August Awe

A crisp, still air hangs mist over the water as I push the kayak away from the dock.  It’s 11 C this morning and the sun didn’t rise until almost 6:30 a.m., just forty five minutes ago.  All week the absence of other cottagers has deepened the quiet in our little bay.  Along the shoreline the spring blooms have given way to later beauties.   The jenny wren and other first-of-the-season birds have raised their families by now and are already edging themselves southward.  At least that’s what I’m guessing, because they’re not here anymore.  The forest itself looks rested and mature, unlike the bursting energy of early spring when I first made my way around the island.  

And I am here.

And I think, This is incredible.

And I think, This is so weird.

After a lifetime of being expected in the city by August for intensive preparation of the season to come, both as a home schooling Mom and then as the pastor of a local church, this kind of cottage time, the way everything feels here this time of year, is a new and wondrous thing for me.   These days, the kind of fall prep I’m doing does not require that I be sending out schedules and leading meetings and casting vision and cheering on volunteers in anticipation of ‘the first day of school’ or ‘kick off Sunday’.  In fact, right now, the work to which I need to apply myself  is better done in unscheduled seclusion uninterrupted by meetings or emails.

The Shadow

In just five weeks from now I’ll be back on the plane heading for a month of ministry in Thailand representing New Family Foundation and all that entails these new days of life and ministry.   Come September, sure enough, there’ll be meetings and appointments and such.  My calendar is already basically full.  But in these last two weeks of August, so much of the prep work for that work, and for sermons I’m working on for Highview, and for the next course of study for my MDiv, can be done, is probably better done here, away where I can think and write, and fill my soul with kayak therapy and sunshine and lingering blueberries.   It makes perfect sense, and is much smarter work-wise to wait to return to city life after Labour Day.   But.

 It feels new, different, strange.  If I listen more deeply to the self-talk of it, I realize that there is, around the edges, a vague sense of anxiety or guilt, as if I’m neglecting my responsibilities somehow.  That somehow I’m being indulgent or lazy or selfish. 

But this mist of edging-in thoughts is swept away rather suddenly as I press the kayak out from a short narrows called  ‘the Shadow’ into the full sunlight of the wider bay on this cooler, still-summer morning.  

  

The sun hits my face and I welcome it as the warm, quiet-yet-startling voice of God. 

“Ruth Anne.  Be here. 

A gift in the new way of shalom that we’re doing together now.”

And I stop paddling and just float in that for a moment.

Yes. 

A gift. 

And I realize with surprise as I float suspended that I am fulfilled in a way I honestly don’t think I’ve ever known before.  Like, ever.  In my life.  For all the places of goodness and joy in my life up to now, and even contrasted to all the agonies and struggles, this is different.  Deeper.  Forged out of the mix and mire of all that I’ve ever suffered.  Every perseverance.  Every sacrifice.  Every injustice.   Every sadness. 

I am at home in this space.  I belong here right now.  Right here, right now.  In the kayak.  At sunrise.  Out on the water.  At the cottage.  In August.  Being 62.  Being married to Ken for 41 years.  Being Gramma to so many children.  Being exactly me, who I am right now, writing with God these next chapters of my story.

Is it presumptuous of me to think this way?  That these days here at the end of August in some way represent a phase of my life that God is gifting me with?  That somehow there is a reaping now of past labours?

There certainly have been times, in the midst of raising a family and leading a congregation, that I have felt more despair and discouragement than any sense of fulfillment.  I would have identified more with ‘the Servant of the Lord’ described by Isaiah.

“He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendour.’

But I said, ‘I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all.’  Isaiah 49:3-4a

That’s exactly how it can feel to be a small church pastor in a megachurch world.  Or a female pastor in a man’s world.  Or a spiritual leader of any sort in a world hell-bent on self destruction, taking down people you love without discretion.  Or even more honestly, the exhausted mother of toddlers or who seem to have gotten the better of yet another day. My journals have reflected on these and other insanities over the years.

But there’s a tag line to the Servant’s discouragement that hints of a faith that can see beyond to a better day.

“Yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”  Verse 4b.

And then there’s this reflection of David, looking past his current tribulations.

“Though you have made me see troubles many and bitter, you will restore my honour and comfort me once more.”  Psalm 71:21

And I am reminded of the picture of Naomi, after wondering just how much more she could endure to lose, finding herself at the end of the story with a brand new grandson on her lap.  And the women of the village pronounce this baby’s effect over her.  “He will renew your life and sustain you in your old age.”  Ruth 4:15

I do not mean to paint a picture of my life being utterly miserable up to this point out in the kayak on a misty morning in August.  Far from it.  God has brought blessing upon blessing and an abundance of story with chapters of opportunity and depth and love.  I know it.

It’s just that when you look back over a lifetime of ministry and count the overall cost – Well, it’s just a strange and different and deeply contented feeling to be here in this August awe.

As I make my way around the island again, the mist gives way to the rising sun and a new day begins its cycle.  I round the corner on the Freddy Channel to reveal our cottage, perfectly reflected in the still water.   The deck awaits the ritual of setting up the ‘work station’.  Invigorated , I will begin.

One more week of August left.