hermionesviolin | Entries tagged with people: pastors: laura ruth

Elizabeth F. did the Stewardship Moment at FCS this morning. She said she had been coming to FCS off and on since 2007. She said that on March 30, 2008, she walked into church and was handed rainbow sunglasses and a lei. She said that it was the anniversary of FCS becoming an Open & Affirming church. Laura Ruth preached. Elizabeth F. that Laura Ruth asked all those who had come to FCS because of it being O&A, or if you feel that you have benefited personally and/or spiritually from it being O&A, to stand -- and about 50% of the congregation stood. She said that Laura Ruth asked anyone present who was GLBT and wanted to out themselves to stand. Elizabeth F. said that at that point she wasn't out in any context of her life, but that she stood anyway -- and she looked around, and about 20% of the congregation was standing. She said that Laura Ruth asked anyone who loved someone who was GLBT to stand -- and that everyone stood.

Yeah, I cried.

***

FCS this morning had a service of healing. And at the point when the space was open for folks to come forward and receive a blessing and -- if they wished -- an anointing of oil, I assumed people would go forward as we do for Communion, but no one got up. *I* wanted a blessing and anointing, so I got up and went forward -- though I felt a little bit offensive because I went across the front to Laura T. because I was still feeling resentful at Ian H. from Rest and Bread last week.

But at the receiving line after service, Ian H. unprompted and enthusiastically thanked me for being the first to go forward -- called me "a worship leader's dream."

[FirstChurch Mailing List] This weekend at First Church Somerville
Sent: Fri, May 7, 2010 12:13:22 PM

Dear Beloved,

Mother's Day! My Last Sunday! Molly in Service!

Our service on Sunday will be about all these things, but more importantly than all these things will be our praying, singing, and speaking together of our longing for God. We will praise God for her willingness to match our longing, and to love us in ways we are able to recognize. I pray you, join us for worship.

In addition to our worship, we will practice the spirit opening discipline of caring for others and ourselves. We will take two offerings this Sunday, our regular offering, and also a special offering for the Holy Bible Baptist Church, our Haitian sisters and brothers in Davis Sq. Members of this congregation will be going to Haiti on May 24, with a ship container of necessary things. Our offering will help with this.

Myriam Piervil, from that congregation will join us for worship, and will say a few words to us, a mission moment, during the announcements.

Also joining us will be the Rev. Merrie Allen. Merrie iis the Clerk of the Metropolitan Boston Association of the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ. Merrie will lead us in our litany of Farewell. In this litany, Merrie will ask you to forgive me, and then she'll ask you to release me to my new ministry. Then Merrie will ask me if I will forgive you, the congregation, and then she'll ask me if I'll release you to the ministry of ourselves, you and Molly. We will say, "We do," and "We will, with the help of God."

I'm preaching a short sermon, Althea's the liturgist, Tim's leading the praying of a Psalm, Dibbie's helping me with the benediction. Molly will read scripture and participate in others ways. Lots of folks are playing lots of instruments. Joe's promised something achingly beautiful. Thom will lead our singing, which we will do as if our lives depended on it, please?

One last thing, in the past, it was the habit of the church to bring canned goods and non-perishables every Sunday of the year for folks who are hungry. The Deacons have asked that we resume this act of compassion. There will be a basket at the back of the church for these non-perishable proteins and pasta every Sunday. On Communion Sundays, these food gifts will be presented, with the offering, to be blessed for the use in the community.

Oh, yeah, there's a party tomorrow night, 6-10. I'm bringing a CD mix of R&B music (such as "Brick House," oh yes!). There will be food, skits, and dancing. I've not been reading the emails, so I can't wait to see what will happen. Will I need a rain coat? Meck will come with me. Thanks, y'all, in advance.

If you can't make it this weekend to worship and the party, I know you're with your moms and in necessary places of rest and responsibility. Please, know I understand these necessities. I feel your love and kind regards, and I send you my prayers and blessings.

Love,
Laura Ruth

( Laura Ruth's Bye-You )

( I Am Going Away )

When I told Scott this morning about how I had cried a lot but I hadn't felt painful grief or anything, he said that I was sad but I wasn't grieving -- which he thought was a good thing: that I'd had this good process and I'd done what I needed to do and all that. When I was telling Ari this tonight, she commented that it is true that, thinking about the Kübler-Ross stages of grief, I've been able to experience a lot of those already as part of this process.

Edit: From Molly's email to the listserv Tuesday:

It was so good to be back with you on Sunday--to feel not a million miles away from my church family in the midst of my medical labyrinth (no dead ends, right?), to see the tears shining in your eyes as you said goodbye to Laura Ruth, as you recognized the truth of Althea's words in your own lives, as you let the feelings that were set free that morning, begin to free other feelings and griefs in you, griefs both present and past. What an amazing gift, just to have a place to feel your feelings, whatever they are; to sit beside people it's ok to feel things with, who won't be ashamed of you or themselves when feelings get out of their tidy boxes, when nose and eyes runneth over.

[FirstChurch Mailing List] Rest and Bread tonight at 6:30, then Deacons

Dear Beloved,

Since May 21, 2008, Keith [surname redacted] and I, in combination with lots of folks, especially Elizabeth [misspelled surname redacted], and now with Tara [surname redacted], and with lots of support from our Deacons, have led the weekly Service of Rest and Bread. We began the service because we wanted to have a place to for a small, more intimate experience of each other with God than is possible on Sunday morning. Many people have attended this service and we have been blessed to pray and have communion together.

This service will go on with the capable and caring leadership of Keith and the support of our Deacons. Others like Jason [surname redacted] and Jeff [surname redacted] will help Keith, Elizabeth, and Tara. I praise God for these brother and sister pilgrims who like all of us, long to know God and be known by God, and so offer their gifts to this service.

Tonight will be my last night at Rest and Bread. As usual we will sing, pray, and share Communion. Our service begins at 6:30. Music for meditation begins at 6:15.

We'd be so tickled to see you.

Our Deacons will meet afterward.

Love,
Laura Ruth

As I said, before service, Laura Ruth asked me to come up to her office. I had a brief moment of, "Are you going to have bad news for me about diaconal decisions about my involvement in this service?" (because she had told me before service in a previous week that because I'm not officially a member of this church or anything, there's diaconal polity stuff -- so that the Deacons can be held accountable for this service that happens under the auspices of this church -- and she said that she wanted me to know how much I was valued; and I kind of shrugged [even though an internal part of me was chafing and calling shenanigans] and said that I knew that the people who mattered -- her and Keith and all -- I knew that they valued me ... and I knew that I would get to continue to be involved in the service the same way I have been for two years; I don't actually need to have it be me and Keith doing everything, even though I'd sort of been assuming that's what would happen after Laura Ruth left) but of course it wasn't that.

She told me about Nancy Richardson, a lesbian who was her boss for some years at HDS, who believed that God's [she didn't say "kingdom," but something along those lines of the New Heaven and the New Earth or whatever] won't come until God's justice is come (I was reminded of CWM's theology), and her passion for justice work was anti-racism work, and Laura Ruth so admired her, and she gave Laura Ruth a copy of Nan Merrill's Psalms for Praying, and Laura Ruth keeps giving her copy away. Merrill uses "Love" instead of "God" or whatever, which Laura Ruth said was "the ultimate inclusive language," and so she thought of me -- "in the lineage of giving this book to women I adore..." I was really surprised that I didn't cry, but I hugged her A LOT. Yeah, my body knew what it needed.

***

As we were nearing 6:15, I asked if we were going to pray before service, and so Laura Ruth and Keith and Tara and I went out into Fellowship Hall and Laura Ruth prayed, "we two, and three, and now four."

"Abide With Me" has long been our standard closing hymn, but we change the music for liturgical seasons, so now that we're in Eastertide we haven't sung it since before Lent. We brought it back for this service (as the opening song).

So when the music for meditation that Keith put on opened with an instrumental version of "Abide With Me," Laura Ruth laughed. (It also included instrumentals of "It Is Well With My Soul" and "Great Is Thy Faithfulness.")

Laura Ruth did the Welcome. She talked about how this service will continue after she has left -- Keith will lead, and he will call on many people to help -- "especially Elizabeth, who has been helping all along." (My immediate thought was, "Oh, this is the thing you were talking about -- about how I'm not officially a member of this church or anything, so it doesn't get to officially be "Keith and me" leading this ... it's Keith leading it, and my helping.")

The Sacred Text was the Good Samaritan story from Luke (10:25-37).

In her Reflection, Laura Ruth said we spend our first few decades of life differentiating ourselves, and that's good and important, but spiritual maturity is identifying with others so we can identify with God.

We had 13 people present (including Laura Ruth) plus baby Nora. Some people were definitely crying, especially as Laura Ruth talked about the fact that she would be leaving, but I didn't cry at all.

I did find myself a little choked-up in the brain trying to do the Call to Confession (in part because I was a little thrown out of my element -- I had gotten up to get an additional chair for a latecomer as Keith was explaining that we would be doing Prayers a little differently this night -- ending with Blessings rather than Prayers of Thanksgiving). (I apparently can actually do the Assurance of Grace almost from memory -- though I still often feel like I'm getting it wrong, because it's so repetitive. Jesus said, Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads. And I will give you rest. Take my yoke and put it on you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest; for the yoke I will give you is easy and the load I will put on you is light. We are a forgiven people.)

And during Communion, as we were nearing the end, it occurred to me that this would be the last time I would commune Laura Ruth. And when I told her, "This is the Bread of Life, that you might have life abundant," I could feel myself all choked up.

Before service, as we were going through the bulletin, Keith told me that "Walking With You Is My Prayer" (the closing song) is the first song Laura Ruth taught them at one of her first church things with them -- so it was a nice symmetry. I wasn't there for that original instance, so it didn't have that tearful emotional resonance for me, but as we neared the end, as I started to really sink into the meaning of what I was singing (communion of saints and all that -- about how we do this work together, and we will continue to do this work together even though it's a different kind of "together"), I did start crying a little.

