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

Hogmanay, Dibble Dibble Dopping and New Beginnings

In Scotland New Year’s Eve is called Hogmanay, and it is a time of many interesting rituals designed to recall and release the current year while welcoming the New Year.  And it was one of the things I loved about Scotland that I carried back with me when I returned to the “colonies” in 2007.  Although many of the Hogmanay customs do not translate well to life Stateside, there is one tradition I do not miss:  Watching the BBC Scotland Hogmanay Live show followed by BBC Alba’s traditional Scottish Ceilidh.  I’m a big fan of traditional Scottish music and Cunningham and Bain are always on BBC Scotland playing that Shetland fiddle music I love.  Then just before midnight the camera takes you to Edinburgh Castle where the Lone Piper plays a lament - you can’t help but call to mind the losses and pain of the year about to pass.  Then at midnight Mons Meg, the cannon at the castle, is fired to mark the start of the New Year - followed by spectacular fireworks.  It is customary to raise a glass to the New Year (preferably containing a wee dram of whisky).  The BBC program ends with the singing of Auld Lang Syne (guaranteed to bring a few more tears) and then over to BBC Alba for a very traditional Scottish Ceilidh - music and dancing that I love.  And the beauty of all of this is with the difference in time zones, those of us who watch this from the States can go to bed early with the passing to the New Year properly marked!

For the past ten years I’ve observed this ritual from the Mountain Time Zone - a full seven hours earlier than the celebration in Scotland.  But this year much has changed, and I’m now two time zones closer to Edinburgh Castle.

Yesterday I said goodbye to my beloved congregation of ten years in Boise, Idaho and got on a plane bound for my new life in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.  This new congregation opened their hearts to me and invited me to journey with them as they listen for God’s calling and direction for their ministry.  Their invitation came well into my realization that the work that I had been called to do in Boise had reached its conclusion, and it was time for me to step aside so that a new pastor could come for the next part of their journey.  But emotions do not always sync with the leading of that quiet inner voice.  Even with the conviction that what I was doing was the wise course for all, my heart was still broken in the parting.  To feel deep peace and intense heartache simultaneously is challenging, to say the least.   And a bit overwhelming.

I had planned to drive from Boise to Cuyahoga Falls - making the transition more concrete by actually traveling the ground.  I also wanted to say a prolonged goodbye to my beloved Rockies.  But wise friends at the Boise church prevailed upon me to revisit that plan (a Honda Fit is not a great match for high mountain winter driving) and so I instead flew from Boise to Denver and from Denver to Pittsburgh (where my son and his family live).

I arrived late last night and got checked into my hotel - exhausted from the leave taking service in the morning and the travel that followed.  This morning my son and grandson were here to play with Gramma - it was delightful to hear how Benjamin’s vocabulary has blossomed and to see that we still have a bond that has been nurtured over many months and miles.  When it was time to go over to their house and I walked outside into the cold rain the realization hit me - I was no longer in the West.  My life has changed forever and the reality of this move hit me like that cold rain “dibble dibble dopping” - as Benjamin says.

This is a big transition.  And a big adjustment.  The high desert, 300+ days of sunshine and all that is familiar are now memories.  I will soon enter a new home state, community and church and forge new relationships.  New things will need to become “home” for this to be successful for me and for my new congregation.

Before I left Boise I visited with women who have made (not always by their choice) significant changes and adjustments in recent years.  I have watched them move through changes and loses that were deeply painful.  Their advice to me is well worth heeding:

1.  Have faith that all will be well.  Be patient because it will take time for the new to feel familiar.
2.  Keep moving forward - you cannot live in the past.  You can remember it, cherish it, but you cannot cling to it.  If you cling to the past, you drown.
3.  Engage - make yourself get out and make the community home, especially when you don’t want to and would rather hide because the newness of everything feels overwhelming.
4.  Remember all your self-care strategies and find ways to adapt them to your new community.
5.  Trust that the God who led you this way will not abandon you - but will see you through the changes into this new phase of life that will be life-giving and sustaining.

Each place that I have lived and each congregation that I have loved is part of who I am.  Just as I carry my life and experiences of Scotland with me on this “gie dreich” night, my life and experiences in Boise and everyplace else I’ve loved and served now come with me to Cuyahoga Falls.  It seems like each heartbreak of parting causes the heart to enlarge - making more room for love.

So with the New Year begun (in Scotland), I will spend one more day here playing with Benjamin and watching my son be an amazing Dadda, and then head off to begin a new life in Cuyahoga Falls.  All the people I have met there have been kind and welcoming - and have a great sense of humor.  I have a new little house that I fell in love with at first sight, and a congregation anxious for me to join them.  The future looks very bright indeed.

Happy New Year! The journey continues!

With love and hope,
Kim