The Cascade Effect

Driving home I feel more alive somehow.

This does not surprise me, since it's a common afterglow kind of experience whenever I have lunch with John.

The overflow of joy at a Waterfall in Thailand. 

I call him John now, as if he was a peer.  But inside, in every way respect and admiration and deep appreciation and the wonder of being in the presence of someone 'greater than' vibrates in my heart, he is and always be my beloved "Pastor Bersche".

We were all so much more formal in those days.  I think my Dad would have had a fit if I'd ever dared be so cheeky to refer to him as simply John, or even Pastor John back then.  It was the suit and tie generation of church, where that was godly.  We showed respect.  Especially to those 20 years our senior.  Especially those those who held office in the church.

Being baptized by Pastor Bersche circa 1972, age 15

Except John was anything but formal.  Back then it was the early 70s and we were just figuring out that Jesus was fun.  At least in my neck of the denominational woods we were.  This new pastor brought life and energy and joy to Sundays, to our community of faith, like we'd never seen before, even though former pastors were revered and dearly loved.  But with John, Jesus was fun, the Word of God was fascinating, the Holy Spirit was a real interactive Person of the Godhead, and services were never the same.

It's impossible to overstate the influence all of this had on my own spiritual formation and ministry calling; how this inspired me and modeled for me who I would become as a pastor myself.  Not that this was on the radar back then.  Back then we were breaking the rules by having his gifted wife, Jan, speak on Mother's Day.  That was really pushing the envelope.  But I remember it.  I remember being emboldened by it, just 11 years old and seeing for the first time that a woman had something to say about God.

And it took seed in me then, I am sure of it now.

We remember this together at lunch today.  It is something of a needful remembering, since both of us, at this point in our ministry lives, are looking back on full time pastoring, as if it was something from our past, which is it.  And we lament this for a while.

It gets in your blood, this calling.  It stays with you.  When you've loved a congregation at a molecular level and for any length of time, you don't just 'fall out of love' on the day they say goodbye.  You don't just stop being a pastor just because people stop calling you that.   So we grieve together a little today, the way two people suffering the same kind of loss tend to do. And we acknowledge together that sense of disorientation of having a pastor's heart beating in your chest, but with no congregation to incorrectly (because they never belong to us) call your own.

But then there was this.  The realization, almost at the same time for both of us, of the Cascade Effect.  It was when he said he was so proud of who I had grown into.  Of how awesome and life-giving it was for him to have seen Ken and I (he officiated our wedding) turn our life together into an enduring ministry.  Of how exciting it was to realize how the kingdom had been nourished and become un-bordered on both sides of the planet; of the lives being impacted.

But I just had to turn us both backwards to see where this Cascade between us had first come.  And I thanked him again (because I've said it so many times) for showing me that Jesus was fun and that the Word of God was so incredibly fascinating and that the Holy Spirit was a real interactive Person of the Godhead and that Worship could be such an intimate, hilarious experience, and that a woman might have something to say about God.

Then we turned around together and looked forward, a little dimly because who knows, to where the Cascade would go.  And just prayed to be worthy of it the rest of our days, however long God chose to leave us here to pour it out on His behalf.

And the Cascade of it gave me life again, on a day following a deep low in this journey towards the new things, the new ways of pouring out God's life for future generations to revel in.

Once again I am poured into by my beloved Pastor,
whom I now call John,
as if he was a peer.

The Undoing

Dark sunrise, this day of Days
When God lays down His glory
And steps into the unbelievable

The blood on the road isn't mine
But it should have been
And in horror I consider the unthinkable

I am undone

Grace, what have You done?
Creation shakes in heaving sobs
Black skies make silent the unspeakable

A coldness sweeps over me
Paralyzes and locks me in
Grief and gratitude hideously unimaginable

I am unhinged

And sickened and have to look away
Spinning now but there's no escaping it
And I am down for the count, unfathomable

I am unworthy

And this I know --

Jesus loves me.

The Outside Wonderment of Jayden

We are outside with sticks and wonderment. 

 

When you're two, a winter-ravaged backyard is rich with discovery, and Jayden shows me this.  I may only see decomposing leaves pasted into the corners by the fence, the litter of dead twigs across the yet-to-be-dethatched lawn, and a patio in disarray, but my wonderment-expert grandson knows better.

Each stone is a surprising and precious commodity, gathered meticulously and piled in precarious heaps of protected ownership. 

Between the wet-brown leaves the rake reveals an astonishing creature, bright and slimy and wriggling, worthy of gleeful inspection.

A stick is good for so many important things, like throwing and whacking and walking.

Even a sudden gust of invisible air, lifting dry leaves in a spiral, is apparently hilarious.

I wouldn't be outside today except for Jayden.  We're together for the week, and his unrelenting need to move, combined with his love to be 'out', makes for an earlier-than-normal-for-me foray into that long held spring ritual called "clearing out the yard'.  Left to my own devices, I would certainly still be indoors until more warmth and sunshine enticed me away from my computer to address this task.
And I would be missing everything.

Even without better temperatures or more sunshine, I am keenly aware of how this being outside thing is making me feel more alive.  It's been a long, harsh winter in southwestern Ontario, and everyone is feeling it.  And ironically - and at the risk of sounding ungrateful which I'm not - I think my two times, in November and February when I was away from winter and spent most of those months outdoors in perfect Thai-dry-season, June-like weather, have actually made the months at home in the grey more life-draining than I might have felt otherwise.    It's in the contrast.

So many contrasts.  So much is vividly new in this season of my life.  Coming around this spring to complete a cycle of seasons in a year of  unprecedented change, I am myself new in ways I could not possibly have anticipated.

So now, outside with sticks and wonderment, because of Jayden, I celebrate all the little resurrections with him.
All that's coming to life in the hidden spaces beneath the winter debris.
All that's being discovered in the eyes of an impossibly curious two year old.
All that's opening and stretching and beginning afresh within my own soul.

Easter is in the wonderment.