***

Keith had veggies and cheese and juice for a post-service, pre-deacons refreshment :)

James told Laura Ruth he had a question about Saturday's going-away party, and she said, "There have been emails that say LAURA RUTH DON'T READ THIS. I haven't been reading them." "Good," I said :) It turned out all he needed to know was when the party starts, and that part she knew. (6-8pm: dinner + roasting ["pray for me," Laura Ruth said at that part of the announcement on Sunday :) ], 8-10pm: dancing)

~~I forget how it came up, but~~ We were joking about how the refreshments Keith had brought didn't include beer, and James mentioned that one of the first things he came to at FCS was a pub night thing at Molly's house, and someone else mentioned that we used to have Imponderables at a pub, and I commented that Imponderables was a little bit before my time -- that I had heard a little bit about it when I first started here, but it had either ceased happening or soon ceased [on reflection, there was at least one Imponderables session during my time at FCS -- which I didn't go to, because I had another church commitment I think], and I said that was okay, that I don't actually need more church in my life. James said to to me, "It's like you're dating God" and "you're going steady," and I (and Laura Ruth) firmly agreed. He next said something about that I should take the next step and get engaged. I didn't really know how to respond to that (my immediate thought was of my therapist saying I'm "bi-church-ual" and how I hadn't had opportunity to tell her that terms like "poly" and "church whore" -- this latter TM Laura Ruth -- have been used to good effect to describe my ecumenism), but he and Laura Ruth got involved in a one-on-one conversation (I think about relationship boundaries after she leaves as our pastor) so I conversed with Keith and Jeff V. about service next week.

From conversation much later: Jeff V. says he thinks the best book of worship is the Upper Room book of worship. Clearly I need to place another Cokesbury order :)

I had a good day, and I had a joy sadhana list in my head and everything, and I surprised myself by not crying at Rest and Bread tonight -- until I communed Laura Ruth and I could feel myself getting choked up, and then I cried a little during the ~~Benediction~~ end of the closing song ("Walking With You Is My Prayer").

Keith had provided snacks for afterward, and I ended up not leaving until like 8:20, and now I'm finishing an email to Laura Ruth and I'm crying.

Before service she asked me to come up to her office, and she gave me a copy of Nan Merrill's Psalms for Praying (which we have often used in Rest and Bread). Merrill uses "Love" for Deity, which Laura Ruth referred to as "the ultimate inclusive language," and Laura Ruth said she keeps giving her copy of this book away, and "in the lineage of giving this book to women I adore..." Yeah, referencing that in my email was what got me crying.

And part of why I was crying writing that email is because I was primed -- the email I read right before it was about someone I love possibly leaving in 2 years, which hit me hard (even though it's totally a possibility we've talked about before) probably because hi, primed, Laura Ruth is leaving.

Wednesday

We were prepping the Elements in the kitchen (the chalices and patten were still in the dish drainer from last week) when Kerrie came in.

She hadn't realized we were prepping for service, and she decided to stay for service (she's never been to Rest and Bread in the nearly two years it's been going on). But she still wanted some wine now. I said, "You can pre-party with Jesus."
Somehow vodka came up.
Keith said, mock-defensively, "Potatoes were very important to Celtic Christianity."
me: "So vodka and potatoes instead of wine and bread for Communion, huh? Well when we talk about what if any changes we want to make to the Rest and Bread service, we can take that under consideration."

The Sacred Text reading was Luke 5:1-11.
I thought, "That's an Epiphany reading! I remember Tiffany's sermon on that!"

Keith did the Reflection. He talked about how this passage mirrored this past Sunday's Gospel passage.
He said that this Sunday the disciples go back to fishing -- we don't know if they've gone back to it as a way of life or if they just needed something to eat.
Again, they're catching nothing, and again Jesus shows up, and then they catch abundantly.
Keith talked about faithful living and faithful transition (this was the theme of his Reflection).
quote: "perhaps with some denial before the actual transition"
He reminded us that we will build on the beautiful and faithful life we lived before.
Jesus tells the first disciples that no longer will they fish for fish but rather they will fish among humankind -- keeping the metaphor.
His question for us to reflect on: what have you learned from your faithful living that will help you with your next faithful transition?
Marlin talked about how his father's mind is going: last time he went to see him, his father was living in 1968 -- and he said that that's not a bad time for his father to be, a time when his ministry and his family were both young and growing. And he said that he hopes that he lives his own life such that if someday down the road he finds himself living certain times again, it will be a good life to be returning to.
Maria talked about actively having faith -- something she, like me, is bad at (e.g., it's easy to say I trust God, but when push comes to shove, I need to find a job, or whatever).

I had no idea how I was going to tie any of this to the Call to Confession (I've taken to extemping a thematic connection), but when I started I found words. I said we acknowledge those times when we have failed to live faithfully, not to wallow in the guilt but to move back to the path of faithful living, returning always to a God who is always welcoming us back.

Our closing hymn continues to be "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" ('cause it is Eastertide), and wow it's loud in that chapel with 11 people singing. (I think we had about half that number last week.)

***

despite the 3:24pm timestamp, I still hadn't seen this by the time I went to bed ~9pm last night (Yahoo!Mail being wonky, I suspect):

[FirstChurch Mailing List] Rest and Bread tonight, then Council...

Dear Beloved,

We have our beautiful service of Rest and Bread this evening at 6:30. Keith will reflect, Elizabeth will help help us name what distracts us from rising, Tara will play and help us sing. Come share silence with us from 6:15-6:30. Our service of prayer and communion goes from 6:30-7:10.

Just after, our Church Council will meet. Do you ever wonder how things get done around here, how decisions get made? Come and see, come and be a part of the process. All are welcome. Ian, as Moderator, leads the meeting.

We'll be glad to see you tonight.

Love,
Laura Ruth

Thursday

morning prayer lectionary:
Esther 2:12-18
Acts 2:1-21

FCS-Ian commented on the fact that Esther spent a year (at a spa, it sounds like) preparing. I was like, "Yeah, I know! I had forgotten that!"
He also commented on the fact that he keeps expecting big things from Esther, since she has a book named after her and all, but she hasn't done anything heroic yet. (He didn't say this as a criticism -- he said it partly as a statement of continuing anticipation and partly as a neutral/positive reflection.)
I (silently) recalled Tiffany's (frequent) invocation of "for just such a time as this" (which I assume must have been in her Esther sermon, unless she preached more than one Esther sermon) and thought about how God consistently chooses unlikely people and how yeah, sometimes we may end up in places not realizing what lies ahead of us, and we might find ourselves in situations thinking we are in no way equipped, but God is with us and God will be faithful.

***

I have a tendency to take lunch at my desk -- hi I am a control-freak workaholic. But today I made a conscious decision to eat lunch outside in the sunshine (and work on my sermon). \o/

Scattered thunderstorms were predicted, but it was a bright sunny warm day to have lunch outside. Shortly before my workday ended, I heard thunder and looked out the window and hey, rain. Which was even more like a summer thunderstorm because when I left the office less than a half an hour later it had stopped. And it was still hoodie-wrapped-around-my-waist temperatures.

***

It was so nice out I almost didn't want to go inside a cafe for Laura Ruth's open office hours.

Significantly way through the time I'd been hanging out at her table (Al and Cindy and later Kathy were also there), she asked me, "How are you?" and I said, "I'm better than I was earlier this week," and I got instant concerned-face -- which actually threw me (I think because I'd sort of wanted to tell her last night and hadn't really had opportunity to -- before service, she asked me and Keith collectively how we were, and Keith answered and we got off on various topics, and it's hard for me to bring up an amorphous poor mood because there isn't anything specific to say about it or to ask for).

I said I'd been grumpy over the weekend and that I suspected some of that was grieving -- "I had lunch with you on Friday, and that was lovely, but it was also wrapping things up because you're leaving" -- and on Monday I was cranky and each day I had a new word for how I was feeling, but I wasn't quite sure why I was feeling, and this morning when I left my house and felt kinda like I wanted to cry I thought, "Okay, so it's grief?" I also said it might be hormonal. She talked about menstrual amnesia. I feel like I don't necessarily get emotionally wonky around my cycle -- but my cycle is also so irregular that I dunno. But the fact that tonight I feel like all this grump and cranky has been lifted from me does lend credence to the hormonal thing. (Also, heh, look at me up past my bedtime and still energized -- as opposed to last night when I was tired like when I got home from church; and I did go to bed in time to get 8 hours of sleep last night even with getting up at 5:30am for morning prayer this morning.)

+

When we wrapped ~7 tonight, Laura Ruth offered to drive me home (possibly in part because of the light rain), and I said yes (hello maximizing time before she leaves).
We passed CAUMC with all its scaffolding and I said I keep forgetting to ask Sean what's up with that and I said I wondered if it was part of the Terms of Sale or something. I said the building sale was finalized, and she expressed surprise, and I talked about that a little and I said that meant we definitely had to be living somewhere else come July 1, which would also be when we started with our new pastor, and, "Do you care who our new pastor is? Do you know who our new pastor is?"
She said, "Yeah, I know, Nizzi..." and I said, "No, she's our interim appointment. We found out who our new pastor effective July 1 is." I said that when I had lifted up as Joy in Prayers of the People last night, that's what I was talking about. I said I was surprised she hadn't asked me who our new pastor was -- I mean, I know she's leaving Somerville and so it's not directly relevant to her, but still. She said she thought I was saying that Nizzi was finally coming and she was like, "I thought she'd already been here but okay."

So I told her who our new appointment is. She busted out in excitement. She said that was so "fucking" great. I was really pleased at her excitement. And glad that I got to tell her, and tell her in a context where she could be overflowing with excitement.

We both recalled the story LR told me one of the Thursdays before Holy Week about Lisa facebook messaging her to say, "I hear you're leaving Somerville..." and Lisa said Marla had told her, and LR was like, "Who's Marla?" and I told her Marla's one of the lay leaders at CWM but I didn't know how she knew though I guess I had raised it up at prayertime or something. Yes, this story is literally one of the first things I thought of when Rob announced Lisa's appointment on Sunday.

I told her most of the stuff I said in that first block of text in my LJ post -- about Lisa and Annie and Nizzi, about transition and relationship and etc. She said she thinks I'm good at building relationships -- that she's seen me do it.

+

During office hours, she said she's cried twice today because of saying goodbye to people.

Before service last night, she was like dancing excited -- "I got a job!" Tonight she said she doesn't really feel yet that she's going [to somewhere] -- that she's keenly aware that she's leaving [here/us]. I'm glad that she has three weeks in between ending at First Church and starting at Hope Central. She said early on tonight that she was really only starting to get her wits back about her yesterday and today. The weekend was just so intense. She wrote so many sermons for Sunday and none of them worked and Sunday morning she had three sentences and that's what she preached off of and that was so scary. And there were so many meetings on Sunday. And they voted on her unanimously.

She said she had lunch with First Churchers in JP today. I love how many different specific and general venues for saying goodbye FCS has. (LR's last re/New is this Sunday, and folks are going out for a beer afterward. The Saturday night before her last Sunday, there's some sort of party at the church -- there was to be a meeting about this after church last Sunday, but I was at Scott's birthday brunch.)

