Dying and Living

I have an old friend who is living with ALS. This means, of course, that he is also dying of ALS. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS is a devastating illness and always fatal.

But then, so is life.

Not devastating, necessarily, but always fatal. I don’t say this to be flip. I say it to acknowledge the stark reality that we all do die. No way around it. Nobody gets out alive. My dad lived a good, long-enough life before he died this year. But his death continues to remind me, day by day, to live. This is my life. What do I want to do before it’s over? I’m also reading a book now – or maybe I should say experiencing a book, because reading it is only half the game – which was written after the author’s step-father died just 37 days after a terminal diagnosis.

That reality made her ask herself – what would I do with the next 37 days if they were my last? And she discovered that she wouldn’t take a trip around the world or any of those things we speculate about – like our own personal make-a-wish foundation. What she would do, she decided, is enjoy the life she has more intensely and intentionally. Patti Digh’s book, Life is a Verb, invites the reader to do the same.

My friend with ALS has a site where he and his wife write updates about their existence. Sometimes the wife gives a blow-by-blow of just what it’s like to watch your spouse deteriorate muscle by muscle. It’s excruciating.

But often the words are full of humor and love and delight in life. Especially when the writer is Rick, the friend who is dying. Rick is a gorgeous, athletic, popular, successful businessman. He and his wife were among my ex and my best friends. We spent several Thanksgivings together, none of us really wanting to spend the whole day with our families of origin. We took weekends in the Adirondacks and Finger Lakes together. The girls would have our nights out together and the boys, theirs.

Sometimes after spending extended time with this couple, my ex and I would be relieved to be home alone. It fascinated us how couples adjust to their own tensions and eccentricities, while finding other people’s hard to endure. We sometimes thought we had the stronger marriage. Now we have split and they are walking together through the valley of the shadow of death. The depth of their love and appreciation of each other rings through their writing.

I ran into another friend this week whose marriage had been up and down for a while. Then her father died. Turns out that experience did not deepen her marriage. Her husband’s emotional unavailability became the last straw and her father’s death ushered in the death of the marriage. If you only have one life to live, what are you going to do with it?

I started this blog after my own marriage broke up and I named it for that wonderful Mary Oliver quote at the top of the page. When I stop and think, honestly, about the percentage of time when I’m actually living as if my life were a wild and precious gift, it gives me pause.

I’ve been on a five-year journey of discovering what the next stage of my life should be. In the meantime, I’ve had five years of living my life as it is. Sometimes I get so frustrated that the future is not emerging in the way I expected, that I forget to live the day that has been given.

So this week, as I turn 46, I want to declare: this is my life. It isn’t the life I imagined. It isn’t the life I used to have. It isn’t the life I hope to have some years from now. But it is the one and only life I have and I intend to notice it, taste it, relish it, enjoy it, explore it, experience it in all its craziness and joy.

As we sang in church camp: This is the day that the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in it!

When Death Comes*

My father died at 1 p.m. on Monday, January 12. My mother and I were with him, one on each side, as he quietly, peacefully took his last breaths. I almost missed it. I had gone for lunch. This would have been a great irony. I am, as my Gentleman Friend (GF) likes to say, a good eater. So was my dad. We could always eat. Any time of day. Even if we had just finished a large meal. We appreciate food in our family. Eating was the last of Dad's pleasures to go.

So, I had gone to the hospital cafeteria where I had salmon in creamy dill sauce, wild rice and roasted italian vegetables. I bought my mom a sandwich (her request -- I didn't mean to have a nicer meal than she did) and was heading back up to the room where dad had been moved from emergency only an hour before. As I turned onto his floor a gaggle of nurses and CNAs saw me and exclaimed, "There she is now." They were paging me to come because my dad's death was imminent. I ran into the room. A friend of the family had arrived in my absence. He left the room as I entered and I took dad's side. I can't remember what Mom and I said at that moment. Nothing to each other, but maybe to Dad. We had been singing hymns to him that morning -- Holy, Holy, Holy and For All the Saints, that sort of thing -- and quoting his two favorite psalms -- the 121st and the 23rd. We both know all of these by heart and have for most of our lives and yet we stumbled over words and phrases again and again. We didn't know that Dad was going to die when he came in by ambulance that morning or else we might have packed a bible and a hymnbook for the moment. We weren't prepared for death.

What happened was this: four days before Christmas Dad took two bad falls. He was falling more and more, so this was not especially significant, except that Mom was unable to get him up and had to call in help both times. That was a Sunday. On Tuesday morning he had another bad spill, knocking the back of his head against the corner of a metal table on the way down. This time Mom managed to get him up and to the shower where she was busy trying to clean up all the blood when she realized it was a pretty bad cut. So she finished his shower, bandaged his head, changed his clothes, got him in her car and drove to the nearest urgent care clinic. They put 10 stitches in his head and sent him home, asking Mom to note if he seemed confused. Dad had beginning stages dementia, was mostly blind, mostly deaf and took too many painkillers for the various physical disabilities that kept him in chronic, crippled pain. Knowing whether he seemed more confused than usual was not a simple task.

But rather than complain about his head or his osteo-arthritis or degenerative disk disease pain, all day Dad complained about a sore place on his foot. Mom had taken him to the podiatrist a hundred times in the preceding months for this sore spot, but it clearly had become much worse -- the hole widening and deepening, the area around it turning odd, dark shades not usually associated with Caucasian skin. By the next morning, Christmas Eve, his foot was red and swollen and hot and the sore spot was black. Mom managed, once again (I'm not sure how), to get him into the car and off to a podiatrist. A different one this time, as she was fed up with the lack of help the previous one had been. This one examined Dad's foot, looked up at Mom and said, "I'll do what I can to save his foot." What???

