Worship: Inbetween Times: Who We Are For Each Other
On May 31 I had the privilege of sharing the pulpit at our Unitarian Society with SpecK and the War Ship to deliver a service on the topic of Inbetween Times: Who We Are For Each Other. I encourage you to check out SpecK's homily and the readings from the service.
I contributed these Reflections:
These reflections began as a personal thank you note to our Ministerial Search Committee. Not for the obvious thing—the application of their gifts of intellect and empathy to the task of selecting our next settled minister. Not for the domestic tasks that went neglected in their several households as they sat in endless meetings; nor the days they went to their jobs tired from working late into the night; nor the recreation they missed with their spouses and children. Not even a thank you for the incredible result of their work: a minister whose selection brings excitement and hope to an overwhelming number of our congregation, from our children to our elders.
No, I found myself driving to meet Karen Johnston to discuss this service one morning and composing, in my head, a thank you note to the committee for allowing me the honor of cooking for them. As you may know, each of the three final candidates came to Northampton for a clandestine weekend of interviews. Clandestine because—as a personnel process—the anonymity of the candidates had to be preserved. During the Saturday night of each weekend a member of the Search Committee hosted a dinner for the candidate and the entire committee. Last summer, Cathy Lilly and Janet Spongberg asked me to head up the “hospitality” team to prepare these meals, in order to take a single, discrete task from the heavily burdened committee.
I had some awesome helpers from the congregation, but in the end, I did an enormous amount of cooking: the equivalent of preparing two or three holiday feasts in a short number of weeks. In truth, if they had been holiday feasts, and I had been feeding my extended family, I might have felt stressed out by the task. Cooking for these sacred, secret dinners felt different. It felt exciting and fun, and a little sneaky. But most of all, it felt like a privilege, like a gift.
Wherein lay the difference? How and why did this task feel so special to me, like an opportunity rather than an obligation?
The answer is complicated. I have been a long time lonely in this Great Hall; a long time inspired and moved by the elements of our collective worship yet longing for the deep and comfortable personal connections I see among other members. There were times when I wondered if I would ever have a friendly dailiness with any but a tiny few members; when I wondered if I would ever be known well by others in the pews.
Cooking these few dinners brought me into intimacy with people I didn’t know very well. I talked to them on the telephone; I entered their homes. As I pondered menus and recipes, I found myself wondering which meals would be most nurturing, most sustaining, as they shouldered their task. I found myself opening my heart to the job of caring for these folks, whether or not I knew them well. And then a funny thing happened—something that often does when you open your heart: I became known to them. My loving action caused me to feel seen and loved. The gift of service became a gift received rather than one given.
To cite just one example of how this roll-your-sleeves up, practical task of making casseroles transformed my experience, I think of a committee member I knew only from a very formal distance: her beautiful voice gracing our choir, her thoughtful and reasoned comments at our annual meetings. Now I know that she delights in homemade soup; is charmed by my precocious daughter; and—I know this because Alice charmed her into a self-guided house tour when we were delivering one of those dinners—I know that someone in her household collects DVDs of my all time favorite television show. (OK, I’ll tell you: it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
This experience softened me. It reminded me that I have cares in common with people throughout this congregation, whether or not I know it. It opened my heart and my eyes to the quiet ways we minister to one another all the time, the ways that we extend ourselves to one another to create a loving community.
Over coffee that morning, Karen and I talked about the many small ways we experience our common ministry. We thought of the ways parents and non-parents both take responsibility to teach in the Religious Education program, and also of other ways that adults commit to our youth. Like remembering their names. This makes it possible to greet a young person in passing—or to share the joke when they trade name tags with their friends and siblings before the community greeting. We thought of OWL teachers who offer to be a safe place for young people, not just on those eight Sundays when they teach, but for always, whenever they are needed. And of a grownup who offered a dignified, heart-felt apology—handwritten and delivered during the service—when a well intentioned Great Hall greeting inexplicably hurt a small child’s feelings.
We thought of the generosity of Gail and John Gaustad, who agreed to babysit so I could attend a Worship Committee meeting. It wasn’t simply the logistical support often necessary for the parent of a young child to be able to be of service, when being of service means attending a meeting late into a weekday evening. It was also the abundant relief that my partner Liz and I felt knowing we could aim Alice’s persistent cosmic inquiries—“How big is the Universe? What’s outside the end of the Universe? Where did the Universe come from?”—at John—a real live astronomer!—at least for one night. The answers we’d been giving all began, “Science says…” and “Some people believe….” We heard a different gravitas in John’s academic voice when he started to address the topic as we slipped out the back door. We hoped it would give Alice a lesson in action of how our Society holds many different types of wisdom and belief to speak to someone so certain, so informed, so knowledgeable. Or maybe it would just give us a night off.
