Graduation

Finally.  Finally.  I have graduated to the pew.  It took a full six years... but here I am.  Finally.  I do not need to do a thing to justify my pew-sitting.  No excuses necessary or called for.  Amazing, really.  Stunning.

I have graduated

To the pew.

It took me long enough.

Today at coffee hour

I straight-pinned green paper wads

As leaves

To brown styrofoam trees

For summer Vacation Bible School.

My beloved and I

Sat in the library

During the third service,

Waved to the people

Who slipped through the side door

Late.

We noted the man who filched the cream

From the kitcheonette refrigerator;

Perused the Sunday paper.

I have graduated to the pew,

The library,

To the edges

Of coffee hour.

I am no longer incognito clergy.

I am a regular.

I have graduated

Fully

Simply

To the pew.

The next right thing

My beloved and I sit at the dining table, name the things which must be tossed or given away.  This weekend we will completely clear the room for our exchange student.  Next weekend is for redecoration.  

I think about the person I sat with years ago who had a dirty white chair in her living room.  It loomed every time she walked in the house.  We made a plan together to get that white chair cleaned by the next time we met..  That one simple act got her unstuck.  It seemed magical to me. AA often talks about doing the next right thing.  I found myself offering the same counsel this week to another client.  Today we sit at the dining table and identify the next right thing for this weekend.

The room which will hold

Our French exchange student

Beckons.

Now the door,

cracked open,

Allows the possibility

Of emptying,

Then cleaning.

The Halloween decorations scream:

Light-up eyeballs,

Shivering ghosts,

The spider we put

In the front hallway

Many years ago.

Mr Green,

The talking miniature Christmas tree:

He cackles.

Endless partial rolls

Of red and green wrapping paper

We never could find every Christmas.

So each year

We added more.

The candle lights

For every window

Are there.

One fell

Burned a hole in my carpet

In Boston.

The room beckons

With holiday trappings,

Its door cracked open.

The deadline looms.

Two weeks from now

France arrives to stay with us

For two weeks.

All three of us

Most always

Work to deadline.

Cost

Holy stories are not limited to the ones told in church or between office walls.  There is holiness in the listening and in the telling.  Sometimes it*s hard to tell who should be paying whom.  There is always cost involved, somehow.  Sometimes money changes hands.  

Yesterday brought

Eight countable hours.

Three I was paid for.

Two cost me money:

The trainer

The hairdresser.

Both had deep stories.

The hairdresser even cleaned my glasses

So I could see my new haircut

More clearly.

I re-met a woman from church

On the street corner.

She has learned to pass

With adequate social skills.

This comes

With clear cost

To her.

We shook hands when we met,

Shook hands

When I left.

When I turned around,

She had disappeared

Entirely.

Everything costs something.

Sometimes we pay.

Sometimes we are paid.

Sometimes the exchange

Is simply, purely, free.

April

I told the people at the interview that I was flexible.  I really am... mostly.  Truth is that I also like some order to my life.  Everything does not need to be neat and tidy, but I do appreciate some order.  It seems I am still learning flexibility, and working to translate it into new opportunities.  I am the master (mistress?) of putting the best spin on things.  Still, from time to time, I need to sit and breathe, maybe just consider the very next thing... even call to fit in a haircut between clients.

When I flipped the calendar

To April,

I found eight cross-outs

Already.

The exchange student arrives

A week earlier than I thought.

He will stay for two weeks

Not ten days.

I work my way

Into a hospitable  

Frame of mind.

My Tuesday evening client has moved

To Thursday.

The more leisurely drive

To Minnesota

On the First of May

Has moved to the less leisurely Second.

I still wait to hear about a possible job.

I take a deep breath

And another one.

I rearrange the month around

Cross-outs

Write-ins

What-ifs.                                 

I continue to work out

Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I breathe in.

I breathe out.

I hold what is next

In front of me.

I call to get a haircut

Between clients today.

I breathe in.

I breathe out.

Easter Wednesday

I woke this morning to read a post from someone who has become a favorite blogger, Kelly Flanagan:  His blog is called: Untangled.  His address is:  drkellyflanagan.com 

Today his post was about what good things we need to let go of in order for more good things to come in.  It reminded me of my Holy Week experience this year.  After many many years of parish ministry, I left it in 2007 to go back to school in clinical psychology.  Parish  ministry was a good thing, in so many ways, but it held me back from considering/plotting/planning/ yes... receiving more good things.  Sometimes it takes time to clear the decks.  Six years... really?  Yep.  This is an Easter dream.

I recommend his blog. 

New life comes in different forms.

Yes this is an Easter dream:

I woke up with it this morning:

I sat with my beloved

Way way back in the pews.

A small boy threw a paper airplane

From near the front of church.

It landed on the floor

Next to our pew.

We argued about who

Would sail it back.

Yes this is an Easter dream:

I did not have a wisp

Of a thought during Holy Week

Of

I would do it this way.

Not a wisp.

Our daughter was gone

In France.

We skipped the Vigil

Slipped in the back pew

Sunday morning

For Easter.

We ate at Panera before

We went grocery shopping

Afterward.

We did not color eggs but

Our daughter got a chocolate chicken

A la Max and Ruby

From her French family.

She ate chicken*s tail on the plane ride

Home.

Yes this is an Easter dream:

I can finally let go

Of my theology books

From seminary.

I may send them to Africa

Perhaps Nepal.

New life comes

In different forms.

Easter Tuesday

I continue amazed at what is attached to what, like my shoulders attached to my ears.  It hadn*t occurred to me that blurry vision was connected to my shoulders blocking my ears.  No wonder anxiety threatened the possibility of spring, the veritable Easter-ness of this week of all weeks.

Thus far into Easter
Spring seems a possibility.
The week has already netted
The daughter*s return
From Paris
With stories to tell.
It holds more waiting
For new life to transpire.
I exercised this morning
With vision blurred and tenuous.
The massage lady waited
At the end of the hall,
Fit me in at noon.
Now I know my shoulders
Were attached to my ears.
No longer.
Sometimes different things
Need adjustment.
Spring seems a possibility
This far into Easter.
It holds more waiting.
My shoulders are back
Where they belong.
My vision
Is clearer.

Easter Monday

This is the memory Easter Monday will always bring with it.  23 years ago I was a single mom of a three year old.  The church I was serving as priest had a large cross with Christ the King.  It was always veiled during Holy Week.  I do not remember if my son was with me for Easter Sunday that year, but I do remember taking him to church on Easter Monday to show him Jesus was back.  I also remember the trip to the zoo.  And the ducks on the Red Cedar River.

On the day after

Jesus was sprung

From the tomb,

I used to take my young son

To the local zoo.

A river flowed through it.

Ducks stood on the edges,

Floated in place.

On the day

After Jesus

Was sprung

(Or sprang)

From the tomb,

We would take a field trip

To find new life.

The zoo and the river

Were sure bets.

The boy had stared

At the veiled Holy Week cross,

Declared

God all gone.

The boy saw the risen body returned

On Easter Sunday.

On the day after,

Just to be sure,

We took a field trip

To the zoo.

A river flowed through it.