Poet's house, tribute to the Irish and so much more...

I just returned from a seminar that really helped me think about the last quarter of my life: retirement! Not that I am quite ready for that new phase but... I am certainly starting to think much more creatively and carefully about what that might mean - and how to make it happen! Two stunning ideas - among many - from the full day seminar hosted by the United Church of Christ:

1) Given the advances in medical care - and those yet to be discovered - it is likely that a man my age (57) will have 25+ years of life after retirement at 66! (Brother John Sebastian is going to have to revise the words to "Darlin' Be Home Soon," yes?) That means I could live to be... 91! OMG... makes a man think, yes?

2) Just as ministry has been a gift - from God to me and sometimes from me back to the church and maybe the Lord - so, too, is retirement. So the theological question becomes, "What gift am I being called to share and experience in this new time?" That's a sweet challenge.

Now let me re-emphasize (especially to those from my congregation who may be reading this) that I am not planning on going anywhere: we have a lot of important and satisfying work to do together and I am excited about sharing it with you. At the same time, for the first time in my life I am starting to ponder what all of this might mean... in another 10 years. So to let some of it sink in, today I visited four fascinating and important places for me before taking the train back to Massachusetts:

+ Trinity Episcopal Church (on Wall Street) and St. Paul's Chapel: these churches - in addition to their ministries to the arts and holistic approach to spirituality, politics and contemporary life - were also at the center of the September 11th attacks. They have been in this place since 1676 and after the attacks found themselves becoming a center for rescue workers who needed rest - or prayer or food - as well as a hub for the nation's prayers.

I remember going into both churches less than a month after 9/11: the surrounding iron fence had become a living prayer wall - as well as a message board for those seeking loved ones gone missing - filled with flowers, flags and candles. The inside of St. Paul's was equally adorned with prayers and banners and the scuff marks from the boots of fire fighters and rescue workers who fell asleep - or wept - on the aged wooden pews. I didn't stay long today - just a few prayers at midday - but it is a pilgrimage of sorts for me on my way to Ground Zero.

+ Ground Zero: 8 years after the attacks the rubble has been cleared and new construction is slowly taking place. All around this place it looks like business - and I mostly mean precisely that: business - has returned to normal. There are fruit and food vendors all up and down the area with high end shops and eateries, too. There are scores and scores of beautiful people in all stages of life hurrying from one place to another. And there are tourists taking pictures of what still shocks and mystifies many of us - and I know that even though the city has returned to normal... I have not. So, whenever I am in NYC, I stop by this place, too, for prayer and (still) some tears.

+ The Irish Hunger Memorial: I have never seen a memorial quite like this one ever - and I've seen a lot from Khatyn in Soviet Russia and the monument to the Ghetto Uprising in Poland to some of the best in Latin America. Perhaps only the Maya Lin monument to the American Civil Rights movement in Montgomery, Alabama comes close.

Well here, along the Hudson River in Battery Park, is a replica of an Irish bluff. And as you walk through what looks to be the remnants of abandoned stone homes, however, you wind your way through grassy fields of Irish sod and other signs in stone of the famine. There are words everywhere in the tunnel evoking the horror of this systematic destruction by England... it is beautiful and horrible and profoundly sad all at the same time. I found myself forced to slow down and walk each step in agony - taking in the beauty that cuts to the core, too - it was almost as if you could feel what each family - and the nation - lost in this ugly act of genocide. And then...

+ The Poet's House: directly opposite the memorial - along the same Hudson River - is the new home of The Poet's House. This simple center and library for the study of poetry is another quiet and beauty-filled oasis in the heart of what often feels like a beast. There was an article in last Friday's NY Times about this place - and when I confirmed my time in NYC, Dianne said, "Man, you've GOT to stop by there." So I did... it was totally refreshing. There were only about 8 people wandering through the open stacks and a few scholars writing and thinking but it is young.

Throughout the fall there will be a variety of events like Norman Fischer and Meredith Monk exploring the "Songs of Ascension" in the book of Psalms to conversations about the way beauty brings healing and hope - and salvation - to the earth! (check it out: http://www.poetshouse.org/)

Then after an uneventful (thanks be to God) train trip back to New England, I got to drive for 90 minutes through the backwoods of New York state and Massachusetts just when the leaves are at their BEST: Reds and yellows, breath-taking oranges amidst the green: total heaven to me.

Here is one of the poems I copied after sitting and thinking and trying to take this whole trip in. It is called, "Tasking the Wine" by Michael Hettich.

When he claimed he could intuit the ache in certain trees

could sense - inhaling -

how it might feel to be

stationary, to travel by seed, to speak

by bending, by ripping free, to taste underground,

she remembered her uncle,

who had lived underground

in the basement, where he had showed

her his inventions.

She said he encouraged her once to drink

a magic potion, which didn't do a thing

to her, but had turned him into a window

by the time she was old enough to notice.

She saw things through him. Eventually he'd

grown as clear as air,

which meant he was everywhere,

and blowing through those trees.

It was a rich and blessed time away - blessed by study and experience and supper with my beloved children - and now the blessing of being back home with my sweet, sweet wife.