So he cleaned and tended the wound, ordered an oral antibiotic, drew a line in red magic marker across Dad's upper foot and told Mom that if the redness and swelling got higher than the mark to go immediately to the emergency room. My son and I came to her house later that day. My ex was going to a 5 pm service at his church and then coming over to sit with Dad, so Mom, son and I could attend the 7 pm Christmas Eve service at her church. We got home from the service, looked at Dad's foot and knew we had to go to the hospital. Because my ex was there, the three of us managed to get him into a car (how had Mom done this on her own earlier that same day?) and Mom and I went off to the hospital, leaving the ex to put the son to bed and fill the stockings.

Around 2 a.m. they had run every test imaginable and admitted Dad to the hospital. He had cellulitis in the foot, as well as wicked bed sores on his rear end and signs of a small, recent heart attack. He was a mess from head to toe, quite literally. Dad stayed in the hospital for a week, one problem leading to another, but finally getting the infection under control. From there he went to a skilled nursing facility for rehab. With his fever gone and his medications more controlled than at home, Dad was actually quite lucid and in pretty good spirits for a few days. But when the first week in rehab turned to the second, he began insisting that Mom get him out of there and take him home. A week in the hospital, not moving out of bed, had greatly weakened him and he was having trouble even sitting up and holding a cup. There was no possible way he could go home. In spite of his generally good mental capacity, he could not comprehend this. Of course Mom could take care of him. She'd been doing it for years!

On Friday, January 9, Mom and I went to the financial planner's office. I am now the executor of the estate should anything happen to Mom, but this was my first time getting a real lay of the financial landscape. We needed to figure out the situation should Dad be spending months or years in nursing care, which is what we all believed we were facing at this point. The good news was, in spite of huge losses in 2008, Mom and Dad had been so frugal and wise with their money over the years that the planner assured Mom she could keep Dad in nursing care for 12 years before they'd run out of money. We all knew he wouldn't last that long, so this greatly put her mind at ease.

I spent that afternoon with Dad, so Mom could be home alone for a while. He was fairly lucid, but certainly more confused than he had been a few days before. I read him Christmas cards. He kept calling on the nurses to help him get up to pee. He could barely make it from the bed to the wheelchair even with two skilled helpers. As the afternoon wore on he got more agitated and kept saying what a mess things were. I couldn't get him to say what the mess was. Finally, I knew he needed to sleep, so I kissed him, told him I loved him and left.

I had plans to go out of town that weekend which I kept. There was no reason I shouldn't, as far as we could tell. We were gearing up for the long-haul. Months of a man miserable about being in a nursing home. He had said to Mom for years, "Don't ever put me in a nursing home! I'll die if I have to go to a nursing home!" I stayed in touch with Mom and she said that he developed an intestinal infection on Saturday. She was still able to feed him (a good eater, to the end) and get him to respond to commands ("Open your mouth a little wider"), but he stopped communicating verbally and rarely opened his eyes that weekend.

Then Monday morning came and the call that he was being sent to the hospital. Even then, Mom figured he'd gotten dehydrated from the infection or in need of IV antibiotics. As they took his vital signs, his fever was 106. His breathing was labored and his blood pressure was dropping rapidly. Just before I arrived the doctor asked Mom if she wanted extreme measures taken or just comfort care. She asked for comfort care. "Then I give him 24 to 48 hours to live." Death. We didn't know. When I arrived I spoke with the social worker and asked a hospice representative to come meet with us. I thought perhaps we could move him into a hospice facility and out of the emergency room for his last days. I knew from my time as a volunteer hospice chaplain that people could inexplicably hang on longer than expected and I wanted to be ready for the possibility of several days of bedside vigil. Hospice came, but the doctor arranged with the nursing home for us to take him back there, as he didn't think a hospice bed would open in time and knew we could get palliative care at the home. Discharge papers were in place when the doctor came in and told us that he had changed his mind. Dad wouldn't survive the transfer, he thought. They promised to find a bed in the hospital and admit him as quickly as possible, which they did, with great kindness and efficiency. Around noon, Dad was finally settled into his new room -- a quiet one with a beautiful view of the mountains. It was a gorgeous, bright winter day.

Mom and I sat with Dad for a few minutes and then we both realized we were hungry. Even at this point, we figured we had hours ahead of us. Mom asked me to go eat and bring her something. So I did. And almost missed the last moment. But not quite. I'm glad I was there.

I have no regrets, nor does Mom, but one can't help but think about some "what ifs" in those final moments. Mom would have spent the night with Dad, had she any idea of the severity of this infection. I would have gone to see him when I got home on Sunday. And more than that, I would have been kinder to him on Friday.

When I last saw him, he seemed so like he had for months. Demanding, irritable, but pretty lucid and generally OK. I was frustrated with him for not trying harder to sit up, to feed himself. He seemed perfectly happy to have it all done for him, but then angry that he couldn't go home even though he was making no efforts at rehabilitation. He complained about how tired he was. When he asked for water, I tried to insist that he hold the cup himself and get the straw to his mouth. I put it directly in both hands and shaped the one hand around the cup and the other around the handle. He dropped it. I caught it before it spilled and tried again. I snipped at him for not holding on, for not listening to what I was asking him to do. After a third attempt, I held it for him and put the straw in his mouth. But not compassionately. I did it with a huff.

I am not haunted by this interaction. I know that I am forgiven by God and by Dad, if that is a post-life possibility. I can forgive myself. But forgive does not mean forget and I believe that I will remember this moment for a long time. I hope I do. Because it is easy for me to think that had I known this would be the last time I saw my dad with any real life in him, I would have been so much more kind and gentle and patient. I would have compassionately given him the water as he asked and not scolded him. I would have gently rubbed his bald head while he drank. Had I known death was coming in a matter of days rather than months, I'm sure I would have been kind. I was kind on Monday, when it hardly mattered any more.

