Impossible Thank Yous on the Brink of Everything

Sunrise at Hot Springs - New Dawning of Days

[A random smattering of words to mark the completion of my MDiv coinciding with my 65th birthday. If you are in my orbits in any way at all, I hope you recognize yourself.]

Today I attempt the impossible.

I want to convey, 

some how, some way,

the enormity of my gratitude --

the sheer and impossible enormity of it --

this day, and say:

I could not have done any of it without you.

About you I think with great affection

and recollection 

of all my imperfections

as I stumbled through the sections

of study.

You were my buddy,

even when all the books made me kind of

nutty.

You waited, or took up the slack,

had my back.

You let me read

and honoured my need

to go away

and stay off the grid

with signs up even.

And even

some of you

offered more books

without looks or mocking or knocking.

And you took me seriously enough

even when it was rough

because a girl isn't supposed to study this stuff,

but you went to bat for me,

and came alongside to make it happen anyway.

And 

I 

will 

never 

be 

the 

same.

And I got it done.

I did.

Because of you.

And You.

Father, Son and Spirit true.

Who never let me go.

That's why I know

that turning sixty five

is as alive as I've ever been

on

the

brink

of

everything.

Something To Prove

 "Let your conversations be always full of grace,                                                                                     seasoned with salt,                                                                                                                                     so that you may know how to answer everyone."                                                                                  Colossians 4:6

Maybe it's just me, but lately I seem to be having conversations that start out with a simple question or topic, and end up having a bit more of an edge than I anticipated.  I'm not aware of having brought any agenda or controversy into the mix, but out of nowhere, it seems I am suddenly having to defend something.  

I expect this sort of thing from time to time.  I am, after all, in a role where I've been invited to lead and teach and challenge and correct, and that's bound to provide good space for the give and take of a healthy both-ways-learning conversation. 

But what's surprised me is how triggering the simplest of comments seem to be even when that was most certainly not my intention.  I have and will keep on checking my own approach, my choice of words, my body language, my timing.  I'm sure I've been "off" in some cases.  But some of it at least, I have to think is just about how much crazy stress we've all been under for such a long time.

There's a lot to have big feelings and strong opinions about right now.  Pandemic restrictions lifting, masks or not, boosters or not.  Protests that turn into occupations.  War.  That's all the big stuff, and I think we're all probably careful about who we bring up those topics with.  But simpler things, in expressing a preference, or asking a question, or making what probably should be a casual observation, how did all that get so loaded?  

I really don't like to argue.  It's never been a strength of mine, and it's not the way I learn.  Yes, I know honest conversations can sometimes get heated, and every deep relationship has to have those.  No skimming.  But as a rule?  In a general way of going about life and love and relationships?  Just to prove a point?  There are just so many better, richer ways to invest my energy.  You won't really get much of a fight out of me.

Except come to think of it, I do have something to prove.

If we get into it at any point, I hope I can prove that I am for you and not against you.  I hope I can prove that I'm willing to listen and learn and consider another point of view.  I hope I can prove that the best win in any conversation is a better understanding.  I hope I can prove that I don't need to "be right" to still be valid, or that you need to "be wrong" for me to be valid.  

And mostly, I hope I can prove that my claim to follow Jesus means in all things and in all ways I will seek to bring peace and restoration to this crazy stressed out world we're all navigating right now.

Walking and talking this through carefully with you.

Ruth Anne

What We're Made Of - A Family Day Reflection

circa 1986

 

Dear Family Before This,

We don't know it yet, but we are strong.*

This happy family snuggle on the little green couch in the front room of our semi is from a time before all the things.  And if I could I wouldn't go back to tell us what was coming.  I wouldn't interrupt the story of us, the building of us, the making-strong of us, as it happened.  It's tempting.  But I'd leave it alone.  Because today we are strong in ways remarkable.

Like every parent I do wish I could go back and undo some blunders; those exhausted responses lacking patience, and lacking my own maturity of self back when I thought that how we all behaved was an open commentary on my mothering, my personhood.  So much seemed at stake, and I'm sorry I laid all that weight on you all.  Parenting is such an ironic endeavour.  It's such a delicate and dangerous thing, yet only amateurs attempt it.