Somewhere else in conversation, she asked me if I'd gotten the invitation to the queer women of First Church event tomorrow night and I was like, "Uh ... no?" So she forwarded it to me. Touro Ave. in Medford. Which is totes walkable from my place. \o/

+

Oh, and LR said something she learned in Al-Anon is that "dreading is a form of control."

On Friday I had an hour and a half lunch with Laura Ruth at HBS.

She said she thinks I'm a mystic.
She said she thinks I think I'm too cerebral [to be a mystic], but she's seen me going where the Spirit beckons. (She cited my going to so many different churches as one example of this -- see also, below, my figuring out what I want and making so I can get it.)
She also thinks I'm good at shifting quickly and easily between multiple levels of reality (e.g., the Divine within ourselves, in relationship with other people, existing within our culture) and she thinks that's an indicator of a deep spirituality.

She said I'm good at knowing what I want and asking for it directly -- which she is so appreciative of.
She said when she first knew me, I was like screaming what I wanted, and I've become more attentive to the people around me and how they're affected by the context we're in -- without letting go of what's important to me -- and so I've become kinder to myself and to others.

She said she's seen me being present with people -- which is the essence of pastoral care. (I think pastoral care requires a breadth and depth of other skills as well, but the idea that that is the essence of pastoral care makes sense.)
She said she thinks I think I'm not capable of doing that on a consistent basis (I told her yes, the "on a consistent basis" is a if not the core of it -- that yes I often do what can reasonably be called pastoral care, but I am choosing to do it with people I have a pre-existing relationship with; I don't want to be handed an entire congregation).

[Edit: She also said, "I don't give a sh*t if you go into ordained ministry or not" -- which I mostly knew, but which I still appreciated hearing explicitly articulated. And later in conversation she asked how long I was planning to stay at HBS, and I gave my usual answer, and she restated it as staying here "until the next thing," which I liked.]

She said something like, "I can say more, but that's what I needed to tell you, so that I can leave you."

I got choked up -- because yeah, that is part of what we were doing with that lunch, wrapping things up so that we can part ways in a few weeks.

(Later, she asked what was going to happen after she left, and I said, "We'll all be very sad and we'll all continue doing the work of the church," and we talked about Rest and Bread some -- apparently Keith's planning to invite clergy, seminary students, etc. to give the Reflections a lot of the times; which is fine by me -- and at one point she said, "Oh, and another thing: you're dependable. You don't have to be [meaning: you would still be a good and valuable person even if you weren't], but I so appreciate that you are.")

Later, I was thinking about knowing what I want and asking for it -- I think I have frequently made bad choices because I want what's easy and present and available (which is also sometimes tied up with low self-esteem stuff or whatever about what I think I'm likely to be able to ever get) ... but there's also an element of it helping me to figure out what I want, because I find myself dissatisfied with the easy/present/available and yeah sometimes it's a lesson I have to learn over and over again, but yeah, I am definitely committed to figuring out what I want (and navigating that want/need balance, see also want-self vs. should-self) and then finding ways to ask for it so I can have it.

I was also thinking about being present with people -- enabling them to be their authentic selves, including helping them grow.

She wanted to see the HBS chapel, so we did. There were people standing outside, and she asked them if prayers were done. (It was about 1:45pm.) I had no idea that people actually used the HBS chapel for regular worship space. But there were people cleaning up when we got into the chapel, so apparently they do.

Before you get to the official chapel space, when you just walk in, you're in this like greenhouse thing. After we walked in, she just stopped. She was so taken with the beauty and just everything.

Particularly in the chapel but also walking on campus, I was repeatedly struck that she is so much more attentive than I am. Which I think is part of what makes a good pastor.

***

From my facebook newsfeed after I went to bed Sunday night (last night):

Tiffany Steinwert › Laura Ruth Jarrett: Blessings on your new ministry!

LR gave her (final?) candidating sermon at Hope Central yesterday, and their website now says:

Rev. Laura Ruth Jarrett called as pastor
Hope Central Church is delighted to announce that it has called Rev. Laura Ruth Jarrett to become its next pastor. Pending final negotiations, Rev. Laura Ruth will begin her ministry on June 1. Find out about her in a letter from our Search Committee and this brochure about the candidate.

Edit: And an email to the listserv tonight:

[FirstChurch Mailing List] they voted yes!

Dear Beloved,

Yesterday morning, I preached a candidating sermon for Hope Central Church in Jamaica Plain. Just after the service, the congregation voted to call me as their settled pastor.

I'll begin my work there on June 1, 2010.

I'm so glad I get to be with you three more weeks. Our last Sunday together will be May 9, 2010.

I wish you peace tonight!

Love,
Laura Ruth

Current Music: "World Falls" (Indigo Girls) in my head

Before service, Laura Ruth told me she liked my Easter 2 "Wounded Healer" sermon. :)

Liz D. stopped by with baby Nora, and in talking about Sunday's service of baptism, Laura Ruth called me "Liz." I know she knows what my name is, so I asked, "Did you just call me Liz?" mostly just to clarify that she really was actually referring to me (which I explained). She said, "I'm sorry, my love."

Heh, sitting across from Laura Ruth in her soft blue button-down shirt and Keith in his soft pink button-down shirt.

The Sacred Text was Luke 24:13-35 -- the road to Emmaus.

When [Jesus] was at table with them, [Jesus] took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized [Jesus] -- I want to say that Laura Ruth actually tacked on "in their midst," because I think I mentally filled in only "and in each other" (hi, Communion liturgy).

Keith is recently returned from a vacation in Asheville, and in his Reflection he talked about Beholding (nature, people, etc.).
The line that most struck me in his Reflection was "precious, fragile, damaged" -- he turned out to be talking about nature, but I was thinking about how in truly Seeing/Knowing someone, you see all of them.
Rituals help us behold people in (particular, special) moments. In my contribution to the "We Reflect" following, I said that my immediate thought to that was, "Like Communion," but that it's so easy to just go through the motions, and so we are reminded to be really present with people, in ritual moments and always, because we don't have an infinite amount of time with anyone.

During Communion, during the Words of Institution, Laura Ruth did the Cup and went off book and said something like, "The Cup of blessing," which I was really glad of, since I am increasingly uncomfortable with "this is my blood, the blood of the covenant [poured out for many for the forgiveness of sin]" without some interpretive work articulated around it.

In the Announcements, Laura Ruth said that next week Keith would be the Reflector again and then she would for the next two weeks and then her time with us is finished and this service will carry on with Keith and Elizabeth and Tara (who's been leading the music these past couple Wednesdays) and others.

After service I told Keith that it had occurred to me recently that now that it'll be us-two instead of us-three doing the service that I might be doing the Reflection more than once a year and maybe we should talk about that. He agreed that yeah, we should talk at some point. (I'm not worried about it, since I've been helping do this service for two years.)

***

Unrelated (thanks to my housemate): #songprequels on twitter [e.g., "Crossed Off The First Item (Bitch) From My List Of 100 Problems"; Sign, Sealed, Can I borrow a stamp?; we are the semi-finalists; I'm Not Sure What the Correct Definition of Ironic is, But I’m Going to Write a Song About it Anyway; Scaffolding to Heaven]

Continuing reading When Science Meets Religion:

I suggest that the concept of God is not a hypothesis formulated to explain the relationship between particular events in the world in competition with scientific hypotheses. Belief in God is primarily a commitment to a way of life in response to distinctive kinds of religious experience in communities formed by historic traditions; it is not a substitute for scientific research. Religious beliefs offer a wider framework in which particular events can be contextualizes.
Every disciple is selective and has its limitations. Each abstracts from the totality of experience those features in which it is interested. The astronomer Arthur Eddington once told a delightful parable about a man studying deep-sea life using a net with a three-inch mesh. After bringing up repeated samples, the man concluded that there are no deep-sea fish smaller than three inches in length. Our methods of fishing, Eddington suggests, determine what we can catch.
(p.14)

***

At re/New planning meeting tonight (topic: "Change and Transition"), Lindsay referenced Octavia Butler. (Her facebook status after she got home from the meeting was: "Change is the one unavoidable, irresistible, ongoing reality of the universe. To us, that makes it the most powerful reality, and just another word for God. Earthseed: The Books of the Living Lauren Oya Olamina" — Octavia E. Butler Reminds me of Re/New planning tonight!)

Later, Laura Ruth pulled out her smartphone to pull up the Preamble to the UCC Constitution -- for the "It [the United Church of Christ] affirms the responsibility of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own" bit (which recalled for me the "Making the Faith Our Own" Lenten House Church series last year), but she read the whole paragraph leading up to that sentence, so my primary (silent) takeaway was, "the UCC really affirms Jesus as the Son of God?"

Anyway, what I actually said was, "You just outgeeked me."

We'd been talking about Scripture earlier, and Rachelle had said something about wineskins and I said about the seed dying and breaking open, and somewhere in there we had Isaiah's "Do not remember the things of old for behold God is doing a new thing," and Laura Ruth and Rachelle were going back and forth trying to remember which chapter that was exactly, and I said it was a lectionary reading from Lent and Laura Ruth said, "last Thursday," or something, and I said, "No, it was a Sunday, because I remember using it in a sermon -- though I may not have actually finished the sermon," and I said, "And I don't have my netbook with me, so I can't look it up" (though it was probably good that I didn't have my netbook with me, so I was engaged with the conversations and ideas at the table rather than getting focused on researching). So after I got home I skimmed through my recent sermons and emailed Laura Ruth (Subject: Isaiah 43:19 = Lent 5C): ( excerpt from my Lent 5C sermon )

After Laura Ruth quoted the "every generation" bit, Jeff suggested putting that in tension with (sings) "As it was in the beginning, is now and every shall be, world without end, Amen, Amen." I immediately responded, "Which beginning? What part of the beginning? In The Beginning was chaotic water..." Laura Ruth said, "Tell it, sister," and so I went on and said, "In The Beginning was chaotic water, and the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, moved over the waters, and yes there was order -- separating the water above from the water below -- but there was also abundant newness -- the first six days of Creation were full of radical change."

Yesterday, Laura Ruth emailed me: "I've been thinking about you all day, as you prepare for the reflection tonight. I hope you're feeling the light." The second part of her email was about rescheduling a lunch we had planned. She emailed ~4:30pm, so I didn't have a chance to reply before service. She asked me about it before service and I gave her my answer and said I would email her so she wouldn't have to worry about forgetting. In my reply email this morning, I also said, "I'm glad that last night went so well."

From her reply:

Yes, things went very well last night.

