Piles of Rocks

I don't understand it, but I love to pile rocks on top of each other at the beach. I could do it all day. I think I could do it for weeks. I walk along the shore seeking the perfect rocks to build with. I listen to the waves swooshing and the seagulls singing. I smell the salt air and feel the breeze and sunshine on my skin. I build precarious little piles - the more precarious the better. Strange as it seems, this is the most relaxing activity I have ever engaged in.

Last week, on my vacation, we went to Kittery Point Beach one day, which, since it is the place where I most enjoy piling rocks, is my favorite place on earth. We spent quite a while there, and Carl and Orion enjoyed piling rocks with me. (While Steve and Bo enjoyed creating and sharpening prehistoric cutting tools with other rocks.) We made a veritable city of rock piles. These pictures capture only a very few of the structures. We made a whole skyline of dozens of towers and arches along the rocky shore. It kept us engaged for hours, and it continued to hold our attention for days afterward, when one of us would say something like, "I wonder if the rocks are still standing?" or "I wonder how many people noticed them." or "I bet the rock city looked awesome at sunset."
We also spent quite a bit of time trying to name it. Stone Angeles? Stone Vegas? Stoneton-Rouge? That day at Kittery Point (Stonery Point?) was the highlight of my vacation. As I said, I don't understand why I am so drawn to piling ocean rocks on top of each other. But since I absolutely and completely lose track of myself and of time while I'm doing it, I figure it must bring me close to God.

Called to Trust

Before I left on vacation last week, I attended the splendid consecration service of our new bishop, Ian Douglas. The Koeppel Center at Trinity College, usually used as a sports arena, was transformed into a beautiful worship space by colorful fabrics and banners. Choirs from all over the state, African drummers and a steel drum band provided spirited music during the liturgy. (Carl and Bo were among the many choristers that took part.) Over 40 bishops were in attendance in their red vestments, along with hundreds of priests and deacons, vested in white, along with the celebrating bishops in their white and gold copes and miters. With that number of clergy in attendance, it was quite a procession!

I had volunteered to help, and I was given the task of helping to shepherd in the procession. In fact, I was asked specifically to shepherd Katherine Jefferts Shori, our presiding bishop, into the service, which gave me the opportunity to meet and talk with her before the service. Oh, I liked her very much, and felt immediately at ease with her. I was most impressed her presence. She is an unusually centered person, and her calm energy seems to relax everyone in her vicinity. I asked her if she was enjoying her work as presiding bishop, and she told me that it has been a great gift – a blessing. She particularly enjoys the variety in her work, and seems fed by it. “The Spirit always has something unexpected in mind, so every day is new,” she said.

I was thinking how much trust in the Spirit it must take to be a bishop. Stepping into such a significant leadership role brings great pressures along with it. I was immensely grateful to hear that rather than becoming overwhelmed by the many pressures of her role, our presiding bishop seems to receive each task as a privilege and as a gift. I asked if she ever gets overwhelmed by her many responsibilities. She told me with a warm smile that she just has to trust that moment by moment the Spirit is putting the thing that most needs her attention in front of her. That was a powerful testimony to me.

I pray that our presiding bishop’s faithful sense of trust will ripple out like waves in a pond to the entire church. I pray that Bishop Douglas also has that kind of trust in leading our diocese - and that I do, too, as the priest in charge at Grace Church. I pray our vestry also lives more and more each day into trust. And I pray that everyone who walks into Grace Church not only recognizes that trust is alive among us there but is put at ease by it, just as I was put at ease in the bishop’s presence that morning.

I was visiting with our own Bishop Ahrens yesterday and telling her how things are going at Grace Church. She told me she has no doubt that God has called me here. I have to agree - but I'm also clear that it's not just me who's been called here. The people of the church have been called here, too. Whether they've been attending Grace for decades or have just started coming, I think God has something in mind in calling us all together here in Trumbull in 2010. I think we're all being invited into God's mission together. It will take lots of listening and lots of discernment to hear and begin to understand that call. It will take lots of courage to answer it. It will take lots of willingness for this church to step into leadership, and it will take lots and lots and lots of trust – in God and in each other. But by trusting in the power of the Spirit, which is guiding us every moment, I hope we will be fed by our work together, and that we will come to treasure as both a gift and a blessing.

Showing Up

I am feeling grateful today for friends. Here's a picture of the clergy colleagues I meet for breakfast every other week at the Bluebird. We're a fun bunch, despite all the collars. Working as a priest is a pretty intense vocation, and it's very people oriented and can be emotionally exhausting at times. My friends and I know we need to spend time with each other to decompress. The waitress at the Bluebird could tell you how loudly we laugh! We also know we need to spend time with each other for support. When we go through tough things in our parishes or in our lives, we give each other the attention and support we need. Who pastors the pastor? Other pastors! We all know that connecting with each other is part of what keeps us well. Sometimes my life seems too busy to take time out for breakfast, but I show up anyway. I know I really have to - for myself and for my friends. Friendship is what fills our tanks and our lives use a lot of fuel.

