point record system for bringing your Bible to church. Sunday evening Training Union was designed to teach you how to "do" church. The practical skills... standing up to "give your part" ( read or recite a passage from the Training Union book)... learning about the organization of our denomination and our local church... writing your testimony and preparing to give it to the church... all these skills gave us a solid footing for our church membership. Being a church member was not taken lightly at Clyattville Baptist Church. Much of what I learned about being a Christian began in that little white concrete block church set among the tall pines of South Georgia. My solid foundation became a trampoline that has allowed me to explore the many faces of God without "losing my testimony."
I wish we could re-instate that ritual in my church. We come from so many different places and religious traditions. That often makes it difficult for us to understand our individual belief systems. Hearing what someone believes (or doesn’t believe) opens a window into their soul and changes the tenor of the conversation about differences. In the sharing of our stories of belief, we are transported to a rocking chair front porch where our individual faith family stories can be told and heard. Like all front porch conversation and all family stories, there is humor, recognition of our connections, and sometimes truth that transcends individual differences.
P.B.S. has a version of giving your testimony, a program called "This I Believe", and I find it soulful. It is not always religious but it always leads me to think about what I believe in response to what is presented. Giving one’s testimony, or saying "This I Believe", calls for some hard work. It is never easy to condense fluid, rarely examined, can’t find the words for beliefs. Nor is it easy to write what you believe if you are sure of what you believe. Putting beliefs in words is a difficult process calling forth the gifts of discernment, process, basic principles, the bed rock of your soul and it can be painful as well as liberating. I wonder what would happen if we were required to write our testimony and give it as a part of being a member of First Congregational United Church of Christ? Revolution would happen, probably. Maybe a good revolution...
If we were required to do the hard work of naming what we believe, naming the source of those beliefs, naming the struggles and affirmations of our beliefs and then had to share those testimonies with one another in public, what a revolution that would be. We could hear the voice of God speaking in the voices of those with whom we worship, those like us and those unlike us. We could know one another, not with our heads and facts only, but with our souls. We would be forced to define our beliefs and share them with others who are seekers also. It would be more difficult to dismiss one another as "too traditional" or "too liberal" or "messed up" or "just like me" or "not at all like me" when we hear the stories, the pain, the triumphs, the changes, the joys of one person’s faith. We would become the faces of God’s revelation for one another and like the sphere, a seamless whole would begin to emerge where everyone would have a "part to give". None of us can ever know God fully. Our souls and minds would be shattered if we ever saw or heard or felt the immensity of God. But we can know one another, truly know one another, and then a luminous image of God can begin to emerge as we risk sharing our deepest selves with one another. What a beloved community that would be...

