I planned on sleeping in this morning, but…
Monday had a split feeling. In the morning I put together a newsletter column for the Newton congregational newsletter and had a luncheon meeting with our FUSN president.
After a quick household stop at Trader Joe’s (I take the recent announcement that TJ’s is coming to Warwick which means their first Rhode Island store a major positive omen…) for a few necessities, I dropped off our single family car at Perkins School for the Blind (where Jan is their Research librarian), walked over to the Enterprise rental office (they had quite conveniently sent a discount coupon to my email address a day or two ago), picked up a car and took off for Providence.
The day had been spitting and raining, the temperature dropped quite a lot from the past few days, and so traffic was a bit cautious. However unlike the West coast (at least below the Oregon border) where rain comes only in a relatively proscribed season and people forget how to deal with it, the fifty-odd mile drive didn’t feel particularly dangerous.
I had a whirlwind of more meetings learning about and holding forth with my opinions on music, small group ministry, the forming Transylvanian partner-church program, adult religious education and religious education for children and youth. Turns out I am in favor of all these things…
I felt bad I could only promise the Transylvanian partnership person I would support the project, but that I could not promise to embrace it as my personal project – I know these things are most successful when the minister makes it her or his deal, and in particular is willing to travel to the partner congregation. Those personal connections are very important, and here more than in many places, the minister’s visible involvement is, if not critical, certainly more than helpful. But the travel is done on one’s own dime and on one’s own personal time. And, I said I’ve not had a compelling personal interest in the Hungarian-speaking Unitarian communities, and have a previous and unbreakable commitment to both Zen stuff that I do over the summer and family time. I did promise Jan and I would be talking about it, but made no promises beyond that…
I’m such a co-dependent, I want to say yes to everything.
The only other thing I wish I’d been clearer on was when asked about what I want to do I said first and most pressingly do those things that support healing and restoring a sense of trust in ministers. Then I launched into my grand fantasy of working for growth. After the fact I felt I didn’t underscore as much as I would have liked how all that very much comes out of attending to those things that make a congregation truly welcoming for those already there, but at the same time throwing open the doors and inviting the stranger to become family. But, then, maybe I did…
Surprisingly, all things considered, I was back to Newton and in bed by ten fifteen, my mind, of course, racing, racing…
Today is a rather longer schedule starting with a brown-bag lunch…
I opened the computer to find how one of my dearest friends had sent along a verse from the poet Ikkyu. I took it as a comment on ministry, rich and with some real guidance for me to recall in this time of transition. She said this version comes from the Crazy Cloud Anthology translated by Sonya Arutzen.
Every day, priests minutely examine the Law
And endlessly chant complicated sutras.
Before doing that, though, they should learn
How to read the love letters sent by the wind
and rain, the snow and moon.
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