When I was lonely, having trouble finding my place here, I did not know the moments of ministry were not just the warm embraces I saw between old friends. They are also present in the quiet of the pews, as when two seated near each other are inspired by the same sermon to start some private scribbling. One writes in the margins of a Thomas Hobbes paperback, the other in a precious poetry notebook. Though one identifies as an “anti-supernaturalist who cannot get past all the if’s” and the other “a spiritualist who suspends disbelief in order to engage the power of as many of those ‘ifs’ as she can handle,” in this place they can share a common delight, a sacred moment.
I did not know that I was already being ministered to in those days when the older woman who sat alone in the pew in front of us began greeting me and Liz on Sunday mornings – began noticing if we were absent a week – and, when I became visibly pregnant, began chiding Liz to make me a hot cooked breakfast before service. She recommended scrambled eggs. Over time we learned that her name was Ruth, but it was not until the very end of her life that we found out that she was the mother of a dear friend we knew outside of this place – and we learned that almost by accident. Ruth did not reach out to us in the pews because we were known to her; she reached out because we were connected by the moments we shared in this sacred space.
I think of a similar moment a few years ago, when I was really wavering in my faith that this was the right congregational home for me. I knew I was being ministered to one morning when a lay-led sermon spoke directly to my heart and resonated with the spiritual practices that I choose. But it was the moment of ministry that followed that sermon, as I sat weeping in a rear pew, wondering how I would know to stay or to go from this place, that held me here. Someone I knew really only because we had disagreed at recent meetings came to me and said—in what exact words, I can’t ever remember—I care for you. I see that you are hurting. I hope that things get better. That was when I knew that I was home.
It is my hope for myself, and for all of us that these moments become even more abundant in the coming year. I hope that there are two people in the hall today who will find a new connection—whether through practical assistance, kindness, a brief shared moment, or some common laughter. I hope that you come to a summer services and hear a lay preacher speak to your most cherished beliefs. And I hope you come to another service where your most cherished beliefs are challenged, or expanded, or enriched by contrasting experience. I hope that we remember as we start to walk with our new minister that she is joining us on the path, that we are already walking together.
I contributed these Reflections:
These reflections began as a personal thank you note to our Ministerial Search Committee. Not for the obvious thing—the application of their gifts of intellect and empathy to the task of selecting our next settled minister. Not for the domestic tasks that went neglected in their several households as they sat in endless meetings; nor the days they went to their jobs tired from working late into the night; nor the recreation they missed with their spouses and children. Not even a thank you for the incredible result of their work: a minister whose selection brings excitement and hope to an overwhelming number of our congregation, from our children to our elders.
No, I found myself driving to meet Karen Johnston to discuss this service one morning and composing, in my head, a thank you note to the committee for allowing me the honor of cooking for them. As you may know, each of the three final candidates came to Northampton for a clandestine weekend of interviews. Clandestine because—as a personnel process—the anonymity of the candidates had to be preserved. During the Saturday night of each weekend a member of the Search Committee hosted a dinner for the candidate and the entire committee. Last summer, Cathy Lilly and Janet Spongberg asked me to head up the “hospitality” team to prepare these meals, in order to take a single, discrete task from the heavily burdened committee.
I had some awesome helpers from the congregation, but in the end, I did an enormous amount of cooking: the equivalent of preparing two or three holiday feasts in a short number of weeks. In truth, if they had been holiday feasts, and I had been feeding my extended family, I might have felt stressed out by the task. Cooking for these sacred, secret dinners felt different. It felt exciting and fun, and a little sneaky. But most of all, it felt like a privilege, like a gift.
Wherein lay the difference? How and why did this task feel so special to me, like an opportunity rather than an obligation?
The answer is complicated. I have been a long time lonely in this Great Hall; a long time inspired and moved by the elements of our collective worship yet longing for the deep and comfortable personal connections I see among other members. There were times when I wondered if I would ever have a friendly dailiness with any but a tiny few members; when I wondered if I would ever be known well by others in the pews.
Cooking these few dinners brought me into intimacy with people I didn’t know very well. I talked to them on the telephone; I entered their homes. As I pondered menus and recipes, I found myself wondering which meals would be most nurturing, most sustaining, as they shouldered their task. I found myself opening my heart to the job of caring for these folks, whether or not I knew them well. And then a funny thing happened—something that often does when you open your heart: I became known to them. My loving action caused me to feel seen and loved. The gift of service became a gift received rather than one given.
