Category Archives: celebration

what?!

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On this day twenty five years ago, I met a person whose elbows and feet I had come to know well.

Daughter Rachel Mackenzie has never been without zest.

She was born with a fluff of white hair on her head and a frown of displeasure at the cold reality of her greatly-changed circumstances.

That sense of “what?!” has served her well.

Along with a magnetic-quality openness to life that has prompted her to drink deeply of being, Rachel’s “what?!” has seemed to alert her to possibility.

There are times of grumble, to be sure, but from this mother’s perspective, Rachel has decided to seek grace in the midst of most any adventure.  She is a woman possessed of great grit.

When we moved to Minneapolis before her Junior year in High School, she learned that making life means interacting with people; no matter how rocky and wretched circumstances are, people are antidote.

She built a life and friendships that sustain her yet.

Her “what?!” about the way the earth is consumed by greed has led her to advocacy for the living thing that is the earth.

And the “what?!” seems to have engendered in her a wicked sense of humor.  Long ago I gave up trying to be really angry with her.  She can wiggle me into laughter with the deft touch of an artist.

It’s a tricky thing, nattering on about the wonders of my kids.

It isn’t hard to do, given that daily I am moved by the gift of their being.

It’s tricky because words are mighty small things.

I don’t know how to thank God for the gift of Rachel Mackenzie.

It is honor to be her student.

 

seven years

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Seven years ago today I married Cooper Wiggen.

We stood by the shore of a lake, attended by three others, and promised to love one another in covenanted and holy ways.  We eloped, since life being what it was we were buying a house, Cooper was commencing with a new church community, and we wanted to begin our living-together life as those allowed to marry in this state.

A month later we had a church wedding where we again spoke words of commitment; this time in the presence of our children and communities.

It has been a heart stretching endeavor, this marriage.  We each brought three children into this new thing.  We each tend two goodly-sized churches.  We each carried the wounds of divorce.  We each are a jumble of past hurts and core longings.

And we are yet alive, together.

I encountered awhile back an interview with an ardent feminist who had been in a marriage for decades.  She was nuts about her husband.  The interviewer made mention of her surprise that one can be an ardent feminist and a profoundly grateful lover of her male mate.  How could that be, the interviewer asked.

The answer was this:  in all the years of their life together, the woman never could predict what her husband was going to say or what he was thinking.  This to her was passion elixir.

I get it.

Through all the rips and wonder of blending families and life, I have been married to a man who fascinates and draws me.  The tender human to whom I have pledged my troth is gift.

On this day, I am remembering the joy and sometimes trudge of making this life we now share.  Seven years of meals and tears and laughter and love.  Seven years of stretch and soar.

Seven years.

Gratitude sings.

 

the view from here

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It has been three plus days of being home bound.

My couch knows me well, as does my bed.

I was on retreat with 30 amazing women and we shared many things – pestilence being one of them.

It’s been amazing to hear of those from the retreat who have been felled and the varying diagnoses given.  As for me, I finally got myself to a doctor this afternoon when my teeth started to ache but good.  Bacterial sinus infection.  Drugs.  Work tomorrow if no fever.  I checked;  I won’t be contagious if there is no fever.

Here is what I have experienced:

I like my brain.  I like it best when it works.

My husband is a dear minster to my sad self.  He has been kind and helpful and patient and this is huge gift.  I think we will grow old together tenderly well.

Catching up on email is a good thing.  Words with Friends is no fun when most of the world works.  My dog likes my company.  Back to back episodes of “Sex in the City” is a great antidote to misery.

Books require my brain.  See above.

The world goes along just fine without me.  I have cancelled meetings with gracious people who are audibly relieved that I will keep my pestilence to myself.

From where I sit, grace is real.  Spring is rioting outside and tomorrow I may find my brain and be back at it.  But in the meantime, I think I’ll celebrate the view from here.

precious

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My uncle Peers is nearing death.

Peers was born with a double portion of zest.  His liquid brown eyes were searching always for the next big delight.  He reveled in people, laughter, martinis and love.

His lust for life was both blessing and bane, I suspect.

His younger brother John was born with Cerebral Palsy.  Peers was coach, goad and heart for John through their growing up and into adulthood.  As John grappled with mobility issues, Peers was by his side in ways tender and fierce.  My mother’s voice lowers to the tone used when speaking of holy things when she talks about the love John and Peers have lived all their lives.  It is wonder, this love.