The structure, content and delivery of your reflection was wonderful. Specifically, for structure - you laid out your startling thesis - Jesus was about relationships, and then said maybe the opposite, don't hang on to me. Then you gave biblical and theological context for your thesis, and couched the biblical and theological context in experiences we had in common or have had in common, the Holy Week services. You let the experience bear the ideas! Lovely. And then you did the hermeneutical transfer. We're letting go of important teachers, especially in light of having seen/experienced the resurrected One.

Your reflection was both theological and pastoral. Your pastoral leadership in Rest and Bread is the first public leadership our congregation has experienced about my leaving. You did it beautifully, authentically, kindly. Well done, Elizabeth.

Your delivery was well paced, easy to follow, compelling. You seemed to be channeling spirit rather than ego for the sake of the congregation's uplift and well being. Well done, Elizabeth.

Yup, we've got ministry to do, especially in the light of the resurrected One.

Love,
Laura Ruth

♥♥♥

[FirstChurch Mailing List] Rest and Bread, and still we rise!

Dear Beloved,

The season has changed from Lent to Easter, from winter to spring. We are changing also. We go from indoors to outdoors, from hidden in the earth to pushing through the crust of the earth. We come out. We make plans to go to grad school, to new cities, to new jobs, to new relationships within ourselves and in the world. We make plans to stay but not to do it in an old dead way. God is making a new thing happen.

But for a moment, between work and home, between ill and well, between here and there, this job and that, come and rest with us. Come pray with us. Come for a moment of quiet rest.

Our service of Rest and Bread begins at 6:30. Music for meditation begins at 6:15. Elizabeth [surname redacted -- but spelled correctly in her email!] will open the Word for us.

Just after, the Deacons will meet.

Love,
Laura Ruth

The Subject line comes from Molly's email last night --

And this Sunday, we begin a new preaching series: six Sundays of Eastertide: (borrowing a line from Maya Angelou) And Still We Rise. We'll be preaching about baptism and social justice, about near-death-experien ces, about the nexus of science and faith, Haiti rising from the rubble. Get up! Get on up (borrowing a line from James Brown). That's what Easter people do.

***

( John 20:1-18 )

Laura Ruth read the Scripture, and opening it she said, "this is a story of the discovery of Christ -- and a story of Mary who loved Christ;" Ari, I thought of you ;)

( my sermon text )

***

I half-expected I would cry while preaching, but I didn't. Laura Ruth did cry, though :)

After service, she told me and Keith, "You two are the bomb." She was grateful to be able to just worship (she read the Scripture and did the Blessing & Benediction and led us in singing Opening Hymn “Now the Green Blade Riseth” [#238 vs. 1, 2, 3] and Closing Hymn “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” [#233 vs. 1 & 4], but Keith did the Welcome and Call to Worship and Prayers and Passing of the Peace and he and I did Communion -- I chose the Minister Two role because I wanted to say "siblings in faith of all genders" instead of "brothers and sisters in faith" ... yeah, when the service is mine and Keith's I want us to have a conversation about tweaking the Communion liturgy some, which conversation we should probably start having before Laura Ruth leaves) and also said that she doesn't feel at all anxious about this ministry after her departure.

And she told us that she loves us, and we both said, "We love you, too."

I got to church later than usual because I was finishing up some personal email at work and then talking with FCS-Ian on the way to the T and then saying hello to Antonio the spray paint artist. And we're doing new music for Eastertide. So when I got to the chapel, Keith and Laura Ruth were already there, and so we sprawled in the sunlight (sitting on chairs in the chapel, but still sprawled in the sunlight) and talked through how we were going to divide up leading worship and which verses of the hymns to sing (I didn't vote on that -- largely 'cause I suspected my vote would be "all of them?") and so on and so forth. And it just felt really really right. Yeah, this church is in many ways my home. (And I know it'll be okay after Laura Ruth leaves -- it'll be hard, but it'll be okay.) I don't think I had fully articulated that after Laura Ruth leaves Rest and Bread will be Keith's and mine until I was thinking tonight about revising the Communion liturgy, but it feels totally natural.

Thursday lectionary for the week before Transfiguration Sunday (descriptions from my RCL book):
Deuteronomy 9:1-5 (God's oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)
Acts 3:11-16 (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob's God glorifies Jesus)

FCS-Ian commented about in the Deuteronomy passage how it's not about us but about a bigger picture -- and talked about reframing our experiences as not being like, "Oh, this bad thing happened to me," but maybe, "This good thing needed to happen to someone else." I think that's stretching the text a bit -- since God in the text is very punitively punishing -- and I don't necessarily even believe God works that way, but I did appreciate the idea about reframing by focusing on the bigger picture -- not focusing (just) on our own experience but looking at the larger context within which that experience is happening.
I commented on how both passages say "It's not about y/our righteousness but about God," but in very different ways.

The hymn was "We have come at Christ's own bidding," which FCS-Ian loves but which feels out of place to sing most of the time. The song wasn't all that familiar to me, but the tune felt really familiar, though looking it up in the Index (HYFRYDOL) the other listed songs didn't seem all that familiar to me (though I didn't look at them very thoroughly).

***

After work on Thursday I did assorted errands then settled at Blue Shirt for Laura Ruth's open office hours. James and Al were there, and Kathy and Jeff joined later.

~6:15, Allie txt msgd me: "You're probably busy tonight, but I figure it can't hurt to ask? :)" I wasn't in love with the conversations/interactions going on at Blue Shirt, and I hadn't seen Allie in much too long, so we met up at Mr. Crepe around 6:30.

She had an elsewhere to be at 7:20 (so we made plans to make plans for Monday -- yay holiday). I knew folks were meeting in Blue Shirt at 7pm to finalize plans for the Feb 21 re/new --- "Remember Thou Art Earth: Lenten Reflections on Earth and Spirituality" -- so I headed back to Blue Shirt. (Laura Ruth was like, "You came back.") Laura Ruth, Kathy, Jeff, and Tara were there (and Kim at the beginning? she recalls, having told Ari about someone sharing with me a theological problem with the line "none other has ever known" in "In The Garden").

One of the songs we talked about using was "She Comes Sailing on the Wind." Tara was having difficulty with the like surprise fifth verse in Sing! Prayer and Praise. I said my biggest complaint with Sing! Prayer and Praise is that I often find it really hard to follow along. I was like, "I could send you a photocopy from The Faith We Sing [the United Methodist hymnal supplement]."

Brainstorming for a closing song, I thought of "The Trees of the Field" ('cause of Convo). But no one else knew it, and I really couldn't sing it (though I swear it is really easy to learn).

Congregational Hymns and Songs Listed by Year of Copyright or Composition
[1985] She Comes Sailing on the Wind (Gordon Light, TFWS 2122)
[1975] The Trees of the Field (Steffi Geiser Ruben, Stuart Dauermann, TFWS 2279)

Yeah, I really need to obtain myself a copy of TFWS. (And start bringing it to re/New planning meetings. I would totes get an e-reader if I could use it to carry around things like The Revised Common Lectionary, The Inclusive Bible, assorted hymnals....)

My non-Christian roommate's response to the story about maybe including Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" in the service: "That song has no business being in church. It's the least hopeful song ever." [She says Richard Thompson's "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is the "most depressing" song ever.]

We talked about the fact that most of the songs for this upcoming service were from Sing! Prayer and Praise -- because Jeff doesn't want to have too many books and photocopies floating around in any given service.

Laura Ruth said Jeff had done the "Herculean" work of putting together a book of songs for his kids at Tufts and it's "dog's work." I was like, "But then you have a book of all the songs you like! Tara, remember at the retreat when you were talking about being a hymnal junkie. I would totally collect hymnals so that then I could have all the hymns I like."
Tara: "Oh, so you'd be collecting hymns, not hymnals."
me: "Yeah -- I mean, I would be collecting hymnals, but it would only be as a means to an end."
me (turns to Laura Ruth): "I told this story to Tiffany and was like, 'Worship planning? Since when do I do that?' and she said, 'At your ordination, I'm just going to say "I told you so," that's all.'"
Laura Ruth: [looks at me over her glasses in a sort of pointed "I'm not saying anything" kind of way]

We actually didn't wrap the meeting until almost 9pm. Laura Ruth offered to drive people home and I said, "Would it make you feel better to drive me home?" and she said, "No, it wouldn't make me feel better," but she ended up driving me home anyway, because she was driving Jeff and Jeff was asking if it was a good idea that he'd listed in print all of his song ideas (anchoring: good idea/bad idea?) and I said I was really glad to have something concrete to start with and our end list included a bunch of stuff not on his list, so it didn't seem to impede brainstorming or anything -- and we were walking to where Laura Ruth was parked, which was just about the opposite direction of where I live, so yeah, ride home.

They reminisced about HDS some, and I said that I'd heard that it doesn't do a good job of preparing you to be a pastor, and I said most of our CHPC interns came from HDS (in contrast to CWM, where they most come from BU STH), and I talked a little about my conflicted feelings about CHPC [clarification: I'm not saying I think CHPC's interns would make bad pastors] -- mind, I was responding to questions for most of this, was speaking with great energy but I didn't feel monologuing. Somewhere in this, I said to Laura Ruth, "You're gonna get really practiced at giving me that look, aren't you?"
Laura Ruth: "What look?"
me: "That look of: No, you're not called to ministry at all."
Laura Ruth: "That wasn't what was going on in my head at all. What was going on in my head was: I just marvel at how many words you have."
I bit my fist in a sort of blushing way.

***

My facebook status this morning: "Elizabeth has become someone who collects hymnals. Who knew the United Methodist Hymnal came in various color options? Decisions, decisions. (Though I think the purple is too great a temptation for me to get it in any other color.)"

CAUMC-Andrew commented: "I like my purple UMH. If you start collecting non-UMHs, two of my favorites are the Brethren hymnal and the Society of Friend's hymnal."

(Possibly I should actually clean out my bedroom before I acquire an entire new bookshelf of books.)

Jeremy commented: I have a purple UMH too...swanky!
Sharon: CWM should try to find pink and lavender :)
Tiffany: Check out the Australian hymnals too...they are fabulous! There is a list of the hymnals here: http://lectionarysong.blogspot.com/2010/01/song-and-hymns-for-transfiguration.html
Carolyn: I want a purple hymnal!
my mom: I have a couple -- maybe I should pass them on :)

So, my current to-purchase list:
Sing The Faith: New Hymns For Presbyterians (2003)
United Methodist Hymnal (Pew, Purple)
The Faith We Sing (Pew Edition with Cross and Flame)
Zion Still Sings! For Every Generation (Pew Edition, 2007)
[Edit: and Songs of Zion]
Sing! Prayer and Praise
The New Century Hymnal
the lingonberry-/cranberry-colored ELCA hymnal

Edit: Wikipedia: List of hymnals (hat-tip: Ari)

Current Music: the Finlandia tune but the Lloyd Stone (UMC!?) words

[FirstChurch Mailing List] I'm watching the snow start

Dear Beloved,

Wouldn't it be fun to bundle up and come out in the snow to church tonight for Rest and Bread at 6:30, and our big leadership night at 7? We'll have bread and wine at Rest and Bread and pizza at 7:10. Music for meditation begins at 6:15.