sinking sands and solid rocks

The sunrise this morning was striking. As I lay in bed watching the first light slip over the rim of the earth, I saw a broad, dark band of cloud at the base of the sun rise. The dark cloud blocked any light shining through but could not contain the light spilling over the top. The light changed from a soft, pastel barely there pale gold to a strong, look at me bright yellow gold topped by the rising sun, a show stopper of brightness. Sunrises are so deceptive. They begin with a faint hint of light to come and seem to move with agonizing slowness. And yet, if you look away for a moment, there is a whole new light show in place. As the sun gets closer to the edge of my world, it moves so quickly. One minute it is not there and then it has risen. Day has begun.
Saturday was a sunrise day for me. Our church retreat, full of laughter and getting to know you’s, lifted my spirits. Hearing the story of Sylvester and the magic red pebble, finding red pebbles in our building and using them as magic introduction to people I thought I knew, a scavenger hunt in downtown Asheville, dancing, laughing, eating, talking about nothing in particular and everything in general... rays of warming light slipping over the dark edges in my life. I hated having to leave early for another community event because it felt so warm and funny and blessed to be with my church family. But leave we did and attended a fund raiser for the foundation that supports pastoral counselors in our region.
We went with our neighbors, the Roberts, and met another friend there. Again, laughter and food and connection... Jim and Gary kept winning. Gary got so embarrassed with his last win that he made me go up and get it for him. We told horse stories and saw mill stories and life stories. We have a date to get together again next Saturday to play some more. And then we came home to the message on the answering machine... Priscilla’s voice saying "Michael, please call me. I need you." Our hearts sank because we knew what that call meant. Hugh, our long time Presbyterian minister friend, had died.
My life, like yours, I suspect, is always a balancing act between the light and the dark... the joy of sunrise resting on the dark clouds of night... laughter with the memory of tears... and I am always caught off guard with the swiftness of the transitions. In this past month I have had the joy of my first horse and the grief of suicide in a close friend’s family, the sweet, beautiful, temporary, intense color of autumn leaves and the death of another friend after a long struggle with cancer, the choir and congregation and organ and drums and trumpet singing "The Church’s One Foundation" at the organ dedication service lifting my soul closer to God and Ardelle’s continued struggle to find joy and meaning in her life as she lives with blindness and dementia and digestive disease. I live standing on shifting sands, never able to settle, always having to live in the moment, grateful for the joy and the sadness, the gifts of life and death. The "ground of my being" in this world is God.
In my forties, I began to catch glimpses of my aging in my older friends. In my fifties those relationships became dearer to me as time began to fly past increasing the meaning of the present moment. Now in my sixties I find I have less need for being "nice" or proper and more need to be true to my self. If I am not as pleasant to be around as I used to be, I have learned the lesson of pleasing others at the expense of my own soul. I don’t have much time left to waste and the sense of my own ending in this world is a daily reminder of my final destination. So I haven’t changed the world in any significant way that will require a monument or holiday in my honor but I am still becoming... becoming more solidly anchored on the solid rock beneath the shifting sands... becoming more honestly loving... becoming a lover of the blazing sheer genius of creation in our world... becoming a child again as I travel home for the reunion with God that awaits me when my body dies... becoming the soul I was created to be.
My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ the Solid Rock I stand; All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
As a Christian, Jesus is the clearest vision of God for me and the anchor that holds my soul in place when sinking sands pull me apart. I am grateful for the incarnated human ,Jesus, who carried the name Son of God, and who is a lively guide for me still as I search for the solid rocks in my life. Thanks be to God for the gift of Love in the face and form of Jesus.

Ezekiel saw a hill... Can I climb that hill?

Who would have thought the grizzled Old Testament prophet Ezekiel would have the words of comfort I needed this morning? When I played the Game, the Bible fell open to Ezekiel 34:11-31 and an ancient writing became my soul’s breakfast, images to carry in my heart all day long. I read the passage in three different translations and each version added to my understanding.
Ezekiel, the bone dreamer, has a vision of sheep and shepherds that offers care and caution to the people who hear his words. He describes what the Lord God, our shepherd, will do and has done... I will feed them with good pasture... I will seek the lost and bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the crippled, and I will strengthen the weak... I will watch over those who have plenty and make sure they share (my translation). Our home, a secure place in the wilderness, on God’s hill, will be showered with blessings in season and we will not be afraid. "And they shall know that I, the Lord their God, am with them, and that they, the House of Israel, are my people, says the Lord God. And you are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, says the Lord God."In this stage of my life, I long for that hill showered with blessings, a home that is not an institution or a building or a denomination or a country, but a resting place where all I need will be provided in season. I carry the soul scars from some of my temporary homes that collapsed while I was still under their roofs.
My faith in my government’s ability to make wise decisions began cracking the day Tim died and shattered the day we left Viet Nam. Thirty years later, I still carry the seeds of distrust, now full grown into kindly cynicism. I love my country and believe fiercely in our ideals but cannot abide the lies and deceit, the fat sheep who have prospered at the expense of the people without being held accountable. And now, more families feeling the anguish of death in a far away place, more public debate about the purpose and rightness of the war on terror, more rhetoric on both sides of the aisle, each convinced of the absolute justice of their position... and I remember and cannot forget that olive drab car turning into the driveway, the sinking feeling in the pit of my soul that solid ground was turning into quicksand.
My faith in my denomination as a safe place for Baptist Christians, regardless of our theological differences, started unraveling at a Convention where I stood and watched bus loads of people come in with one point of view, cast one vote for an elected office, get back on their busses and leave the rest of us behind sinking in the mudhole of anger, distrust and a holy war. No peaceful hill with showers of blessing could I find even though I stayed a Baptist for years to come. My denominational home was consumed in the wildfires of change and like the wild animals in California, I fled from the destroying force of fiery righteousness running over people like me.
I have belonged to ten different churches, all but one Baptist. They were different in theology, worship styles, size, mission action, calling, location and structure. Some were the grace full hills of blessing for me. One was my church home in name only. I gave myself and my family to the care of these institutions. Sunday School, Wednesday night prayer meetings and suppers, Sunday morning worship, mission trips, youth groups, deacon boards, choir and endless committees were the field of service for us as we lived out our commitment to the Church in our daily lives. Church was not an optional activity for us. It was a way of life, a witness to our belief in the power of God’s people to change the world, one person at a time. Two of those churches we left with grief and tears, one as a minister’s family and one as a member. Each of those communities gave us gifts and relationships that have endured even in the separation. Now I find myself once again feeling the ground beneath my feet shifting as I struggle with feelings of exile and misunderstanding in my present church home. I wait... I pray... I show up... I work... I weep.
Perhaps my friend Joe was right. I should get used to living in "no man’s land", the land of the in-between, since I don’t seem to fit comfortably on either side. I want both and, not either or... both grace and judgement... confession and forgiveness... buying olive trees for Palestine and mission trips to rebuild homes destroyed by nature... Bach and The Sweet By and By... God as father and mother... God beyond my understanding and God in my heart... church as safe haven for all God’s children and church as prophet for all God’s children. I’m asking for too much, aren’t I? Like Ezekiel, I’ll continue to dream dreams and work to make them come true. A hill, showered with blessings in season, level at the top with room for all to rest and graze and drink and sing praise to the Creator Shepherd , each in a different key (or in Diane’s case, her own unique key), loved and loving... Please, God, can I climb that hill soon?

