light shine

People are so good.

Getting into my car yesterday after a major snow dump, I knew I was in trouble. We live in the city and the city had not plowed the alley behind our house. By the looks of it one or two cars had made it through, but the snow was deep and my Honda poorly equipped.

But of course I tried.

And got stuck.

Wedged into my neighbor’s snow bank, I couldn’t get my car door open so after clambering over seats I freed myself and went in search of a shovel.

I heard a lovely and hopeful sound. A neighbor was out shoveling and chose to see my plight. He came over and while we shared wonder at the volume of snow that had come our way, we dug and threw and freed my car for a time. I almost made it through the alley before it got stuck again and this time the original fine friend was joined by another who made it possible for me to get out.

They set aside their own time and agendas, did these men.

I watched the same sort of light shine throughout the day. A different neighbor worked at the end of the alley clearing away the snow. Pushers and shovelers and commiserators and wonderers all, we were.

We had come through another storm. The world was bright and beautiful and we had kindness to spare.

People are so good.

cellular

It feels like cellular shift.

We are moving.

I have been appointed to serve as Lead Pastor at Christ Church in Rochester, MN. This will happen in mid June of this year.

We are moving.

This means many things. It means imagining the jostle of moving away from the city in which five of six of our children and Cooper’s mother live. It means being an hour and 1/2 farther away from our cabin and my mother.

And it means leaving churches with whom we have made life for eleven and nine years.

It is cellular, this shift.

We who are United Methodist agree when we are ordained that we will be itinerant. What that means is that “the world is our parish” as John Wesley saw it and we agree that we will be deployed in ministry by the Bishop and the Cabinet.

It means a phone call comes and we trust that God is in the midst of cellular change.

There is grief in it and a sense of such immense gratitude for the lives I have been blessed to encounter through these eleven years. I’ll have time to sort all of that out in the months to come. Tears flow readily.

And, there are adventures and learning ahead.

I was blessed to serve in Duluth. I am blessed to serve at Richfield. I will be blessed to serve at Christ Church in Rochester.

Blessing. It is cellular.

We are moving.