So, yes, there are those things I'd love to do over now, equipped with the wisdom of my 60's.  But not the things over which we had no control and yet seemed so out of control and wretched and painful and undignified and also so incredibly defining.  All the things.  All the things we've lived and received and faced and stood up for.  All the things that shaped us and refined us and created this entity that is now our family.  I wouldn't go back to stop them.  Except Evelyn.  

But even because of Evelyn, along the way we have become something truly spectacular.  Strong.  So strong.  And I am so incredibly proud of us.  Humbled by the lessons, humbled by the frailty, humbled by the demolishing of dogma and narrow-mindedness, humbled by the now-knowing that it's truly not possible to get it right and be proud of that.  No.  But proud of us.

We are strong.  

For all the things that have come against us, we should not be together.  But we are.  For the hugely different ways we think about life and believe about life and live life, we should not be a unit of family.  For all the forces seeking to destroy us, we should lay in ashes.  But instead we stood up and stood together and stood strong.  For all our losses there have been out-balanced gains in measures still to be unwrapped and reveled in.

Here I bear witness to the grace of God who has never let go.  Never.  Else how could we be?

And in a mystic sort of way, I write this to us all.  All of us who have been received into this family between this picture and now.  You are already on the couch with us as I write this today.  You are part of our together-strength, part of the flawed-but-tenacious love that holds us together.

I am not the same person pictured here.  The capacity of my heart has been expanded in unrecognizable ways because of you.  Thank you for loving me, all the imperfect things of me.  Thank you for being family in all the deep ways humans belong together.

And if I could line up all the families in the world....

With gratitude too deep to speak,

Always....Your Wife, Your Mom, Your Gramma

*Sometimes when I've used this word I get criticized for being stoic.  That's not what's happening here at all.  "Strong" includes the strength to be weak, to cry, to be real, to need others, to admit defeat and then start again.  Believe me, that's how it's gone down.

School Daze - The Last Huzzah of a Long Obedience in the Same Direction

 It's happening.

Class is now in session, and I am full swing into the completion of the last two courses that, should I complete them successfully, will make me a graduate.  This looooonnnnnnnggggg journey towards a Masters of Divinity with a Pastoral major will be done.  Completed.  Accomplished.  

But not yet.  Not quite. 

With being registered for only two courses, I am still well in the 'part time studies' category.  And I have no end of respect for my fellow students who are, at this very moment, heroically attempting to carry a full course load of four, and even five credits this semester alone.

I'm only doing two.  So, believe me, as 'much' as this feels to me, I'm not pretending to try to impress anyone.  Honest.  Especially when you consider that I've been at this for two decades by now.  Not kidding.  Started this thing in fall 2002.  So....yeah, no awards for speed here.  

That's why so many people keep asking, aren't you done that degree yet?  Well friends, almost.  Almost.

Feels weird to be able to see the finish line ahead at last.

Has me thinking and reflecting on a few things.

I don't regret the pacing of this.

What a long and drawn-out, no-bragging way to get your education, right? Twenty years for a three year program?   Who does that?  I did, and, while at times it has been a tad embarrassing, I'm not sorry.  

For one, it reflects the priorities of my life.  Sometimes, all I could manage was one course a year, because I was serving as full time senior pastor to a beautiful congregation that deserved my good attention.  Unlike other probably more gifted and intelligent pastor/students who could make different choices, I just knew the limits of my capacity and balanced it out accordingly.  Sometimes I had to sit out for three semesters in a row, because I knew I couldn't be a good student AND a good daughter to my aging parents.  Sometimes the delays were financial, and I don't regret one penny of those redirection of funds to more pressing matters of life and ministry at the time.

But even more, there has been huge value - huge! - in learning and practicing at the same time.  Sort of this dual track of adult learning that allowed for real time application with very little of the academics falling into wasteful cracks of irrelevance.  Most programs require field education components and internships anyways.  This whole thing was the ultimate in that hands-on learning experience.  