please pass the bread...

Meals at our house were not complete without bread. If mama didn’t make biscuits or cornbread, there would be a stack of "light bread"on the table. Daddy needed bread to sop his grits up at breakfast and his gravy at supper. Our plates weren’t licked clean. They were wiped clean with bread. GrandMary’s biscuits were the best biscuits in the world. Every day of her adult life, three times a day, she made biscuits from scratch, rolled the dough into little balls, placed them in the old iron skillet, patted them down and baked them. For many years she cooked on a wood stove and said it was the best heat for baking. She also made griddle cake cornbread. The thin cornbread batter would be poured into a round cast iron griddle cake pan, sizzling at the edges as it cooked and browned around the edges. My Grandma and mama made yeast bread, fragrant and hearty, best home deodorizer in the world. To come home from school to the smell of fresh, hot bread, grab a slice and cover it with butter, eat the chewy crust and the soft center, was and is still one of my sweetest memories.
Our bread choices were limited as I was growing up. We had cornbread in various forms... muffins, griddle cakes, sticks, sheet... and biscuits... not canned but the real McCoy... and yeast bread... rolls, loaves that were homemade and store bought. In those three types of bread were endless variations. We were never bored with our bread. We made it and if it was good, we gave thanks. If it was flat or heavy, we gave thanks and ate it anyway. Bread was important and we lived the phrase "Bread is the staff of life"... please pass the butter and the blackberry jelly.
As our covenant group gathered around the communion table last night, I was struck by the bread that sat on the table. It came from a bakery and was real bread with a solid crust. As we prepared for communion, we named the broken places in our bodies and named those we knew who were broken and hurting in some way. In the silence, Pat began to break the bread, speaking the ancient words... "This is my body, broken for you". The bread was resilient and crusty, resisting being broken and torn. As we passed the bread saying to one another "This is the Body of Christ, broken for you", the bread was still full of texture and strength. It took some effort to become and share the Body of Christ with each other.
The beloved community can only come into being when we are willing to be broken for one another, be the staff of life, make ourselves vulnerable and weak so that new strength might come from the Body of Christ. All of us have invisible wounds. Some are more easily identified by labels... divorced person, single parent, gay, old, lesbian, widow, abused child, sick, bisexual, rich, poor or transgendered... but the hurts often lie deep in the darkness of our fear, never seeing the light of communion.
When you see me and do not know me, you see a woman who wears hats on Sunday, dressed to the nines, seemingly articulate and self assured. I am a woman who has a loving marriage and children who come home with our grandchildren most of the time because they choose to out of love not guilt. I live on the farm of my dreams in a house we built that is the home of my dreams. My real self is far more complicated than the one dimensional image you see when you do not know me.
I wear hats on Sunday because it is my connection to a woman who loved me without reservation, my Grandma. I play dress up because it is fun and helps me remember clothes are necessary but can also express some of my personality. I have spent years finding my voice, finding ways to speak my truth without dissolving in tears and chin quivers. My marriage is both a gift and hard work My first marriage ended when my husband was killed in Viet Nam. He was 21 and I was 20. That was my introduction to the real world. I give thanks for the marriage Michael and I have that has seen us through some very hard times. My sister’s suicide left invisible scars and unanswered questions that will be with me until the day I die. Our children struggle and suffer like I did. I can no longer kiss the boo boos and make them better. All I can do is listen and love and show up. The farm and house of our dreams came after many years of moving from place to place, remodeling old houses, living in cities, raising our family and waiting for the right time and place. Because we could not afford nor did we desire a home built by strangers, we were our own contractors. We knew every workman and woman who helped us and we were covered in paint and dirt and dust for the whole process. The mistakes are ours as well as the successes. My life, like the communion bread, has not been easy, one joyful song after another. Neither has your life.
It is in the sharing of our brokeness, whatever that might be, that we begin to catch a glimpse of what heaven might be. No one’s grief or pain is greater than anothers. We all fall short, do not measure up, struggle to find affirmation of our soul selves. In some strange way, the Spirit of Light can never move through Communion until we own and name our darkness to ourselves and with each other. Forgiveness without confession is like store bought bread. It falls apart and dissolves easily. Confession creates the yeasty, crusty, resilient soul that knows the dark places can always be transformed when brought into the Light. Breaking bread with one another is never easy. It is not supposed to be. We are transformed by our pain and suffering, not consumed by it, when we can be the Bread of Heaven for one another. May it be so.

