Made Me Smile

Often during pastoral care visits, especially those in nursing homes or assisted living facilities, the following conversation takes place:

Can I help you?

No thank you. I'm here visiting a congregation member. I know where s/he lives.

You're the pastor ... ? You look mighty young for that.

------

Today I went to visit a congregation member who is at a nursing home, under Hospice care and losing her memory. She was excited to see me. Then she asked me when I was going to retire ...

I was laughing so hard on the inside because it was the exact opposite of the comments I normally get.

Stillness

Sunday, June 24, 2007
1 Kings 19:1-15a

Shhhhhhhh … silence is golden.

The ad flashes across the movie screen right after the endless stream of previews for upcoming movies and even tv shows.

It may have incorporated a fake movie clip interrupted by a cell phone ring or a short song about all the noises people make during movies that are distracting and annoying. Either way or any other way, the moviegoer has been reminded of the sanctity of quietly watching the movie.

Shhhhhhhh … silence is golden.

Silence is filled with potential,
endless possibilities,
the prospect of something grand.

But do we really revere silence as being golden?

I’m not so inclined to believe so. There are instances when we do treasure some silence – like at the movie theatres when we are trying to enjoy one of the summer’s latest flicks. Or in a room filled with infants who are all napping at the same time.

But in reality, we do not give silence much thought or space, not in today’s society. It seems we are always inventing and buying new things so that we never have to endure any quiet or empty time or place.

There are mp3 players and ipods that provide continuous streams of music wherever one may be. There are cell phones and blackberries that allow one to remain connected to the Internet, email, news and sports almost anywhere. There’s the radio in the car and the interesting music in the elevator. Even the whirl of air-conditioners and fans are everywhere during a Florida summer.

Something is always going on in the background.

But listen …
Do you hear it … ?
A sound of sheer silence.

Did you miss it?
We’re not very good at paying attention to the details.
There’s a plethora of distractions.

But it’s there … the possibility of it is always there.
If we can get past the other stuff of life.
And that’s no easy job.

Elijah had a difficult time of it.
He had to get past his own distractions –
the prophetic crisis he found himself in:

“I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts;
for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant,
thrown down your altars,
and killed your prophets with the sword.
I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

And lest he become so wrapped up in his own little pity party,
the Lord sends him to stand on the mountain
and wait for the Lord to pass by.

First comes the wind –
the wind would have been a great way for the Lord to appear.
The wind from God swept over the face of the waters in creation;
the wind blew over the earth and the waters subsided after the great flood;
the wind parted the Red Sea so Moses and the Hebrews could walk across it.
The wind is powerful, but the Lord was not in the wind.

Then an earthquake shakes things up –
and the shaking would have been a magnificent display of the Lord.
Isaiah talks about the Lord of hosts visiting people in thunder and earthquakes;
the land shook when Christ died on the cross,
and again three days later when the stone was rolled away from the grave.
An earthquake can mark miracles, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

And then there was the fire –
fire would have been an impressive witness to the Lord.
Fire had burned in the bush from which God called to Moses;
the Lord went in front of the Israelites as a pillar of fire by night as they left Egypt;
the Lord descended on Mt. Sinai in fire and smoke when speaking to Moses.
The fire is glorious, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after this spectacular show of special effects,
Elijah is still waiting for a theophany –
he is still waiting for the Lord to pass by.

(Perhaps he also will catch a flash of God’s glorious backside like Moses did.)

And into that space and place of waiting, of paying attention,
Elijah heard a sound of sheer silence …
HEARD a sound of sheer silence.

Other translations call it
“a still small voice” (RSV)
“a gentle whisper” (NIV)
“the soft whisper of a voice” (TEV)
“a low murmuring sound.” (NEB)

At the very least, it was the appearance of something inconsequential, barely noticeable.

But Elijah noticed it,
even after the other glorious possibilities of God’s presence –
the ones which were much more consequential and grand –
Elijah noticed the silence because he was still.

He had quieted everything within him
and the outside distractions for just a moment.
And he went and stood on the ledge of a cave,
still … expectant … and he heard God.

The stillness didn’t last long.
Elijah took up his pity party complaint once again
(the exact same complaint he had prior to the Lord’s appearance).

And then the Lord sends him on his way.
Elijah was soon traveling through the wilderness of Damascus
to face his prophetic calling once again.

But for a moment, just one moment of his day …
stillness … silence … a mini-Sabbath.
A break from the hectic-ness of life to remember the Lord
and watch and listen for the Lord.

How often do we do that?
Just pause for a moment and take a break?

