Salbatical, Summer 2017

This Thanksgiving week, among the many, many blessings for which I am thankful, I am hugely thankful (in advance) for my coming salbatical.

Nope, that’s not a misprint. Sally + Sabbatical = Salbatical. And I get to have one in the Summer of 2017! After 33 years of ministry, I will have 3 ½ months of time away from my pastoral duties through the generosity of the National Clergy Renewal Program of the Lilly Endowment. My renewal leave will begin the week after Easter on April 24 and last until August 14, 2017. 

 “What makes your heart sing?” That question was central to the grant application, and it set my imagination going. Of course, my family makes my heart sing, and so the first thing I did was to build in plenty of salbatical time with my family around the country. There was something else niggling in my head, and it took me awhile to figure out what my heart was trying to tell me. I wrote several different iterations of my grant proposal, but I knew that I had not yet landed on the answer to this question.

“What makes your heart sing?” That question was stuck in my head, and then an answer began to emerge, surprisingly, through a memory from high school. (If you’re like me, remembering high school isn’t exactly the heart-singing highlight of life.) My high school memory was of taking a class with my favorite science teacher in which we studied The Ascent of Man, by Jacob Brownoski.

I had loved the pictures and narration of this coffee-table science book, laying out the beautiful ordering of nature. At the time, however, this book had troubled my faith, because I was concerned that this natural order might conflict with Scripture, or that it be somehow surprising to God. It wasn’t too long before I came to understand that to love and celebrate creation was to love and celebrate the Creator. Ever since, I have always turned to God’s world for sustenance and inspiration, finding deeply spiritual moments in natural settings.

“What makes your heart sing?” God’s creation makes my heart sing. With that certainty in my head, I turned again to the grant application, and this time, the ideas flowed easily.

The Clergy Renewal grant will allow me and Andy to explore God’s creation in some incredibly beautiful settings. I will have time in retreat centers in the Big Sur area of California. Andy and I will have family time on our beloved Sanibel Island, FL. The centerpiece of this salbatical will be a trip for the two of us to Ecuador, to visit the Galapagos Islands which inspired Darwin in his understanding of creation. 

My heart is singing in anticipation of this once-in-a-lifetime experience!

The church will have their own opportunities to explore God’s presence in creation during my absence. There will be an abundance of special speakers and worship opportunities, including internationally-known worship designer Dr. Marcia McFee. Marcia will create worship experiences that will highlight the natural beauty of our church’s setting. I can’t wait to hear about what she does! 

Best of all, my church will get a new pastor on August 14. Their new pastor will be refreshed and relaxed. She will have had some fantastic experiences to share. She will come back with ideas about how to utilize our 24 acres in new ways to connect with God. She will have renewed energy for her coming years of ministry.

This new pastor might look just like me, but these life-changing experiences will surely change her. In anticipation of all of these things that will begin on April 24, 2017, I am truly thankful this Thanksgiving week.

We're All Pretty Tense Right Now

Regardless of political affiliation, we’re all pretty tense right now, understandably so. News via every medium is a mess of innuendo and accusation. We turn on our television to watch some baseball or a favorite program, and our ears are bludgeoned with ads of grownups calling each other names that we would send our children to timeout for using. Facebook, ordinarily the repository of vacation pics and cat memes, has become the place where “friends” engage in bitter, partisan commentary. Even in the places where we usually try to be honest, like our families and our churches, we are so busy trying to be careful about what we say that we’re not saying much of anything to each other at all. So we’re tense and terse and snapping at people that, under normal circumstances, we like a whole lot.

We’re all holding our breath, praying that it will all be over soon. And praying that we won’t wake up The Morning After to find that our deepest fear is now our elected President.

How do we retain our sanity and our joy in these times? How do we maintain our friendships, even when we may be hoping that our friend’s deeply held hopes and dreams come crashing down around them on Election Day? How do we, who try our best to follow the One who is above all earthly governments, find places of faith and grace in these days as we pray and strive ardently for our own vision for our government?