It's so utterly predictable to learn this lesson now. We never know which interactions will be our last ones. And so every single moment we are called to compassionate presence. There is not a one of us that doesn't know this. But how easy it is to live out of the grudges, the impatience, the frustration. How very human.

Dad is gone. We had a wonderful and difficult relationship for many years. We loved each other fiercely and wounded each other deeply. We fought and we made up. We criticized and we praised. We prayed together and we yelled at each other. We both clamored for Mom's attention and affection in our own ways and often in competition with each other. We could stay angry at each other for too long, but we were never estranged. We both knew we were the apple of the other's eye.

People have been saying this week, "Now he can see again and hear again and walk again!" I really don't know about that. I believe in resurrection, but I have no earthly idea what it means. What it looks like. Does Dad really have a healthy body now? We have joked about him being reunited with some of his obnoxious friends, about them all giving God hell together. Maybe. I don't know. What I do know is this: he lived 81 years. He touched more lives than I will ever know with his own compassion and faith and preaching of the gospel, in both word and deed. He loved Mom passionately, even though he demanded far too much of her for far too long. He did much good in his life -- serving every community he lived in with civic zeal, every church he pastored with vigor and enthusiasm. He loved life. He loved people. He loved God. He loved me.

And now he is gone. Blessed are those who die in the Lord.


*With apologies to Mary Oliver

Sunday School Redux

For anyone who actually still reads this blog (that would be you, PJ), you may remember the Sunday School concerns I've had. This fall my ex decided to enroll our son in the Sunday School at the church that he has been attending for the past 2 years. This is a weird and wild post-Christian, creation spirituality church. I enjoy attending it once or twice a month and have agreed to support the boy's participation in the SS program. To give you an idea of the religious education my son is now part of, here is the teen's Christmas story performed in church recently. What can I say?

Merry Christmas, my friends.

Waves

Whenever I go to the ocean and spend a few hours diving in the waves, as I did last week, I am reminded of how much they have taught me.   Occasionally you see somebody out in the surf who is clearly a newcomer to waves.   Again and again they stand in the way of them and get smacked down.  Now, if getting hit in the chest and head and back by powerful walls of frothy salt water is your thing, then go right on standing there and getting smacked.  There are certainly worse ways to spend a day.  

Personally, I prefer to face waves in a few other ways:  diving over, diving under, moving out beyond them or riding them in.  Of course, each way holds its own life lessons.  

Diving over is tricky and only works if you catch it just before the big break.  You have to know your wave and decide whether you have the traction on the sand shifting beneath you to make the leap.    This way involves risk and quick judgement and the willingness to get a huge faceful of froth.  But done right, it can result in a very pleasant floating, flopping ride to the other side.

Diving under is the easiest thing.  Just put your arms over your head and face the wave and plunge straight in the the heart of it.   But if you've never done it before, it looks scary.  It's only once you've tried it that you understand that the quietest place in the surf is directly underneath the biggest waves.  Ah yes, the old "there's no way out but through" philosophy. 

Getting out beyond the waves usually means putting yourself rather far out into the ocean, which only works if you like being in the ocean over your head and trust that you have the strength to swim back in, even if a rip tide is pulling you farther out.  To get beyond the waves you have to take a few in the face first, or try the diving under and over techniques often enough to get good at both.  Beyond the waves can be choppy or peaceful and you are never guaranteed a wave-free existence, but what a place to hang out and enjoy the vastness of the universe. The risk is in straying too far from shore, but the pay-off is excellent.   

Riding them in is the most fun of all but requires a willingness to eat some sand, scrape your knees on shells and occasionally feel as if you may be ripped apart.   It also requires great patience in finding just the right wave to ride and catching it at just the right moment as the wall of water tips forward, but before the actual crest.   But when you catch a great body surfing rise -- ah!   What a rush!   

Jesus is my Guru

As a newly divorced woman in her mid-forties, I have entered a strange new world of dating. And I am doing it in the strange world that is Asheville.  Being who I am, I tend to be attracted to men who are spiritual.   This translates into my last three dates being with a guy who has been a devoted practitioner of a particular form of meditation based on some kind of yoga out of Hindu/Indian traditions.   So, it has a guru.  And he (date guy) does.   I'm not a guru type of gal.  My protestant gut is suspicious of any human being who claims too much spiritual power. Power corrupts and corrupted spiritual power may be the worst kind.  

(Think inquisitions.  Or Osama bin Laden, for that matter.  Although I don't really think of either of those as spiritual, but political power which cynically used the spiritual weaknesses of people to rile them up.  But that's another post.)

Anyway, I'm discussing my general distrust of gurus with this guy, who is trying not to become defensive about his love of his guru (he's gone to India 3 times to see him) and trying to share with me that it's really all about love -- increasing our love through meditation, blah, blah, blah.  

So I say, "Well, Jesus is my guru.  I don't need any other ones."  And I realize it is true.  That I do think of Jesus much in the same way he thinks of his guru -- as a human being who became so imbued with God-love that he was capable of extending it through not only his words and touch, but even through time and past death.  While I'm fairly ambivalent about church these days, I am still crazy about Jesus.   Though it defies intellectual understanding, I have experienced Jesus in encounters I will call mystical because I'm not sure what else to call them. I have been healed by these encounters -- spiritually, emotionally and physically healed.   Not always in the ways I hoped to be healed, but in ways that powerfully changed me or the direction of my life. 

I experience Jesus as a guy -- a real Middle Eastern Jewish guy -- who fully and completely got it.   Got God.  Got the point of life.   And was transformed -- transfigured -- by it.   And then became a conduit for transforming others.    I don't know what happens to most of us when we die -- worm food?  reincarnation?  straight to heaven, do not pass go, do not collect $200?  -- but I believe that Jesus, in some real sense, did not die.   His body is dead and gone, but his spirit is alive and well.   And not in some vague "everything is divine" sense, but in the sense of that Jewish guy who lived 2000 years ago and taught and walked and healed and was crucified. That his particular life experience -- incarnate, real, fully human experience -- was critical to his ability to continue through cultures and time to speak to us as fully human ones.  

