Friendship and Grace

Friendship is a gift and grace is undeserved love. I have been on the receiving end of both love and grace, especially these past two weeks. A friend is someone who loves you even when you don’t feel like you deserve it and when you are weird. People who know me best probably would say I am weird all the time. My significant other tells me that – in all fun and love.
God showed up through a couple of friends recently when I really needed to hear I am loved even when I am weird. You guys know who you are. Thanks. Love you back.

Do you have someone in your life who loves you like that?

Our Life Together - Holy Friendship

I attended our yearly Life Together clergy conference at St. Luke’s UMC Indianapolis this past Monday and Tuesday. The theme this year was Holy Friendship. We heard presentation from Bishop Janice Huie of the Texas Conference and her experience of bringing together two separate conferences. Since we are in process of bringing the North and South Indiana conferences together, this was interesting.
Matt Bloom (husband of Kim Bloom, associate pastor at SB Clay UMC – and associate professor of Management at Notre Dame) reported on surveys results which we were asked to fill out online in regards to what makes our work as clergy fulfilling and meaningful. In a very small nutshell, what I got out of these survey results – which are still being processed and looked at - is that there is a great passion for service among our clergy but also a sense of discouragement and loneliness were very much present. Being in a pastor in our day and time is much more challenging than it used to be. Long hours and comparatively small pay (for pastors with a Masters’ degree when compared with other professions requiring Masters’ degree) is a source of frustration for many.

Dr. Joyce Moore, associate Dean for the Center for Lifelong Learning at Duke Divinity School talked about this sense of community we all need.

Current Calumet DS Michelle Cobb briefly talked about an upcoming Clergy Wellness program, which will partly be underwritten by a Lilly Foundation grant to help with increasing the mental and physical health of pastors and decrease the sense of isolation among us. More accountability will also apparently be required. I do not have any more details about this at this time.

Lastly we laughed with Mishawaka comedian Craig Tornquist who had already made us laugh at our last Michiana district Christmas party.

We hear interesting people at these kinds of gatherings. The worship was good: More quiet and reflective on the first day and more upbeat the second morning. The last worship of the gathering, Tuesday afternoon, included communion which, for me, is always a moving moment. Seeing hundreds of pastors – some I know and whom are friends – come forward to receive the bread and juice is a powerful thing.

But I would say the most meaningful thing for me – not that these other things are not – is to see pastor friends I had not seen in a while. There was some free time Monday night and the group of pastors I was ordained with (minus of couple) gathered together at a local restaurant for dinner. It was great to see these people whom I have grown to love in the course of our ordination process together. Some I see more often because we serve the same district but some are geographically distant and we had not seen each other in months. Getting together was the highlight for me.
I also felt a great sense of belonging to something more important than me as we were together worshipping a great God. I am grateful.

Heavenly Brew

A pastor friend describes life as something akin to a book. Life has chapters, he says. One ends, another starts. Often I find myself not wanting for chapters to end. I want to hold on to the good stuff, I am not always good at letting people go. I want to freeze-frame moments of peace and joy… I shared this with the owner of my favorite coffee shop this morning. This place of retreat and sanctuary is closing today. The economy proved to be too hard. I wrote Sharon a card. I wasn’t quite sure what to say and how to say it. I feel things deeply but I am not always real good at translating my feelings into words, but I wrote this:
“Dear Sharon and Heavenly Brew Team: Today is more than likely a bittersweet day. But I hope you celebrate the fact that you have provided this community a great place to be. You will certainly be missed but the cozy times of intimacy with friends, the animated conversations, the soul warming goodies will not be forgotten.
I, for one, will never forget the grace of an oatmeal cranberry cookie when I was facing medical uncertainty earlier this year. You were a true angel in disguise that day.
This is the beginning of a new chapter and I wish you the very best.”

