Ahhhh! Real weather. It snowed on me and my little Honda going over the pass at Mt Shasta on Friday night, making me a little nervous, but adding a some excitement to a very ordinary drive. I left Santa Barbara at 10:00 am, headed for Oregon and prepared for rain throughout the day, and snow complications after dark. The sky was certainly dark and stormy, but offered no rain until I left Redding after dinner at 8:00 pm. As we gained elevation, the rain turned sleety and snowy, coating the verges of the highway with white. I had purchased chains, which resided in my trunk, and the highway conditions on the radio kept repeating all the places where chains were imperative. I even saw 18-wheelers stopped on the roadside to put on chains, but the highway was clear and I didn't hesitate to continue on to Mt Shasta City.
The roads off the highway were covered with packed snow, but driving through town to a motel with vacancy was not a problem. The only difficulty was getting up the steep drive in to the parking lot -- a bit slippery, but my Honda was up to it. Although I customarily drive straight through to friends in Roseburg, this time I decided to allow for the possibility of snow in the passes of the Siskiyou Mountains and not to drive through them in the dark. The view out my motel window was of fresh snow covering an old-fashioned neighborhood, no streets plowed or walks dug out. It looked like a Christmas card. My heart rose with delight. The morning drive through the mountains was beautiful. Snow dusted fields and farms which are otherwise grey and brown this time of year, and still the highway was clear and driving was uncomplicated. Gloomy skies and drizzly rain down into the Willamette Valley pleased me -- not in California anymore! And here I am in Salem, tucked into brother and sister-in-law's cozy home, watching the rain out the window and feeling welcomed back in their love.
Wednesday, brother John and I will attend the Bishop's Convocation at the coast and I will have a chance to meet the new Bishop and his assistant - the people who facilitate placing pastors in congregations. I have been looking forward to renewing old friendships from my internship days, to studying and relaxing together with other pastors, to networking a place to live and work in Oregon. The Bishop's Convocation is a lovely tradition, an opportunity for the Bishop to fulfill his role of being the pastor's pastor, so pastors come to be served by their pastor and renew their depletely energies.
There's still a part of me that lives in Oregon, even though I have been gone for two years. It is always so lovely to return to the weather, the friendships and the landscape that is so different from my native territory. The part of me that lives here takes a deep breath and says WELCOME HOME.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Are You the One?
It was with great agitation and some tears that I admitted to the Assistant to the Bishop for the Synod in the Northeast that I was not coming to the congregation whose paperwork was in my hand. I had visited a a classmate in her first parish in the early Spring and met the assistant. I was enchanted with the area and the Synod, and would have loved to work there. When I called him in the Fall to tell him that I had sent my theological resume' to the Oregon Synod and was planning to move there in the beginning of 2008, he'd been expecting me to ask for a parish in his synod and had one of his favorite congregation's paperwork ready to send me. I wanted to see it and read it with an open heart. They were certainly an interesting congregation, but after weeks of sitting with the prospect, I just couldn't say yes. Every part of my "moving to Oregon" project seemed to be on track, and that seemed to be where the Spirit was leading. But......
The very same day that I sorrowfully declined the opportunity to meet this lovely Eastern congregation, I got a call from the Assistant to the Bishop in Northern California. He wanted to know if I was interviewing somewhere else. I could hardly catch my breath and croaked out that I was not, thinking all the time of the wonderful congregation in the East that I had kissed goodbye in the morning without ever meeting them. It seemed that there were two congregations in Northern California for which the Bishop's Assistant thought I might be a good match, and that were appropriate for a first -call pastor. He described them briefly, the reasons why a pastor would be likely to want to serve them and why she might not be interested. One was old, kind of stuck in their ways and still losing members while the community around them was growing. The other was in the middle of nowhere, but flourishing. He wanted to know if I would be interested in the seeing their profiles. Yes. You bet. I closed my phone and sat in my car trying to breathe. I cried again for the lost opportunity with the congregation in the East, even though I could not really identify why I could not say yes to them. And I cried because these other opportunities were so unexpected. "Where have you been all this time?" my heart was shouting to God's Spirit. "Why have you waited until I started something else?" What will happen now to my plans to move to Oregon to be ready for a call to a congregation there? I finished my errands and came home. Sitting across the table from Marti, I spilled the whole story, the saying goodbye and the phone call from Northern California. Tears welled up again. "I don't think I can stand this! It's stirring up too much and I don't even know how to process it all!" I was waving my arms and nearly shouting. She thought I needed to sleep on it all and think about it again tomorrow.