On top of that, taking my time has allowed for so much more targeted study in specialized Directed Reading and Research credits where I was allowed to dig deep into areas of passion and incorporate actual ministry work into the learning process.  In this, I greatly benefitted from the personal supervision of professors who are actual practitioners in their fields, and who demonstrated a genuine interest in my learning.  In am indebted.

And it took a very long time.

To be honest, had I known when I started in 2002 that it would take until 2022 to complete it, I could have been tempted to look out over that daunting stretch and declare it 'too long' a commitment to get my degree.  But, had that been the case, and I didn't launch into this then, right now, it would still be 2022 and I wouldn't have my degree. So there's that.

There's more going on in these almost-done reflections of my heart, but perhaps that's best saved for future posts closer to when I'm actually going to be able to say I'm really and truly done.

For now, maybe just an encouragement to anyone facing something that seems like it will never be over.  Your own academic pursuits, maybe.  Or perhaps a mountain of debt you are chipping away at, bit by bit.  Maybe even in parenting, especially if you have younger children who aren't letting you sleep much and it feels like you've signed up for a life of chronic exhaustion.

Don't give up.  Find your tenacity and resilience.  Hang on to your purpose.  For me, of course, this all connects to the deep belief that God's plans and purposes for my life can't be thwarted.

"The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.  Do not forsake the work of your hands."  Psalm 138:8 (ESV)

But that's part of what I think I want to save for another time.

Gotta go.  The reading alone for this semester is making sure I don't coast out at the end :).

And oh.  As a point of interest that I happen to think is kind of fun.  If I graduate in May I will be just under the wire to graduate before I turn 65 in June!   Love that!

Steadying the Spin of the Pivot

It's not just the medication.

I'm just a tad spinny these days.  I do know it does have at least a little bit to do with the medication I'm on in an effort to help my body deal with the kidney stone that is valiantly making an effort to leave me.  But if I'm honest, and if I'm listening to folks around me, and even other reports on mental health and such, this sense of being on some kind of wild ride isn't just chemically induced.

My daughter, patiently listening to my latest little rant on the latest not-so-little adjustment COVID has required of me, made the compassionate comment: 

"We're all a little dizzy from all this pivoting."

True, this!

Today I made what was probably the 217th change of plans just this week!  This included booking an additional appointment, squeezing it into what already felt like a maxed-out schedule, only because it was needful to continue to keep an eye on what's happening for me medically.  To balance this out, I briefly considered cancelling another follow up dental appointment slated for today, booked way back on December 17th.  But because it had to do with a difficult tooth extraction, and because this seemed important in the overall health picture, I ventured out into the snow squalls. 

When we pull into the parking lot, I find a text on my phone stating they had to cancel.  You're kidding.  

By the time I got home it just started to feel like too much. I'm overthinking everything, just trying to sort it out.  I'm done -- all out of that stabilizing buffer we usually reserve for times of stress.  

Things feel spinny.  And not just from the medication.

Physically, when we feel dizzy, we reach out for something solid to lean against.

Spiritually, this is a good idea too.  I reach out for a promise to steady me.

"Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed," says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

Isaiah 54:10

Love steadies me.  Ken's love, as demonstrated by the extra driving and adjustments he's been willing to do as well in all of this.  My family's love, as demonstrated by compassionate responses and affirming words.  Friend's love, as demonstrated by their calls of concern and care, and practical help.

And God's love, as demonstrated always and forever on the Cross, and now and right here in this strong sense of His power and presence in the midst of everything...holding me, calming me, reminding me.  No matter what else gets all shaken up and spun around, His unfailing love remains rock solid.

It's a ride right now, isn't it?  Hold on to something solid, friends.

May you know the stability of His love for you always.

It All Matters

Circa 1977 OBC Year Book (Pat is 2nd from left)

She wouldn't have known, 

and I feel badly about that,   

but I think that's the way of it most of the time.

I was invited last week to write a tribute for the celebration of life service of Pat Hugli Seeney, a long ago mentor of mine back in our Brimley Road Alliance Youth, Campus Life Scarborough, Ontario Bible College (Tyndale) days.  Way back then.

