Coming Home to Oregon

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.

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?"

Selling Scarves at at the Holiday Craft Fair

It all started when my favorite yarn shop went out of business. Well, it actually started before that, but this last round of knitting addiction began with the bags of yarn I brought home from BB's Knits in July. I had been knitting scarves for gifts and to wear for a long time. It's a much more creative and rewarding project for me than sweaters or afghans - you submit to the lure of some luxury yarn or luscious color, buy a few skeins, pick out a design you love, and start the project. It will be done in a short time and you can wear it or give it as a gift. Instant gratification! Longer projects are too boring and expensive.

When BB's marked down all the yarns I'd been lusting after, I went a little nuts. I bought two shopping bags full of merino and cashmere, silk ribbon, multi-stranded yarn.....you name it, I probably had some. I began to create wonderful scarves in patterns I loved, but by Fall, I realized that I had more than 30 scarves. Too many to wear, too many to give away. They were overflowing the bags I used to store them. I began to think about selling them.

When I carried them with me to Portland in October to sell them to some stores which sell handmade clothing, I found out that I was too late. They had already purchased everything they were planning to sell for the season. If I still wanted to sell some of my designs next year, I should talk to the proprietresses again in March or April.

A friend who sells collectibles at swap meets and vintage fairs, offered to let me display my inventory at some of the Fall shows for which she was registered. So I have been spreading out my handknits among wooden bowls and crystal candlesticks for the last few weekends. People loved my stuff, picked it up, tryed it on, fingered it lovingly. But they were not buyers. They were looking for bargains, for household chochkes and willing to spend two to five dollars for their prizes. Handmade cashmere neckware was not on their shopping list, nor was a $150 price tag. It was fun to hang out and show off my wares, and helping my friend pack up all her fragile merchandise cemented a friendship. But it didn't move any of my inventory.

She suggested the Holiday Craft Fair that was an annual event in the tiny town just south of Santa Barbara. People come looking for gifts and beautiful things, she suggested, and that was the customer base I was looking for. So I signed up, offering to share a space with another friend of hers - a sculptor of whimsical constructions of stainless steel serveware. It did sound like a good idea, but as it turns out, my scarves got less attention from the holiday craft shoppers than the collectibles customers. The only scarf I sold was to a friend, who wouldn't let me give it to her as a gift. So all my inventory came home with me again.

Everyone I know will be getting a scarf from me for Christmas. I guess I'll have to start wearing them, too, because there's still more yarn in those bags. I can't stop knitting now, I am just hitting my stride. I'll probably have created enough new inventory to show up at those Portland boutiques in the Spring. If you are in need of warm neckware, give me a call.

Reclaiming the Past

Driving down the Pacific Coast Highway to First Lutheran Church in Venice was like driving back into my past. This was my old church. This was my parent's church. So much of my own faith formation is centered in that community, that when I found out that they were installing their new pastor, I wanted to be there to celebrate with them. The pastor we all loved left for another postition just before my father died nearly three years ago.

It was a dark day, threatening rain the whole way down the coast. How beautiful. The sea so dark, the highway empty. The old neighborhood was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Lincoln Boulevard has become so seedy, and the traffic lights longer than I remembered. I couldn't remember where the bank was, so I just kept driving toward the shopping center nearest my old apartment. Ah, yes, there was a Bank of America in that shopping center where I used to get my nails done. The center looked so different and I hardly recognized the bank. There were big stores that I don't remember and the bank all frilled up to look like it dropped out of Art Deco Paris.

The church looked beautiful, and friends were gratifyingly glad to see me. No one knew I was coming, so there were lots of widened eyes and huge hugs. These are the people who were there at the very beginning of my journey to a pastoral vocation. We sang together, planned worship together, ran a school, welcomed children and their parents, prayed each other through tragedies and triumphs. These are the people who visited my mother faithfully for five months when she lay in hospital bed on a respirator, unable to move or talk. They brought food for my father for months after my mother's hospitalization, and the men in the congregation visited my Dad every week during the year and a half he was alone after Mom died. It was good to be surrounded by them again, to feel part of the Body of Christ in that place. I gasped as the processional cross that my Dad carved for them moved down the aisle at the head of a procession of pastors and singers.

