The First Act in New Shoes: Benediction
Only after all these words, all these actions, all this love and wisdom and symbol… Only after the hymns sung, the drums played, the sermon preached… Only after all the blessings of body, mind, spirit have been given, do I stand before the congregation and offer the Benediction. The word means “good words,” and my short closing of the ceremony hardly seems to stand up to all that has been given to me. Of course it cannot.
The Welcome with New Identity: The Receiving Line!
The party. The receiving line. These things are holy. They are integral parts of all these acts of initiation. It is here, one by one and two by two that members of this gathered community—no longer just the assembly, but here really the community—come to bless again. Most of all, though, they bring love and they acknowledge the new identity of this one they love and have known. So when I first wrote my name, “Rev. Catharine Clarenbach,” it was a new name, a new place in me, a new way…the edges of a doorway through which I had been brought by my congregation and through which I had walked. It was, and remains, an initiation. Blessed be and Amen.
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