Cemetery

When my siblings and I learned to drive, it was in the local cemetery where generations on both sides of my family are buried.  It was a safe place.  No small children to dart out into the street.  Very little traffic.  Just us and one parent, and hills and curves.  I remember uphill and downhill parking.  And yes, lots of curves.  It did not occur to me at the time to think of all my relatives buried there.  Driving to Minnesota yesterday, my daughter drove a lot of the way.  She got her permit in January.  She will be eligible for her license in September.  Freeways and construction zones.  My brother suggests I take her to Lakewood Cemetery while we are here so she can drive the curves and practice parking uphill and downhill.  And yes, experience the presence of all the generations looking on.

Consider this:

Look at your child, if you have one or two.  Consider how life is different for him or her or them.  Consider how life is different for you now that you are grown up (or mostly grown up).  Thank God for some changes.  Pray for others.  Pay attention to the road.

Difference

Today I attended a clergy meeting at the local mosque.  We had a to-die-for lunch of salmon and asparagus.   Trays of pastries passed around and around.   I could name the categories of people who were there, but I really think each represented his or her own category.  In a good way. 

So often it is easy to focus on how someone is different from us.   Instead of focusing on what we share,  the commonality, the humanity, we look instead at the things which separate us.  I guess it*s a protective measure. 

This was going to be one of those reflections which talked about what we all had in common.  Instead, I came away with a feeling of splendid difference.  Splendid amazing difference.   Here we were, all in the same room together, eating the best salmon I have ever eaten.   We barely touched the tip of the iceberg of commonality.   Being clergy, of course we talked.   But still… splendid amazing difference.  I left with the sense that I barely knew where to begin.  But still, I want to begin.

Consider this:

Sometimes we get just enough information about a person or a situation that we realize we are different.  Sometimes we get the privilege of sharing a meal, perhaps a cup of coffee even, and coming to this realization.  When did you last experience this realization that the person sitting across from you is splendidly, amazingly different?  Where and how will you begin?

Different yet the same

This morning Jeff and I served as ushers at church, as we do on a regular basis at the 9:15 service.  The view from the middle, standing in the back of church, is quite different from the middle front, facing the congregation, the place I used to stand all the time as rector or vicar, as priest in charge of smaller congregations.  From the back I see different things.   Even on this Sunday of the time change, with sleepy eyes, I saw different things.    The priest eyes do not go away just because I am not leading worship.  Now I still have priest eyes, priest heart, but use them from a different place in church.  Now it seems I am to use all I have experienced, all the accumulation of some 57 years (over half as a priest), only I am to stand in a different place, see different things, lead perhaps in a different way.  It is all right and good, and yes, different.  

Consider this:

It can be difficult to embrace different.  It is often hard to explain to others (or even to ourselves) when we have made a change (or something has changed us).  Where are you now?  Where have you been?  What changes, what transitions have impacted your life recently?  Say... in the last year?  Lent is often used as a time of personal assessment,  a time to reflect on where we have been, and what next steps God would have us take.  Sometimes we wake up to find ourselves standing in the back, handing out bulletins, bringing up the offering plates, tripping over teddy bears (like this Sunday).  It is good to reflect on the changes, recognize ourselves in their midst, and begin to figure out that next step.