The story of their three-year search for a pastor was inspiring. These days I am frustrated and close to despair. I have done everything I know to find a call. And everything I have done seems to be useless. Every avenue seems blocked, and I am suddenly unsure of my next move. I want to wait with patience, to be open to the Spirit's work, but instead I am agitated, anxious, crabby and grieving. The Venice congregation looked at 26 resume's before they met this new pastor. Some of them told me that the first two pastors they called were not pastors everyone was sure of, but that they seemed overall to be a good fit, so a call was issued. But those pastors chose not to come. This pastor was one that everyone agreed on. And he wanted them. He told them that it was a good thing that they hadn't called him at the beginning of their search, because he would not have been a good fit then, and would likely have declined the call as well. This is an encouraging story. And just being with them all as they celebrated made me happy. Much like the love-fest of a wedding, I was swept up into their joy, as if he were my new pastor, too.

So many people told me how much they missed my parents. The older people said they had missed my Dad during the discussions of procedure could have been helped by his understanding of the past and his strong voice against change simply for the new. My mother had been such a model for young women who had no church experience growing up and were now raising families in the church. They remember her dedication and energy with such easy fondness. I have been missing my parents especially in this season of All Saints, and it felt good to be sad about their loss at the same time that I experienced their community going forward with Spirit into the future. All that love is still there, gathered inside those walls, ready to be touched, to be taken home, to be held in my heart, to be shared as I look into my own future.

Red Silk Pajamas

It's time for the Half-Yearly Sale at Nordstrom's, a time to stock up on bras at half-price and other necessities. But then, for someone for whom shopping is a healing event, walking into a store with all the newest goodies spread out all around you.....well, I save up for this. It's one of the highlights of my year. The store opens at 7:00 am, but I wasn't among the first to walk in the store this year, as I have been in the past. But it was before 9:00 when I arrived with my Nordstrom's card in hand, ready for those double points. I shopped all morning, looking for inspiration. It's fun to find a few colorful pieces that change the way your current wardobe looks. I found a pair of pumpkin-colored cashmere gloves, and I was off - the coral cashmere scarf for the neckline of a jacket or around the shoulders, several pairs of winter socks with mixtures of red, pink, coral and aqua to pull all my colors together. Then there was the pink cashmere sweater on the top floor. It wastough to choose between the T-Neck and the V-Neck, but it had to be pink, my new favorite color, and with the coral scarf -- Wow! Then to the Lingerie Department for those half-price bras and other practicalities.

When I came home with one big bag full of goodies, Marti wanted to see everything. It was fun to pull out all my treasures and spread them across the table where she was eating a late breakfast. She oooh'd and ahhh'd appropriately over everything, helping me justify each purchase's practicality, and agreeing with how a coral cashmere wrap would spark my wardrobe and that $65 for a cashmere sweater was, indeed, too good a price to pass up. But when I pulled the red silk pajamas out of the bag, her mouth fell open and her eyes went wide. "Red silk pajamas? Did you have some specific event in mind?" She began to laugh. I told her that I was thinking of them as practical for winter travel - warm as flannel, but smaller to pack. They were a really good price, too, under $100 dollars. But of course, the truth is that I just wanted them because they were beautiful. They will be practical if Richard and Dianne and I do take that trip to New York for Christmas that we've been talking about. They will be warmer and take less suitcase space for winter travel to Oregon and Berkeley events I am planning in January. And.....they are wonderful to slip into at the end of the day, like some secret that is all mine. Ummmmm.

Going Girlie

It might have been the pink velvet shirt at J Jill that did it, but I suspect I was already on the way to going Girlie by the time I saw it. In any case, although the shirt came in gray or burgundy, much more practical colors, I chose the pink one. And then I also bought the cream silk charmeuse shirt with the pintucks and crocheted trim on the front and the silky bow tied at the v-neck. What is happening to me?

Several years ago on a trip to Mexico City, I was stirred deeply by meeting women with no resources except each other. They were certainly poor, but the community they created to care for each other and their children was an inspiration. I came home feeling that I was the poor one, isolated and without important resources. It was an opportunity to re-examine my priorities, my image of myself in the world, and how I wanted to be seen. I gave up wearing makeup - partly to take away the financial pressure of worrying about having the right stuff and partly to become more honest about making my face be a reflection of my inner self. I also threw away my hair dryer, opting to let the curls I had been fighting all my life be part of my honest presentation of myself to the world. I loved being relieved of the financial burden of investing in what felt like a false presentation, and I became comfortable letting my wrinkles and spots tell the story of where I had been in life. My clothes bdcame more practical, washable rather than needing the dry cleaner. I think I was in recovery from the sales rep/sales manager presentation of my pre-seminary days. My "working wardrobe" was way overdressed for grad school and I found myself in jeans and T-shirts most often.