Perhaps there have been other human beings in history who share this category -- Buddha comes to mind -- but I can't attest to that.   I can attest to Jesus.  And because I experience him as still present, still available, still healing, I don't see the need for some other human to come along and claim some spiritual power into which I need to tap.   I can go straight to the source -- the Big God -- or I can go to Jesus.   And Jesus, having been human, is easier for me to get most days than the BG.   

What about you? 

Opening to Grace -- an ad

I don't think I've ever used this space for an ad before, but I'm going to make an exception.  There is an amazing woman by the name of Tilda Norberg who lives on Staten Island, where she practices and teaches Gestalt Pastoral Care.   Throughout the year she does weekend retreats called "Opening to Grace" near Dingman's Ferry, PA, at her funky little retreat space.   This fall the dates for her weekends are:  Sept. 25-27, Oct. 16-18, and Dec. 4-6.  Each retreat is limited to 6 participants, plus some helpers, and costs $300, which includes room and board.  Gestalt pastoral care is a combination of Gestalt growth work, healing prayer and spiritual companioning.  It's hard to describe.  You kind of have to experience it.  

I studied with Tilda for two years at her home/school on Staten Island.  It was one of the most important experiences of my life.  Given that my life has been a bit of a mess ever since, I realize I'm not the best walking advertisement.   (But then again, I'm not sure this mess isn't partly a result of shaking up my comfortable little world.   Sometimes healing isn't pretty.)

If this sounds even vaguely interesting to you, go to the website and read up on it.  Or give Tilda a call and have a chat.  I highly recommend her and this work.   But maybe you shouldn't go if you like your life exactly the way it is.   I'm just saying ...  

Holy Week

Being asked to do the Presbymeme (below) gave me the impetus to blog about my Holy Week. Nothing Presbyterian about it.

Let's start on Palm Sunday. I got a 9 a.m. call from a new friend, raised secular Muslim, who has very bad feelings about Christianity in general, but is trying hard to respect mine. "Happy Palm Sunday!" he announced. "Oh. Is it?" I replied. I really didn't know. And that shocked me. Has there ever been a Palm Sunday in my entire life that I didn't wake up looking forward to the dramatic story that moves from triumph to tragedy? I loved waving the palms as a child. I love the Palm Sunday hymns. As a pastor, I always loved creating a parade from the outside to the inside of the church and moving the congregation from the exaltation of "All Glory, Laud and Honor" to the reality of death and betrayal still to come.

I went to Funny Little Church (FLC) -- the one I've blogged about from time to time this year -- at the usual afternoon time. They had palm branches there, but we really didn't do anything with them. The service was fine ... but it didn't feel like Palm Sunday. None of the triumph or the tragedy, really. Just another informal, lefty Baptist kind of thing.

In keeping with the lack of realization that it was Holy Week, I had made plans to celebrate the Vernal Equinox on Maundy Thursday. That day I had second thoughts, but having no church home that was doing Maundy Thursday, I kept my original plans. I went to a friend's retreat center (we do similar work and try to collaborate rather than compete) to do meditative dances. It was fine. But it was not Maundy Thursday, which may well be my favorite Holy Day of the year. Especially when foot washing is included. My churches have typically conflated MT and Good Friday, with communion first and then Tenebrae, on the theory that getting Presbyterians out to one mid-week service is asking enough and two would be impossible. I love that movement as well, from tight circle of friends huddled in an upper room, to public trial and betrayal. From gentle hope to dark hopelessness in such a short time.

On Good Friday, I attended my local Episcopal church (LEC), which is where FLC now meets, so they had invited us to join them. It was a beautiful service. We heard the whole gospel story of the betrayal, trial, crucifixion and tomb. The priest gave a beautiful homily using an illustration from modern-day Middle East about non-violence and compassion that was so moving and pertinent. He is a man clearly in love with God. We had a ritual with stones that we offered as something we needed to let go of in order to follow Christ. There was the Eucharist and healing prayer. We sang Taize music, mostly. Finally, I felt like I had joined Holy Week.

But that left Easter. FLC just doesn't do the Big Holy Days (BHD) well at all and I had decided some time before not to attend there, so as to preempt my disappointment. But the last BHD I had gone with my mom to her traditional Presbyterian church and left screaming in boredom and ended up offending her, because she really loves her church, so I didn't want to do that either. First I thought I'd just do LEC again or the Cathedral, always a good choice if one is in search of Pomp. But I wasn't in search of Pomp. I was in search of resurrection.

Then I got an invitation I couldn't refuse. To worship at the Men's State Correctional Facility. So that's what I did. Drove with some friends from FLC to the maximum security prison about an hour away and worshipped there. We didn't sing any of the hymns I love -- no Jesus Christ is Risen Today or Hallelujah Chorus or the wonderful Brian Wren Easter hymn to Beethoven's 9th. They sang gospel. And Amazing Grace. A retired Baptist minister preached. Good sermon.

It is a strange and discomforting place for me to feel so out of sync not with Christianity in the spiritual sense, but Christianity in the denominational sense. In spite of lovely, compassionate Christian people in all the churches I have attended over the past year, I can't escape the sense of deadliness I encounter there. Is it in me or in the churches? I suspect it is me dying to my old ways of being church. A long, slow death as it is turning out.

At the prison, there is so little pretence. You either get resurrection or you don't. If you don't, you're not there on Sunday. If you do, you can't not be there. What else is there when you are behind bars and have thrown yourself on the mercy of a living, loving Lord? This is a stance I understand. When my church let me go, God did not. God, in fact, picked me up even before they threw me down.

