This morning was not beginning terrific.  The weather was wonderful, but my attitude was  cloudy.  When I pulled into the parking space at work, I saw a Red Tailed Hawk land on a tree.  I wondered - Why is he so low?  What does he see?  How close can I get before he flies?  

I started to walk across the grass toward the street.  I wasn't trying to hide, but I was walking slowly. The little birds were complaining and sending up their warnings.  He noticed me and turned his head so he could get a good look at me.  His profile gave me a good look at his beak and head feathers.  I stopped walking.  Only six feet separated us.  Neither of us were in any danger.  Even if he was unsure of my innocent motives,the hawk knew he was faster than I am.  I knew I was not on his prey list. So we looked at each other.

I marveled at the care of his  creation -- a powerful bird created to keep the environment clean. He was about 12 to 14 inches tall. He thins the over population of rodents and small birds.  The neighborhood birds were now in full protest.  I must have been holding my breath because I was aware of my slow sigh watching him on the branch.  

Then he had enough of me and my stares.  He swooped away flapping his wings to gain height so he could find a mouse or squirrel for mid morning snack. And I returned to everyday life.  My cross attitude had improved because I took those moments to let Awe of God's creation flow back into my life.

One Thing at a Time

Have you ever had a book you avoided reading? There has been a lovely devotion book on my shelf for some years that I never read. I have no idea if someone gave it to me or if I picked it up at a book sale. The cover is inviting and the title is simple and concise. “One Thousand Gifts” by Ann Voskamp.

I opened it up and thought I would find a typical devotion book about the sea,the trees and the wind. The opening chapter is not like that at all. It is about the death of Ann's younger sister and how the event changed and damaged the entire family – forever.

Then she begins to speak about how we recover from tragedy. Actually, it is Ann's story about her journey. I recommend the book. This book coupled with other events has made me more aware of mindfulness.

Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to this moment. Being present in your own life. Philosophers and theologians more skilled than me have repeatedly called us to the practice. The changing seasons provide each of us with the opportunity to begin a new practice in our lives.

Walking in your neighborhood, Running down the trail, sipping a cup of coffee – look at each activity as a moment in itself. Don't just gulp the coffee and run out the door. Taste the coffee and savor it's aroma. Notice the sound of your shoe hitting the ground and your breath moving in and out of your body.

In decisions and work, spend time on the work itself. Studies have shown we are happier when we are focused on what we are doing. Whatever that is. Work or play. When we are always trying to be somewhere else our happiness decreases. (Matthew Killingsworth, Harvard University. Track your Happiness project).

It is also the process of considering what your action is and will be in relation to the end result. That means we are called to consciously decide our path. With each option in our lives are we choosing peace or violence. The world would benefit as a whole from this process. I can't change the world. I can only offer my journey with Voskamp's insights.

It means being aware of what brings you joy. The gurgle of a grandchild. The sky streamed with light. We all can be nourished by absorbing those moments --  completely. Be in the moment. Find your joy. Voskamp takes the spiritual challenge to write down 1,000 things she loves. It improves her awareness of each moment. I can testify it is difficult in the beginning.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I have done a lot of funerals.  A lot of funerals.  I keep a book where I write every Baptism, Wedding and Funeral.  The names and dates of the people are there.  There are many more funerals than there are Weddings and Baptisms.  That fact has never bothered me.  I like funerals, but some of them are weighing on me.

I entered ministry and Chaplain work at the end of the AIDS epidemic.  We were seeing people die every day in 1991.  There were babies who died of AIDS.  There were young men and women were dying.  There were mature and older men and women dying.  At the time I thought it would never stop.  And then it became a thing of the past.  People die of AIDS these days, but there are not more people dying of AIDS than other diseases.

I believe I now I stand at the beginning of another epidemic.  The Alzheimer epidemic.  All the questions and all the answers are difficult. All the decisions the families have to make are hard.  They have to work through these decisions with very little guidance.  It is not sweet like a movie.

Death is always sad and touching.  We stand with the family as they mourn.  Our American tradition entails us remembering the person in stories and pictures.  We look at our loved ones and each other on sunny days at the lake or blowing out the candles at a birthday party.   When I am preparing the funeral sermon, I ask families questions .  "What was the funniest thing your Mother ever did?"  "How did you and your husband meet?"  "What did your Dad love to do more than any thing else?"  Those are living questions.