Peers made his way in life guided by his heart and his passion for people.  His passions took him to places sometimes difficult for his kin.  His convictions were seemingly unshakeable and his belief that hard work and determination would win the day seemingly endless.

And his laugh;  his laugh danced in his eyes and travelled with him as he wove life.

He was a man acquainted with sorrow and the soul need of joy.

Peers has been about a gradual leaving.  He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a number of years ago.  His sons have been seeing to his care with the kind of beauty that stretches the heart.

A number of years ago Peers came home to say goodbye to his sister Carolyn.  He needed to make a plane hop between Denver and Duluth.  One of his sons called and asked if I could meet Peers in order to be sure he made it from one plane to the next.

Of course I could.

When Peers walked off the plane, his whole body lit up with welcome for me.  I was wrapped in his arms and heard ringing out from him the self-deprecating laughter that marked his being in the world.  We had time to drink coffee and swap stories and as he walked onto the plane to Duluth, I knew myself to be blessed.  I didn’t know that I would have a chance to spend time with him in such a way ever again.

Oh, life and love are precious things.

May the huge wander of your spirit find delight, my uncle.

Generativity

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My children do not have children.

I am not in that “grandparent” stage of life; the one where wonder is born while watching life pass from generation to generation.

No, I am living the wonder of watching my children make lives with their lives; their own very lives.

I am blessed with three children.  Two girls and a boy are alive in this world and somehow I got to be a part of their borning.  Their dad and I did our best to love and limit and bless them and then we loosed them.

And they are borning yet.

I just spent our Christmas with them.  Given the realities of divorced families, their dad and I alternate face time for Christmas holidays.  It is his year, so we decided to dine and dig into presents early.

The rituals are beyond price.  The thought put into finding heart gifts is so clear and the joy of knowing that treasures are shared is palpable.

Given that their mom is living vegan these days, I was graced with a Cadillac food processor to shred the heck out of any vegetable that would defy me.

And, from my youngest, an amazing heart gift.  He recorded a CD of original compositions.  The CD carries his voice and his thoughts and his evoking of real through guitar and piano and mandolin and there he is, my son, trusting his parents and the world enough to share his tender and fine heart.

The house is now quiet.  My children have gone to the places that hold them as they make life.

And this heart of mine gives thanks for holding and loosing and borning and the wonder that is love.

 

tree of life

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I have been drawn to trees of late.

Truly, it has ever been thus.  Some of my most powerful childhood memories include times spent held by trees.  Climbing trees was an elemental need for me then.  Sitting on a branch, surrounded by green and growing and supported by power and movement, I was home.

In my professional life, I have been powerfully engaged in green and growing.  It has been a season of funerals for long time members.  As I have sat with family and heard stories and hearts, I have felt grafted into the alive thing that is family.  Pastors are allowed to be, for a time, a part of the life cycle of families.  When we gather for funerals, the hope is that family members feel surrounded by the life beat that is a growing, powerful, and eternal tree of life.

Today in the mail I received a gift from one of the families.  I had come to know them well through officiating at the funerals of their grandparents who died weeks apart.  They are a beautiful lot, and the ways they named the knot holes of family life and the alive of gratitude moved me.

They sent me a tree.  It is on a silver pendant, crafted by one of them.  It has heft and power, this symbol, and I am moved by the convergences.  I am blessed to have been a part of their witness of the tree that is life.  I am blessed to wear that symbol as I continue to sink roots into the Holy and reach toward the sun in my own life and the family I am blessed to learn with.

Sometimes, the thing that is parish ministry near takes me to my knees in wonder.  We hold the space in community where we pray that others will find each other and the Holy and in that partnership move toward life transformed.

I am transformed.  I am transformed by the welcome, the lament, the laughter and the snarl that is life.

The tree will remind me:  Sanctuary is, alive is, life is.

 

circle of light

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I have just come from a circle of light.

Clergy women from around the metro gathered for worship and lunch.  We were asked to share our name and where it is we have seen the Holy during this season of Advent.

The answers were soul resonant.  The Holy is present in church and children and mothers and in the ways we are able to open our hearts to the light of love.

Following the time together, we braved the howling wind to walk to one of our sister’s condo.  She was having an estate sale.  She is moving to California in order to be fully present there in her retirement.

This woman is a titan.  She has blazed trails for women in such a way that we who gathered are her spiritual offspring.  She has provoked and challenged and witnessed and been a voice of one crying in the wilderness and being in her home in order to own a piece of her life was a pilgrimage of sorts.

