A good sermon whomped me upside the head Sunday and my ears are still ringing. Pastor Pat was in good form preaching from the Psalms with additional words from William Sloan Coffin and Martin Luther King, Jr. The three words that were her main point have been waltzing around the dance floor of my soul since Sunday and they are helping me find a new rhythm for my days. Teach me to number my days…
One of the points of grace for me this weekend was my sixty fifth birthday. Farm friends gathered for dessert and laughter. Alison was here with her two boys so I got to do some serious baby holding. Aidan and I had a conversation about rainbows, joy and sorrow and his Grandma Mary. One of our special friends, Perry, in town for a conference, called so we had lunch together after church. Serendipity grace all weekend long kept my feet dancing. Teach me to number my days…
Aunt Peg, my mother’s sister is due at the farm today for a visit. My cousin Eddie called last night to see if I had or could borrow a video camera. He wants to film mama and Aunt Peg as they tell stories about their lives. We are all so very aware of the dance coming to an end for these two sisters, one ninety two and one eighty five. Pastor Pat said Sunday death is not our enemy. Death is our reminder to live with grace and gratitude for we are finite creatures. This week I will be numbering my days and theirs as we remember who and where I come from…who my people are. John Ed Pearce said, “Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.” I will be going home again this week.
The season is changing. Summer is a memory that floats to the surface on an unexpectedly warm autumn day. Crisp, cold morning air shadowed by darkness reminds me that all creation is finite. Life does not last forever. Summer green has given way to bare limbs and the last roses of summer are brown and withered. The dogs drug up a deer carcass in the yard, mostly bone, and I know a hunter or a coyote ended the life of that deer. It is the way of the world. Death lives with life. My days, like the days of the deer, are numbered so I am living with gratitude for the most amazing gift of my life, all sixty five years of it.
In his last sermon in Memphis, Martin Luther King spoke of having seen the Promised Land invoking the memory of Moses seeing the Promised Land but not being allowed to enter. Pastor Pat reminded us that none of us are allowed to enter the Promised Land of endless future. The work begun in the present, like the oak trees we plant now, will grow and continue (or not) in our children and grandchildren’s time. We can see the future, perhaps understand some of it, but it will not be our time or our land. We must live our numbered days with the awareness of our own limits, our own ending. And in this awareness, we can sing with the Psalmist, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
T.S.Eliot wrote, “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” One of the gifts of aging is the discernment, the discovery of our ending and our beginning. If we are paying attention, we can learn the dance steps so our ending days are a graceful, grace filled testament to our Creator’s generosity and love. This week I am waltzing my way towards home…
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Monday, October 3, 2011
T.V. Reality Show Worship
Trying to describe our church home is not easy. We are a polyglot of poor and upper middle class, black and white, educated and barely able to read, young and old, Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, employed and unemployed. Our church building presents its back first. The city powers in the days gone by restructured the streets in an Urban Renewal frenzy and we lost the front door access as our main entrance. The ramp is at the back door, the NA group on Wednesdays comes through the back door, and most of our parking is at the back door. As we drove up yesterday, Miz Vivian was walking up the ramp slowly, hat firmly in place. Choir members Jackie and Ernestine were standing at the door. Mike and Judy, one of our interracial couples, were getting out of the car. A visitor was standing in the parking lot playing with her toddler son. As Michael let me out at the back door he said, “I know how to describe our church…it is like a t.v. reality show!” We have a core cast of characters who show up week after week and others who come as they can. But, you never know what is going to happen in worship even though we use a liturgy and an order of worship.
Yesterday our music director was absent. His grandfather died and he was back home with family. I grabbed our other pianist as he walked in the door and begged for help. He played songs he had never seen before as I stood in front of the choir pretending to be a director. Miss Louise told of a fire at her apartment building that morning. Our guest toddler worked his mother over during worship and ran the aisles during communion. Madge was back for the first time since her stroke. Mike has some construction work and is grateful. Mr. Eddington, the retired pastor of Calvary, came to worship for the first time since the funeral of his wife was held in our sanctuary. I held his hand and thanked him for the privilege of playing the piano at the service. He held my hand and spoke of his loneliness. I cornered L.J., one of our young men, and nagged him into saying he would play the trumpet for Thanksgiving worship.
And as always, the two most important parts of worship took as long as the sermon. We pray for each other and for our world. Time is spent voicing joys and concerns… deaths, illness, birthdays and births, new jobs, no jobs, wars and the soldiers who bear the burdens of those wars… everything is gathered into prayer and offered up to God. We pass the peace walking the aisles, hugging, shaking hands, speaking words of welcome and affirmation and concern. It is noisy and messy and wonderful. No one leaves our church untouched by human hands on Sunday morning. Pastor Pat’s sermon quiets us down as we hear the scripture and her words crafted just for us that morning.