The questions are about who the person was and how they lived their lives. "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19 (NRSV).  The way we spend our time and our lives tells us what we value.

I have begun to notice something in Alzheimer families.  The families lost the patient a long time ago.  The sons and daughters have trouble remembering their mother before this muddled person moved into her body.  The wife or husband struggle to find that thread of who he or she was before they fell silent.

The weeks, months, perhaps even years, have been difficult.  The person can get on a track and you cannot distract them from the phrase or the idea.  In that moment, you wish they would forget what they are fixated on. And we -- the wives, husbands, sons and daughters-- begin to forget their smiles and laughter.

I have come to understand an even more tragic aspect of this disease.  The person forgets themselves. They loose who they are and were.  You and I can remember being 6, 13 or 31.  In the end even that is gone. 

Who are you?  Who am I?  Can you think of forgetting who you are?   It is so difficult to understand.  I might forget myself.

Peace
Ann

Has Paris changed in 30 years?  Sure.  Sometimes for the better.

I lived in France, Belgium and the Netherlands in the 70s.  I was in each country long enough to know how to get around the area and to be able to follow directions.  Last month I got to go back to Paris for the first time in 30 years.  A lot of things have changed and many have stayed the same.

The first thing I notice in Paris was that it smelled better.  I always remember the smell of Paris.  The Metro smelled of old sweat, urine and mold. The diesel smell from the buses and delivery trucks was so strong in the 70s you could choke from the fumes.  Then just when you thought you would not survive around the corner came the aroma of fresh bread.  Ahhh, the afternoon baking was finished and fresh Baggett and Croissant were ready. Many an afternoon I would grab a Croissant on my way home on the train.

Now buses are electric or hybrid.  They hold more people and run quieter.  The camions seem smaller and can fit in even smaller spaces than ever before.  In my opinion the Metro was cleaner.  My husband and son-in-law thought there was a great deal of litter.  However, I do not remember ever seeing a cleaning crew sweeping the streets 30 years ago.  Now every morning as we left the apartment, there were men in blue coats unloading equipment from the small truck.

There are now in Paris public toilets on the street.  They have an automatic cleaning feature and will serve an emergency very well. They have replaced the old toilets that were for men only.  Those old features were a corrugated circle that covered the essential parts of the gentleman.  The drainage always seemed insufficient and certainly added to the smell.

Parisians are still in a great hurry.  They want to get everywhere right now.  The afternoon Metro was very crowded.  Sometimes I thought there might be a pusher to get a few more people on board. What surprised me was not the young men jumping the toll gate.  I had always seen that.  Now there are inspectors in the train stations.  One evening we were checked twice in one trip on the Metro.  It seems they are after us tourists who come to Paris and don't pay any attention to where our tickets are after we verify them. The lessen was to keep up with your tickets.  I handed one inspector 3 canceled tickets in my pocket and he deciphered which one he needed.

Now buses are electric or hybrid.  They hold more people and run quieter.  The camions seem smaller and can fit in even smaller spaces than ever before.

The Church can't fight back.

This entry is different than others.  It is a newsletter article I wrote recently.  It is religious in nature.

In recent months, weeks, even years, I have been involved in several discussions about the future of the Church. Some of these discussions have been focused on the faults of specific churches. Other discussions have been about the universal church. Discussion always swirls around what the church has done wrong, what the church should have done, why people are mad at the church – and other things. I'm sure you have heard similar things and been involved in similar conversations.

During one of these discussions, I heard a wise ruling elder say. “It is easy to get mad at the church. The church can't fight back.” I've been thinking about this a lot. Initially I saw the truth of this statement as it applied to local congregations I had served and knew. I reflected on people who had left the church. They left because something did not go as they wanted it to in the church. I remember when I was a little girl there was a man in our church, he was always at church on Sunday, but around town it was known -- he was not an honest businessman. People said – I don't want to go to church with hypocrites and the church is full of hypocrites. That is so true – the church is full of hypocrites. “since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) We all have problems. We all have secrets. We all are human. But to be mad at the Church is absurd. The Church can't fight back.