I wandered through her condo feeling the bittersweet of gratitude and grief.  How is it she will leave Minneapolis as her home?  Who will we be without her goading presence?   How does it feel to her to have her life opened and marked and sold to those who come to buy?

But mostly, I felt wonder.  As I looked at the faces during the brunch and in her condo later, I was amazed to know myself as a sister in connection and the light of that woman-bond is banked treasure.

Jeanne Audrey, your witness resounds.  The rough places are rough yet, but in your company and with the many who share a passion for justice, we will live together yet into the vision of wholeness in the Christ.

This I believe.

 

bell tones

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Music during this season of Christmas makes every pore in my body gasp.

I spent decades as a soprano in church choirs, college choirs, and semi-professional chorales.  One of my favorite seasonal gigs was singing with the Rittenhouse Inn singers in Bayfield Wisconsin.  I’d motor over from Duluth and spent a night, singing multiple concerts in the dining rooms there.  I was a first soprano, one of the blessed (I would say) who get to take lofty flight through vocal chords.

Hearing the MPR offerings and experiencing the gift of singing in our church choir, I am home.  I have body memories of where I was when I was able to wrap my voice around various choral works.  I feel gratitude gratitude gratitude.

And, I feel some nostalgia.  I am no longer a first soprano, and maybe not much of a real soprano any more.  I don’t devote myself to singing as I once did.  I am a rusty and less confident member of the corps.  My life has taken me into other sorts of ways of using my voice.  What was is no more.

But for a time, I soared without fear.

Do I long sometimes for the opportunity to sing as I once did; often and in fabulous company?  Of course.

But the voice that used to join with others to create beauty sings yet in this body and life that has seen some changes.

And that is enough.

 

treasure

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And so begins another season of life here on Blaisdell.

Oldest daughter Leah and her wildly alive Pit Bull have moved out.  The room that housed her life treasures (and mine, for surely she is life treasure extraordinaire) is emptied.

It surprises me each time I go upstairs, this vacancy.

I am filled with wonder about this elastic and colossal thing called love.  It is a force in life that finds endless ways to hum between parents and children, partners and pets.

Children come, they go, they partner with others, they hurt, they triumph and always always there is space and hunger within me for their being.

I had lunch with my girls yesterday.  We walked arm in arm down the streets of St Paul and shared Thai food, laughter, and hearts.  Advice was sought and shared, notions played out and life swapped.  This morning I had breakfast with my 21-year-old son.  Always this child has been tender of heart and voracious in his hunger for life and living and while being a sometimes terrified bystander to his questing is rough going, my faith in his amazing beauty is boundless.

I have loved every phase of their being, these people who shared my body for a time.  I sometimes long for the days of sleeper jammies and newly washed heads under my chin for reading marathons.  I long on occasion for the days when I could tuck them in at night and rouse them in the morning.  Their presence in my every day was ground of my being.

And, it still is.  They are flown, my babies.  Flown to the lives they are creating through their willingness to engage and stretch and live.

They are treasure unbound.

back to school

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Maybe it’s the years of being a student.  Or the years of being a teacher.  Or the years of being a parent.  Or the years of being a pastor.  Whatever it is that conspires to open my pores to new adventures, it is most powerfully present in the fall of the year.

I love this time of year.

At the cabin, the sunlight is a molten gold.  The compunction to gorge on all that is summer loosens, and the time seems precious and sweet, worthy of a still savor.  In the city, it is fun to pass children on their way to school, hands tucked into their parent’s and hearts open to all that awaits in the year to come.  Living as I do with a football maniac, I am regaled by stories of training and games, and our television brings into our home the celebration that is football.

And there is church.  The scurry is on to find Sunday School teachers and the choir commences practicing and as for me and my house, we feature the accordian on Rally Sunday and what could be more festive than that?  It is good for the heart to anticipate reconnecting with kin in Christ.

Today I had my own “back to school” treat.  I gather with a group of amazing colleagues throughout the year.  We gather to share stories and joys and aches and to share in the pleasure of each other’s giftedness.  We have been together, some of us, for some seven years, so the stories of our churches, seminaries, children and lives are known and honored.  Today, after a summer hiatus, we came together. Just laying eyes on such fine folk was juice for my soul.

Somehow, this time of year makes me mindful of the learning I long to do in this classroom called my life.  In each person I encounter, in each moment given, the opportunity to learn about myself, life, and the Holy is offered.

I’m praying I have the sense to take life up on the learning that is offered.  Back to school it is, day by day by day.