In my life I have been without church two times. Those times were painful, lonely and meaningful. Like New York City for a country girl, they were a great place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Corporate worship matters to me. As a veteran of both large and small churches with conservative, fundamental and liberal theologies, I have seen and heard enough different kinds of worship to be able to fit in almost anywhere for a short while. But, there is one value I hold dear in worship. Above good music, thoughtful sermons, carefully prepared liturgy and beautiful surroundings, I must have a place where I can be myself, the good, the bad and the ugly. I can worship God with support and love from others in the same boat, wounded believers who worship because it keeps the loose ends tied up, binds up the broken pieces and sets our souls soaring towards the infinite… not many answers but peace with the mystery.
So I show up for worship hoping I can find God there. Most Sundays I do. Every Sunday I see God’s face in the faces that sit next to me in the pews and I hear God’s voice in toddlers protesting and Miss Ida Mae’s soft words, the joyful rhythms of gospel music and stately movement of traditional hymns. It will get me through until next week and I am grateful. Thanks be to God.
Yesterday our music director was absent. His grandfather died and he was back home with family. I grabbed our other pianist as he walked in the door and begged for help. He played songs he had never seen before as I stood in front of the choir pretending to be a director. Miss Louise told of a fire at her apartment building that morning. Our guest toddler worked his mother over during worship and ran the aisles during communion. Madge was back for the first time since her stroke. Mike has some construction work and is grateful. Mr. Eddington, the retired pastor of Calvary, came to worship for the first time since the funeral of his wife was held in our sanctuary. I held his hand and thanked him for the privilege of playing the piano at the service. He held my hand and spoke of his loneliness. I cornered L.J., one of our young men, and nagged him into saying he would play the trumpet for Thanksgiving worship.
And as always, the two most important parts of worship took as long as the sermon. We pray for each other and for our world. Time is spent voicing joys and concerns… deaths, illness, birthdays and births, new jobs, no jobs, wars and the soldiers who bear the burdens of those wars… everything is gathered into prayer and offered up to God. We pass the peace walking the aisles, hugging, shaking hands, speaking words of welcome and affirmation and concern. It is noisy and messy and wonderful. No one leaves our church untouched by human hands on Sunday morning. Pastor Pat’s sermon quiets us down as we hear the scripture and her words crafted just for us that morning.
In my life I have been without church two times. Those times were painful, lonely and meaningful. Like New York City for a country girl, they were a great place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there. Corporate worship matters to me. As a veteran of both large and small churches with conservative, fundamental and liberal theologies, I have seen and heard enough different kinds of worship to be able to fit in almost anywhere for a short while. But, there is one value I hold dear in worship. Above good music, thoughtful sermons, carefully prepared liturgy and beautiful surroundings, I must have a place where I can be myself, the good, the bad and the ugly. I can worship God with support and love from others in the same boat, wounded believers who worship because it keeps the loose ends tied up, binds up the broken pieces and sets our souls soaring towards the infinite… not many answers but peace with the mystery.
So I show up for worship hoping I can find God there. Most Sundays I do. Every Sunday I see God’s face in the faces that sit next to me in the pews and I hear God’s voice in toddlers protesting and Miss Ida Mae’s soft words, the joyful rhythms of gospel music and stately movement of traditional hymns. It will get me through until next week and I am grateful. Thanks be to God.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Wave tracings in the sand...
Waves washing up on the white sugar sand shore leaving line drawings as a visual memory of their passage…
Our conversations were peppered with the phrase “Do you remember?” Do you remember the night we came home and found the fire engine in front of the condo… the time we spent shelling crabs we caught while we watched the Olympics… the cloud of mosquitoes we had to walk through every time we went to the beach… the thunderstorm and lightening that was so beautiful out over the ocean… the luminescence on the beach and in the water on our evening beach walk… the hurricane that chased us off the beach and then followed us inland to Williamsburg? We spent nearly twenty years of beach vacations with our children growing up as we roamed the beaches of the Gulf and the Atlantic.
We are separated now by distance, no longer next door neighbors but there is no distance between our hearts. Our children are grown with children of their own and the beach tradition no longer is one that includes both families. The logistics are overwhelming. But for this one week, the four of us were back together again bound by love and memory.
Our children would have been amused by us. One minute we are all absorbed in our portable technology… I Pads, Smart Phones, Mac Air… and then we are telling stories of summers past. Traditionally we have carried a box full of books for beach reading. This year we share not only books but Aps as well. Our mutual ignorance and partial knowledge of our children’s technological world is one of our hallmark memories this year of beach remembering.