Breathe. Right now, just pause and take a deep breath. Relax your shoulders.

Be kind to someone today, even if you feel pretty certain they’re voting for the scoundrel that you aren’t. Be especially kind to those folks.

Be kind to yourself. Turn off the television, or watch cable channels for the duration. Feel free to take a Facebook vacation, or unfollow people whose posts you find troubling. Instead, walk outside in this unseasonably warm autumn, look at God’s good creation, and breathe. 

Practice trusting God. I mean that literally. Trusting God is hard work, and it takes practice to get good at it. Sometimes I’m pretty good at it, and sometimes I need to go back to the batting cage or the books or The Book, or wherever it is that I can remind myself whose I am. 

On Election Day, we’re going to practice trusting God by praying. The sanctuary at First UMC will be open for prayer from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. Feel free to come by before or after voting. We will also have prayer services at 7:15 a.m. and noon. We’ll gather together with whoever shows up, and we’ll lift our candidates and our concerns for our nation to God. There will likely be people praying side by side who have voted for different people. That will be exactly as it should be in God’s house.

An attorney who spends most of his times in courtrooms said to me a while back, “You know, politics isn’t like a lawsuit. In a lawsuit, there is a winner and a loser, and you never have to see each other again once it’s over. In politics, you still have to live next door to one another even after it’s done.” 

Yep.

So we’ll be together in God’s house on Election Day. And the day after that. And after that, and on and on, we’ll all be together in God’s house until that day comes when we all feast together, Republicans and Democrats and Independents and everyone else, in God’s heavenly kingdom. So we'd better keep practicing our manners for that big heavenly potluck, even now. Especially now.

My Lonely, Shy, (hopefully) Friendly Ghost

Our church offices are in a really cool 1950’s house, built back when Blue Springs only had one doctor in town. My office is in the former den, I’m guessing. It has wood paneling and a nifty built-in television set, with 13 channels  on the dial. Although the television no longer works, I love having my office in such a cozy, quirky space.

There is one other distinct quirk to my office.  I share my office with a ghost. 

He (she?) makes her presence known when I leave my office- sometimes. After I’ve pulled my door shut and walk down the hallway, I will hear a loud “thunk” behind me, as if someone has just flung themselves against my door. On a recent weekend, Jan and I were in the office before worship. She walked out before I did. I closed my office, and there was the noise. I didn’t think much about it and, realizing I had left something behind, I went back into my office. Once again, as soon as I left, there was a really loud “thunk.” “Okay,” I said aloud, “now you’re starting to scare me.”

Except that she isn’t scaring me, exactly. She intrigues me. By making her noise only when I leave, I gather that she is lonely and doesn’t like to be left alone.

Now that I have begun to notice these noises, I have started to ask others to listen with me. They wait, patiently and alertly, while I shut my door and walk down the hall. Nothing. I’ve asked several different people at several different times to listen. Nothing, except for quizzical (and maybe sympathetic) glances from the listeners. (“Gee, Sally, you’ve really been working awfully hard lately. . .”)  Apparently, my ghost is shy and doesn’t like to make her noise when others are around. 

I was the last one to leave the office tonight. My mind was on my shopping list as I walked out, when a loud “thunk” reminded me of the ghost I was leaving behind. 

Who needs Halloween when one has a ghost of one’s own?

If you know me at all, you know that the only ghost I actually believe in is the Holy Ghost. I know, also, that there are many things in this world that defy understanding. I’ve been casting around some for a logical explanation, and none has been forthcoming yet. Maybe something tragic happened in that room, or maybe it’s that the air conditioning creates some weird air pressure thing. Who knows?

I do love a good ghost story, though, because I know they don’t speak fully into reality, only into a human effort to understand that for which there isn’t a clear explanation. So here is my very own ghost story- Happy Halloween!