To cite just one example of how this roll-your-sleeves up, practical task of making casseroles transformed my experience, I think of a committee member I knew only from a very formal distance: her beautiful voice gracing our choir, her thoughtful and reasoned comments at our annual meetings. Now I know that she delights in homemade soup; is charmed by my precocious daughter; and—I know this because Alice charmed her into a self-guided house tour when we were delivering one of those dinners—I know that someone in her household collects DVDs of my all time favorite television show. (OK, I’ll tell you: it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer.)
This experience softened me. It reminded me that I have cares in common with people throughout this congregation, whether or not I know it. It opened my heart and my eyes to the quiet ways we minister to one another all the time, the ways that we extend ourselves to one another to create a loving community.
Over coffee that morning, Karen and I talked about the many small ways we experience our common ministry. We thought of the ways parents and non-parents both take responsibility to teach in the Religious Education program, and also of other ways that adults commit to our youth. Like remembering their names. This makes it possible to greet a young person in passing—or to share the joke when they trade name tags with their friends and siblings before the community greeting. We thought of OWL teachers who offer to be a safe place for young people, not just on those eight Sundays when they teach, but for always, whenever they are needed. And of a grownup who offered a dignified, heart-felt apology—handwritten and delivered during the service—when a well intentioned Great Hall greeting inexplicably hurt a small child’s feelings.
We thought of the generosity of Gail and John Gaustad, who agreed to babysit so I could attend a Worship Committee meeting. It wasn’t simply the logistical support often necessary for the parent of a young child to be able to be of service, when being of service means attending a meeting late into a weekday evening. It was also the abundant relief that my partner Liz and I felt knowing we could aim Alice’s persistent cosmic inquiries—“How big is the Universe? What’s outside the end of the Universe? Where did the Universe come from?”—at John—a real live astronomer!—at least for one night. The answers we’d been giving all began, “Science says…” and “Some people believe….” We heard a different gravitas in John’s academic voice when he started to address the topic as we slipped out the back door. We hoped it would give Alice a lesson in action of how our Society holds many different types of wisdom and belief to speak to someone so certain, so informed, so knowledgeable. Or maybe it would just give us a night off.
When I was lonely, having trouble finding my place here, I did not know the moments of ministry were not just the warm embraces I saw between old friends. They are also present in the quiet of the pews, as when two seated near each other are inspired by the same sermon to start some private scribbling. One writes in the margins of a Thomas Hobbes paperback, the other in a precious poetry notebook. Though one identifies as an “anti-supernaturalist who cannot get past all the if’s” and the other “a spiritualist who suspends disbelief in order to engage the power of as many of those ‘ifs’ as she can handle,” in this place they can share a common delight, a sacred moment.
I did not know that I was already being ministered to in those days when the older woman who sat alone in the pew in front of us began greeting me and Liz on Sunday mornings – began noticing if we were absent a week – and, when I became visibly pregnant, began chiding Liz to make me a hot cooked breakfast before service. She recommended scrambled eggs. Over time we learned that her name was Ruth, but it was not until the very end of her life that we found out that she was the mother of a dear friend we knew outside of this place – and we learned that almost by accident. Ruth did not reach out to us in the pews because we were known to her; she reached out because we were connected by the moments we shared in this sacred space.
I think of a similar moment a few years ago, when I was really wavering in my faith that this was the right congregational home for me. I knew I was being ministered to one morning when a lay-led sermon spoke directly to my heart and resonated with the spiritual practices that I choose. But it was the moment of ministry that followed that sermon, as I sat weeping in a rear pew, wondering how I would know to stay or to go from this place, that held me here. Someone I knew really only because we had disagreed at recent meetings came to me and said—in what exact words, I can’t ever remember—I care for you. I see that you are hurting. I hope that things get better. That was when I knew that I was home.
It is my hope for myself, and for all of us that these moments become even more abundant in the coming year. I hope that there are two people in the hall today who will find a new connection—whether through practical assistance, kindness, a brief shared moment, or some common laughter. I hope that you come to a summer services and hear a lay preacher speak to your most cherished beliefs. And I hope you come to another service where your most cherished beliefs are challenged, or expanded, or enriched by contrasting experience. I hope that we remember as we start to walk with our new minister that she is joining us on the path, that we are already walking together.
posted by Lynne Marie Wanamaker at
3:53 PM
1 Comments:
This is such a lovely, intimate post. I can't tell you exactly what spoke to me, but I think in part it was the way you captured how we can be called out of our own loneliness and isolation by serving a greater good, and you captured it in such a nicely concrete, sensory-rich way. You sound like you have a very rich community there!
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