[Now, there will be some Presbyterians who will read this, who know my story and will jump in to say, "Oh, no. The church didn't leave you." To you, I need to say, please spare me. I know what happened and how. And until you have walked in my shoes, you really, really don't know.]

So I am dying a long, slow death to the ways of worshipping and understanding God and church and community and compassion that I lived so fully for so many years. It is not easy. And yet, it is also not hard. Because I know resurrection. I know it in my bones, in my gut, in the ligaments that hold me together. I know it, quite literally, better than I know myself. Because my self is also in this long, slow dying time. I don't know what I'll look like or sound like on the other side of the process I'm in, but I trust, that with Peter I will move from eager follower to quick denier to empowered leader. But also like Peter, I don't know if my former communities will recognize me when I get to that stage or will want to disown the more inclusive, more powerful, more merciful and impartial God that I am continuing to grow to know. There is no going back to the old ways. I have no desire or need to do so. But what is to come is yet to be clear. Resurrection changes things.

Happy season of resurrection, friends. May you know it in your life and may the church know it as well.

February Bullets

*Did anyone else see the very cool, star-studded video of Obama's "Yes We Can" speech before it got pulled off YouTube? And does anybody know why it's no longer available?

*I went to a Kirtan chant Friday night, a movie date with my ex Saturday night (no, we're not getting back together, but since neither of us had dates with other people and the child was at a sleep-over we figured, why not?) and an Imbolc celebration Sunday morning. I have a weird life, but I like it.

*I worked my tail off last week and it was worth it. I'm really beginning to feel like this job is mine. In spite of crazy former boss calling and cussing me out (really, I do not exaggerate) on Tuesday.

*Superbowl? What superbowl?

And the thankfulness continues ...

I'm playing along on this meme for Max, whose wise and witty spirit seemed to have vanished from blogland for a while, but who is back and has tagged me. Also, because as I have said before, gratitude is a wonderful spiritual discipline and one can never be too thankful. Really. So here goes.

Write down five things that you're thankful for.

Tag five friends who you'd like to see participate in this meme. (Optional) Include a link to the original at SmuloSpace in your post, and then visit the post yourself and place a link to your completed meme in the comments section so John can keep track of the thankfulness running around the blogosphere.

1. My son. It is impossible to imagine my life had he not been born. That I get to be his mother every day for the rest of my life is an amazing and wondrous thing. May I have enough wisdom to not screw him up too badly.

2. Tea, coffee, wine and whiskey shared with friends. Each of these things is gift enough on its own, but when consumed in the company of someone interesting and thoughtful and funny and kind, the value increases exponentially. I am thankful that this has happened repeatedly in my life over the last three weeks, with several people. An embarrassment of riches, really.

3. DVDs, popped in at just the needed moment, to get all those fussy children away from the dinner table and properly sedated.

4. Music. The sound of the soul.

5. Almost winning the trivia game at the local pub last night. I never win things like raffles, door prizes, slots. Never. Now, I do win at many board games, because I am one competitive b*t#h, but never at Trivial Pursuit. Never. So imagine the thrill, if you can, of ending round two of the weekly trivia game tied for first place. The last question is final jeopardy style, where you have to decide on a wager. If our team had wagered more we would have won the big kahuna. I wanted to wager more, but got talked out of it by team members. Had we wagered my amount, we would have walked away CHAMPIONS, because we answered correctly. But I'm not blaming my teammates, because they were troopers and, as it was, we walked away with second prize, which was, I kid you not, a thrill. We would not have ended where we did had I not challenged the game leader on one of his responses. Here was the trivia question: What denomination uses the Book of Common Prayer? In the comments, tell me what you think I said and what you think he said was the correct answer. For a bonus challenge, here was the final jeopardy question: Put the following cities in order of distance from NYC, as the crow flies: Moscow, Madrid, Honolulu, Los Angeles. (No peeking at a globe or map or using any electronic cheater toys.)

I have bad luck getting my blog friends to play along on these things, but if you feel like being thankful, in the comments or on your own blog, please join in.

More Worship Ramblings

It was a year ago that I began attending the church I currently call home. My ex and I were still living together but were planning the split. I was working a dead-end temp job and was too emotionally washed-out to seek any social life at all. We had been in town only five months. I went to this church one week and then jumped in feet first the next. I made a financial pledge, put my son into the Sunday School, met with the pastors, and have been attending faithfully ever since. This is how I do church. Whole hog. I've tried to be half-hearted about church, but it doesn't work for me.

That said, whole hog isn't working for me right now either. I think I jumped too quickly, too desperate for a community. The politically progressive stances worked for me. The small informal circle seemed like a place I could actually make friends. The weekly potluck seemed almost like having a social life of my own.

The thing is ... the worship doesn't really work for me. It's too informal, to be honest. I have to confess: the kids running in and out throughout the service irritate me. This from the pastor who spent her career convincing old ladies that it wasn't sacrilege to have active children in worship. Wow. Weird to have the shoe be on the other foot. I want to say to the offending parents, "Don't you realize that the rest of us are here to WORSHIP GOD??!!"

OK, OK, it's not that bad, really. I do still enjoy children in worship, acting like children. Just reasonably well-behaved children, at least most of the time, please.

And then there are the sermons. One issue is that there is a different preacher every week. I mean, seriously, in a year, there is only one person I've heard preach more than a handful of times and I don't like his sermons. Which is the other issue. Let me just say that these folks, with a couple of notable exceptions, would have a hard time in a Presbyterian homiletics class. Bless their hearts.

Geez, am I cranky or what?

