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.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
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
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
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
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...
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...
Monday, November 12, 2007
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.
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.
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