Box # 193, Cardinals and God's Abundance

My little house on Monroe Avenue has (mostly) high rectangular windows.  Thus when I look outside  I am almost always looking up into the trees and sky - my favorite view.  The room I've claimed for my office has a branch outside the window that is visited each morning by a female cardinal.

How I missed cardinals during my decade out West!

I fell in love with their beauty and song during the winter or '96 in Taborton, NY as the snow, cold and endless gray threatened to swallow me whole.  There they were - mating pairs setting the branches ablaze with their beauty while providing the perfect counterpoint to the endless whites and grays found on Taborton Mountain.  Although the male sports the brilliant red feathers, the female rivals his beauty in more subtle ways.  What a joy to find her perched outside my window - like a welcome ambassador to my new neighborhood.  I wonder if she is on a first name basis with the bunny in the backyard?  In the midst of grieving the loss of the familiar and the transition to a new home, the cardinals remind me that our relationship predates my sojourn to Idaho.  Their familiar song tells me that one day this, too, will be home.

As I watched her this morning I confess that I was only half appreciating her visit - the other half of me was contemplating the location of box # 193. Mind you, this morning I did not have its number, but still had the clear recollection of packing this one important box.  It was filled with precious things that I would have taken with me in the car had I driven to Ohio, but instead had to entrust to the movers.  In it was non-essential prescription medication, jewelry, my journals, a few favorite articles of clothing and deeply sentimental things like my son's Christmas stocking and favorite book - all padded by non-essential things like extra underwear, shoe laces and socks (including my favorite red and white striped Santa socks).  The box was marked Master Bedroom - Important - and identified to the movers as one of two boxes to be "last on and first off" (the other box containing important pastoral things that I wanted access to as soon as I arrived in Ohio).

And then the boxes disappeared.

I cannot tell you how many times I've looked for both boxes.  This Sunday dear people from Bethany came over to bring boxes from the garage into the house prior to the deep freeze - and I hoped against hope I would find these two boxes!  And yet they were no where to be found.  Or so I thought.

Today before nightfall I decided to have one last look in the family room (aka - Box Canyon) just to see if maybe I had missed it.  And there it was - right by the window on the base of a tower of boxes -  # 193 - Master Bedroom - Important.  And everything was there as I remembered it including my red and white striped Santa socks.  It had been in the house and under my nose all along!  Here's hoping that the second box I'm looking for is also hiding in plane sight!

It has been my experience that the health and revitalization of a church happens in a similar fashion.  We worry that we do not have what we need to survive or thrive as a church.  Panic sets in as we look outside ourselves for the magical insight or approach that will turn things around.  Then one day we notice that, quietly, God has placed and is placing in our midst everything we need to have an abundant, vibrant ministry.  God never responds to our needs with scarcity, but like the cardinal brilliantly adorned during the height of the winter blahs, richly blesses us with all we need to bring God's love, compassion, mercy and justice into the world.  Sometimes all that is needed is to stop and notice what is right under our collective noses...

...like Box # 193.

With love and amazement at the extravagant graciousness of God,
Kim

PS - I wonder when I will stumble on the second "missing" box?

EM 101 and Floating the River

Last week at this time I was conducting my final worship service in Boise.  This week I am in Ohio, with much happening in between.  It has been a very full week.

Somewhere between packing up a house,  hugging a congregation full of people, air travel, staying in hotels and playing with a toddler, I picked up a virus.  In hindsight, I should be relieved that I didn’t pick up something more onerous.  Exhaustion and grief work seem to be magnets for bugs like this - bugs that force you to slow your roll.  Suffice it to say that my roll has been slowed.

Those who know me well know that I am a planner (an understatement).  Somewhere between the plan I drew up for this move and today the plan morphed into “not my plan.”  I say this with no blame or second guessing - it is just reality, with good lessons to be learned from the experience.  The expectation I had of having time to “nest” in my new home and get it just as I wanted it before I started work is no longer an option.  The river has taken a different course and taken me with it.  And as we know, the river goes where it wills.

Prior to throwing the last of my office stuff into boxes on the day the movers came to Boise, I instinctively (intuitively?) grabbed two books off the shelf and popped them in my suitcase.  Since the river changed course both have been valued traveling companions.  Margaret J. Wheatley’s “Perseverance” has been my life jacket while Loretta Ross-Gotta’s “Letters from the Holy Ground:  Seeing God Where You Are” keeps me seeking God in the present moment.   I highly recommend them to anyone who finds themselves floating the river.

In Margaret’s book she begins with a message from the Elders of the Hopi Nation:

“Here is a river flowing now very fast.  It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid, who will try to hold on to the shore.  They are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.  Know that the river has its destination.  The elders say we must let go of the shore.  Push off into the middle of the river and keep our heads above water.”

Letting go of the shore feels counter intuitive and very, very hard.  But I’ve let go.  And the river is carrying me...and all I can do is keep my head above water and hope that the river is not on fire (Ohio reference) or has Class VI rapids (Idaho reference).

Decades ago I served a church that had a campus on a mountain, with a County road running through the property.  Once upon a time that road was for horses; now with cars racing up and down the mountain the road had grown dangerously close to two church buildings.  Something needed to be done.  One day after church I saw two of the church patriarchs sitting in lawn chairs by the road.  I went over and joined them.  One said to me:  “Pastor, this road is a problem.  It is hurting our buildings.  You should call the County and tell them to move the road.”  I tried not to laugh because they were dead serious.  It made perfect sense to them that the road should be moved (and that I should make that call).  I didn’t make the call, and during my tenure there we moved one of the two buildings away from the road (they rebuilt the other one a few years ago).  These men were disappointed that we had “caved” and not made the County move the road - their expectations of what was possible led to that disappointment.

Expectation management (EM) may be one of the most powerful tools we have for leading a peaceful and centered life.

Tomorrow I will check into an extended stay hotel where my bug and I can have easy access to tea and soup and rest.  I will stay there until my home is ready for me and remain grateful for all the angels who are working hard to help me create a home here in the Falls.  I will continue my grief work - letting go of my former congregation so I can respond to my new congregation clearly and cleanly.  I will read, sip tea, eat soup, nap, and might tackle the Mt Olympus of getting an Ohio driver’s license (I’m told that the process is a pain - we’ll see).  And whenever I can I’ll go over to my new home and visit the bunny living in the backyard and do some mental “nesting.”

The only place we truly encounter God is right where we are.  During this season of Epiphany, may our eyes be opened to behold the God who is right here - now.

With love and prayers,
Kim