Also, last year there was an adult Sunday School class while the kids had theirs. I went every week. Sometimes there were only two of us, but that was fine with me, as it allowed me to get to know other people. This year, they dropped the class. Did anybody ask my opinion? Me, the only person who was in the class every week last year? Umm, no. It wasn't like they had to buy curriculum or plan anything. We just got together and read a chapter of the Bible and discussed it.

So, I found myself beginning to dread worship. But having made the family commitment and having this deeply ingrained belief that my child should be in SS and worship every week, coupled with guilt over the fact that the poor child has had seven congregations to adjust to in his 9 years (Presbyterian, Quaker, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Quaker, non-denominational and now Baptist), I am very hesitant to start looking around for another church home.

And yet ... have I mentioned that my son HATES this church? Well, I think he actually kind of likes some of the adults there and he loves a good potluck as much as I do, but beyond that, he has not connected with one single child at this church. Not one.

So today I told him that maybe we could keep going to his SS, but try some different things out worship-wise and only go to our congretation a couple of times each month. I told him about Taize and said maybe we could go to Taize services sometimes and Quaker meetings sometimes and Episcopal services sometimes and that when we didn't go anywhere else that we could worship at home.

And tonight, that's what we did. We went to SS and then came home and had dinner and afterwards had our own worship. We began by putting on a CD of Gregorian chant and then going into the little room off our living room which I call my prayer room and lighting lots of candles and some incense. Then he read (by candlelight) from this tiny little Gideon Bible that he got at the State Fair, which he loves. It's King James, which makes me crazy, but he asked me to give him an assignment and he opened up and read it straight through, with all the "he spakes" and so on. When he finished, I read the same story (the shepherd and the lost sheep) from our Family Story Bible (by Ralph Milton, highly recommended for anyone with young children looking for a children's Bible that won't gross you out) and we discussed it. I asked him if he wanted to read a Psalm and he piped up, "What about the 23rd since it's about shepherds, too?" (He remembered!) So he read it, King James.

Suddenly he asked, "How many verses are in Psalm 119?" (He knows this is the longest Psalm, because that's the kind of Biblical information that will stick with him).
Me: "I'm not sure but it's well over 100."
Him, finding it: "176."
Me: "Why don't you read the last verse out loud?"
Him: "I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments."
How's that for fitting a theme?

Next, I read a prayer from Edward Hays' "Prayers for the Domestic Church" and we added our own thanksgivings. About this time the dog wandered in, so I found the blessing of the pets in Hays' book and read that, too. We then offered intercessions for several people. I told him how the Quakers speak of "holding people in the light" and how I picture the person I'm praying for in my mind's eye and see them completely surrounded by a warm white light. So we did that in silence for a few minutes until he cleared his throat to let me know he was done with the holding part. (Says he, "I don't want to hold them there too long. They might have to use the bathroom or something. Besides, I was beginning to get bored.")

I suggested we sing a hymn or two. He picked "Deep and Wide," complete with gestures and leaving out words. I picked "Jesus, Remember Me," from Taize. We, or rather I, sang it through about 8 times.

Him: "Does it really go on that long?"
Me: "In a real Taize service it would go on much longer."
Him -- dumbstruck: "Why?"

Finally, we ended with a simple benediction (Me: "Go in peace to love and serve our God." Him (with a little prompting): "Thanks be to God!") and the ringing of my small Tibetan singing bowl.

We agreed that we would do this again, that we'd begin and end each time with familiar words and that it would be his job to sing the bowl.

Now if we could just figure out how to blow out all the candles without setting off the smoke detector.

Empty and Full

Life these days is both empty and full and I am sitting uneasily in the paradox.

Full: work is busy and constant. I never feel caught up. There is always something more I could be doing. I'm just keeping up. There is planning for next year and evaluating each program and improving the website and working with board committees and reorganizing financial records and working on advertising and ... and ... it's like parish ministry without the fun stuff. No worship leadership, no pastoral counseling, no sacraments, no rituals for life transitions. I miss that stuff. That would go in the empty column.

Full: being a single mom. I'm the one responsible for making sure he's fed, bathed, rested, well-balanced, to school on time, to bed on time, all homework done. I have to make sure there are groceries in the fridge, clean underwear in the drawer and money in the bank to pay the mortgage and the health insurance and so on and so forth. Even though his dad has him a few nights each week, I am completely responsible when he's with me -- nobody to pass off any of the responsibilities. Also: full in the sense that this really is the best part of my life. He's my dear, even when he's infuriating. And honestly, he's a wonderful boy. Funny and helpful and smart and sweet.

Full: homeowner and pet owner. Again, it's just me and with these responsibilities I don't get any breaks any days of the week. Every day, I'm the one to walk the dog and vacuum up the dog hair and make sure the furnace works and the lawn is mowed and dishes are clean and the cat has flea medicine and they both are fed and watered and the toilet works and is clean. No landlord, no husband, just me.

Full: having my parents near-by. Full in the sense of wonderful to get to spend time with them each week and full in that I'm spending time with them each week. Watching Dad descend into the land of unknowing and unknowable is hard. Watching Mom care for him and lose her companion of 55 years is harder.

Empty: my sense of what God wants of me. My sense of call. What am I doing here besides taking up space? I know I am called to love those around me, to be in the moment. I wish that could be enough.

Empty: my social calendar. I have no social life. Really. None. I keep thinking I should make an effort in this department, but all those "full" notes above leave me little time, energy or money. I miss having friends, but finding the time to make new ones is tough. And I'll confess, I'm kind of picky about friends. When my time and energy is limited I want to spend it well. I don't suffer fools gladly.

Empty: my bed. Big ole fecking king size one, too. Enough said.

This sounds whinier than I intended. What I mean to say is that life is kind of mixed for me these days. This is a hard time, I won't deny. I long for clarity. I'm tempted to find a palm reader and get some fix on what the future holds. But here I am, in the present moment (wonderful moment, according to Thich Nhat Hahn, but as Jerry May once said, "Yeah, Thich says present moment, wonderful moment, but sometimes the present moment just sucks.").