"Are you the one, or shall we wait for another?" This text for last Sunday morning is the story of John the Baptizer's incarceration and his sending his disciples to ask Jesus this important question. It's become my text, too. It has been nearly a week since the phone calls, and I've been faithfully reading the papers for each congregation the Northern California Bishop's office sent. I've been looking deeply at how they talk about ministry, what their history is around conflict and mission, how they see themselves responding to the community around them, trying on their mission statements to see if my mission and gifts for ministry connect with any of theirs. "Are you the one, or shall I wait for another?" It's a big question. They were asking it of me, as well, even though they didn't know it yet.
In the end, I have chosen to respond in favor of one congregation and to decline to interview with the other. I e-mailed the Northern California Bishop's office on Monday morning with my decision and my resume' is on it's way to the congregation right now. I still can't catch my breath. I am headed to Oregon December 31, for the Bishop's Convocation on Jan 2. It will be an opportunity to meet the new Bishop and his new Assistant, the ones who will assess my suitability for a call to a congregation there. I will have the chance to network with pastors I have not seen since I served as an intern in Portland in 2005/2006. It will be wonderful to be back.
Can there be two Plan A's? "Are you the one, or shall I wait for another?"
The very same day that I sorrowfully declined the opportunity to meet this lovely Eastern congregation, I got a call from the Assistant to the Bishop in Northern California. He wanted to know if I was interviewing somewhere else. I could hardly catch my breath and croaked out that I was not, thinking all the time of the wonderful congregation in the East that I had kissed goodbye in the morning without ever meeting them. It seemed that there were two congregations in Northern California for which the Bishop's Assistant thought I might be a good match, and that were appropriate for a first -call pastor. He described them briefly, the reasons why a pastor would be likely to want to serve them and why she might not be interested. One was old, kind of stuck in their ways and still losing members while the community around them was growing. The other was in the middle of nowhere, but flourishing. He wanted to know if I would be interested in the seeing their profiles. Yes. You bet. I closed my phone and sat in my car trying to breathe. I cried again for the lost opportunity with the congregation in the East, even though I could not really identify why I could not say yes to them. And I cried because these other opportunities were so unexpected. "Where have you been all this time?" my heart was shouting to God's Spirit. "Why have you waited until I started something else?" What will happen now to my plans to move to Oregon to be ready for a call to a congregation there? I finished my errands and came home. Sitting across the table from Marti, I spilled the whole story, the saying goodbye and the phone call from Northern California. Tears welled up again. "I don't think I can stand this! It's stirring up too much and I don't even know how to process it all!" I was waving my arms and nearly shouting. She thought I needed to sleep on it all and think about it again tomorrow.
"Are you the one, or shall we wait for another?" This text for last Sunday morning is the story of John the Baptizer's incarceration and his sending his disciples to ask Jesus this important question. It's become my text, too. It has been nearly a week since the phone calls, and I've been faithfully reading the papers for each congregation the Northern California Bishop's office sent. I've been looking deeply at how they talk about ministry, what their history is around conflict and mission, how they see themselves responding to the community around them, trying on their mission statements to see if my mission and gifts for ministry connect with any of theirs. "Are you the one, or shall I wait for another?" It's a big question. They were asking it of me, as well, even though they didn't know it yet.
In the end, I have chosen to respond in favor of one congregation and to decline to interview with the other. I e-mailed the Northern California Bishop's office on Monday morning with my decision and my resume' is on it's way to the congregation right now. I still can't catch my breath. I am headed to Oregon December 31, for the Bishop's Convocation on Jan 2. It will be an opportunity to meet the new Bishop and his new Assistant, the ones who will assess my suitability for a call to a congregation there. I will have the chance to network with pastors I have not seen since I served as an intern in Portland in 2005/2006. It will be wonderful to be back.
Can there be two Plan A's? "Are you the one, or shall I wait for another?"
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