Things began to change when I left school and began to worry about interview clothes. Suddenly I had some money to invest in "good" clothes that would work for a Lutheran pastor and how I looked to a group of professionals became more important. It is like some self from my past began to emerge and I looked at my un-made up face as "unpolished" and my jeans and t-shirts as "unprofessional." I began to long to look a little different.

I guess the first change was the haircut - shorter, perkier, requiring a hair dryer to get the right effect. It has caused much comment among friends, they like it and tell me that it makes me look younger. It makes me feel good, too. Then I went shopping for make-up. It has been so long that I've almost forgotten what I used to wear. It seems strange that after all those years of something that was daily habit, you could just forget in two or three years what all that stuff was. So I went to the Aveda store for a makeover. Wow. Now there's foundation and powder and brow color and eyeshadow and.....well, you know. It has been weird. It takes so long to do it for very little effect,and then I have had to get comfortable with stuff on my face all day. I am getting better at it, and learning to appreciate the subtle difference in the way it does make me look more "polished."

A new man friend said, "I don't know what you've done exactly, but your hair looks fabulous and you look 10 years younger." Hmmmm. Oh, yes, and about the man friend. I have two new-ish men friends. Not anything more than friends, but they are really guys. It is so different than my woman friends, and how I dress and see myself with them is different, too, I think. Maybe men friends is the catalyst for the new Girlie me, as if I am reclaiming some earlier manifestation of something and bringing up into my MDiv-Lutheran-Pastor-In-Waiting persona. I'm still spending most days in jeans and t-shirts without makeup, but then, there are those days with the make-up, the red lipstick and that pink velvet shirt. Welcome back, Girlie.

KEEPING VIGIL

“I will keep vigil with you.” It was my new spiritual director speaking. He had listened to me ramble on and on about what was not happening in my spiritual and vocational life. I’d been talking for most of an hour and I was even boring myself. There was a silence. I didn’t have anything more to say; I had touched on everything I could think of that I should say to him. It was quiet for awhile. Then he took a breath and shifted in his seat, rearranging his imposing monk’s robes around him. “I will keep vigil with you.”

I was at a loss. “Protestants don’t have vigils”, I stuttered. “I’m not really sure what that means.” He asked if I had ever experienced the Vigil of Easter or the Vigil of Advent. Well, yes, I had been at Easter Vigil. He explained that monks get up in the night to wait, fully expecting to be surprised by what God has been doing in the dark. It is not just waiting, he said, it is keeping watch for something wonderful that you know is coming. I had to sit for a few minutes to absorb the difference between waiting and keeping vigil. It seems that keeping vigil is a way of being engaged in what’s already on its way, even though you can’t see it yet. There is a quality of certainty in the expectation that appeals to me because it is so much more active than the passive “waiting” that has been so frustrating and depressing during this time. I love the thought that he will be watching, praying, expecting with me, preparing for whatever my own great surprise will be.

I’ve been thinking about vigils, about my own experience of prayerful waiting. Perhaps this is not such a new experience after all. I remember sitting by my beloved Aunt Anita’s bedside in the hours before she died. I thought I would read or knit while I sat in the room with her. But I could do neither. Somehow being in that time with her took all my concentration, all my awareness. Something awesome was happening to her as she lay so still. I could almost see and feel it. I was somehow part of it, and privileged to be there. I remember the time at the end of my pregnancies, the big countdown to the day when I would undergo the transformation of labor and meet my child. Somehow I already knew that child, I could put my hand on its head as it moved across my belly from hip to hip. I knew when it was awake and when it was asleep. But she was still a complete mystery as a human being. She and I were keeping vigil together, awaiting the surprise of meeting each other.

So vigil-keeping is not as unfamiliar as I first thought. We Protestants have been there, too. We know that God is always faithful to the promises that sustain us. We know that God’s steadfast love always leads us forward into the next surprise if we can keep awake through the quiet of the night. “Stay with me, remain here with me, watch and pray”, are the English words of a Taize hymn that repeats and repeats in the dark as worshippers approach the cross in the candlelight. Keeping vigil is lonely sometimes, but it’s not such a bad place to be.

Restless mind, restless heart. It's hard to concentrate this morning, hard to clear my mind for devotion and meditation. There is a congregation in Oregon which has "nominated" me for an interview. It is a congregation previously served by my brother, which asks for me because he was such a wonderful pastor for them and they have not been as well served by the two pastors since he left for another call nearly ten years ago. There is a change in the Bishop's office in the Oregon Synod - new Bishop, new assistant. The assistant and the Bishop that I know are now gone and the new Bishop wants the new assistant to begin the process of contacts and interviews for this congregation. Sigh. Once again, I got my hopes up, telling my heart that this was a slam-dunk and that, surely, this was God's design for both me and the congregation. So having to be patient to hear feels like a setback. As much as I try not to get too invested in any new possibilities, my heart just won't behave.