Empty. And full.

Update

Haven't been blogging much, way behind on reading my blog buds, feeling sort of overwhelmed by life at the moment. Some bullets, in no particular order:
* Got a bookcase from my mom on Friday (beautiful!) which made me start to sort through the umpteen boxes and shelves of books in my basement.
* Discovered mildew on most of them.
* Spent large parts of Friday, Saturday and Sunday in my basement wiping mildew off books and standing them around the dehumidifier to dry.
* Brutally rid myself of a large portion of my books -- 8 boxes now ready to give away.
* Reshelved rest of books. (I still have lots).
* Got horrible news last week of a young woman who volunteers in our office being date-raped.
* Got other sad news of a bad car accident with a church member who is now in a coma.
* Worked the past two Sundays, meaning I missed my own worship time.
* Missed LEAF, big, wonderful music festival near-by.
* Had my first live blogger meet-up with Jane R. of Acts of Hope! We ate sushi and I got caught up on much gossip from my alma mater.
* Still struggling with boss. Ended up in tears at office twice in recent weeks. This does not please me.
* On the other hand, had a good board meeting last week.
* Came home from the office sick today and spent afternoon sleeping or resting.
* Have a presentation to give on "Sabbath" later this week and can't find time to prepare for it. HA!
* Was treated to an amazing meal out last night after work and wished I had felt better to fully enjoy (though I did enjoy! Scallops, yum.)
* Am experiencing repeated blogger difficulties which is part of why I'm blogging less these days and ending this now.

What I Did and Saw and Thought

What I Did:
*Hiked the Appalachian Trail along the French Broad River up to Lover's Leap for a gorgeous view.
*Soaked in the natural mineral springs hot tubs
*Enjoyed a lovely dinner on a deck overlooking a creek
*Read
*Journaled
*Slept deeply for 9 hours
*Hiked up Max Patch, which one book calls the best views on the entire AT and another calls the best views in NC (photo above doesn't come close to doing it justice).

What I Saw:
*The rocky, wide French Broad River
*Kayakers practicing in said river
*A smattering of bright red and yellow trees amidst the green views
*Couples hiking
*Families hiking
*Friends hiking
*Dogs hiking
*Wildflowers galore: buttery snapdragons, purple clover, goldenrod, milky Queen Ann's lace
*Native grasses
*At least six different kinds of butterflies
*Gargantuan grasshoppers
*Bumblebees
*Wild blackberries
*Cerulean skies
*cottony clouds
*360 degree views of mountains -- as far as the eye could see in every direction!

What I Thought:
*I don't need to wait for the right job, the right relationship, the right boss.
*I need to practice the difficult task of loving with a whole heart here and now.
*Today. Tomorrow. This is it. This is my life. This is not practice, but the real thing.
*And God is calling me to love.

Here is the reading my spiritual director gave me this week, before knowing of my most recent considerations about my job and boss:

I Wonder
by Derek Tasker

I wonder what would happen if
I treated everyone like I was in love
with them, whether I like them or not
and whether they respond or not and no matter
what they say or do to me and even if I see
things in them which are ugly twisted petty
cruel vain deceitful indifferent, just accept
all that and turn my attention to some small
weak tender hidden part and keep my eyes on
that until it shines like a beam of light
like a bonfire I can warm my hands by and trust
it to burn away all the waste which is not
never was my business to meddle with.

Source: Pilgrimage, An Exploration Into God, by Ivor Smith-Cameron

Today's Portion from the Prayer Book

Lord, open unto me
Open unto me -- light for my darkness.
Open unto me -- courage for my fear.
Open unto me -- hope for my despair.
Open unto me -- peace for my turmoil.
Open unto me -- joy for my sorrow.
Open unto me -- strength for my weakness.
Open unto me -- wisdom for my confusion.
Open unto me -- forgiveness for my sins.
Open unto me -- love for my hates.
Open unto me -- thy Self for my self.
Lord, Lord, open unto me!

--Howard Thurman

Good Therapy

When in despair, turn to nature. (And God, of course, and the two are well connected, as we know). This afternoon I packed a picnic, then son and I headed out into the nearby wilderness to sit and watch an elk herd. Old guys with huge racks, young studs with sharp spikes, cows, calves, adolescent elk. The whole elk gamut. Wonderfully funny-looking creatures on their spindly legs, they nonetheless appeared majestic roaming across a verdant valley as the sun set over the world's oldest mountains. Son called it "an elkstravaganza".

If you've never heard an elk bugle, put it on your list of things to do. Good night, all.

Anniversaries

Six years ago I was in a new pastorate inside the Beltway. I was walking through our decrepid building with our property committee chair feeling overwhelmed by all the repairs needed on it when news starting coming in. By mid-morning people were stopping in to pray. By mid-afternoon shell-shocked neighbors were walking home from their capitol hill jobs-- the metro system having been shut down, the evacuation routes jammed with cars-- making the long walk through the city to the Maryland suburbs in stunned silence. I remember the eerie silence broken by the mad rushing of military planes and helicopters flying over and over and over the skies. I will never forget that week.

One hundred and one years ago a young Indian lawyer in South Africa led his first non-violent civic action, fighting against discrimination in that land. Gandhi went on to be the last century's leading proponent of non-violence.

Two anniversaries on the same day. Violence. Non-violence.

"I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life, that you and your descendents may live."

