we are called in and also called out: listening to the seasons of our lives

A few days ago I attended a retirement party for my former colleague and church secretary. It was a stunning summer day - perfect for a backyard banquet of finger foods and fond words of gratitude. I had not seen nor spoken to most of the guests for 18 months. On one level, it was fun to reconnect and chat with a few old friends especially on the occasion of honoring a dedicated servant of God. At the same time, it was also an affirmation that my connection to this faith community was complete. Oddly enough, within minutes of arriving, I was bantering with a friend about our recent benefit concert noting. "I haven't been in that Sanctuary in 18 months." To which I was told, "Neither have I." After a quiet minute pregnant with question marks passed, she asked, "How did you know it was time to go?" 

What followed was a kitchen conversation about discerning the still speaking but almost always silent invitation of the Holy in our lives. "Was it something like St. Paul's encounter on the road to Damascus?" Well, not as dramatic, but still vivid and life-changing. "You see, I can still remember the day, but maybe not the exact date, when I was called into ministry." It was July 1968, two months after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been assassinated. About 30 high school students and I had been on a two week sojourn with our church to see some of the various ways our part of the Body of Christ was caring for the world. It was called a mission caravan and we traveled in a convoy of cars from Connecticut to Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Washington, DC and Baltimore. With four adults and our youth pastor, we stayed at a rural church orphanage, met with community organizers in the hills of Appalachia, slept and visited with leaders of African American churches in DC and Baltimore and worshiped with Potter's House ministry team from the Church of the Savior. 

Some know the Potter's House to be a coffee house/bookstore/gallery founded by Gordon and Mary Cosby. After WWII a number of seekers were searching for a way of doing church that was not shaped by suburban sameness. "The vision for The Potter’s House was born when Gordon and Mary Cosby spent the night above a noisy tavern in New England. Surmising that Jesus would have been more at home there than the staid church they had just visited, they began to imagine a place that would welcome everyone, Christian or not, to explore life’s big questions." (http://potters
housedc.org/history) 

Our visit to Wednesday night worship was transformative for me: not only did I sense the importance of doing church beyond my tradition, but I was energized by the way artists, civil rights activists, anti-war organizers, early feminists, neighborhood folk, street people and alienated young adults all gathered together in a safe, creative and loving place to discuss what made life meaningful. I cannot say for certain what else happened on that Wednesday night in July except to note that throughout our worship I was in a trance. Lifted beyond the limits of that exquisite little coffee house to a numinous place, all I heard within my heart was the quiet assurance that "you (meaning me) could do this, too."

Like the Blessed Virgin Mary, I held this experience and pondered it in my heart for the better part of a week before sharing it out loud. On our ride home back to Connecticut, in the back of a powder blue 1967 Mustang convertible, one of the adult chaperone's asked, "So what did this trip mean to you?" My buddies and I shared a few surface level reactions before I mumbled, "Well, I think I sensed a call into ministry." Talk about a conversation closer! The car went silent for a few minutes before the adult said something like, "Oh, I don't think that was real!" I was, after all, the dumpy bass player in a teenage rock'n'roll band who was an uneven student from a less than wealthy family. Her dismissal felt like a shot to the heart and I fought back my tears. (Even then my tears were prayer partners.) And then, as if offering a gift of confirmation, I heard Aretha Franklyn singing on the radio:  "You better think... 'bout what you're trying to do to me! Oh, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom!" And I knew. Damascus Road? Not really, but I'd take the Potter's House and Aretha Franklyn any day!

As I told this story, including the fact that I fought following my call for nearly 10 years, doing everything else I could besides ministry - including organizing with the farm workers, Head Start and working as a custodial care giver in an institution for children with intellectual disabilities - my friend asked, "How did you know, then, it was time to let it go?" To which I replied, "I can remember to the day when that call came, too." At first I was uncertain; I didn't know that just as one can receive a call into ministry, you can receive a call out of it, too. And my invitation out of traditional ministry happened while on sabbatical in Montreal. At first it manifest itself in the gradual realization that we had been away for two months and never once felt a need to go to Sunday worship.

As that began to sink in - and I reveled in my new identity as the old jazz bass player who spoke shitty French (and not the minister) - I found myself reading Jean Vanier and Henri Nouwen. In time, we eventually went to Taize worship and I was moved to tears by what I called the "geography of worship." The human parts of that worship were all horizontal. No hierarchy. Everyone sat on the floor. Everyone shared the readings, the music and the silence. And it was all directed vertically to the one within and beyond us all. As we left worship that night to hit one last jazz club, Dianne said, "You aren't finished with ministry yet, man. It will just happen in a new way." And she was right. The anxiety attacks I had in the middle of the night during our last week away were clear signs that I dreaded returning to the old way. We had left for sabbatical with the understanding that it would be renewing for another 5-7 years. And what happened was a total surprise: I was renewed, I was "reborn" but not for the status quo. It took almost three years to negotiate, plan and implement my departure - and it wasn't always simple or kind - but 18 months ago it came to pass. And my serenity has been as affirming as Aretha Franklyn's song. So too with my time at L'Arche Ottawa. 

When I had finished that part of the story, my friend shook her head quietly and simply said, "Thank you." There was more silence before we shared a few words about the importance of learning to listen to our lives. I couldn't help but think of Frederick Buechner's  words: “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.”

I am glad we went to Sunday's retirement garden party. I am grateful for seeing a few old friends and bringing to a close a few other unresolved relationships. I am also thankful for the gentle sense of completion. And as if this insight needed to be embodied, when we got home, I finished up building our garden terrace and getting our plants into the ground. To everything there is a season... turn, turn, turn. (NOTE: today's pictures are from my study and garden.)