Snow angels are showing up around 5:30 to prepare the way of the Lord.

Hope you all can come, will come.
Laura Ruth

When I left work, snow had only accumulated on the coldest patches of ground, but I was still busting out gleeful walking through campus -- really dunno whether that was actually related to the weather or not, 'cause I was kind of like, "Where did that come from?" When I left church around 7:30, the snow was falling more heavily (though I wouldn't actually call it "heavy") and it was windy and the ground was mostly all covered. When I got home, my housemate said, "So the snow is about 12 hours behind schedule."

We finally changed the altar cloth to green for Ordinary Time (I liked having it white, so I wasn't agitating for liturgically appropriate -- and white is what I'm so used to on the Communion table, that I think after Epiphany I just didn't register it as a parament). And we adjusted the Call to Worship again. And Laura Ruth asked me if it would be okay if we added in "I Surrender All" as a transition between Confession/Grace and Communion -- actually, she opened by asking, "Do you know [sings] 'I surrender all...'?" and I said I'm familiar with it enough to recognize it when she was singing it but not enough to sing it on my own without looking at the words, and she said they were thinking of adding it into the service for Lent blah blah blah and I said I didn't remember it well enough to know if I have theological problems with it -- "Not that that would necessarily stop you from using it, which is fine" -- and she said they'd actually changed the language some, so it's, "I surrender all ... my loving Savior ..." and I said "I like it thus far," and she said that was it, and I said I was okay with that. She wiped her brow in relief :) [Looking it up now, I guess we're just using the chorus.] And Keith asked me if I had any Assurance of Grace I'd like to swap out the current one for, and I said I really like the one we're using now, and I really hadn't thought about liturgical planning for Lent. He said they were leaning toward keeping the current one, but that if there was one I'd been burning to use -- "But you probably would have told us already if there were" :) He asked if his playing piano for the meditative music worked, and I said yeah, and he said something like he knew I could be trusted to tell him if I didn't think so, and I said yeah, I might not necessarily volunteer that opinion but if I'm asked outright... He said that's rare and valuable -- to have someone willing to give honest negative feedback. I said there are times I hesitate, because I think the person asking doesn't really want to hear my honest negative opinion, but yeah.

+

Sacred Text: Matthew 19:16-29 (Inclusive Bible version)

Keith did the Reflection, and he talked about approaching the text from multiple perspectives -- said we tend to read this text from the perspective of the rich person, to feel it as a judgment on ourselves and to take the discussion in the direction of what do we do with that tension, but that while yes, living where there may be violence but not war, hunger but not starvation, we are in some ways in a position of privilege, but there are other places and moments where we are very much not in a position of privilege -- having our marriage not recognized by the government, being afraid to come out to people we love, being victims of racism or harassment, etc. He said that Jesus' primary audience wasn't the rich and powerful, and that one message of this passage is that the Kingdom of God is so important that we should push all else aside for it, and so maybe we can be thankful when there is less between us and the Kingdom of God.

Yes, I totally said "Kindom of God" when I did the Call to Confession (I talked about how sometimes we turn from opportunities to do good and sometimes we actively place more stuff between us and the Kindom of God -- and I said "Reign of God" at one point as well, and I talked about God welcoming us into [God's Kindom, or whatever term I used] of love and peace and justice).

+

Announcements:

Apparently Lenten morning prayer service will begin on Ash Wednesday and will include an Imposition of Ashes? And then there's a 7pm Ash Wednesday service with Imposition of Ashes (no Rest and Bread, though the chapel will be open at 6:30 for meditation).

Lenten Midweek House Church - The early Christians went deeper in faith by gathering in faith by gathering throughout the week in small groups for prayer, conversation, and a holy meal. We do the same each year during the 40 days of Lent, a time of deeper introspection and spiritual growth. This year's Lenten theme is "Simple Shifts." Every Wednesday in Lent we'll explore a different way to simplify our lives -- YOU will create the agenda on our first Wednesday together, and every Wednesday thereafter we'll explore one topic to determine what Christian scripture,tradition, and new revelation have to teach us.

Wednesdays work like this:

6:30 Rest and Bread worship
7:10 Simple Soup Supper
7:35 Small Groups

Edit: After I'd gone to bed Wednesday night, someone emailed the listserv announcing a pancake breakfast after church this coming Sunday. /edit

ACCOMPANY IMMIGRANTS IN DETENTION - Some Boston-area church folks are organizing to visit detained immigrants in Suffolk County Detention Center once a month. The idea is that as people of faith, we offer accompaniment as spiritual caregivers to detained immigrants. We don't offer legal help or advocacy, we offer our presence, hear people's stories, and let them know that they are not forgotten. This is part of a larger campaign around immigrant rights that's being organized by the New Sanctuary Movement, a coalition of churches. A faith-based group that does spiritual care-giving at the detention center, the Refugee Immigration Ministry (RIM), is doing a comprehensive training for anyone who'd like to commit to the visiting program. [...] The visiting schedule will be one Monday evening a month 7-9 pm-ish, plus a "support" meeting once a month (which may be optional). Visits are usually done in pairs and you should be able to commit to one year of visits.

I think I can't make the trainings (it's Thurs. Feb. 18 - Sun. Feb. 21, so it would mean missing my second Singspiration in a row, plus being late to the first CWM led by the new pastor) but I was thinking later that this would be really good practice for being in ministry (since my big resistance to ministry is that I don't want to have to care for people -- I totally do care for people already, but those are people I chose at some level or another, not a congregation I got handed).

And while I'm thinking about giving of my time and talents: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic

***

Edit: Oh, so there was annual leadership meeting after Rest and Bread, but all were welcome to join for dinner, so I did (yay pizza -- though I would have liked the toppings in writing). FCS-Ian (Church Moderator) said, "If anyone feels moved to offer a blessing over the food, then we can move over to the pizza," and Althea said something like, "I move that we say grace," and he said, "I didn't mean it had to be so formal" -- I honestly don't know whether she thought he was seriously saying we had to formally move to do this (it occurred to me later that the meeting hadn't even been called to order, right? so you can't make any formal motion -- yeah, I am so going to end up purchasing a copy of Robert's Rules of Order along with all those hymnals, aren't it? And yes I know various denominations have their own meeting rules, but I'm not sure I'm that hardcore and if I were to be it would be the UMC rules I would be learning and I feel that Robert's Rules is always a valid neutral default.) but NGL my default reaction was "seconded" -- though I didn't actually say that, 'cause Ian spoke first.

When I got up this morning, I saw it had snowed, which was a pleasant surprise. And I got to walk in the falling snow as I walked to work, both before and after the gym. (Though it was sunny enough during the day -- and above freezing -- that most of it was gone by the time I left work.)

And bracketing the day, tonight I found a great pair of pajama pants I'd forgotten I had.

***

[FirstChurch Mailing List] Rest and Bread and then Deacons

Dear Beloved,

Molly and I went to the picket line yesterday, to ask the Hyatt Hotel to pay attention to the real live people they fired, back in August. Almost all of the workers we met yesterday were immigrants to our country, just as we all were. Two of the workers had worked for Hyatt over 20 years, Droopy and Lucy.

Our scripture tells us, instructs us that we are to care for the immigrants, for the widows and orphans. As a people we've been doing this for seven thousand years. Tonight at Rest and Bread, we will reflect on this practice, reflect on how this practice brings joy and makes us free.

Our service starts at 6:30. Music for meditation begins at 6:15.

Our Deacons meet at 7:30. [...] These are the folks who look out for the spiritual life of our congregation. Please, won't you say a prayer for them, and for us as we meet together for the first time tonight?

Love,
Laura Ruth

Setting up for service, I avoided getting hit by a door while carrying some of the Elements. I said something about not getting Jesus hit by a door, and Laura Ruth said, "It's not Jesus yet," and I said that I don't believe in "making" it Jesus, and Laura Ruth said that she doesn't believe there's some magic that makes it Jesus but rather the assent of the community, and I said that I have such a low theology of Communion that for me it's more like, "Well I don't think it's every really Jesus, so..."

Service was just the three of us -- me, Laura Ruth, and Keith.

The Sacred Text was Psalm 146, Nan Merrill's version.

When Laura Ruth began her Reflection, Keith shifted his chair so he could look at her (he was sitting next to her) and she shifted her chair accordingly and then indicated that I should come join (I was sitting across the semi-circle from them) and so I came and sat on the (carpeted) floor, because I felt like it -- and stayed there until we all got up for the Passing of the Peace.

Laura Ruth talked about her experience yesterday, and talked about "the dance of justice" -- and invoked Jesus' Matthean "least of these."

During Prayers of the People, Laura Ruth gave thanks for me -- for my "sweet, deep spirit," and then some other stuff too.

When I did the Confession, I said, "those moments we have fallen short, have missed the mark -- those moments where have abstained from the dance of justice, or obstructed the dance of justice," and Laura Ruth smiled at me approvingly (yay thematic tie-ins).

During Communion, we all gathered around the table and did the service jointly. Giving each other Communion, Laura Ruth gave Keith the Cup and said, "The cup of salvation," and then realized that wasn't the language we use and asked him for the correct words and he said, "The cup of the new covenant," and I said, "It is also the cup of salvation -- Jesus is a many-splendored thing," and so then when she gave me the Cup she said, "The cup of salvation."

[FirstChurch Mailing List] Carving out a little time for prayer and communion, Rest and Bread

Dear Beloved,

Every Wednesday, about seven of us from our congregation and neighborhood carve out a little time in the middle of our week to pray and to serve communion to each other. It seems that we get to know each other a bit more deeply, we who are able to come. We think and pray for each other during the week. It is a way to be known to each other and to know God. If you've been wanting to get involved in a small group, here's one that meets every week from 6:30-7:05. Music for meditation begins at 6:15. We'd be so tickled if you'd join us.

Love,
Laura Ruth

The Sacred Text was Acts 9:1-15 -- the Conversion of Paul.

Keith gave the Reflection and said that Ananias' experience was as if George W. Bush went, unarmed, to a repentant Osama bin Laden -- and I saw Laura Ruth's face light up with the dawning of understanding of just what a radical thing it was that Ananias was called to do.