Meanwhile, I have been participating in the Inter-Lutheran Disaster Response Emergency Team (I-LERT), a cooperative effort of Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest and Lutheran Disaster Response. So far, my participation as a volunteer has not involved anything but going to organizational meetings to introduce those concerned in the ELCA Southern California Synods to their Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod counterparts and draw up plans for Inter-Lutheran cooperation and training for disasters. Well, the fires which have devastated Southern California have called up all the resources and mobilized those which were in place to work with counties and the State of California to help with distribution of services. I got a call this morning from the Southern California I-LERT coordinator asking if I would work on a task force to coordinate spiritual care for people and pastors affected by this series of disasters. Of course, I said yes.
I wait to hear from the woman pastor who will lead this team, and I am ready and eager to go and serve in the midst of the destruction.

This morning was the first in a few days in which there was time to sit over morning prayer and collect myself for a day that would allow some reading and study instead of the running to answer other people's schedules. But I find that my mind will not open to quiet, that my disappointment and my eagerness to be engaged in disaster ministry has put me into overdrive. I am imagining what I would do if I don't have a call by the summer, thinking about what regular travel into the San Diego area would require of the meager schedule I now have in place. My need for order has overtaken my willingness to keep vigil. Aaaaaargh. Time to practice yoga breathing? Perhaps.

How I Spent My (Spiritual) Vacation

It all came together so suddenly. I had been thinking of taking a week to visit St Andrew’s Abbey, my favorite spiritual hangout, but wanted to look into a workshop rather than just going to for a week of silence and wandering. As this thinking was developing in the back of my mind, I called an LA friend for a long-overdue lunch date. Her phone numbers were no longer in service! When I reached her by e-mail and discovered that she and her husband had moved to Arizona, she invited me to come to St. Andrews to participate in a workshop she was presenting based on her recent thesis for a PhD in Mythology from Pacifica. It was the opportunity to accomplish so many delights at the same time that I could not refuse, even though the workshop was only a week away.

The workshop was really interesting, as it addressed the possibility of finding a new mythic vision for Christianity in the postmodern era. I found myself in discussion with theologians, scientists, lawyers and educators about issues that are of deep concern for me as a pastoral leader. It was both spiritually and intellectually engaging, reminding me of much of the fun of seminary. I’d missed the long, heated discussions that raise such varied points of view, re-engaging our love for the Gospel and our love for our traditions even as we critique them.

But we also went to prayer with the monks four times a day to sing psalms and pray. The Benedictines welcome guests as if they were Christ himself, a Christ they acknowledge and welcome in each activity and quiet moment of their day. It is always such an extraordinary gift to be able to drop into the ongoing stream of prayer and praise and the beauty of the place that the community tends with such diligence. It enables a peace so deep it takes days to wear off. I found I was thirsting for God’s presence. How strange to be lonely for God in the place where God seems to be everywhere! But here it was, the ache of loneliness I had not seen until now, the longing for the touch of God’s Spirit in my search for a call. That touch came slowly through the week: in the silence after the singing, in the gentle sharing of our meditations, in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, in the creation of a community around the Word and work we shared.

I sometimes imagine, as sit in my usual place in the morning, that the monks are singing Lauds and that my new colleagues are living their ordinary lives again, just as I am. It is almost as if we had never come together for that week in July. But that’s not possible. We did come together to be Christ for and with each other, and though we may not see each other again in this life, we are all part of each other now. That time, that place, those sounds, those people are still present as I go forward. It’s how I found that God is with me on my vacation.

New Blog

For those of you who have been reading my blog, I want to bring you up-to-date. I have changed blog locations, and also changed the format a bit. I hope you will join me on my new site at Live Journal: www.theepunch.livejournal.com. I hope you continue to visit, and that you will take the time to let me know what you think in respsonse to my thoughts. See you there.

Gallivanting

Some people in my family call me to ask where I am. "We were sitting here over dinner wondering where in the world you actually are now." This has certainly been a year of freedom to go and do whatever I wished, and I have enjoyed it. I have tried to use this time well, as I know that being a pastor somewhere will usurp my time and energy so completely that I will not have such unfettered time again. My trip to London in December was just such an indulgence. The price was right, a friend was ready to go; we went. As I prepared to leave Mississippi, I e-mailed a friend in Western New York state to see if I could visit before I went back to California.
She is a enjoying her first experience as a pastor by shepherding two small congregations on the shore of Lake Erie. Her parsonage is a four-bedroom, two-story house, with plenty of room for guests, so her answer was a delighted YES.