I hope this does not sound too trite or cheesy. But however clumsy this might be, I wrote it from my heart.
I know God is not done with Sharon and the gift of warmth and hospitality she possesses. She will continue to bless others. I hope our paths will cross again.
I rejoice at new opportunities which are coming but I have to be honest, I grieve today also. I told Sharon, and maybe this is selfish, that I looked forward a couple of times a week, after working out at the Y, to getting a cup of coffee at her place and just sit for a while before the day would start in full force. This was a great place to be, to read, to watch people and meet friends and make new friends. Sharon and the staff got to know my name and what I do quickly. They always seemed happy to see me as I was to see them. I felt welcome. They got to know and remember that I like cranberry oatmeal cookies, that I like their berry oatmeal-bake warmed up and without milk. They knew my favorite flavored coffee was Blueberry Muffin.
Someone in front of me ordering today said that she felt as if she had been evicted with nowhere to go since Heavenly Brew will be no more. I feel a little like that. Where will I go to get coffee and soul-warming goodies but more importantly where will I go when I need to be, when I need community? Church is one place but it is not the same. This was a different kind of sanctuary.

Relationships

I’ve been thinking about relationship a lot lately. More so these past few months than usual. Been thinking about my life and all the people in it. If it weren’t for relationships, I would not be here. A man and a woman came together so that I could be. Right there is the first miracle. Relationships have enabled me to be cared for and survive into adulthood. Relationships are an integral part of who I am and who I am becoming. We are all shaped for better or for worse by relationships.

I am not entirely sure what that is all about and what I am trying to write will probably sound a little messy. It is hard to put words to feelings often. Why I am thinking about all this now?
I think the holiday season has a part in this. Steve and I have just spent the past couple of days with a beloved sister-in-law and niece from Ohio. Steve’s youngest brother could not make it after all because he was on call working for a large national bank as a computer support technical person.
This particular sister-in-law is like a sister to me. We share the same birthday. She is a year younger. We have similar personalities and taste. She works in a helping/caring profession/vocation as a physical/rehab therapist in a nursing home. My whole calling as a pastor deals the complexities and intricacies and pain and joys that relationships generate. We are people persons. We share the love of learning and books. We love the outdoors and hiking. We enjoy museums. Often I start saying something or she does and we realize we were thinking the same thing. It’s really cool.
I think that I have been thinking about relationships because we are not close to any of our families. 5 hours away is the closest. My side of the family is all in France and this time of year is bittersweet because I miss them more than usual.

I have been thinking about relationships because some people around me have lost loved ones recently or are in the process of losing a loved one. I ache for them. I realize anew how precious relationships are and how quickly they can end. I realize anew how much I care about the people in my life and how too often I don’t take enough time to tell them how much I love them and how much they mean to me and how much they have helped make me who I am and who I am becoming. I don’t fully understand all this.

I have been thinking about relationships because I wonder why it is that some people enter your life to stay just briefly. Why is it that some stay for a lifetime and some for just a few months or years or even a few days. I have some people in my life that I don’t want to lose yet I sense that some are slipping away. What does that mean? Is their part in my life over? Is my part is their life done? Is it done for a time or for always? Can I prevent the relationship from fading into the past? I don’t know.

I have been thinking about relationships because a friend just shared recently in a blog that after years of unease, the relationship with one of his sisters has finally become unstuck. It’s taken years of trying to sit down and talk and not being able to somehow. I don’t know the details of all this, I just remember him mentioning this several times in the course of the years that I have come to know him better and the brokenness of the relationship was obviously a source of pain for him. I could empathize with him. I do rejoice with him at this new beginning.

I have been thinking about relationships because I have experienced a renewed relationship of my own with my father over the course of spending several weeks in France this summer. I am not entirely sure how our estrangement started. I think it involved more than the two of us. It’s a whole family system thing. I am not sure what finally got the whole thing unstuck. I had been praying a lot about it. Did I change? Did he change? God had and has a part in it, I am convinced. It’s still a work in progress. So I don’t understand everything that has and is happening but I believe it is good and I am very grateful.

I have been thinking about my relationship with God and how this has become an integral part of me, and my self-concept. I have been thinking that he made us for relationships, with others, with Him. Without these we would be dead physically and spiritually. Without Him I would be more of a mess than I already am sometimes.

I am grateful beyond words this season for all the people in my life. I am not always good at saying things, too often I keep what is in my heart to myself, but I want them to know that I love them and I want to get better at saying it.

Dear God, thank you so much for all the people you sent and keep sending into my life. I don’t understand fully how we are all related, what part we play in each others lives but, help me be mindful of the people you place in my path and help me be a blessing to them. Amen!