Living the Questions

            Nancy says, “Were you working? 

            I confessed, “Yes,” my obvious response. 

            “Go ahead,” Nancy tells me.

            I turned on my computer and begin grinding out a couple hundred emails.  An hour or so later … When I next come to … check my out basket … it’s stuffed and ready for connection.  I begin the shut down process and settle back with a cup of tea and let go once again … knowing that tomorrow I am back to it.  All in a moment … “Vacation?”  “What?”             There was that moment of resentment …. Then … ultimately that touch  … some might call work … others … time with loved ones.  I am the same way when Nancy drags me to the pool.  I know it is going to be cold at the touch, but then … all in a moment … Ah … comfort … Home again!

            Love you … See yah tomorrow!  Ted

            Sitting in worship at First Congregational, UCC in Southington, Connecticut , we were surrounded by Congregational history and tradition.  As Rev. Dr. Gordon Ellis preached the word … he told us of his love of Congregational history, traditions, spoke of our denomination’s historic leadership … with so many cutting edge firsts … that eventually became culturally normative … and the cost of being a justice seeking community.  At the end of each historic turning point we remembered … yes … there had been discomfort and discontent.  It is our tradition not to leave our brains at the door … making us who we are.  What’s not to Love about the UCC?

            Sitting in a traditional Connecticut , Congregational narrow wooden pew we sang songs lead by a six piece band and seven voice group singing none traditional praise music.  In the heart of traditional New England , land of our forbearers came the lead guitar licks and driving base founded on the drum of Rock and Roll.  Rocking side to side and tapping to the beat … we were asked … What’s not to love about the UCC?

            Clearly in the congregations voice came … We love the UCC.  In the heart land of tradition and history came the experience of Change … is … why we are here … God is Still Speaking and calling us beyond our selves to ever seek and become a just and including people. 

            Wish I had preached the word … After all What’s not to love about the UCC.  Maybe I will. 

Completingly … joined in Christ…We find the face of Christ shining out of the eyes of our sisters and brothers.  Love shines forth … from Tom and Brenda, Ted and Sue, Dalton, Tom and Sandy … and so many more friends, loved ones and partners in the work of the church. 

            So often we feel ourselves standing alone, lost and lonely facing the world’s challenges.  Yet in the moment, of envisioning a loved ones face, I recognize Christ’s light shining, connecting, completing relationship … Where once was distance and brokenness … Christ’s light shines.

            Tom and Brenda asked of friends … in a hug and whisper … we can confirmed … speaking of love … reconnecting lives … moments before at a distance … again one …  Ministries begun, touched, shinig and through our lives completingly joined in Christ.

Dad and I had the chance to work together finishing a siding job that had begun before I had moved to Phoenix .  We passed tools, measurements, and renewing love that we had longed to share … embracing and connecting … overcoming times of separation and loneliness.  Big, rough, wind and sun worn hands that cradled, taught, shaped, embraced me with life and love once again were connected to my life force and we both shone.

            My mother’s hugs, hospitality and familiar foods filled my heart, stomach and life with joy.  Mom gave Nancy and me the opportunity to clean lights, fans, and repair things that require a ladder.  Mom opened her home to make us comfortable with projects … because she knew her little boy needs them to feel at home. 

            What would make your family residence feel like home?  For me and mine … it was the sound of rings clacking off the table as cards are thrown in anticipation of taking another trick…the smell of fresh chocolate cake, brownies, and/or a roast of beef … lilac powder, hugs and kisses … Stanley tape measure, leather belt with hammer hanger, loaded with my fathers straight claw hammer/axe.

            Home is where ever Christ is blazing from the hearts of the beloved … hugs, bracing hands … temporal … yet in them … eternity … one in Christ … playfully and seriously … laughing and crying together …  one Family connected.

            Family like this is also connected in Gasport, NY … St. Louis, Mo … Poughkeepsie, NY … Kalamazoo, Mi … Medina, Oh … Phoenix, Az … and Cohocton, NY, and soon Hartford, Connecticut.  Like my mother and father … our church … the United Church of Christ has raised me up and brought me home … in Christ and love that is tempered by justice and Peace. 

            How many of you re-member the Wilmington Ten March in Washington, The mothers of the disappeared for whom we witnessed in the Capital Rotunda and 31 were arrested and jailed … marches and demonstrations for choice … we claim all people to be family connected in Christ’s love … no people are outside the boundaries of our family connection.  My mother and father shudder sometimes when I bring my friends home … but always welcome … seeking to open their hearts ever wider in ways that challenge me to re-member one day I to will have to let go … to embrace with large, weathered hands … with cake … hammer hangers thumping legs … Home!

So here goes … One of the steps taken over the last year has been this move of life ministry to Church of the Beatitudes.  When Nancy and I walked out of the church in Medina, Ohio September 25th of 2006 I was tear deplete. 

I recognized that over the years I had slowly cut back my vision and imagination for ministry to fit a people I was called to serve and cared for and loved in return.  After the move I slowly unpacked my heart and planted my roots such that I could build a new life and new ministry in Phoenix, Arizona .  Leaving so many friends in an environment in which I had thrived to become a dessert dweller … I came like a babe.  I came to a people hungry for relationship, new insights, fresh vision…  I was not sure I had any … I walked away from deep relationships and sluggishly reached out to embrace … and have found it true and deep.

Today as my friend Dan would say, “I find the same old concerns that I left,” “show me the money,” “we have never done it that way before,” “CHANGE!!” and yet … and yet it happens … Change … New beginnings. The church from the start was confronted with change … just the concept of Co Senior Pastors, a female Co Senior Pastor, Having to deal with a large endowment, The Beatitudes Campus beginning a one hundred Million Dollar building program, buying property next to the church on Flynn Lane, etc. … Then again I have grown older instead of starting at 42 at Medina I am staring at 52 in Phoenix, I move slower, sometimes show signs of growing wiser often not, find my self in a process of being made new … and amazingly enough from all this some new outcomes have arisen from these old wine skins. 

I have re-discovered thoughts and visions I had set aside, stopped raising, and as if forgotten about … for the sake of valued relationships.  These days I have time to focus on programming that as a sole pastor I had not had time for.  I am even being pushed to read more, further a field and bring forward new insights in community.  I have truly enjoyed facilitating small groups for adult education. Then there is the gift of working with Pastor’s David, Deanne and Nancy … which has caused me to be appreciative that I survived the pace I set in Medina and feel how blessed I am to work with such brilliant and creative pastors.   Also from my blessed learning’s from dear friends in Medina … I have brought some of the best of my life there here, such as quickly seting up a Men’s weeklyWednesday breakfast group, along with tennis and golf partners with whom I have been developing deep and rich friendships.

Then also there is the renewal of Nancy and my marriage relationship, fostered by Nancy no longer traveling as she has had to.  It has also become an ever increasing joy to be a couple, doing couple things like: entertaining, daily having time to talk and walk, sharing the simple moments of life, including regular conversations via email and cell phone, discussing our maturing children’s life hopes and struggles.  We are at a new beginning of life together, re-discovering a loving God, a transformed life partnership and an appreciation of the love that is being poured froth from those with whom we live and move and find our being.  We miss our daughters. But that is appropriate to the time we are at in our lives.  I have longed to see my friends from New York, Missouri, Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Ohio … but I am discovering when you live in paradise they actually do come and see you.

This is not either Nancy or my first step on the journey of life or ministry…It is my first blog.  I wish you much affection where ever this blog finds you.  Ted