February 2008
It is, in my experience, fairly unusual to encounter someone who is ambivalent about February. You love it or you hate it. Here in New Hampshire it is perhaps the coldest month of the year. It is also the shortest. The days are getting longer. Well, actually we still get twenty-four brand new hours each day but there is more light. The promise of spring is in the air. By mid month some will tap maple trees for the harvest of new syrup. What’s not to like about that? It is a time when many revisit resolutions made for the new year. How are we doing?
We are now officially into the second half of the church year. This time next year you will have come to know your interim minister and I will be........??????????? Those among you who know me well know that I like to line up my ducks. I try to live in the NOW but I also plan ahead. Right now, I can’t. I don’t even know where I will physically be. I’m excited about doing interim ministry; it is work unlike any I’ve ever done before. The adventure of that is titillating but the uncertainty is unnerving. Where will be “home”? Home is a powerful metaphor and temporarily Ellie and I will be without one. O, there will be a roof over our heads and a dry place to sleep but it won’t be “home”. Eventually, I will retire probably five to seven years from now. Ministry is mostly indoor work and it involves little heavy lifting (at least of the physical sort) so I expect to be able to continue doing it for several more years. When I do finally retire it will be in a place that is home but we don’t yet know for sure where that will be. The bride and I have had some conversations about this but nothing is yet definite. We are in agreement that it will not be south of the Mason-Dixon line. Beyond that we’ll wait and see.
I close with this prayer authored by Barbara Wells:
O Spinner, Weaver, Seamstress of our lives,
Your loom is love.
May we who gather together be empowered by that love
to weave new patterns of Truth and Justice
into a web of life that is strong, beautiful, and everlasting.
Amen.
Amitiés and love,
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