Before the World Wakes Up

We (DH and I) both woke up at an ungodly hour this morning--spontaneously and with no  hope of going back to sleep.  So we did what any normal people would do on a Saturday morning.  We bundled up and braved the 28 degree morning of our mountain town and went for a walk.  It was beautiful and dark and starry-- a marvelous, holy mystery of a morning.  We walked around our town--this new home of ours-- just watching the world wake up. We breathed deeply the brisk air, and took the time to notice things that we'd always been too busy to see: Flowers that, despite the cold, were standing tall and proud.  A seemingly useless set of stairs that went to nowhere-- except perhaps a delightful cottage that we couldn't see.  We talked and daydreamed and watched our dogs smell-- despite the hour, we were more awake than it seemed like we'd been in months.  We even stumbled on a geocache, which reminded us how much we've missed doing that.

And I realized this is what I've been missing.  We've settled in a new town, a new job and a new house, and we are marvelously in love with all of them, but something has been missing.  It's been a madhouse of busyness as we've gotten settled and had company and, and, and...  and I've missed having a chance to wander around with eyes open in holy wonder.

I've missed sabbath keeping-- not that I've ever done a stellar job of being a sabbath keeper.  But it has always, always been a deep longing of my soul.  And that's especially true as I'm now serving a much larger (ie much busier) church,  and despite the need for extroverted tendencies, I'm still a solitude loving introvert.   On a whim, I picked up MaryAnn McKibben Dana's Sabbath in the Suburbs, and have been savoring it one delicious bite at a time. Perhaps I love it so much because she struggles with creating a sabbath practice as much as any busy person, and unlike many of the other books on the subject seem to, her practice of sabbath does not take place in a vaccuum.  She has three small children and serves as a pastor, and the world refuses to slow down for her.  Yet, she creates a real sabbath practice, at turns by doing things "sabbathly" or by having sabbath moments when the world won't stop long enough to have a whole day of sabbath.

Today will be at least partly a work day for me-- a day of catching up from two days of sickness.  But before any of that, there was a thin place of reawakening holy wonder.  Before the world woke up, there was sabbath-- a chance to be fully presesnt with those I love in a place I love.  As I sit working by the fire, my day is different.  I am different.

Turns out there was nothing "ungodly" about the hour...

A Holy Place

There’s a big difference between my life as a pastor and my dad’s life as a pastor.  Some days, I lament these differences, because I think it’s much harder to be a female minister than it is to be a male minister.  But today, as I took a beloved congregant who is dying of cancer a prayer shawl that I had knitted, I appreciated the differences.  She wept as I told her all the places in which she had been prayed for:  Minnesota, Tampa, Wilmington, in session meetings, at ball games, at the mall between trying on things... It was a Holy Moment.  For the first time, I appreciated what I as a female had to offer.  There’s a lot to be said for being able to hold the hand of a dying woman, and to weep with her.