It’s one of the commandments – the fourth one to be exact:
“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor and do all your work.
But the seventh day is a Sabbath for the Lord your God …
For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
but rested the seventh day.” (Exodus 20:8ff)

Rested …
God, the Creator of heaven and earth,
paused enough to enjoy all of the hard work of creation
and just rested.

And, yet …
we, who were formed in the very image of God,
we don’t do the same.

It’s too convenient to skip by that commandment.
To say we’ll follow it more when things lighten up.

Perhaps during the summer, or the winter.
Or when the kids are out of the house.
Or when there are less things on our plates.
Or when our to do list is shorter and more manageable.
Or … or … or … the list could continue forever.

But what about just a little bit of stillness –
what about just a few moments of watching and waiting,
enough of a pause in our day or week to remember that God is God and we are not.

A small break from the life
where everything is urgent and hurried and needs immediate attention, our attention.
A period of Sabbath.

A whole day can seem a bit daunting.
But what about something more manageable to begin with:

A couple of moments of silence and prayer each morning,
or a couple of moments of reading Scripture and being still at the end of the day;
Perhaps a few hours each week of putting aside
the “shoulds” and the “musts” and the “have tos” and the “oughts”
to enjoy God and creation, relationships and hobbies;
Or maybe it’s not something specific,
and it’s just sauntering through half a day once a month,
enjoying the spaciousness of time.

For if the spirit sometimes comes and speaks in stillness
and we are forever caught up in the whirlwind of life,
the busyness of being on the run and on to the next great thing,
distracted by earth, wind and fire –

We may miss out on the sound of sheer silence …
on the presence and glimpse of God in the little things …
of God breaking through the silence to speak.

Stillness and Sabbath look a little bit different for everyone.
But at their core, it’s about intentionally setting aside time that is different,
time for holy rest and renewal, time for waiting and listening,
time for simply slowing down.

Just a few hours or moments of stillness –
enough to notice the night blooming cyrus’ glorious opening one evening;
to sit and watch the sunset at the beach and enjoy the sound of the waves;
to discover hundreds of sand fiddler crabs scurrying into their holes during a hike.

These are the ways I’ve been still
and quieted the distractions around me recently.
But there are certainly other ways:

Sitting down to an unhurried meal with family and friends;
Taking a leisurely walk;
Or exploring something new, whether it be a place or interest.

How will you find a way to embrace stillness …
a period of Sabbath this week?
How about beginning right now?

Because it seems a little oxymoronic
to continue to talk about stillness and silence.
So I’m going to shut up for a couple of minutes,
so we can actually practice it.

(It’ll only be a moment, so you don’t need to worry about it continuing forever.)

But for just a moment right now,
still the chaotic wind, earthquake and fire,
and enter a period of stillness before the Lord.

(a short period of silence)

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind;

and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake;

and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire;

and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.


Thanks be to God. Amen.

Words Never Before Uttered By a Pastor

"I'm bored!"

It may be hard to believe that a pastor (or even a pastoral intern) working fulltime at a church would ever utter these words. But I have. Multiple times. Last week and already this week.

I. am. bored.

The boredom is the result of numerous factors:

• During the summer, internship church has a much lighter schedule. Many programs take a break and either cut back or stop.
• Internship church has never had a yearlong intern before. They have a nice list of things for a summer intern to do and experience. However, seeing as how I've already been here for 9 months, I've completed said list.
• I'm already starting to prepare internship church for my departure - it's only 2 months away. There is not another yearlong intern coming this fall. I am slowly cutting back on the various things I've taken on this year so as not to shock them with it all at once in August.

Therefore, I am bored.

6 Random Things About Me

I have been tagged by 1-4 grace to do this. I'm generally not a fan of such things, but seeing as how it's been a while since I've posted, what the heck.

There are some rules to it, but my CPM tells me I need to break the rules more often, so I'm throwing them out the window. They won't even be listed here. If you would like to participate, consider yourself tagged to do so.

1. I'm addicted to Sudoku.
2. I love to play board and card games, but watch out - I'm very competitive.
3. I love to read and it can be very dangerous for me to go into a bookstore.
4. I love mint chocolate chip ice cream.
5. I wish I was fluent in American Sign Language.
6. I'm a solo car jammer (as in, if I'm in the car by myself I'll crank up the music, sing along and drum on the steering wheel)

One Year Blogiversary

It's been a year since I started this blog, which means it's also been one year since I stopped being a student - a paper-writing, exam-taking, class-attending student anyways.