Fence sitting in the Spirit

We are building a fence on the farm behind our house for Junie B. Jones. Fence building is an art. After the basic decisions are made... layout of the posts, metal or wood posts, barbed wire, electric wire, regular wire or wood... the art and craft work begins. Our fence rambles and curves following the contours of the sloping land behind our house. There are no corners because it is a fence for horses. If you have corners, dominant horses can trap other horses in them and hurt them. We are using wood because it is a material kind to horses. They will not be cut by running into the fence. It can be clearly seen and they can look over it without bending or stretching it out of shape.
Our neighbor and friend Gary is using his sawmill to cut the boards for us from trees on the farm. We have more jack pine than a dog has fleas so finding wood is not a problem. Yesterday, with Gary’s help, we began putting the boards up. Unlike the fences my daddy built painstakingly by hand, we have the joy of power tools. Post holes were dug by an auger on the back of the tractor. An air hammer and chain saw (from Gary’s tool stash) made the installation of the boards move quickly. Gary, Dianne, Michael and I soon fell into a rhythm as we figured out the steps of the fence dance. Mama came up to see and when I turned around, I saw her leaning on the fence, looking out over the hills and mountains that circle our farm. All night long that image has stayed with me and this morning, when I woke up, there was a revelation present waiting in my consciousness.
I am a fence sitter. Fence sitters are seen as weak individuals who cannot make up their minds or take a stand but I beg to differ. Like fence building, fence sitting is an art and one we should all practice from time to time. Fence sitting requires one to stop work, whatever that may be, and climb the fence. One cannot fence sit and do anything else. Only your body, balanced on the top of the fence, still and quiet as you watch the world around you, and your soul are needed for fence sitting. Porch sitting and fence sitting are first cousins but fence sitting is a balancing act.
When you are perched on top of the fence, the first lesson learned is the precariousness of your position. If you don’t pay attention, you will slide off, picking up splinters on the way down. You cannot assume you are permanently planted high above the "madding crowd" safe from all the hoo hah in the field below. I can observe the milling around and running of the horses and cows contained in the fence but I must remember I will have to get down occasionally from the fence top in order to feed them. The top of the fence is not my final resting place.
The second lesson learned is not to always stay down on the ground. A new perspective awaits the fence sitter. You can see over the stock in the field and catch glimpses of the world beyond. You can also see your animals more clearly from the top of the fence. Tillie is limping, Junie B. Jones is slobbering, Ferd needs more to eat, Annie is getting ready to calve. Paradoxically you have a long range and an up close view at the same time. I can see the future and the present from the top of the fence. My personal interpretations and truth assumptions are stretched by the visions from the top of the fence. I can see the horizon and the foreground, the field where I now live and the fields yet to be explored, more clearly when I get my feet off the ground.
I am also more vulnerable sitting on a fence. I am apart from the crowd below, a sitting duck, an easy target, and that is not always a bad thing. Vulnerability forces you to pay attention. You cannot assume your position on the fence is more secure that the person sitting next to you. Both of you wobble from time to time. Nor can you assume your view from the fence is the same as your fence sitting neighbor. My mama first sees the fences on the farms when she looks out over the horizon. I see the mountains beyond. We can share what we see and see what the other sees, but our view is still our own.
First Corinthians 3:5-6 is my fence sitting Bible verse. "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills but the Spirit gives life." So I fence sit in the Spirit and observe the written codes killing and the Spirit also giving life. I get down off the fence and enter the fray with renewed vision of the possibilities for a beloved community. I give thanks for all those who are my beloved family in the Spirit who give me life and love, who bind up my wounds, pray for me, then push me back out into the world to be a competent minister of the new covenant. Thanks be to God.