During "We Reflect," Laura Ruth talked about having gone to see Scott Brown last week "because I thought he was Saul" and talked about the possibility that she may be Saul. And then she lit another candle and talked about the reminder that she needs 3 days of not talking and maybe even of fasting to find God.

Althea said she has often imagined herself as Saul but she wonders if she will ever by called to be Ananias to someone, and that she hopes and prays she will be.

I said I wonder about the friends of Saul, who lead him into the city and who then vanish from the story. I said I can imagine what happens with them after the three days, but I wonder what happens with them during those three days.

When Laura Ruth opened the Prayers of the People, she mentioned, our friends, who wait with us during our blindness, wondering if we will ever find God.

Doing the Call to Confession, I said, "Having offered up our prayers of petition and of thanksgiving, we also offer up our prayers of confession -- acknowledging to God and to ourselves those times when we have missed the mark -- when, like Ananias initially, we turn from opportunities to do good, and when like Saul, we actively do harm. We acknowledge these moments, not to dwell in them, but to let go, to let of the pain, knowing that God is always welcoming us back, into the light, into God's love."

After service, Jeff borrowed Laura Ruth's guitar and practiced "step by step" (a spare copy from re/New happened to be in the chapel) and so I was singing that as I walked home.

I will seek you in the morning
and I will learn to walk in your ways
and step by step you'll lead me
and I will follow you all of my days

Serendipitously, this morning's daily lectionary readings were: Isaiah 61:1-7 and Romans 7:1-6.

I saw FCS-Ian last night 'cause there was Council after Rest and Bread. The copier's still broken, and he asked me if I still had the lectionary sheet* and I said yeah, not with me but at home, that I was planning to bring it to church and that I could also email him the Thursday daily lectionaries for the weeks until Lent. I got home and couldn't find it, so I typed up the Thursdays until Lent from my RCL book.

*Two Thursdays ago, he hadn't printed up slips, so I used his sheet of the month's daily lectionaries, and took it with me, thinking he had another copy, and the next week he didn't have a copy but I still had mine in my bag.

He replied later this morning:

Thank you very much. It is so nice to see you on Thursday mornings.

Bless,
Ian

***

Today was really busy at work. I literally didn't get done all the things I had to get done. I didn't feel like I was dropping balls, though, and I did take various breathers (including a comfortable lunch -- outside! -- with Cate). Scott said he'd never seen me so busy. I pointed out that the day Sonia came to visit was really busy. He said that was the second busiest.

At one point, he complimented me on a phone call he had been present for, said I clearly work in the Negotiations unit. I said that was funny because when Jim had approached me and said, "A project for your diplomacy skills," I had mentally recoiled, thinking, "Least favorite part of my job -- diplomacy, politic, negotiation." Scott said be that as it may, it doesn't change the fact that I'm good at it. "In certain contexts," I insisted. (I feel like what Scott was present for wasn't much of a negotiation.)

I am good at being mad at people, and I am good at taking care of people -- these are modes I operate really well (comfortably) in. I debated going to Blue Shirt tonight, because I was feeling like I needed to recharge and being around people was going to drain me further. But I went anyway. I got a sandwich and a fruit&sorbet smoothie -- yay healthy food. It was just Kathy and Gianna, and Gianna was leaving. We talked about church and family and etc. (Laura Ruth greeted me with, "Doctor [surname].") Erica, and Jeff, came later.

Laura Ruth told the story of going to Scott Brown's office today -- she was at the State House to lobby for trans rights, and Scott Brown's office is right near her Senator's office (Sonia Chang-Díaz) -- and confessing that she had thought she didn't need to know anything about Scott Brown because she was so sure that Martha Coakley would be elected, and so she doesn't know anything about him, and she talked to his legislative liaison or somebody (I forget) and asked questions, including, "My congregation is really progressive, so what can we do to support you, given how different we are?" and the guy said, "Talk to us -- write to us, email us ... we have to represent the whole state, not just a part of it."

Around 7 (I got there around 6) Laura Ruth and Jeff had their meeting about re/New etc. Well, it started with Laura Ruth saying that she and Jeff needed to have their meeting, and I got up, and Jeff said, "It's an open meeting," and I sat back down.

I wasn't sure how helpful I would be, but I had some potentially useful thoughts, and I was really useful in practical matters of reminding them of things they had said they would talk about, asking Laura Ruth if she should input into her phone calendar a change they had agreed on verbally, etc. At point I said, "And people wonder why I'm never planning to quit my job -- this is what I do," and Laura Ruth said something about Calling (in a way which Affirmed that this is a gift of mine).

They talked about "Christian rockstar music," and she made a disgusted face. She said, "My nephew's a Christian rockstar. I love the boy, but it's nauseating," and she mimed preening flowing hair. I said, "Would you feel the same way if he were gay? I'm just thinking, with the [miming], that if he were gay, you would be like, 'Oh, that's so [mentally searches for a good word].' " She was appropriately abashed and said, "Point taken, you don't even need to finish the sentence."

At one point, Laura Ruth mentioned a couple in the church and referred to them as a straight couple and then said, "Well, I don't know -- [male name] might be trans." I said, "Trans people can be straight," and later, "If one person uses masculine pronouns and the other person uses female pronouns, they're an opposite-gender couple -- who may or may not identify as queer." Jeff asked, "When are we [First Church] gonna do queer theory 101?" and I got all excited. He said, "I probably sound like my grandma does on race," and Laura Ruth assured him that wasn't so, and she also said she wasn't sure she even knows what queer theory is. I said that "queer theory" in the academic sense contains a lot including a lot of stuff I don't necessarily understand, but that what Jeff meant, like GLBT Issues 300, is something I'm really excited about -- about the nuances of language and the difference between sex and gender and all that.

We finally departed around 8:30.

Other good things about today: The job candidate didn't mind my taking him outside, the glitches that there were seemed to be fine, my W-2 came in the mail so I can now file my taxes, the FCS prayer retreat is 5pm-5pm so I don't have to miss the teaching part of that workday.

Edit: Tiffany and I made a date for coffee before she leaves, and I asked if she wanted to meet at Mr. Crepe or somewhere else, and she said, "Why break with tradition? Mr. Crepe works for me." ♥

Current Music: "Step By Step (O God You Are My God)" Christian rockstar music in my head

Given all the wet last night, I was pleasantly surprised at how walkable the sidewalks were this morning. I did fall on my ass once walking past Tufts -- what hurt most was my hands; it was like it had snowed lightly and then frosted or something, there was this grit. Coming back from Rest and Bread tonight, I slipped on some ice/slush and fell on my knees, gaining wet patches on my pants, but the two or three times I slid later I managed to catch/right myself.

From: RevLauraRuth Jarrett
Sent: Wed, January 20, 2010 11:14:32 AM
Subject: [FirstChurch Mailing List] The election, the earthquake, and Rest and Bread

Dear Beloved,

We had a little political earthquake in Massachusetts. Some of us thought that Martha Coakley would be a shoo in. Some of us thought that Scott Brown would be the best person to represent Massachusetts in the national Congress. Some of us were distracted or were too busy and didn't vote - all of this and a thousand other thoughts, wishes, hopes, and dreams exist in our congregation this morning.

Our work as a congregation is to be community together, to hear each other, to learn from each other, to listen for God's direction and walk Jesus' way of peace, to align ourselves with the divine. Instead of thinking about who is right (or wrong) or what should have happened, instead, I gently and respectfully request we speak together of our spiritual, physical and emotional needs and how our needs informed how we voted. In this way, we may know about how to pray for each other, how to serve each other, how to negotiate complicated ideas and complex needs with simple love and without judgment. In this way, we grow more centered in our purpose, grow flexible in our ability to see God. I pray this might be our journey.

We have a listserv called: First Church Chat for such discussion. You can join it here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/firstchurchchat/

The real earthquake is in Haiti, complete with aftershocks. We raised $2560 to give to the Holy Bible Baptist Church, our sister church in Davis Sq. Owen Robinson, Christy, Simon, Izzy Zuzelo, and I walked it down. We got a quick hug and heartfelt thanks. How amazing it was to be welcomed with our gift into that community!

The folks at HBBC will be putting together survival kits for kids. Myriam from HBBC said they could use some hands to put these kits together. You can see what they're doing and what they need at http://www.holybiblebaptistchurch.org/.

Church World Service is doing the same. You can see what they're doing and what they need at http://www.churchworldservice.org/site/PageServer?pagename=kits_main

We can pray together about all these things, to reaffirm that we are the body of Christ regardless of whom we voted for, that we are all in spiritual need at Rest and Bread tonight at 6:30. Music for meditation begins at 6:15.

Church Council follows.

Peace, dear ones, and love from me,
Laura Ruth

I replied:

Thank you for the acknowledgment that not everyone in this congregation/listserv was necessarily anti- Scott Brown.

And for having a forum other than this main listserv for partisan conversation.

And for reminding us of what we as Church are called to.

<3
Elizabeth

Rest and Bread

The readings were Matthew 5:14-16 and part of an article from today's Boston Globe.

I was a little uncomfortable with Laura Ruth's Reflection because hi, I am just war girl, but I can't really argue with the fact that Jesus' message was about loving and taking care of people.

Afterward, we were invited to reflect aloud (and light a candle) on being a peacemaker, on being light in the world, on seeing light in others. Laura Ruth was the first to go, and she said that she thought that Scott Brown was a nobody, that she didn't have to think about him, but now she does; "I'm sorry." I know I'm not remembering the middle part exactly, but what really struck me was the "I'm sorry" that she said at the end, because what I heard in that was, "I'm sorry for discounting the humanity of a beloved child of God" -- because dismissing people as not worth thinking about is in some ways dismissing their humanity (though yes I know plenty of people just thought of course the Democrat would win and they were merely making a political calculus, not any sort of verdict on any person's inherent worth).

A friend today posted excerpts from G.K. Chesterton's "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family," in Heretics, including:

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. That is why the old religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom when they spoke, not of one's duty towards humanity, but one's duty toward one's neighbour. The duty towards humanity may often take the form of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable. That duty may be a hobby; it may even be a dissipation. We may work in the East End because we are peculiarly fitted to work in the East End, or because we think we are; we may fight for the cause of international peace because we are very fond of fighting...We may be so made as to be particularly fond of lunatics or specially interested in leprosy...But we have to love our neighbour because he is there-- a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of humanity which is actually given us. Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident.