World Communion Sunday is today, a time when Christians all over the world, share a meal based on memory. It is a simple meal, bread and wine, a meal that honors the past and calls us into the future. We remember the life of the one we call Lord, his death and new life, and we are part of a family that gathers around the table to weep and laugh together. Our church will gather in a circle, pass the bread and wine to each other, hold hands and sing, and for one brief moment, be the Family of God without barriers of color or creed. It is a memory worth holding on to, a memory that could lead us into a new world of loving connection and living sacrifice one for another. Memories… the ties that bind us and free us, that call us to new frontiers as Christians… can be past and future if we but let them lead us. May it be so, please, Lord?
Our conversations were peppered with the phrase “Do you remember?” Do you remember the night we came home and found the fire engine in front of the condo… the time we spent shelling crabs we caught while we watched the Olympics… the cloud of mosquitoes we had to walk through every time we went to the beach… the thunderstorm and lightening that was so beautiful out over the ocean… the luminescence on the beach and in the water on our evening beach walk… the hurricane that chased us off the beach and then followed us inland to Williamsburg? We spent nearly twenty years of beach vacations with our children growing up as we roamed the beaches of the Gulf and the Atlantic.
We are separated now by distance, no longer next door neighbors but there is no distance between our hearts. Our children are grown with children of their own and the beach tradition no longer is one that includes both families. The logistics are overwhelming. But for this one week, the four of us were back together again bound by love and memory.
Our children would have been amused by us. One minute we are all absorbed in our portable technology… I Pads, Smart Phones, Mac Air… and then we are telling stories of summers past. Traditionally we have carried a box full of books for beach reading. This year we share not only books but Aps as well. Our mutual ignorance and partial knowledge of our children’s technological world is one of our hallmark memories this year of beach remembering.
World Communion Sunday is today, a time when Christians all over the world, share a meal based on memory. It is a simple meal, bread and wine, a meal that honors the past and calls us into the future. We remember the life of the one we call Lord, his death and new life, and we are part of a family that gathers around the table to weep and laugh together. Our church will gather in a circle, pass the bread and wine to each other, hold hands and sing, and for one brief moment, be the Family of God without barriers of color or creed. It is a memory worth holding on to, a memory that could lead us into a new world of loving connection and living sacrifice one for another. Memories… the ties that bind us and free us, that call us to new frontiers as Christians… can be past and future if we but let them lead us. May it be so, please, Lord?
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Be careful what you ask for...
I had a picquant conversation yesterday at the funeral… one of those that will continue later over a cup of tea… with a woman I want to get to know better. We first met in the parking lot of Berry Temple Methodist Church a month or so ago as she waited on her piano students. Standing by her car, I saw she was reading “The Help” and we had a brief conversation about the book. Yesterday I asked her what she thought of the book and movie. She replied with some fervor that she didn’t find it entertaining at all. It pulled up memories of watching women leave her neighborhood in the morning dressed as maids and coming home in the afternoon with bags of leftover food. I want to continue this conversation now that we have begun to move towards each other. She is an articulate woman, a retired teacher, and I like her. I’m trying to talk her into playing a piano duet with me in worship one Sunday. That would be fun.
One of the gifts of my age is my DGASA (don’t give a shit attitude). If I have a question, I ask. If I don’t want to, I say “no”. Sometimes I get in trouble and sometimes I find treasures. I have learned that you shouldn’t ask unless you can take the answer. Don’t go looking for pearls if you can’t stand the disappointment of many shells that only have oysters. So my conversations with Jackie may turn out to be the beginning of a real friendship or it might be an exchange of different world views or a piano playing partnership. Any one of those would be fine. All three would be loverly but I am alright with it whatever comes. I am satisfied with my question asking and her honesty in return.
A few years ago I prayed for church family. My prayers have been answered in a way I did not expect. Baptist to Congregational UCC to African American Presbyterian… I didn’t see that one coming. With relationship comes responsibility and I am praying carefully about how to do my best as a part of Calvary Presbyterian. After all, I might get what I ask for and God only knows where I would end up. Thanks be to God for answered prayers, answers that delight, surprise, and stir us up.
One of the gifts of my age is my DGASA (don’t give a shit attitude). If I have a question, I ask. If I don’t want to, I say “no”. Sometimes I get in trouble and sometimes I find treasures. I have learned that you shouldn’t ask unless you can take the answer. Don’t go looking for pearls if you can’t stand the disappointment of many shells that only have oysters. So my conversations with Jackie may turn out to be the beginning of a real friendship or it might be an exchange of different world views or a piano playing partnership. Any one of those would be fine. All three would be loverly but I am alright with it whatever comes. I am satisfied with my question asking and her honesty in return.
A few years ago I prayed for church family. My prayers have been answered in a way I did not expect. Baptist to Congregational UCC to African American Presbyterian… I didn’t see that one coming. With relationship comes responsibility and I am praying carefully about how to do my best as a part of Calvary Presbyterian. After all, I might get what I ask for and God only knows where I would end up. Thanks be to God for answered prayers, answers that delight, surprise, and stir us up.
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