Gratitude Adjustment

Some things I've been dealing with recently:
*Long work hours
*the reality of being a single mom most of the week and alone the rest of the week
*the occasionally soul-deadening nature of my mostly administrative job
*my brilliant but somewhat crazy boss and her super-frenetic energy
*lousy plumbing
*a sick cat
*a dog shedding approximately three tons of hair per day
*old tax issues
*internet issues at home (as in, not connecting)
*money (as in, not enough of it)
*a deeply depressed friend who needs me at a time when I'm feeling I don't have much to give
*some distance from my congregation which is almost my only community outside of work and family and so feels particularly poignant to me ...

What I want to focus on:
*that I have a wonderful, wacky little son who is the love of my life
*that I have a job which puts me in touch with interesting people -- like the Buddhist woman I met yesterday who started a Zen Center for Women here in the mountains and brought a bottle of champagne to our place of work which we shared with her in honor of her birthday (which she couldn't drink in her community because of the no-alcohol rule)
*that my boss is phasing out her work and if I can hang in for four more months, I'll be the boss
*that I live in a gorgeous part of the country
*that I live near my mom who is one of my favorite people on earth
*that on lonely nights I have a very funny friend who is only a phone call away
*that I am mostly healthy most of the time
*that several old friends have contacted me via internet recently
*that I have a home and a car and a laptop and a comfortable bed and an iPod and a fridge full of food (when I remember to go to the grocery store)
*that I finally frigging figured out how to do bold and italics on my blog!

If the only prayer you ever say in your life is "Thank You," that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart

Forever or today. It is enough.

"Psalm" by Stuart Kestenbaum

The only psalm I had memorized was the 23rd
and now I find myself searching for the order
of the phrases knowing it ends with surely
goodness and mercy will follow me
all the days of my life and I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever only I remember
seeing a new translation from the original Hebrew
and forever wasn't forever but a long time
which is different from forever although
even a long time today would be
good enough for me even a minute entering
the House would be good enough for me,
even a hand on the door or dropping today's
newspaper on the stoop or looking in the windows
that are reflecting this morning's clouds in first light.

Ramblings on worship, denominations and such, part 3

So, if you've been following these ramblings you know that I am deeply rooted in the Presbyterian church with extended forays into Quaker and Episcopal congregations. From the Quakers I gained deep appreciation of silence and trusting in that of God in all people (though certain members of our current administration strain this belief to the breaking point) and the calls to simplicity and peace as a way of life for all followers of Christ. From Episcopalians I gained deep appreciation of the liturgical traditions and the centrality of the eucharist to Christian spirituality. All the traditions I lean towards have great respect for human intellect and are friendly toward the sciences.

So why, now, in middle age, am I hanging out with a bunch of Southern Baptists? Good, good question.

It's certainly not because I've suddenly gone anti-intellect or developed a disturbing case of fundamentitis. It's not because of their liturgy or their silence, that's for sure, cause there ain't much of either of those happening! It's for one simple reason: community.

When I came into a new town last year, in the midst of an uncertain career change and, it turned out, a marital implosion, I worshiped in a few places. This being the South, it was easy to figure out which churches would share my general social views, since they were in the minority. Theologically I am open and ecclesiastically I am interested in new ways of being church. So when I discovered (online) a church that was trying to do something new, that had a deeply ecological orientation and a great world band, I knew I had to try it. I went to this new church for several months. They had a "wailing wall" where people were invited to wander during worship and, given my life circumstances, I did. Week after week, at some point in the service, I would run off to cry at this little prayer alcove. I was glad it was there.

I loved the band. I enjoyed the preacher -- a jazz musician who wove music and poetry and dance and drama into each service with skill and grace. The congregation was hipper than any I'd ever been part of. I mean, if you were going to be in church on Sunday morning, this was the happening place to be.

But as my marriage disintegrated, I knew it wasn't my church. So he got the church in the separation and I went off in search of mine. My next stop was one I had heard recommended by a colleague in DC. So I checked it out. And I stayed. A little bunch of renegade Baptists, worshiping on Sunday afternoons in an Episcopal fellowship hall, in a circle of folding chairs, singing along to a guitar and sharing a potluck dinner every week. Nothing flashy there. But good folks, trying to live the gospel. A house church that turned 5 years old about a month after I started worshiping there, it had outgrown houses within a few weeks of its birth. Now it is outgrowing the fellowship hall where we meet and looking for new space to rent. We don't aspire to be home-owners in this congregation. Who needs the headache? We just need a big enough, flexible enough space that we can gather in a circle, sing our Iona chants and old Baptist hymns, and then break up the circle for dinner.

It's an uneasy fit for me in some ways. I am so not Baptist. I like liturgy. I like a broader hymnody. I get a little restless with all the lay leadership -- especially as the quality of preaching varies greatly from week to week, since we let just about anyone who wants to have a turn at the pulpit. But here I am. Because I found a group of pilgrims who want to follow Jesus. When that means standing up alongside the Smithfield workers at the state's largest pork processing plant or being the first in town to speak out against the possibility of war with Iran or choosing to re-order our retirement portfolios to better reflect our gospel values. And when it means listening at length to the prayers of our community.

What is church for me? This is an evolving question. I suppose there is nowhere I would feel entirely at home. And maybe that is part of the human condition. We aren't entirely at home here. The God-itch inside of us is always calling. Each of us has just a little corner of the truth-cloth and we keep looking around to see where the rest of our quilt might be. So far, my quilt has quite a mixture of textures and colors. I keep looking for the pattern, but I'm not sure there is one here.

And that is just fine with me most days.

Time for more Mary Oliver

Landscape

Isn't it plain the sheets of moss, except that
they have no tongues, could lecture
all day if they wanted about

spiritual patience? Isn't it clear
the black oaks along the path are standing
as though they were the most fragile of flowers?

Every morning I walk like this around
the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart
ever close, I am as good as dead.

Every morning, so far, I'm alive. And now
the crows break off from the rest of the darkness
and burst up into the sky -- as though

all night they had thought of what they would like
their lives to be, and imagined
their strong, thick wings.