Much on my mind is this recent slactivist post on "The Logic of Hell" -- which I just read today. And this one, which points out that:

When Jesus stood to read in the synagogue he looked over the whole of the scriptures and selected the one thing he wanted to say out of all that he might have read and he read this as his motto, his mission statement, the signature and standard of his ministry and its meaning:
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

***

Because I don't watch tv, I barely encountered any ads during this Senate race -- until I was at the gym yesterday morning; I swear one of the local stations it was literally nonstop for an entire commercial break. I was tired of hearing about the results by, oh, about the time I heard Mary Alice talking over coffee this morning.

The woman who sits behind me was on the phone with a family member for hours this morning (talking largely about politics) and apologized to me afterward and offered to get me something in recompense and I said I never turn down chocolate :) So when she got back from her appointment in W. Roxbury she brought me a chocolate cupcake (layers of chocolate frosting layered between the slices of cupcake!).

And Prof.MikeW. brought in cinnamon bread from some place in Beverly.

gchat from Scott about quarter to one:

so my cold has turned out to be miserable
so sonia got me to make the surprisingly mature decision not to go into the office today :-/
see you tomorrow
*hug*

As I was setting up before Rest and Bread tonight, my cell phone rang. I almost didn't answer it because I didn't recognize the number and I figured they probably wanted my money, but hey I was way early and if they were someone I wanted to give my money to I had my credit card in my pocket. It was the therapist I'd left a vm with this afternoon. (The woman Tiffany referred me to is out-of-network and I have an HMO, and the two people she named are also out-of-network, so I did a brief browse of the in-network online search.) I felt bad that I was chatting in the chapel ('cause partway through a guy came in and hung out a bit and then left) but it turned out that he was a guy who had come a while ago and didn't know we'd moved service to 15 minutes later than it was before so he was just very early.

After I'd finished set up and gotten off the phone, I went upstairs to Laura Ruth's office. She told Keith (who had been in Puerto Rico) that I was "AWESOME!" on Sunday. She then said. "I met her mum and dad on Sunday, and you know that thing she does? [demonstrates standing behind me, her hand on my back/shoulder] Her whole family does that." This is apparently a thing that I/we do without even thinking, because I had to think to remember that yes my mother did that, and had to work even harder to remember that this is a thing that I do. Hugging I know I do -- and random shoulder massages I know I used to do a lot. But that way of maintaining physical contact with someone even when you're not directly engaging with them... yeah, that is totally something me and my mom would do but is not something I ever would have thought of.

Laura Ruth was cold, as per usual, and I asked, "Would you like fingerless gloves?" She was resistant to the idea of my buying her a pair as a gift (what is WRONG with people?) but she is letting me get her a pair (I said, "They're like five bucks," and she gave my a $5 bill and said she would give me whatever additional money it cost; I am reminded of how ungood it is to not allow people to bestow a gift on you -- but seeing the $5 biill in my pocket when I was emptying my pockets before bed reminded me that I need to find her a pair, so that's good).

Dear Beloved Congregation,

At 6:30 PM today, we will gather for Rest and Bread, to pray and share the feast of Communion. Music for meditation begins at 6:15.

In Davis Sq., one of our neighbors is the Haitian Bible Baptist Church at 45 College Ave. We'll pray for this congregation and all our neighbors whose families are affected by the massive earthquake in Haiti.

Speaking of praying, our Annual Retreat is coming up, February 5 & 6. Our theme is Prayer. We will be exploring the ideas and practices of prayer, looking for ways of praying that feel real, are real. Some of us need to draw in order to pray, some need to move our bodies. Some of us need to pray with words and some of us don't know how to find words, but we can find the alignment of our spirit to God's presence. Some of us are at the beginning of a prayer practice and some of us begin again each morning. Please contact Liz [redacted] and Betsy [redacted], copied here, to register.

Love,
Laura Ruth

(This tempts me to attend the retreat.)

***

Psalm 121
Ephesians 2:12(?)-22 (I thought of Yoder's "Baptism and the New Humanity" chapter.)

Rest and Bread is following FCS Sunday morning in doing a series on "Race, Immigration and Justice."

During Prayers of the People, I said, "I pray for the trans woman I read about today who ( this may be triggering ). And I pray for all those who do not have control over their own bodies because of gender, disability, class, race." (After I finished, I realized I should have said, "or any other reason.")

And later I listed a litany of prayer requests and closed with prayers for myself that I be able to take care of myself with all this stress. \o/

Inviting us to Confession, I said, "We acknowledge the moments where we have missed the mark -- where we have done that which we wish we had not done, and where we have failed to do that which we know we should do. And we acknowledge those moments, knowing that after we acknowledge them to God, we can let them go, let go of the guilt -- knowing that God is always welcoming us into that light, into that love."

my facebook status: "successfully preached a sermon, out loud, in front of a congregation. (We about doubled the size of the congregation. If I'm remembering correctly, there were 13 regulars, 2 returning, 12 just to hear me, plus me. And I communed EVERYONE by name.) Scott [redacted] gets almost all the credit for my good pacing."

I have since thought of at least 3 people (2 who came just for me, and one newbie-regular) whom I forgot to count. [Mike R. commented on facebook: "I stand in awe of the Elizabeth fan club. :) And I stand within it!"]

We sang "You Are Mine" at morning church, and I wished I had thought to request that for tonight. But Cassandra did "Wade in the Water," which was so so good ("If you don't believe I've been redeemed...").

We did all 4 lectionary readings -- I think Marla revised the Isaiah a little bit to be less enforcing the gender binary (Ari, I thought of you) -- and Marla asked me to do the Luke reading, so I was already standing at the podium to start my sermon.

I felt so so nervous, but I spoke slowly as I'd practiced with Scott (he stopped me like 2 lines in and made me start over 'cause I was going too fast -- said, "when it feels painfully slow to you, then it's just right for the people listening"), and when I could feel my breathing shallow I took a conscious breath between paragraphs (hey, it's a sermon, it can be a meditative pause, and it's a sermon so no one's going to think I'm done and interrupt) and I know from years of lay reading to look out at the congregation and make eye contact and I was really glad that I was able to do that so smoothly -- the only time I looked back at my text and couldn't immediately find my place I apparently knew the sentence well enough that I could seamlessly continue saying the sentence from memory and had found my place by the time I finished the sentence.

Afterward, Melissa jokingly asked if I wanted an Ativan next time, but she interacts with me on a daily basis and is a trained professional therapist. Everyone else used words like "poised" and "professional" and "calm." And there were people who were surprised that this was my first time doing this. (I said I did have a lot of experience doing lay reading.)

I was the first person to lift up prayers (I totally waited to see if anyone had anything pressing), and as Tiffany was saying them back to me she dissolved into coughing (she's been sick and overdid it today) and Annie had to jump in and be Emergency Backup Minister (TM some friend of Melissa's). When Tiffany and I were talking after dinner, she said that she was so sad to have to let Annie take over, said she'd had a beautiful prayer in her head. ♥ (Earlier at dinner, my dad had applauded Annie for doing the pastoral prayer wrap-up, and she said that she had learned it from the master, aka Tiffany, who has made it a habituse for this congregation -- which is trufax.)

During Passing of the Peace, Kristy(sp?) who had come with Michael Z., thanked me for my sermon, said it was one of those instances of the right message at the right time. I was really touched and thanked her for letting me know. In retrospect, the message that "You are a Beloved Child of God" is a message that it's hard to go wrong with, so the praise for the content of my sermon doesn't necessarily say a lot (though I do totally think my sermon was on par quality-wise with the previous 9 I've written), but that is also arguably the most important message there is, so I'm okay with my preaching debut being this.

Communion included an invitation to water or anointing oil, and after we'd communed everyone and Marla and I had communed each other, I communed Tiffany and she anointed me and then I anointed her. She has a supply of vials of oil (from RMN -- they have a rainbow tree on them that says, "One Family Tree") which people were encouraged to take home with them. Ari, I took one for me and one for you.

And there was dinner that wasn't pizza.

And lots of the visitors said very kind things about the community and the welcome and the atmosphere. \o/

My parents got to experience my church, and meet both the pastors I care about before they leave. And both of those pastors got to hear me preach before they left.

Tiffany said she hopes she gets to continue reading my sermons, and asked if I'm going to go back and catch up [the last sermon I posted was, belatedly, for Advent 2] and I said I planned to try and she said she suspected as much. She said that pastors often think they can go off lectionary and no one will notice "because who reads the lectionary?" but of course I do and so whenever she goes off lectionary she knows that I'll notice and she has to acknowledge it in her sermon. She said that when she's writing a sermon there's a little me in her head -- that there are lots of people in her head when she's writing a sermon, but that I'm always there :)

Oh, and before service Laura Ruth said, "I have been praying for you all day," and

cadenzamuse and

wisdomeagle both lifted me up in prayer at their morning churches.

Edit: After dinner, Tiffany was reiterating her suggestion that I'm Called to ministry -- pointing out that God doesn't usually speak in such clear signs as the heavens opening but rather in ways like the people around us.
me: "But we're called to be in the world but not of the world, to not necessarily listen to the majority voices around us."
Melissa: "Are you two arguing by quoting Bible verses back and forth?"
me: " ... A little. Which possibly proves Tiffany's point more than it does mine."

[We did agree that preaching/teaching sort of ministry, not pastoral counseling kind of ministry.]

Edit2: Near the end of our conversation Saturday night, Scott said, "Remember to have fun. I know that you have the souls of everyone in the congregation in your hand for those minutes, but remember to have fun," and, "You get to make them be more righteous."

And I did remind myself, as I was feeling nervous as the room was filling up and throughout the day, that everyone was here because they love me. ("They want you to succeed," Scott had pointed out.)

And a couple people did say things like that the Holy Spirit was moving when I was preaching.

There is something really wonderful about so many being so loving and affirming (and I didn't get to everyone during Passing of the Peace because there were so many people and I was having so many hugs and conversation), and I'm feeling more positive about the experience with some distance -- though I am also understandably hesitant about the idealizing effect of distance.

[FirstChurch Mailing List] Rest and Bread, Epiphany! Three Kings Day! Manifestation of our Lord! Adoration of the Magi!

Dear Beloved,

We gather tonight to celebrate the feast of Epiphany at 6:30. Tonight we will take a moment to adore God. Won't you come? Music for meditation begins at 6:15.

Deacons will gather for food, business, and prayer at 7:30.

Love,
Laura Ruth

I sang alternate lyrics to "We Three Kings" (~~We three~~ Queens and kings of Orient are ... Born ~~a King~~ to reign on Bethlehem's plan / Gold I bring to crown ~~Him~~ You again / ~~King~~ Christ forever, ceasing never / Over us all to rei[g]n ... Pray'r and praising, all ~~men~~ us raising...).