Thanks to the wonder of Facebook, I had only recently been reconnected with her husband, Dave, also a friend from 'back in the day'.  Pat herself suffered from Huntington's disease, something that significantly reduced her connection with the world in the latter part of her life. 

In the tribute, which I'll include in a minute so we have the whole story, I talk about her influence on my life at a crucial time in my own spiritual development.  It mattered.  It mattered a lot.  And it was so ordinary-looking at the time that the spectacular-to-me trajectory of it would not have been at all obvious.  Not then.  Not to her.  Not even to me.  Not back then.

And then, these remembrances of Pat connect me with a number of totally unrelated, random conversations I've been having of late.  Conversations about that nasty bit of cognitive behaviour so many of us find ourselves sucked into so much of the time.  I'm talking about what happens whenever we entertain the idea that somehow what we have to contribute isn't important.  Isn't enough.  Isn't accomplishing anything.  Doesn't count.

I'd say it might just be me, but for all the unrelated, random conversations, and not just lately, but over so much of my pastoral life.  Quite a few of us, it seems, hear this stuff in our heads.  

"You're not enough."  

"All that you're pouring yourself into, it doesn't matter."

"Why bother?  You're just wasting your time/breath/money/soul."

"Nobody cares.  Nobody notices."

And various other renditions of the same kind of thing.  Utterly demotivating, all of it.  And in our moments of exhaustion, discouragement, setback, criticism, it could derail us if we let it.

And it's not new.

"I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all."

That last one was Isaiah (49:4 the first half of the verse).  Yup.  Him too.

Okay, I'll put the tribute here so you can get the whole story, and then I want to get back to something.

=======

Remembering Pat   (1955-2021)

Intelligent.  Gentle.  Faithful.

These are the strongest memories of Pat for me, as I reflect on her enormous influence on my spiritual formation at a crucial time in my life.  Being a teenager in Scarborough in the 70’s was a rough, sometimes terrifying emotional and spiritual space to navigate. 

But every Tuesday night, we were safe.

Pat was our Living Unit Group leader – often affectionately referred to as our LUGHead - in the Campus Life program at Midland Avenue Collegiate Institute.  She shepherded a group of about six of us girls with grace and patience and love, week after week, for about three years steady.  I remember that there were no stupid questions.  I remember that our ideas and opinions mattered.  I remember that through Pat, God seemed welcoming and thoughtful and real. 

Maybe that’s why, some 50 years later, most of us in the group are still pursuing God.  This is no small statement.  That shy and terrified teenager safely tucked into Tuesday night with Pat would be shocked at what God decided to do with me over the course of my life.  I modelled much of my pastoral life after her example.  The security forged under Pat’s care launched a courage that would ultimately send me to the other side of the planet.  Who knew? 

Maybe Pat did.  Maybe her intelligent, gentle faithfulness saw potential in me I had yet to discover.  Or maybe not.  She just loved us anyways.

======

Of course I hope that Pat's many other contributions to life and kingdom and family and community were obvious to her, and she enjoyed a strong sense of self as seen through the eyes of a God who no doubt constantly reassured her with "Well done."  But I am sorry we lost touch, and that, in the end, I could only properly thank her with words to be read at her service.  

And all this brings me to two motivations today.

One, to make sure to say thank you more often.  To reach out and let people know how much their input into my life mattered and still matters.  That what may have seemed small and insignificant to them, constituted truck loads of confidence and guidance for me.

And two, to stop listening to the lies.  All that crazy self-talk that tries to convince me I'm not making any difference.  Just.  Stop it.  It all matters.  Every little bit of it.  We honestly have no idea how much we can contribute into the unleashing of dreams and potential in the heart of every single human being we come into contact with.  All the big and little ways of it.  We just don't know.  We can't know.

Isaiah again, correcting his own crazy self-talk:  "Yet, what is due me is in the LORD's hand, and my reward is with my God."  Isaiah 49:4, that's the last half of the verse.