Do I or don't I?

I have had two rather vigorous responses to my writing recently and they have both been pulling at me. One response was from someone I do not know in the flesh, and one I know but I don’t know. What an interesting paradox. The first person’s comment affirmed the presence of God for her in my writing and how my life parallels hers. The second person challenged my writing, my theology and my method of thinking. Both of them scare me to death. I have seen too many people, who in sharing their journeys and struggles, become icons and prophets before their own time. Preachers, lay leaders, men and women, educated and uneducated... those who had a special gift of some kind who began to believe too much in themselves... or more commonly, perhaps, others who began to believe too much in them... all of those gifted people I knew have struggled with how to remain true to their own calling while being open to challenge and affirmation in equal measure. Too much affirmation believed leads to an old proverb my grandma quoted often... Pride goeth before a fall. Too much negation believed leads to another old proverb Grandma loved... If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Here is my dilemma.
I do believe I have a gift for writing. It feeds my soul everyday in some way even when nothing visible is produced. If no one else ever read what I wrote, writing would still be my gift. But gifts given have a price tag. Sometimes all that is required is a simple "thank you". Often, however, more is required and that is where I find myself now. Some of you have been breathing down my neck, pushing me, kicking my rear saying send this to someone and publish it. You do not know how hard it was and is for me still, to commit my soul to words on paper and then set them free to float in the web world. It is a risk of monumental proportions to open this small window up and let you know even the tiny part of me you see in my written words. The thought of going from a small open attic window on the back side of the house to a picture window in the living room terrifies me. I also have to wonder if God is showing up and I am not listening. And if God is in this (that is a very big "if" for my introverted soul) I won’t get to the Promised Land of Publishing by simply wishing for it.
My mystic self says "Wait and the way will be made clear" or maybe that is my faithless, lazy, scared to death self. My soul self says "Get on with it and cast your brand of bread on the waters". My ADD self is overwhelmed at the thought of organizing, editing and presenting my work. My friend Janet and I started to work on this and my "push-me-pull-you" deficiencies brought us to a slow crawl. My friend Celeste, who has believed in me since the day she met me, is now on the Publishing Bandwagon and God help me, Celeste is a force. My time of waiting may be drawing to a close.
I am asking you for two things, one seen and one unseen. First, I ask for your prayers. Pray that I will be able to clearly discern the Way I am to go and then pray that I might have the necessary gumption to get up and walk. Pray that I will know clearly what I am to do. Like Gideon, I am looking for a fleece, soggy wet one day on dry ground, and dry on wet ground the next. Like Gideon, I tend to get picky about my signs and need multiple manifestations to point me in the way I should go. I do not need your assurances that my writing has value (or not) in order to have an answer to this prayer. All the responses I receive are welcome but they are not fleeces. The biggest fleece of all is the clear sense of call to do this (for me) hard thing.
The second thing I need is your experience with book writing. Some of you have already published books. My friend Nina wrote a book about her faith life many years ago and it is one of the books I return read, visiting her words, remembering our friendship and giving thanks that her faith journey includes me. Tell me what you know, what you learned, what you wish you had done and what you are glad you did. This is a foreign land for me and I need all the maps I can find. Be my travel guides, please, and share with me the tales of your trips to Promised Land of Publishing.
One of the hard learned lessons in my life has been the value of vulnerability, a soul risking way to live. It is the only way we can become transparent to one another. I am trying in my sixties to risk more, share more, be more, do more with my peculiar gifts. I am hoping the Holy One, God Incarnate, Sweet Jesus, and Holy Spirit shine through me as the thick clay walls that contain my Spirit are transformed into a translucent porcelain. I am praying that I may become more of the self God has called me to be as I age and less of who I think I ought to be. Being, becoming, doing, and speaking because I was first loved into being by the Love that knows no end. Thanks be to God... and to you.