I drove away from Biloxi on a Friday afternoon, and spent the night in Houston. I wanted to see an exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston of a 17th Century Dutch floral painter - Van Hylsum. What a wonderful gallery. I took a quick tour through their 20th Century gallery, stopped in the museum shop (my downfall, always), and then headed for the Rothko Chapel about a mile away. The chapel itself was wonderfully situated in a park with a Barnett Newman sculpture in a reflecting pool, especially lovely in the misty rain. But I was disappointed by the paintings. I had recently seen a room full of Rothkos glowing in the dimmed light in the Tate Modern in London. The paintings at the Tate were haunting and compelling. There was no comparison. Then late that Saturday night, I arrived at Richard and Dianne's in Dallas for a miniscule visit before flying off to Buffalo on Monday.

Western New York was even more beautiful than I expected. Small villages separated by stretches of hardwood forest, all blanketed with fresh snow. The lake was frozen and a few fishermen had shacks far from shore. We drove all over the countryside - Amish farms, the Chautauqua Institution, an Arts and Crafts village in East Aurora, and Niagara Falls from the Canadian side complete with a side trip to Niagara on the Lake, a tiny tourist town at the edge of Lake Ontario. It was wonderful to see K at work in her two churches -- they love her, and she is on the way to being a wonderful pastor. But it was hard to watch her at work in her parishes, I so long for my own. There are some openings for pastors in the Upstate New York Synod. Maybe one of them could be mine. We had such a good time together, laughing and comparing experiences since our seminary days two years ago. It was like balm after the intensity of my Biloxi time, and its hard farewells.

A few days more in Dallas and a farewell to Richard and Dianne on my return from Buffalo. I have been able to spend so much time with them in the last year. Their home feels like home to me. What a gift that has been. It was hard to leave, knowing that I will not be just heading back in a few weeks or months.

I wanted to see Taos again, and to visit my new favorite shopping venue - a jewelry store in which the owner makes most of the jewely herself. I also found wonderful wool to feed my knitting addiction. It is hand-spun and dyed with plants from the Taos area. And then to Sun City and my sister, after a drive through the Arizona mountains.

My sister, Pat, is recovering from serious abdominal surgery and some complications that followed shortly after. I was planning an overnight, but stayed for three days. It gave me a chance to visit Lord of Life Lutheran Church, which had sent a group to Biloxi with their pastor only a few weeks before I left. And then to Santa Barbara and Marti's wonderful home.

Two weeks later, I have still not unpacked all my suitcases. I have just enough in the closet to get dressed every day. This week I drove to Sacramento for a conference with the Bishops and their assistants who place pastors in congregations. It was an opportunity to network, interview, get feedback on my interview style and tips on better interveiw skills. It also gave me a chance to stay overnight with a fellow seminarian who has just received her first call, and some other seminary friends who were in town for the same conference. We had dinner and drank a lot of wine and caught up and laughed about old times. Our seminary class was very small - not good for the school, but a boon for us, as we become very attached to each other. I stopped in Berkeley on my way out of Sacramento, staying with another seminary friend who is completing an MA. It gave me a chance to visit with another whole group of friends and professors. I do not miss being a student, but I do miss the challenge of academic life, and the community that lives on the seminary hill. After a long ride down the California coast, I am once again at Marti's.

I promised a friend who is in Mexico City this year on internship that I would visit her in April. Wow, April is already here. I am divided in my thinking about another trip. Wouldn't it be fun to fly off to Mexico for a week? But the idea of packing and making flight arrangements is a little daunting. I am feeling a bit disconnected from my own feelings, I think. Having stopped back at Marti's feels like coming home. It has given all the feelings of longing and disappointment connected to my expectations of a call to a congregation a chance to catch up with me. My decision to become more assertive in my search for a first call has turned up a few possibilites, and I don't even know what to expect in that line from the conference this week. Anyway, this morning I awoke with new energy, ready to sign up for a Spanish class and maybe go back to the gym. Is it the affirmation of inteviewing well and getting good feedback that feels so good, or is it having a chance to spend time with people you are glad to see after a long absence? I wish I had an answer. One think I know: waiting sucks. But perhaps I am gaining the virtue of patience, whether I want it or not.

I bought a guide book on Mexico today. Maybe my gallivanting days are not over yet.

