Clarity

twenty years has clarified

our thinking, the relative

importance of books, rain,

dirty laundry, stairs, lunch 

menu and the right color shoe

vintage wallpaper (unironic), 

locating doors, old ghosts,

room assignments, rules 

and whispers of inadequacy

moments to bless, yesing

one another where we have 

been noed,

For all the mothers

For all the mothers.  The wannabes and dontwannabes. The oncewas alwaysam missingmychild missingmymom mothers.  Mothers born in tearsweatblood cussing up a storm.  The getitright screweditup didmybest cantfixitnow getwhatyougetdontpitchafit mothers. The mothers who lovehate this motherhood thing.  The yettobe and neverwills.  The lovebearing painbearing remembering forgetting ones. Not just thisdayasatoken and theoneswholooklikeme but allthedays allthenights allthemothers.

The Gift of Digital Community

I have an essay in this book.  There are
some incredible writers in this book.
Have you bought your copy yet?

They said ministry was hard.  Isolating.  They said that you needed to watch your boundaries.  They said it was impossible to be friends with parishioners, and that in a small town, really, everyone qualifies as a parishioner.  They said if you wanted to be a real person - to express your problems, to let your hair down - you might just need to go out of town to do that.

They said it's hard to be healthy.  They said that family doesn't get it, that the busy times of a minister and family holiday traditions don't mesh.  They said there would be disagreements and major frustration. They said there is an insurmountable gap gap between those who are theologically trained, those in the pews and those in the community.

For these reasons, and others, they said ministry was lonely.  (You know the voices. You know the tales they tell. Some of them are true.  Others?  Well, we'll get to that.)  

Blessing Things

We've been doing a lot of blessing lately at our church.

We bless bread and grape juice every communion Sunday. We blessed a baby earlier this spring. During children's time on a recent Sunday, we learned to pray St. Patrick's Breastplate (with hand motions!). This is an ancient prayer, and we prayed it to remember that God is all around us, and blesses us wherever we are, whatever we are doing. We blessed bicycles and riders and volunteers in worship in late July, as we sent a team of dedicated folks off to ACT9, Wisconsin's AIDS Ride. At the end of August, we're blessing backpacks and school supplies, students and teachers. At the beginning of October, close to the Feast Day of St. Francis, we'll be blessing animals.

Blessing something invokes our sense of God's presence in that place, and offers reassurance to the one prayed for that God is there. It's a reminder that holiness erupts, even into the brokenness that is all around us. Rachel Naomi Remen writes, "When we bless others, we offer them refuge from an indifferent world." Blessing is doing the work of Christ, making God's presence real for one another, and declaring to our neighbor that they are loved.

We seek blessings because of the relationship between us, because we have care and compassion for one another. We don't have to have any special qualifications to bless one another. Our Reformation forebears reminded us that we are all priests; we are all holy; we are not only empowered to be in direct relationship with the Holy, but also have the privilege and responsibility of doing so. Take a minute today to bless those around you. People, animals, things... As Barbara Brown Taylor tells us in An Altar in the World, "Celebrate your own priesthood"!

A Prayer for the Riders, offered in worship at McFarland UCC in July 2011:

God preserve you from all trouble; God to keep you safe.
God to watch over your going out and your coming in,
From the first moment of the first day,
Until you join the joyful throng at the end of your journey.

O God, we find your presence wherever we go.

We ask your blessing upon these bicycles,
For those who travel upon them,
For those who minister alongside them.
For those who feed the riders,
And for those who offer a drink of cool water
no less refreshing than water dipped from a well in the desert.
For those who heal, for those who encourage,
For those whose spirits join the ride, even when their bodies cannot,
We seek a blessing.

Surround them with your loving care;
Protect them from every danger,
Wrap them in the arms of a supportive community
committed to creating goodness upon the earth,
and bring them in safety to all their journeys’ end.

And let the people of God say, Amen.

Adapted from the Pastor's Blog at mcfarlanducc.org.