I spent the last two weeks in Maryland, which is where my parents and two of my sisters live. This was the last major trip of my sabbatical. (I only have less than three weeks and my two day backpacking trip left.) Hard to believe that the Summer and my sabbatical are both almost over.
I usually visit with my parents sometime during the Summer but this Summer I planned my trip around a wedding. A young man who attended our church while he was at Harvard Law asked me to participate in his wedding as a wedding sponsor (sort of like a wedding God-parent - I presented the couple with a Bible as a part of the ceremony) this Summer and of course I agreed. My 40th Birthday was less than a week after the wedding so I was also able to be home with my parents and my sisters for my 40th Birthday (my husband and I will celebrate this weekend). The trip also coincidentally coincided with my nephew's 13th birthday. So I went home for a wedding and two birthdays but then there was a funeral and as funerals tend to be, it was completely unplanned.
So on Friday I was a wedding sponsor for a couple as they began their life together, on Saturday my nephew turned 13, marking the beginning of the teen years for him and essentially his last stride toward adulthood, on Sunday I officiated at my aunt's funeral marking the end of her life, and then on Wednesday I celebrated my 40th birthday which theoretically marks the mid-point in my life. All I needed was a birth and I would have had a representative sample of all of life's major turning points that mark major changes in a person's life. A wedding, becoming a teenager, mid-life birthday and a death.
As my sabbatical is moving toward a close I cannot help but think more and more about my congregation. I miss them. I wonder what they have been doing. I wonder what it going on in the lives of the people I have grown to love over the past several years. I think about my ministry there. My role as pastor and I think about who we are as a congregation.
Weeks like this make me think about life in general. In many ways that is the point of sabbatical, taking the time to think about the path you are on. The path direction of your ministry, the path you are taking as a person, as a pastor and the path you are journeying along with the members of your congregation.
With the differing events of the last week, I can not help but think, "What kind of marker is my sabbatical?" For my own life, as well as that of my congregation. I know it is a mid-life marker but how do I want this mid-life moment to shape my life and who I am for the second half of my time here on this earth. For a congregation it is sometimes hard to tell where we are on along the path that marks the life of a congregation. Are we a teenager, also struggling with identity but no knowing who we are, who we want to be, not understanding the changes we are going through and not fully comprehending what the future can or perhaps should hold for us? Is this a new beginning, not a wedding - but moment where we make a conscious choice to become something new? Are we having a mid-life moment, where we evaluate and re-evaluate who we are and who we want to be as we mature? I wonder if we can chose? What kind of moment do we want to have?
But my questions are not just for them. They are also for me. Who am I? Who am I becoming? How can I actively shape my future so that I become the person I want to be, and not just allow the waves of life to take me to and fro, washing ashore where ever. I need to a rutter, I need to be at the helm of this ship that is my life. I can not be adrift, I am capable of setting a course, plotting a route and taking it. I can and should do that. I can choose what kind of moment this is, a new beginning, a moment that marks a new future, a change in how I think about who I am and who I am becoming.
I will go boldly into the next forty years. I will not be passively riding along, but actively engaging this life and the direction I am taking into the future. I am not talking about not being lead by God but seeing where God is leading and directing and not just hoping (and praying) I will end up there, but actively moving in that direction, boldly grasping a hold of the journey and getting there, not just for me, but for my family, for my ministry for the congregation God has placed in my care. Using wild boldness to become the person, the mother, the wife, that pastor, the congregation God is calling us to be.
I usually visit with my parents sometime during the Summer but this Summer I planned my trip around a wedding. A young man who attended our church while he was at Harvard Law asked me to participate in his wedding as a wedding sponsor (sort of like a wedding God-parent - I presented the couple with a Bible as a part of the ceremony) this Summer and of course I agreed. My 40th Birthday was less than a week after the wedding so I was also able to be home with my parents and my sisters for my 40th Birthday (my husband and I will celebrate this weekend). The trip also coincidentally coincided with my nephew's 13th birthday. So I went home for a wedding and two birthdays but then there was a funeral and as funerals tend to be, it was completely unplanned.
So on Friday I was a wedding sponsor for a couple as they began their life together, on Saturday my nephew turned 13, marking the beginning of the teen years for him and essentially his last stride toward adulthood, on Sunday I officiated at my aunt's funeral marking the end of her life, and then on Wednesday I celebrated my 40th birthday which theoretically marks the mid-point in my life. All I needed was a birth and I would have had a representative sample of all of life's major turning points that mark major changes in a person's life. A wedding, becoming a teenager, mid-life birthday and a death.As my sabbatical is moving toward a close I cannot help but think more and more about my congregation. I miss them. I wonder what they have been doing. I wonder what it going on in the lives of the people I have grown to love over the past several years. I think about my ministry there. My role as pastor and I think about who we are as a congregation.
Weeks like this make me think about life in general. In many ways that is the point of sabbatical, taking the time to think about the path you are on. The path direction of your ministry, the path you are taking as a person, as a pastor and the path you are journeying along with the members of your congregation.
With the differing events of the last week, I can not help but think, "What kind of marker is my sabbatical?" For my own life, as well as that of my congregation. I know it is a mid-life marker but how do I want this mid-life moment to shape my life and who I am for the second half of my time here on this earth. For a congregation it is sometimes hard to tell where we are on along the path that marks the life of a congregation. Are we a teenager, also struggling with identity but no knowing who we are, who we want to be, not understanding the changes we are going through and not fully comprehending what the future can or perhaps should hold for us? Is this a new beginning, not a wedding - but moment where we make a conscious choice to become something new? Are we having a mid-life moment, where we evaluate and re-evaluate who we are and who we want to be as we mature? I wonder if we can chose? What kind of moment do we want to have?
But my questions are not just for them. They are also for me. Who am I? Who am I becoming? How can I actively shape my future so that I become the person I want to be, and not just allow the waves of life to take me to and fro, washing ashore where ever. I need to a rutter, I need to be at the helm of this ship that is my life. I can not be adrift, I am capable of setting a course, plotting a route and taking it. I can and should do that. I can choose what kind of moment this is, a new beginning, a moment that marks a new future, a change in how I think about who I am and who I am becoming.
I will go boldly into the next forty years. I will not be passively riding along, but actively engaging this life and the direction I am taking into the future. I am not talking about not being lead by God but seeing where God is leading and directing and not just hoping (and praying) I will end up there, but actively moving in that direction, boldly grasping a hold of the journey and getting there, not just for me, but for my family, for my ministry for the congregation God has placed in my care. Using wild boldness to become the person, the mother, the wife, that pastor, the congregation God is calling us to be.
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