Season of Change

           Last week I wrote a letter for our church newsletter that focused on the nature of change.  I want to include part of what I wrote here, but take it a step further.  

          Every change involves grief.  Even good changes mean there is loss: something that was is now no longer and we have moved into something that is different from what was before.  While some of these changes are easier to get through than others, they all invite us into a process where we can either grow or stagnate, learn and develop or become angry and bitter.  When we try to skirt around the feelings of grief that change brings, usually it ends up hurting us in the end: we are not as able to truly move forward, to grow through the healing process, or to do the inner work required to become the whole people God calls us to be.  

          As I write this, I am preparing to go on Sabbatical.  This is a joyous time: both for me and for my congregation.  For me, I will have intentional and extended time off.  I don’t believe I’ve ever had a vacation or even a day off that was completely free from work in my years serving as a pastor.  There have always been phone calls, texts, emails that need my attention and I’ve been happy to give it.  I love my work and that call has shown me that my work has been valued and appreciated.  At the same time, I am tired and taking a true step away for a few months will be different for me. I will be turning off my computer for these months, stepping away from phone calls and texts.  For much of the time I will be out of the country and unable to receive contact of any kind, but even while I am in the country, a sabbatical requires a stepping away, a silencing of these modes of contact. That will be new for me, but in 28 years of ministry, I’m hoping it will be a time of spiritual renewal.  Jesus modelled stepping away to pray and to regroup and I am trying to learn from his example as I take this time apart.

For my congregation, they will have the experience of a wonderful woman coming to fill in for me who is a colleague, friend and mentor whom I'm hoping will be able to lead them in a different way for a few months.  She will bring different visions, different insight and will be able to lead and walk with the congregation in new ways.  These are all good things.  I will return in August and that will also be a good thing: I hope to come back with renewed energy and vision and I look forward to hearing what my congregation has learned during my time away. 

               But I also need to name, as I began, that every change involves grief.  Grief can include feelings of sadness, depression, anxiety.  While my hope is that these feelings will be minimal for my congregants, I can honestly say that they are rising steadily for me.  I worry about life transitions that I may not be here to support or to walk through. I wonder what my parishioners feel and how they will move through this time. Personally, I worry how it will be for me to not be defined by my ministry.  I have anxiety about the transition back when I return in August.  

            Our session (executive council) for our congregation met yesterday.  We are reading together a book about family and church systems and the chapter we read for yesterday discussed how the anxiety of grief can cause people to "act out."  I feel called to name that despite my understanding this to be true, it is still the case that I find my anxiety causing me to behave differently than I would choose. Today I was snippy and unusually direct with a congregant about something that had hurt someone I love.  Normally I would step back, take a breath before reacting, and be able to be more pastoral in my response.  But today I acted from that reactive anxious place.  I apologized, and fortunately was able to see it for what it was: a reaction based in anxiety and the grief of change.  Even more fortunately for me, he was also able to see that as well and so did not take it personally.  Still, my own behavior was a call to pay attention, and to breathe more deeply through the next couple weeks as I prepare to go.  

            As with all transitions, this is an invitational time for me to pay attention.  As with all feelings, the anxiety calls us to listen and to be honest in our feelings.  But once again, God did not leave me alone in my anxiety.  In the middle of today's drama, I received a phone call from someone I haven't spoken to in nine years.  It was a delightful and unexpected "catch up" conversation with a parishioner from my last congregation. I left the call with several gifts.  

         First, it was a reminder to me that even if I were not returning (and I am returning!!), there would be people who had valued my time here.  I do not need to be anxious that my presence has been unvalued or unimportant.  Even parishioners who experienced me for a much shorter time and during an unusually dramatic and difficult time value what I had to give.  

       Second, it was a reminder that even when we are apart from one another, we remain connected.  Our hearts, our experiences together, our walks together matter.  They continue to be part of who we are even when we are separate.   

      Finally, and always, it was a reminder that God never leaves us alone. At the moment when I most needed reassurance and comfort, I was given the gift of this re-connection.  The ways in which God binds us to one another and is the glue, the love, the communion in community is so important and essential.  And for all of that I am deeply grateful.

     During this season of change I am striving to walk with my eyes open.  I will make mistakes.  But none of us are alone, and with love and intentionality we will walk through the struggles to emerge in a better place on the other side.  Thanks be to God.