I wasn't really a fan of Laura Ruth's Reflection (though I did like the bit about the magi being astrologers, who observe the cosmos and translate that into terms we can understand, and using that idea for connecting the Creator God who is bigger than the cosmos with the infant Christ). *grump*

We got anointed with (on our wrists) oil containing frankincense and myrrh.

***

I went up to Laura Ruth's office before service tonight 'cause there were no bulletins and the church office was locked. She said she wanted to tell me something face-to-face. Said a letter had gone out to the congregation but I probably didn't get it because I'm not on their mailing list (and so she wanted to tell me face-to-face before I started hearing it from other people). I said, "I am on your mailing list." (I'd gotten the letter yesterday.) "But you can still tell me what you were gonna tell me face-to-face," I said. "No, it's just what's in the letter," she said.

So what's in the letter is that Laura Ruth's position as Minister of Outreach and Evangelism at First Church Somerville was a two-year (part-time) position. She started in late February 2008 (I met her in early June 2008). She's applied to churches in Massachusetts and elsewhere [Vermont, Ohio, North Carolina, and southern Ontario], feeling called to full-time ministry. Council has extended her contract through June 2010 if need be while she is in the job search process. She's having Thursday night office hours at Blue Shirt Cafe in Davis starting this week.

She said to me upstairs, "I know you already have one loss" [i.e., Tiffany leaving] and I said, "Yeah, I was thinking that when I read the letter."

I hung around after service before Deacons (in part because I was hungry and so was partaking of the abundant Jesus). At one point she asked me how I was doing. I said, "okay." Which was the same exchange we'd had before service. Then I said, "I'm a little bit angry at you for leaving. I mean, not really angry angry, but in an honest emotional assessment..."
LR: "I'm sorry."
me: "It's not your fault."
LR: "I'm still sorry."
me: "Thanks. I appreciate that."
me: "It's not your fault that I didn't know this was a two-year position."
LR: "Ohhh."
me: "Yeah."
me: "I just assume these sorts of things are in perpetuity. I mean, it makes sense, given this church's finances, that it would be, ''We have this grant money, let's do this thing'..."

When I left I reminded her that I would see her Sunday (because she's coming to hear me preach). She asked how the sermon was coming and I said I'd finished it yesterday and wasn't planning to look at it again except that I'm supposedly rehearsing it over the phone with my friend Scott at some point. She said I could just use a mini-recorder or the mic on my computer and play it back and I said, "I hate the sound of my voice recorded, so no." She said, "You'll be a preacher, you gotta get used to that." I said, "What is this 'will'? All my pastors who are leaving are making sure to share with me before they leave their discernment about my path."

[Scott called me back tonight (I'd called him last night) and I learned that he had basically no Internet in Atlanta -- I had emailed him on Sunday and Tuesday and failed to receive his auto-response -- and also got the story of why he ended up with so much less free time than he had initially expected.]

Oh, and Laura Ruth explicitly invited me to be a part of First Church's pictorial congregational directory (photo shoot this weekend).

adult class
Sun, January 3, 2010 7:32:00 AM

Hello Elizabeth,
I hope you check your email this morning because I just got a call saying that they have canceled church.
I lost your phone number (if I had it) or I would call you.
Owen

At one point this morning, Melissa's houseguest asked me when church was ('cause I was hanging around the house).
me: "10:30 -- my 9:00 church was canceled."
Melissa: "I didn't know you went to two Sunday morning church services."
me: "I don't -- the 9:00 is Adult Ed."
Melissa: "Because you're not educated enough."

Later, Melissa's houseguest was checking out my bookshelves and said, "You're a knowledge junkie."

[FirstChurch Mailing List] Yup, we're here at Church
Sun, January 3, 2010 9:01:10 AM

Dear Beloved Ones,

I just got in from Jamaica Plain. The roads are slippery. If you can get here, come. If you can't stay home, stay safe. We'll pray for you, and then eat your share at coffee hour.

Love to you, with wishes for your safety,
Laura Ruth

CHPC

I called the office ~8:30 and ~9:30 and got the generic message both times.

While I think church should basically never cancel, a large part of me was hoping CHPC would cancel so I could go to First Church instead because I didn't actually want to go to CHPC.

I felt like the snow was worse than it was the Sunday before Christmas (though I don't think I would posit either as bad). It had actually stopped by the time I left church around 12:15.

Intro'ing the Call to Worship, Karl did the usual "please rise as you are able" and said, "if you are able -- I assume most of you are." Disability FAIL. I know that this phrase is part of the rote liturgy and we don't think about why we say it and if we did we think of people who are in wheelchairs and elderly people and etc., but hello invisible disability -- and not making assumptions about who is in the room. (Yes, I am bringing this up in the email I am writing to him.)

Because there were so few people, Karl said he was going to do something a little different -- rather than doing a full sermon, he would share some of this thoughts and then invite us to respond.

He talked about universalism (the star appeared to strangers, drawing them in) and incarnation (God incarnating tells us that the things of the earth hold the divine). I didn't really disagree with any of his statements (though I wouldn't have necessarily gone the incarnation route with the Epiphany story, and I think he gives the Incarnation broader implications than I think it merits).

After he was done, he asked if we had any questions, and no one said anything, and he sort of got on our case and I felt like, "I have thoughts on Epiphany and the Incarnation, but not necessarily questions." Someone commented that the Incarnation can be dangerous because it kind of brings us back to ancient days when kings for example were seen as divine. I countered that it brings us back to the roots of our faith tradition, when God created the earth and called it Good, that it tells us that God makes God's home here on earth, that God is not just in the ethereal heavens or sky but that God most fully encounters us in incarnate fleshly humanity rather than in dreams or visions.

Talking about wanting to encourage this kind of discussion/dialogue (so that he is not just "indoctrinating" us, and also so that he knows that people are actually paying attention ;) ) Karl said we often leave our brains at the door when we enter church, and I made disbelieving gestures of outrage at this implication. I asked if this meant I could interrupt and argue with his sermons, if that was encouraged. He said he had thought about that before and wasn't sure if that was the appropriate place for that kind of dialogue -- and said he has considered opening up a space right after the sermon for people to fire back -- but that afterward is definitely appropriate.

Richard did Focus on Mission -- talked about a church he has attended in Palm Springs (he travels a lot) which is actually growing and a conversation he had with the pastor, who said (among other things) that. Karl said he would be really interested to hear from those who are relatively new here, what their experience of the first ten minutes here is, and for those of us who have been here for a while ... he got on his scolding soap box and said that new people are often sitting in the sanctuary by themselves for a long time because the regular congregants largely don't start trickling in until about 10:30. I said, "But church doesn't start promptly at 10:30, so we're not incentivized to be here on time." Because trufax, I am not motivated to be at CHPC at 10:30 (or my customary 5 minutes before scheduled start time) because we so rarely start actually on time (plus, of course, I do not love this church -- I am not fed, nourished, inspired, renewed, etc. by its worship services and etc.).

Isabelle's home on break from Bryn Mawr, and at Coffee Hour Ruth mentioned that she knows a couple of guys who went Bryn Mawr -- for grad school, she explained. I said that it says something about the circles I'm in that my first thought was, "Oh, they used to be girls." After I said it I realized I should have said, "They used to be female-bodied" ('cause hi, gender identity) but since I'd already set the tone with my phrasing, I felt like I couldn't then correct Ruth when she was talking about men she knows who used to be women. (AllyFail, I know.)

CWM

The "CWM Weekly News" Tiffany sent out last night (which actually sketched out the whole month's calendar -- yay!) opened "Grace and Peace to you in this Second Week of Christmas!"

And the bulletin said: "The Second Sunday of Christmas: Celebrating the Coming Epiphany" ♥

Steven from Sacred Eros showed up at church. I win at evangelism :) Or something.

Tiffany opened with talking about an Art History class she took, which she was really struggling with because she didn't have the grounding in Christian stories to recognize the players in the paintings, and how one day her professor advised her (and the other students who were similarly struggling) to look for the halos, because that indicates the important players. She talked about how when the magi came upon the scene of the Holy Family, they didn't have the holy halos painted in by the Old Masters to guide them but that they were probably looking for the markers of power of their own day (they first went to King Herod in Jerusalem, for example, expecting that he would know who was to succeed him as King of the Jews) -- just as we seek validation from cultural markers like what we own and what people say about us. She referenced U2's "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" and talked about how we are often yearning for God etc. but are seeking big dramatic obvious moments. I insisted that no you don't really want the heavens to open and God to speak to you unmistakably -- but I respect that she does want some clarity of message from God. She said that although the world is a mess, she has learned to cultivate the spiritual discipline/practice of seeing God in little things, to see God's immanence all over the place time after time.

While I disagree with her take on the magi, what I was really struck by was when she said something (in reference to herself) about "cynical" and I thought of how she grooves on being a prophet of woe but that despite Mike R. and I being "Team Cynic" at CAUMC small group, I am forever saying, "But what is the Good News, Tiffany?"

My facebook status after I got home from evening church: "(1) continues to be surprised that not everyone else has read the blogposts she has read about the race and disability fail of James Cameron's Avatar, (1a) keeps wanting to call FAIL all over the place re: race, gender, ability, etc., but is usually too confrontation-avoidant to do so (AllyFail); (2) is not wired to be a cynical prophet of woe."

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Elizabeth (the delinquent, ecumenical)

May 2025

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Style: Adjustable Gradient for Bannering by branchandroot

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burning like matchsticks in the face of the darkness

when faced with my demons I clothe them and feed them

Entries tagged with people: pastors: laura ruth

I thought I had a third item, but maybe not.

saying goodbye to my second pastor in six months

[Rest and Bread] i mostly didn't cry

and now I'm crying

[Easter 3] Rest and Bread, Blue Shirt Cafe, etc. (faithful living and faithful transitions)

[bittersweet] Laura Ruth thinks I'm a mystic.

[Easter 2] Rest and Bread

God is a verb

Last night, Laura Ruth thanked me for the Reflection I gave -- said it was good for the community.

[18.1] Easter Wednesday reflection - "It's spring, even at night."

// But other lands have sunlight too and clover //

[Rest and Bread] "Your hands are cold -- first time ever."

we three spirits

[Rest and Bread] the conversion of Paul [2010-10-27]

Yes, I am up past my bedtime again.

a saint is just a sinner who fell down and got up again

"I lift up my eyes to the hills -- from where will my help come?"

Scott also exhorted me to "have fun" preaching; I think I'm not quite there yet.

guide us to thy perfect light

I wore my sparkly gold sweater (for Epiphany).

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May 2025

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