There.  That's where we leave it.  We do our part and let God take care of where it goes from there.  And we simply trust it.  Trust that the ways of our contribution to the bigger purposes of the mission of God will be turned into gold in the hands of the Lord.  

I'll end with sharing a link Dave sent me, a song by Randy Stonehill called In Jesus' Name, just because it reminds us of the same things, and because music is so powerful for reaching into those deeper places of our souls and psyches.  

Encouragement and blessings to all.

Little Lockdowns

The past three days have provided one of those unwanted but in-the-end helpful opportunities to reset.

I've been more or less on my own little lockdown since Thursday morning, after a sudden, nasty but thankfully brief experience with what could have been a stomach bug, but seems more likely to have been something I ate.  No one else around me has been affected - thank You Jesus - so I'm inclined to believe the latter, and actually can pretty much identify the culprit.  Ick.  Let's think about something else.

It was enough not just to keep me home, but actually keep me in bed for the whole day Thursday, and most of both afternoons Friday and today.  This.  Does.  Not.  Happen.  It even meant cancelling a long awaited sleepover at Gramma's house for the PD Day.   Yes, the first sleepover since March of 2020 (when the kids were rejoicing in having two extra weeks of March Break!).  My physical misery was matched only by my I've-bailed-on-the-kids misery.  No, actually I think the second misery was worse. Honestly, guys, I cried good.

However.  

Since the 'initiating event', I've had the chance to just stay quiet and rest, sipping ginger ale, reading mostly, sneaking in a teeny bit of work, tending to a few Christmas cards, and tentatively trying some chicken soup.  Certainly not going anywhere!  And in these past 72 hours I've been able to identify more clearly something that's been buzzing like static in the back of my brain for months now.  Because when I have to stay home, it's quiet back there.

The buzz, I realize, is this whole deal of having to cope with COVID.  This whole time since we've lifted restrictions and can go out and be about our lives again, there's this constant awareness of still having to deal with all of it - masks, and hand sanitizer, and distancing, and keeping track of who I've been with, and how that will affect everyone else I'm with, and deciding what I will and will not risk.  Since school started two of the children in my inner circle have had a positive case in their classroom, and it's set no end of things in motion with a lot to reschedule, and re-think, and make sure everyone who needs to know knows, and testing and....  Oy!

At least during lockdown I could 'deal' with the pandemic without all this extra layer of responsibility and practice.  Having a break from all that for a day or two was really quite lovely.  

No.  I do not wish any more lockdowns on any more humans anywhere on the planet.  Sad for those for whom this is a recurring hardship, truly.  But I'm wondering, if for my own mental health, I might find spaces for my own personal two or three day lockdowns this winter.  Sans the unpleasantness, of course.  Sometimes, when it's done for the masses, the officials call this kind of thing a 'circuit breaker'.  Like that.  What if I could just make it my own COVID-fatigue circuit breaker? If the virus isn't going away any time soon, and as we seek our way forward, and as I determine to cooperate with all the ways we need to keep each other safe right now, what if I just need to lock down from time to time?

Seems to me even Jesus needed this every so often.  Apples to oranges, but He certainly had a lot on His plate most days too.  And imagine the 'noise' of the mercy-weight for Him!  I can't even.

Likely there are those of you who have figured this 'little lockdown', time off thing already.  You're way ahead of me.  And probably some don't hear the buzz quite the same, so this isn't even a thing for you.  Kudos.  

But I'm thinking maybe this might be a more common source of underlying fatigue for more of us than we realize.  Because it hovers just below all the big stuff like the daily case count or the vaccine conversations or the politics.  Maybe we're all way more tired from COVID than we realize, even without ever having contracted the virus.

Today I was recovered enough to do half a walk!  Felt so good to be outside for a bit.  Even did some errands in the morning, having been more than 48 hours symptom free.  And I'm ready to go for the last in a three-sermon relationships series at Highview tomorrow morning (in case anyone was worrying).

Ah yes...gathering with my faith community.  Totally, totally, beautifully and completely worth getting there for that.

Take it easy friends.  We need each other more than ever.