Leaving Mississippi

It was so hard to drive away. I had come to love the Mississippi coast and its people. I had become part of Bethel Lutheran Hurricane Katrina Ministry and the people who labor to accomodate the volunteers and create a place for those most affected by the storm to find hope and help. It was so good to work side by side with Judy Bultman, Judy Jones, Dorothy and Donna, Lisa and all the volunteers who, like me came to stay to be part of this mighty work: Heather and Carol Lee, Kelli and Allison, Andy, Ed and Eunice, and all the cooks who graced our tables with their loving labors.

It had been good work for me to sit in the clinic with people who needed healing, to hear their stories, and to pray with them. It had been good work to offer Bible passages for volunteers to wear or carry with them each day as a focus, keeping their work rooted in God's work. It had been good work to lead Lectio Divina in the mornings for staff to rest a minute in God's word before the overwhelming demands of a day filled with emergencies and sorrows and miracles. I wanted to find a place in Mississippi. I wanted to create a home for myself there among those people who still need healing and beside those people who walk with them toward a restored future. But it was not to be. The grants that would have provided such an opportunity came attached to work that required credentials I did not have, and separating the requiements I could not meet was complicated at best. It seemed like a closed door. At the same time, through the gracious invitation of Bethel's Pastor, Gerry Bultman and his colleagues in the conference, I was able to attend weekly text study and monthly cluster meetings. I missed being a pastor more and more as I spent time with pastors. It became clear to me that in order to pursue a placement as a first-call pastor, I would have to recommit to that process and go home. So I left the Mississippi Coast on February 23, heading to brother Richard and sister-in-law Dianne in Dallas one more time on my way west.

I learned so much at Bethel. I learned that communities grieve like people grieve. I learned how God is present in a special way to those who need God's presence the most. I learned to expect God to provide everything that is needed for ministry, and saw miracles every day. I learned that you can see God's face in the people you work with and in the people you serve. And most of all, I learned that those who answer God's call to help receive blessing on blessing, beyond any of the help they give or the gratitude they receive for it. I made deep friends with others who worked the long hours in the popcorn-popper atmosphere of emergency ministry. There was hardly a moment to breathe, and there were many days in which I never saw anything outside of the building I worked in or the parking lot in which my camper lived.

But this experience has shaped my future ministry. I know now that a church can be used in every nook and cranny every moment of the week to provide ministry. Such a ministry can be a beacon not only to the neighbors it serves, but to those who come to work in it and have their faith regenerated by the work in which they have particpated. Volunteers go home filled with a new measure of God's Spirit to regenerate their own ministries. It was a privilege to live that renewal, and I will be eternally grateful to the people of Bethel Lutheran Church for welcoming all the volunteers who come to serve, but especially for the generosity with which they welcomed me.

One morning in the clinic orientation I introduced myself as Almost-Pastor Barbara, explaining that though I seved in some pastoral capacities there, I was not ordained yet. One of the volunteers called me "Almost" for the rest of the week and the name stuck. I will be ordained someday. I hope it will be soon. But Amost-Pastor Barbara has become a name of special honor to me. I will treasure it always.

Bethel Web Page

Bethel Lutheran Hurricane Katrina Ministry finally has its own web page. You can find it at http://myweb.cableone.net/LESMBETH.

Come visit us to learn about our ministry, read the most current news in Ministry Updates, and learn how to volunteer yourself.

Enjoy.

Mardi Gras

Today is it! Mardi Gras. Fat Tuesday. Everything is closed for the parties, parades and celebrations. When we found out that the Salvation Army was closed, we closed our clinic, too. Not that there were many patients who came to the doctor instead of partying.

Actually today is only the culmination of a whole season of parties, balls, parades and king cake.
The season begins on Twelfth Night, the celebration of the Three Kings. King cakes come out in wonderful variety. Each is like coffee cake, rolled around fillings as varied as cinnamon sugar, raspberry or cherry jam, cream cheese and fruit, or custard. They are iced with white glaze and colored sugar - usually the green, purple and gold of Mardi Gras. But one thing is always the same: each has a Baby Jesus baked inside. If you get the Baby in your slice of king cake, you get a special blessing....and....you have to bring the next king cake. king cake is the standard dessert for everything during Mardi Gras. I will miss it.

We've gone to two Mardi Gras parades in the last few weeks. D'Iberville was small and homey but Waveland was bigger and more fun. Waveland was ground zero for the eye of Hurricane Katrina, and is one of the lowest areas of the low-lying Mississippi Coast. Waveland was 90% destroyed in the storm and parts of it will not be open to rebuilding until the end of this year when rebuilding of infrastructure is complete. They have one of the oldest and most popular family parades on the coast, so being able to put on a normal event was a giant accomplishment for Waveland, and the joy of returning to something near normal was infectious. There were Queens of all the community events, dressed in elaborate costumes, huge wigs and decorated masks. They were seated on the backs of donated convertibles waving to the crowd.