Thieves and Scammers

  For Christmas this year, we received a number of gift cards.  Almost all had been purchased at Safeways around the country, and all of them had been tampered with.  All had already been used, all had been “scammed” in that someone had gone into the store, scanned the numbers on the cards, put them back into the envelopes so that once they were “activated” they were picked up immediately and put into someone else’s account.  The amount of money lost in this way to us personally ended up being around $500.  That was just in our own family.  I wonder how many other people lost money in this way, and I wonder how much money others were able to obtain by “stealing” these gift cards in this way.

Then, after Christmas, we ordered some supplies from Walmart using a bonus card David had received from his work.  (We don’t usually buy from Walmart, but again, this was a card we were given). This card was delivered digitally and so it “worked” for us in that we were able to order the supplies using the card to pay for them.  However, we received a notification that they had been delivered to our house at a specific time, and they never were. The total spent was about $100.  Fortunately, we now have REO cameras installed and we could see that no one had stolen anything from our porch: these items were simply not delivered, despite the company saying they were.  My guess is that these were stolen by the delivery person, though it is possible that they were delivered to the wrong address.  Either way, when we have packages wrongly delivered to us, we take them to the right address.  The fact that this never happened makes it clear that someone took something that was not theirs at some point in the process of delivery.  On another note, we tried to follow through with Walmart as well as the gift card companies.  David spent probably 10 hours on this, but Walmart made it impossible to contact them or to file a complaint. We still tried, not that this will make any difference.  Walmart is a billion-dollar company who does not care about the little amount we lost and will suffer no consequences for failing to make it right. (This is just one of the many reasons we don’t normally shop there!)   

I have several thoughts about all of this.  The first is that scammers and thieves seem to be more numerous than ever, at least in the United States, at this point in time.  Why?  Perhaps it is the general depression, anxiety and despair that so many are feeling that leads them to stop caring about morality or doing what’s right.  Perhaps it is the rising hatred and anger that is also leading to these choices.  Perhaps it is the huge increase in poverty that we are experiencing, the swallowing up of the middle class as the rich become richer and more greedy. Maybe it is that it is so easy to steal in these ways, and there is little consequence to doing so.  It is difficult to find those who have stolen packages, and the police generally won’t waste their time on small thefts or small vandalisms, even as they add up.  We know this because our church has had a number of thefts as well as vandalism lately and the police have admitted that they will not act until the amount stolen or the damage done in each instance is over $1000.   Whatever the cause, if you plan to give gifts this year, I’d encourage you to think through how you choose to do that, considering ways your gifts might be scammed and perhaps choosing the old-fashioned route of purchasing the gift itself and delivering it directly to the recipients.

My second thought was to remind myself that while we “lost” a total of about $600, that all of it was from gifts, things we did not earn, things we did not save for, money that was not expected or needed.  We have enough.  We have always had enough.  My own theology says that nothing we own is ours, anyway.  All of it is lent to us by God to use for the good of all people.  And while it is not ideal that it is scammers who took the money and the items we ordered, perhaps they are people who needed those resources.  I don’t know, and I never will.  The point is that this is something I need to let go of.  The things we received that didn’t work and the things we didn’t receive were gifts.  And it is the energy and care that went into the choosing of gifts and the giving of gifts that matters, not the receiving of more things that we don’t need anyway.

My final thought is that I feel like our lack of connection to others is also a huge part of the issue.  We have forgotten that we belong to one another, that we are deeply connected, that we are all children of God and as such siblings to one another, and that what effects one of us, at some deep level effects all of us.  The more that we can practice our connectionality and the more we can be kind to one another, even those who are very different from us, even those who we don’t necessarily agree with or like, the more we can change the world for the better.  Also, it is harder to scam people when you have come to care about them. I am reminded that it is my job to get to know those people I don’t usually interact with, including delivery people and the shady people I might see in the grocery store.  It is my job to get to know the unhoused persons who are damaging our church, to talk to them and find out their stories.  It is my job to tear down the walls that protect me from others and to reach across them to make connections instead.  This is our job as human beings.  It might not make a difference today, it might not change the number of scammers who are out there tomorrow.  But I have to believe that each effort for good that we choose matters in the world, and that all our efforts for good can add up, just as all the efforts that do damage have been adding up as of late.  It has to start with me.  It has to start with you.  And it has to start today.