It has struck me lately just how important showing up is. Last night I went to my friend Donna's celebration of new ministry in Woodbury and helped her with the service. I loved being there for her and I know she really appreciated the presence of her friends and colleagues on such a momentous occasion in her life. I have also become very committed to showing up at my Al Anon and step meetings. Lord knows the presence of my new friends at those meetings has become an important part of my well being, and I'd like to think that my faithful presence at the meetings makes a difference to them, too. Lately, I've become newly conscious of where I choose to show up and where I don't. Maybe my new awareness began a few weeks ago, when I showed up at the funeral of my cousin, who I was not close to and hadn't known well. It was Holy Week, and I certainly had other things to do, but when each distant relative I hadn't seen in years said "Thank you so much for coming," I knew they really meant it. They were grateful I took the time to show up and be there with my cousins at that important moment.

Just showing up is a very powerful thing in this life. There are only so many hours in a day and I have to accept that I can't be everywhere. So I want to be as intentional as possible in choosing to be in those places I think it's really most important for my feet to be. I know everyone has to make such choices in life, so that's why today I'm so grateful my friends and I choose to show up for each other.

Tenacity

The other day I was casually looking out the office window at some large bunches of daffodils popping up by the wall of the preschool. Marion noticed me and said, "You're looking at the daffodils, eh? They come up through the pavement every year." I took a closer look and saw that the daffodils were not just coming up by the edge of the parking lot as I had assumed, but were, indeed, coming up through the pavement itself.

Marion continued, "They were planted there on some grass by the building but when they paved the parking lot, they paved right up to the foundation and the flowers got paved right under. But the next spring they came up right through the pavement anyway."

Kind of amazed that daffodils had the ability to come up through thick cement, I asked, "How long ago were they paved under?"

"Oh, I don't know," Marion said. "Must be thirty years ago or more."

As I marvelled at the tenacity and longevity of these tough bulbs, (notice that these 30+ year old pavement-defying daffodils are not even a bit spindly) I immediately saw a parallel with Grace Church itself. No matter what has been paved under here in the last few decades, something beautiful continues to tenaciously bloom right through the layers of concrete. The Spirit is still undeniably alive and strong among us despite any of our past losses or conflicts, and I often notice it blooming with great beauty in the most unlikely places around here.

After hearing this story from Marion, I figured I really hadn't needed to preach an Easter sermon this year. I could have just led everyone outside to look at these daffodils, which despite being completely buried in their tomb of concrete, rose up in new life, and continue to do so year after year. Their courageous, sunny faces seem to be crying out, "Nothing is impossible with God!"

Holy Week

The past week has been very, very wet. Soggy, in fact. Depressingly, endlessly rainy and chilly and damp and now our cellar has flooded and smells bad. Holy Week is not a cheerful time. And I'm feeling a physical longing for warmth on my skin - for sun in my eyes. They're predicting lovely weather for the weekend, and if they're right, Easter will truly feel like new life this year. But Holy Week is not letting Easter arrive early. The dafodils that are valiantly blooming in the rain are heavy and sodden, overburdened and stressed. They look like I feel.

While taking a walk during one of the short respites from rain, I saw this crocus trying to bloom by the side of the road. It was coming up in an overgrown area that no one tends to. It's an ugly little area, full of dirty sand and dead leaves, cigarette butts and lots of trash thrown from the windows of passing cars. It's an eyesore, to tell the truth. But there in the midst of all that ugliness this crocus was coming up. It stopped me in my tracks. In an ugly little patch of ground, something of beauty was doing its best to emerge.


On Maundy Thursday we will have a footwashing service. I love this service. Sometimes people are shy about having their feet washed. "My feet are so ugly," they say, or they worry that their feet smell bad. They react like Peter, saying, "You'll never wash my feet." But when Jesus has only one more chance to show his disciples how much he loves them that night in the upper room, he doesn't compliment them on the shine of their hair, the color of their eyes, or how well dressed they are that evening. Instead, he gets down on his knees to lovingly care for his friends' dirty, calloused and stinky feet. Jesus loved the less glamorous parts of people and also the less glamorous parts of society. He liked to break bread, not with winners, but with sinners.

Later that evening, Jesus calls his disciples to love one another as he had loved them. So, if we are to follow the way of Jesus, we must get down on our knees and honor even the ugly, embarassing and fallen parts of each other. We need to accept the ugly, embarssing and fallen parts of ourselves. And we need to believe that God loves us through and through - not just the parts we manage to make pretty. We need to believe that love is present everywhere - not just in the clean, well designed and well ordered parts of the world.

When I'm in search of God, I don't think of looking in ugly abandoned lots first. So when I saw this flower reaching skyward despite the cold rain and its ugly surroundings, I received it as a sign of God's deep love for me, even for my brokenness - even during the darkest days of Holy Week - and as a sign of God's love for all creation - just as it is.