The Hancock County Middle School and High School Band was back in action, after losing all the school's instruments to the storm. Musicians at St John's Lutheran Church in Ambler, PA, donated musical instruments to us at Christmas. We met Lydia Jelinsky, the band teacher in Hancock County and donate the instruments to students in Waveland. So it was particularly exciting to cheer the band and the flag girls marching by with Lydia marching beside them.

Floats are generally towed by trucks, everything from the standard pick-up to semi tractors, and the floats themselves vary in size by the size of the organization -- or its ambition. All floats are home-decorated and vary in sophistication as do the costumes of the people who ride on them. Each float has huge speakers playing dance music, cranked up LOUD! People on the float are dancing, drinking and flinging out great quantities of beads, toys, cups and other goodies to the crowd. No one just sits and watches the parade amble by. The crowd is on its feet, dancing and reaching for beads, screaming and...did I say dancing. It is fun! Although I do not agree with the theological underpinnings of Mardi Gras -- you can get away with any carnal pleasures during this time, as you can make amends during the 40 days of Lent -- I had a great time jumping for beads, singing and dancing with the crowd and the friends who came with me. We ate chicken and potato salad and king cake. I came home drowning in strings of beads, most of them gold, green and purple.

Waveland was ready to Rock and Roll -- to tell everyone that Katrina couldn't rob them of their spirit, no matter how much damage she caused. I have seen that all over Mississippi. People are proud. They are determined to overcome the catastrophic effects of this disaster, as they have overcome disasters in the past. This one will just take a little longer. It is a privilege to walk with them as they dig down deep to rebuild their lives, to renew their hope, and to take care of each other. One of the important things that volunteers bring is the confirmation of that hope that life can get back to normal. The resident's gratitude to us volunteers is part of that pride. They take care of themselves and each other, and they are amazed that someone from another part of the country has come to help. They thank you in grocery stores, in church, in the clinic and on the job sites. They bring fresh shrimp and homemade gumbo. They pay for your dinner in restaurants. The sadness of their loss is still close to the surface, as is the frustration with the difficulties of getting to federal grant money and battling for a fair insurance settlement. But struggle is not new to them, and they are sure that they will come back as strong as ever.

I'm not going to the big Biloxi parade today. Two parades were enough for me. I have more beads than good sense. I am looking toward Ash Wednesday tomorrow. But - WOW - Mardi Gras in Biloxi was fun.

Free Haircuts

Laura and Linda didn't come to Mississippi expecting to build houses. That's not their talent. Laura brags that she has been cutting hair for 26 years, and that it is her ministry to make people feel beautiful. Linda and Laura came from Northern Michigan and spent the whole of last week giving free haircuts. Linda washed and Laura cut and blow-dried. They cut hair for volunteers, they cut hair for people who came to the distribution center to get food and household items, they cut hair for people in the medical clinic. And all the time they worked Linda and Laura heard stories: how people came to be here, how their families are doing since the storm, what they lost and what they learned. They listened while their hands were at work transforming people's appearance. The transformation was amazing. People sat down in the folding chairs with trepidation, some ashamed of their unkempt locks, some skeptical that a free haircut could be any good. And people rose up shining, smiling, and, yes, beautiful.

The real rebuilding that happens here is the rebuilding of hope. Those of us who work here know this is true. But when Laura and Linda came to give free haircuts in our sacristy on Friday, we saw evidence of hopes lifted and joy restored more clearly than anything I have yet experienced. As they packed up their gallon bottles of shampoo and conditioner and put away their scissors they left behind a glowing train of women and men who had been surprised by their own beauty, offered freely as a gift from Laura and Linda, who were the face of God for all of us.

Hey, how do you like my beautiful haircut? It was a gift.

A Mighty Work

That's what Pastor Gerry called it in his prayer last night after dinner for 100 volunteers getting ready to leave the next day for home. "Thank you, Lord, for the mighty work you are accomplishing here in Biloxi." People getting ready to leave feel as if they have done so little. Their time here is short, their skills are often limited, there is so much to do. You feel as if your contribution has been the tiniest drop in a bottomless well.

