Piles, sinkholes, and climbing out.

It's been a weird day.  I woke up early after a late night.  All day I've had a nagging desire to skip over what has to get done and make a phone call.  So much to get done, I really don't have time to go there. 

 I used to call every Saturday morning. Not because there was anything new to talk about but because it was a good way just to check in and make sure everything was okay.  

I called Dan earlier than usual this morning.  I woke him up.  And chitchatting with him was a great.  About nothing really: our schedules for the day, whether and what time we could talk tonight, a bit of politics and a bit of church talk: nothing of earth shattering importance. A good conversation nonetheless; but not really the one for which something deep inside of me is longing. Why? and Why today?

Every time I picked up the office phone, I considered twice the number to be dialed.  I still remember the number -- how weird is that?!  It was never my home phone number.  These days calling someone is choosing an icon from the phones screen.  But those 10 digits -- area code, town code, number -- still echo through my head. Numbers have always stuck in my head so that shouldn't surprise me; when I was just a puny 3 year old and was accidentally left at the lake, I was able to tell some tourist from New York City what my phone number was so she could call from the payphone and scold whomever answered the phone. 2269.  Just 4 digits then.  


0417.  That's the number.  255 the town code.  I wonder who would answer that phone number now. I see the number in my mind and my thoughts drift toward the wall phone in that kitchen. There were speakers plugged into it so everyone could hear every conversation, but most of all because the handset could never be loud enough.  Big, lit numbers replaced an old dial, the pale beige phone attached to the end of the upper cabinet over the end of the snack bar that divided the kitchen between work and dining space. Inside the cabinet and under the back side of the phone jack was a warm spot over the florescent lights on the underside of the cabinet; every night that warm spot held hearing aids with the battery case open so those tiny batteries would not wear themselves down.  Next to them, stacks of dishes -- unmatched and cracked -- that fed so many of us over the years.  And plastic tumblers that held ice tea with a splash of diet cola. Memory is a curse sometimes. 

I hadn't been clear about why this particular day this craziness popped into my head for the first time in a long time. Maybe because there's so much to do or maybe because it's a cool summer day.  When I accidentally put the cursor for the mouse over the bottom of the computer screen, however, it all became clear.  The date.  Another curse:  I cannot forget dates.  Yes.  It is August 6th. The first day of a long last 10 days.

It's been a long time since I've dialed those 10 digits and called.  And longer since I was there.  But it was on this date that I arrived for the last time.  The long, sandy driveway covered in crushed oyster and quahog shells, the buoy and lobster pot markers hanging off the rail of the deck, the bristly Cape Cod grass under my bare feet, and the faint smell of musty, marshy saltwater bogs.  Bikes were on the back of the minivan to keep two teenage boys occupied while I spent days cooking and caring.  Those last days I spent with my dying mother.  

http://goo.gl/w5lT7s

Don't ever believe that the pain of a loss leaves or heals; that is a lie.  The pain is there forever; we just learn to live with it.  With time we learn to jump over that hole, or walk around it in our travels. But it's always there, lurking and luring.   But even now -- 13 years later -- I've fallen into it again today by just looking at a date on a tiny calendar in the corner of my computer screen.  

So with stacks of paper and even more digital stuff piled on my desk and desktop, I've stopped to assess how deeply I've fallen into an old wound, and process a plan to climb over the memories, through the streams of thought and tears, and back onto the road of the living.  And assess the real value of that stack of things to be done.

Perhaps it is time to leave the stacks where they are and go for a walk on this lovely August evening.  It will all still be there in the morning, but the evening will pass.  Yes. The evening is more important. 

The Interim

Finale

Let me finish my time of interim ministry with an apology:  I didn’t get everything done I intended to get done.  For example:  every summer when I return from a week of vacation, I throw the sermon out the window and spend a Sunday with a time of questions and answers in the place where the sermon usually goes in the service.  Since last June I have had on my desk nine slips of paper with the questions I did not have time to answer on that “Stump the Pastor” Sunday.  I had promised I would put the responses into the newsletter.  I only made time to respond to one – and it was just a month ago.  

There were other things I intended to do as well: offer another class of “Called to Care,” gather a task force together to revise the Building Use Policy, follow up on the families of some of recently deceased members, and visit with certain members of the congregation just because I wanted to understand them better.  I didn’t do these things.  And for that I am sorry.

I could make excuses for these things.  I could tell you how many funerals have come up.  I could point to the number of meetings and pastoral care situations I’ve attended.  I could tally up all my missed days off and all the late nights I’ve spent doing this or that of church work.  But these are, at best, reasons for my not completing the tasks.  Excuse, in the Oxford English Dictionary, is The action of looking indulgently upon an offender or an offense; a consideration, indulgence, pardon.  An excuse is not mine to give; it requires both of us working things out and you pardoning me for my omission. 

So I am left with an apology to offer.  I did not complete all that I would have liked to complete in 24 months.  And, I am sure that along the way, I have offended more than one of the members.  To these, I confess that I am sorry; I wish it could have been different.  I seek  forgiveness.

I am sure that I have not been the pastor each one has wanted.  I am confident that a few deem my time doing interim ministry a waste and a farce.  There are things for which some will blame me, especially since my being “out of the picture” will make that convenient.  For these, I can only offer that I have done the best that I could with what gifts God has given me.  And to these I would hope they might pray about the role their expectations, participation, and words might have contributed to their disappointment. 

If there is one thing I hope each member of the churches I've served has learned in their time between pastors, it is this:  Each of us plays a role in the results we share.  If you are not happy with a situation, prayerfully and humbly examine the role you have played in helping it come about.  If you are pleased with the outcome of something, humbly acknowledge that you did not accomplish it on your own.  If you are stressed about a situation, humbly and openly discuss with those directly involved that stress and confess your own part of the making.  This is what being a member of a healthy congregation requires.  

As for me, I have been changed by all of you.  A part of each of you will go with me to a new ministry in a new location.  As Stephen Schwartz so aptly wrote in the musical, Wicked, “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”  I hope the same is true for you.

Blessing on your journey, where ever God leads you.        

Pastor Carly