There are people who leave the worshiping congregation because something was done they didn't like. What would happen if we left our families and our jobs because we didn't get our way? We would all be wandering around on the streets. Things happen all the time that are not 'what we like'. The call to discipleship is not to be waited on. Jesus says “Whoever wants to be first must be last” (Mark 9:35) When we are disciples of Jesus we are to put our desires and our pride aside and be servants. Still they leave and withhold their support. The Church can't fight back.

I now can see the wisdom of this statement universally. Whatever priests of the Roman Catholic church did and however badly the bishops handled it, the Church can't fight back. Whatever the United Presbyterian Church (doesn't exist any more) did in 1969 is over. The Church can't fight back.

These attitudes drive away possible disciples. I hear people say all the time that the church seems to be a mean place and not a loving place. People avoid us because we seem to be mean to each other and to our leadership. I had a colleague in Kansas City who received death threats because of her ministry. She couldn't fight back either. The pastor can't fight back.

If we are to see the Christian Church in general and the Presbyterian Church in particular survive, we need to get over this attitude. We must understand ourselves as servants – not as people to be waited on. The fellowship and discipleship of Jesus Christ is not about us and what we want. It is about what Jesus calls us to do at this time and place.

“Wherever you go, God is sending you.

Wherever you are, God has put you there.
He has a purpose in your being there.
Christ who dwells in you has something He
wants to do through you where you are.
Believe this and go in His Grace and Love and Power.” Richard Halverson

Walking slowly

I thought this space was going to be about the things we can learn if we pay attention.  Then I've reflected on some of the losses in my life.  My lips or sleep - Oh the things I could write about my feet. 

I remember when I would watch old people walk slowly and think:  "Wow I never want to walk that slowly."  I almost always walk fast.  That is partly because my father was a tall man and he had a huge stride.  All of us were trotting behind him to keep up.  Then I married(and divorced) a tall man.  You had to walk fast or he would just leave you in the dust - or the Paris Metro.  So I have always walked fast.

It was a total surprise when my father quit walking fast.  I turned around one day and found he was far behind me.  Suddenly, he was walking slowly.  'When did this happen?' I wondered.  I was always in a hurry.  There was always somewhere else to go or something to get finished.  Those years of caring for my father and my children are a blur.  It seemed I was always behind and in a hurry. Someone wanted me to be in the other place --  School meetings for the kids; doctor's appointments for my father; a house to clean and a job to work.   I never took the time to listen. Now he has been gone some 12 years and I would gladly take one more slow stroll with him. 

Life has a way of teaching lessons .  Foot pain is my penalty  --  Plantar fasciae pain is my companion. There are things I do to help it and they are helpful and some are very effective, but my foot still hurts most nights. 

I walk more slowly and listen more often these days.

As long as I'm grieving the losses of my life, I miss sleeping.  Ageing seems to be robbing me of sleep.  I know - first lips and now sleep.  I distinctly remember the times when I could lay down and sleep for hours.  I remember once in college, after a final, lying down for a nap.  I slept hard.  I heard something and lifted my eyelids.  There was a friend sitting in the chair at the end of my bed reading a book.  She waved.  I'm sure she thought I would rouse myself out of my sleep.  I didn't.  It seemed like I couldn't.  I went back to sleep.  It took me three tries to get myself awake. 

It is unclear to me when the scene changed.  I remember being without sleep when there were babies in the house.  Mothers seem to develop an ear.  An ear that hears and listens to all the creaks, groans and sneezes in the house at night.  But even then I could go back to sleep and stay asleep.  Given a chance I would and could sleep late on Saturday mornings.   Those days seem to be gone.

There are no babies now to disturb my sleep.  Wait, in one way there may be an old baby in my house.  We have an old dog.  He likes to sleep on the bed, but he can no longer jump up on it by himself.  Therefore, one of us has to help him.  Last night he woke me up  OR he realized I was awake.  It was 2:30 AM.  He was panting at my side of the bed.  It may have been his horrible breath that woke me up.  I wondered: "Does he need to go out?  No, he wants on the bed".    Eventually, I got up and put the old dog on the bed.

Even when the dog doesn't wake me, I have trouble staying asleep.  I'm sure it is aging that is robbing me of sleep. 

"O sleep! O gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness? "
William Shakespear in  Henry IV (3.1.7) 

Peace -

Ann B.