Over the past 12 months, I have lived and worked as a pastoral intern with few friends in the area. And during that time I've found a community among the blogging world. I've read and shared about the joys and struggles of being a woman in ministry with the RevGalBlogPals. I've kept up on the lives of friends. I've updated my own friends about life through posts.

Blogging has become somewhat of a reflective discipline for me. So it's been good to think and process and post about life whether others are reading it or not.

But for the sake of the blogiversary, if you are one who stops by to read, delurk and identify yourself in the comments!

Gathered by the Spirit

Sunday, May 27, 2007
Pentecost Sunday
Genesis 11:1-9 & Acts 2:1-21

If you happened to walk past a particular courtyard near Columbia Seminary a year and a half ago on a crisp autumn day, you would not have believed your eyes.

Twelve adults were spinning, around and around and around – spinning like little children do when they’re pretending they’re tops or helicopters or just trying to make themselves dizzy.

Twelve seminary students were spinning and spinning and spinning, faster and faster and faster as they enacted and lived into the story of Pentecost.

And I, along with most of the other students in the class, eventually fell to the ground dizzy and a little out of sorts. The Holy Spirit had just descended upon us and overwhelmed us and left us amazed and astonished and perplexed, and a little out of breath.

At least that’s what the professor of this course was aiming for when she designed this particular day of class. Some way of conveying what it might have been like on that day years ago. What it might have been like to be a disciple on that first day of Pentecost.

Picture it: Gathered together in the upper room of a house, trying to figure out what to do. Their leader Jesus had been crucified, had risen from the dead and appeared to them, and then hung around for fifty days. Just recently Christ had ascended into heaven.

So far, they had replaced the delinquent disciple Judas with Matthias. That order of business had been taken care of. But what to do next, now that Jesus had ascended in a cloud?

Perhaps they were brainstorming plans of action. Perhaps they were debating the merits of going back to fishing. Perhaps they were sitting silently in the room, just looking at one another, without a clue as to what to do next.

Regardless, the Holy Spirit caught them by surprise. Coming with wind and fire and tongues. Filling them up and giving them the ability to speak other languages.

And in that whirlwind moment, the Holy Spirit – the mysterious, forceful, powerful, dizzying Spirit – gathered them together as disciples and bestowed upon them the power of God.

And it would look and sound to others like they were drunk and out of their minds. But the movement was not haphazard and crazy. It brought disciples together. Gathered them into a group that would go forward and become the leaders on The Way and live the great stories of the early church in the book of Acts.

Because it was the Holy Spirit’s doing.

It’s the exact opposite of what we heard in the first scripture lesson from Genesis.

In the story of the Tower of Babel, the people of God start off gathered together – gathered together by their one language with all the same words and nuances; gathered together by a common purpose.

They are going to build for themselves a city with a tower that will reach to the heavens. The people are gathered together by their hubris, by their own need to make a name for themselves and accomplish something great.

And the Lord knows this gathering could become troublesome. So the Lord confuses the language of all the people and scatters them over all the face of the earth. This gathering was not the work of the Holy Spirit. This gathering had been about individuals and their (literal) climb to the top.

And so the Lord puts the kibosh on it. Stops it before it gets too far and people think they can live their lives and do anything they please without paying any attention to the Lord.

Because that’s not the way. The way, as we see in Acts, is simply about being gathered in by the Holy Spirit to worship the Lord and then letting the Holy Spirit move in and through and amongst those gathered.

For the Holy Spirit does still dwell and move among us. The Holy Spirit was not a one hit wonder as some may believe. The Holy Spirit calls out, gathers in, and sends out individuals and churches still.

Here are two places I’ve seen it happen:

It was March of my senior year of college. I chose to spend my spring break traveling to Jamaica with twenty-four other Hope students. We spent ten days working at the Caribbean Christian Center for the Deaf, or CCCD.

CCCD is a boarding school for children who are deaf. It is a response to the high per capita population of people who are deaf in Jamaica.

We spent the early part of our days working at the school to build new classrooms and repair security walls. But we finished our work by 3pm each day so we could play and interact with the children when they got out of class.

And though we had a unique language barrier to work through,
we laughed and played and worshipped together.
I learned to play Duck, Duck, Goose without speaking
and to play volleyball and communicate with team members who could not hear.

And I was able to attempt one-on-one conversations with some of the older students. Though my sign language background is limited, I had the most wonderful conversation with one girl in particular.

She got excited because I knew some sign and her fingers started flying. I had to tell her to slow down many times so I could catch what she was saying, but I enjoyed that conversation so much.