They come from all over the country, those volunteers. Some come to frame doors and windows and lead construction crews. Some come to carry supplies to jobs and trim out for the painters. Some come to cook three meals a day for 100 people or see to it that the towels are clean and stacked when volunteers arrive gritty and sweaty from construction work. Others bring compassion and healing skills to our clinic. Dinner is controlled pandemonium with dozens of conversations going on. People talk about what they did during the day. They talk about what brought them to Biloxi and how many trips down they have made. Sometimes they talk about the people they meet, those affected by the storm, and pass on the inspiration of the stories they hear. We have come to know that God is present in this work. That the face of a stranger can become the face of God to you, or that your love and caring can be the face of God to someone else. We talk about where we have seen the face of God each day.

It continues to amaze me that the darkness Katrina has wrought on the Mississippi Coast can bring such light. But miracles happen here daily, large miracles and small. The Santa Shop gave toys to almost 700 children and every teenager received a $25 Wal-Mart card. Adopt My Room gave complete bedrooms to 70 children. They came here on a Saturday after Christmas with their families and had their picture taken while they sat on a bed with their own new sheets draped over it. My brothers and sister and I adopted a bedroom for Jaden Goodwin, and I got to meet him and his family. He was thrilled with his Spiderman bedspread and sheets. We received a committment for a commercial stove the day our oven blew up.

Tuesday night Miss Judy and I drove out to Moss Point with a group from Waupaca, Wisconsin. Pastor Otis Hardy has a mission there in an African American neighborhood that sponsors local families who have lost their homes, are looking for work, who are having trouble meeting the needs of their families. The congregation in Waupaca has been providing school supplies to Pastor Otis's ministry through the year. When 25 of them came to work on rebuilding houses, they brought handmade quilts and afghans, cash and more school supplies. The families of Pastor Otis's congregation welcomed them with a huge dinner of Mexican specialties including Pastel Tres Leches and Flan. Yum! What an crowd. How else would a group from Waupaca meet a group from Mexico in an African-American neighborhood in Mississippi? How else but through the intervention of Katrina?

The struggle among many residents here is still to hang on to hope, and the gift of volunteers is the hope that shines from them that life can be restored to something approaching normal. But the volunteers will tell you that the real gift comes from being able to work here among those whose lives have been so affected by this devastation. It is humbling to be in the presence of those who have survived such tragedies. It touches your deepest heart to be thanked for the hope and care you bring, when you have only spent a week carrying drywall or hearing sad stories. The real gift is seeing Jesus in the least, and knowing that you have been priviliged beyond expectation to walk with them for a time. When you get ready to leave here, you are already planning your trip back.

A Bit of Southern Culture

"I love it. It's my kind of white Christmas," said Miss Judy Bultman, when I told her about my trip over the Popps Ferry Bridge in the fog. The sky and water were the same pale grey, and the small islands of reeds provided the only hard edge in the mist. It looked like fairy-land. I am enchanted by bridges, and the city of Biloxi, floating on a peninsula in the Mississipi Sound, is part of the Delta that stretches from Texas all the way to Florida. There are bayous, creeks, bays and bridges. It is both a blessing and a curse, as much of the devastation from Katrina was the result of 35-foot surges that swamped areas previously thought to be outside of the flood zone. The major bridges that connect the east-west corridor of Highway 90 are gone, and commuters are now required to drive north to I-10 before going east or west to work or shop or visit. Replacing those bridges will take another year. But the bridge north across the Back Bay on Popps Ferry Road is our closest connection to I-10, and I travel it often. I have begun to reset my mood by how the bay looks as I cross that bridge, like resetting a clock. As I went to dinner with friends the other night, sky and water resembled a hand tinted photograph, unlikely pastel colors lifting my heart to thank God for a creation that can make your heart ache with its beauty.

I am gettin' used to the way people talk around here and beginnin' to drop the final "g" from my words without thinking much about it. Anything else sounds so formal. And of course, it's easy to fall into using y'all, a word that needs to be part of our language. I am getting used to waitresses calling me "Baby"and "Darlin." I love it. But the casual manner of speech belies a formality of address that I also am coming to enjoy. No one is addressed by their first name. Even your best friends only use your Christian name in personal conversation. You are Miss Judy or Pastor Barbara. It is a measure of respect. When you address a child, their response is "M'am?" instead of "Huh?" Beautiful.

It's driving here that is hard to get used to. There are lots of trucks. Big pickup trucks. And pedestrians do not have the right-of-way, so you have to watch out at all times. The Wal-Mart parking lot is really scary. Drivers zoom through empty spaces, pedestrians seem to appear from nowhere, and drifts of people walk at the slowest possible speed. I am always afraid that I will run over someone, or be hit by one of those club-cab pickups flying past. Being on foot
is certainly not safer. I was thinking the other day that people drive here like they drive in Guatemala, but the spaces are much more open, and it feels more dangerous somehow.