During that week and a half, we were gathered in by the Spirit despite our language differences – despite the fact that some of us knew a little sign language and some none at all, despite the fact that some of the children could read lips and others could not. We were gathered by the Spirit to be a community that laughed and worshipped together for those ten days.

A couple of summers ago, I was a part of another community infused by the Holy Spirit. I was spending a week at the Taizé community in the south of Burgundy, France. Taizé is an international, ecumenical community of brothers who have taken lifelong vows. Young adults from around the world travel there to become part of the community life for a week.

Visitors are housed in bunk rooms with others who speak the same language. The week that I visited, over 1,000 young adults were there, though it was a slow week. In this wide and varied group of individuals, only four people were from the United States and the other three were males. So I ended up living with seven other women for whom English was their second language, of many.

But despite cultural differences, we were gathered in by the rhythm of the day at Taize. Each person contributing to the community through chores and assignments in the morning; each person joining a Bible study group to learn and study together; each person given some free time.

Those things helped to structure our days, but worship was at the center of it all. Communal worship happens three times a day – 8am, 12 noon, and 8pm. At those times, everything else in the community stops as all are gathered together in worship by what could only be the Holy Spirit.

There would be silence – deep silence. And then, the service would begin. And the silence would be broken by a single voice that turned into a swelling of a multitude of voices singing praises to God, praises in Latin and English and Spanish and German and French and Italian.

The unfamiliar words were awkward in my mouth, but the worship was familiar – all being directed to the Lord who would move through the world in a mighty rushing wind, who would gather together such a diverse group of people to fill that place and in so doing, fill them with the Holy Spirit.

May we be gathered by that Holy Spirit this morning –
gathered as those who
struggle for justice,
work for peace,
take risks,
love God and neighbor,
and follow Christ’s example.

May we be gathered by the Holy Spirit as Lakeview Presbyterian Church;
gathered as the one body of Christ;
gathered together as the disciples on that first Pentecost –
amazed and astonished by the movement of the Holy Spirit.

May it be so. Amen.

A Life Outside of the Church

Finding and creating a life outside of the church has been really difficult during this yearlong internship. I joined the Y soon after I arrived. That was good for at least getting out of the house. This past spring I was dancing a bit with another local church's worship dance program. That brought me great joy and life.

But right now I'm really struggling with having any kind of life outside of the church. It's easy enough to forget about when things are good and really busy at the church and my work brings me deep gladness. But when things are hard at the church (as they are right now, with three staff resignations and their aftermath) I really need something else in my life. It also doesn't help that I'm now living with two church members until the end of my time here. They are fantastic people, but it makes it even more difficult to have something separate from the church.

And so I'm searching and praying for something else - an activity or group or class or anything that would give me something outside of the church.

Working in a Neighborhood Church

As I wade through the emails and memos that piled up while I was on vacation last week, four neighborhood children run past my window. They are laughing and screaming as they play hide and seek and celebrate the start of summer vacation.

Play travels to the courtyard, which is right next to the offices. I go outside and talk to the children, some of whom I know and others that I meet for the first time. After a short chat, I return to my office and get back to work. But being present in this neighborhood is work too. Because this church didn't leave when the neighborhood started changing.

I am reminded of that as the new lawn maintenance company comes and tours the grounds. The foreman is concerned about the area and makes jokes with the adminstrative assistant about safety and being robbed. She shurgs him off and says that robbery can happen anywhere.

I am reminded of my own doubts and fears about serving this church for the year and feeling safe when at the church alone. Those doubts and fears are gone now. And I smile and laugh as the children run past my window again.

(Not my) Graduation Day

The Columbia Theological Seminary class of 2007 graduated today. I went to the commencement ceremony. I watched the graduates walk across the stage, receive their diploma, and get their hood. I listened as they were declared masters of all things divine.

And I shed a few tears as everyone stood to clap and honor all of the graduates.

Because I could have been one of them.

I could have been one of them because my class graduated today. The class I started seminary with finished seminary today. So I could have been one of the MDiv graduates today.

That could have been me in the cap, gown and hood today, but I don't know that it should have been. My yearlong internship is proving to be invaluable in terms of practical experience. And so I will graduate next year, with my other class.

Highlights from vacation

• being welcomed back to campus by lots of fresh flowers from friends
  
• sitting in the pew on Sunday
• watching a friend's dance recital (& the most adorable little kids ever)
• reading for pleasure on the quad in the sun
  
• jumping on a trampoline
• good convos about call and the church and working in the church and discernment
• playing Sequence
  
• visiting The Chocolate Bar
• picnic on the quad
• watching friends learn to play cricket
• sleeping in & just relaxing