Making a Difference

The workshop I helped lead Tues-Fri is called Making A Difference. It is based on the reality that people in ministry (lay and ordained) truly want to 'Make a Difference' and yet find it impossible to do so on a consistent or reliable basis. Making a Difference is often like bumping into the furniture in a dark room. The workshop is designed to turn on the light.

Here's an example of how I bumped into 'making a difference' once. About 7 months after I left the first parish I served and became Rector of St. Paul's in New Haven, I got a letter from Howell Browder, one of the parishioners of St. James, Charleston. In the letter, she told me (and I quote) 'how much a difference I had made' in her life and the life of her son.

Here's the problem: though I remembered Howell well, I had no idea what she was referring to and barely remembered that she had a son!

I had 'made a difference' but had no idea how or how to replicate it....

The workshop uses two tracks: a conversation about a series of 'distinctions' and Centering Prayer to give the participants a handle on what 'makes a difference' in ministry. It boils down to this: making a difference is ontological rather than functional, 'being' rather than 'doing', 'coming from' a stance or declaration rather trying to 'get to' a result.

My declaration in the workshop when I took it in the late 1980's was: "I am Priest". The amazing thing was that I went to the workshop to 'figure out' how to renounce my vows and do something else with my life. What the workshop gave me was my priesthood transformed, made new.

The workshop is about 'transformation', not 'change'. Changing things is arduous, frustrating and damn near impossible and ends up, most of the time, resembling rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The ship goes down anyway.

Transformation is effortless, astonishing and created out of nothing just by 'saying so'. My declaration, so long ago, freed me from trying to 'do' the work of priesthood and gave my a place to come from out of 'being a priest'.

(That all may seem simplistic and a tad mysterious, but I swear it is ontologically accurate.)

Here are two things that happen in the workshop: near the beginning the participants introduce themselves by telling everyone their name, where and with whom they live, what their ministry is, whether they have special relationships with anyone else in the room and an optional statement.

That part gives me goosebumps as a leader since it reveals how powerful the people in the room truly are and how remarkable their ministries are. And those powerful, remarkable people have come to a workshop that is not cheap to learn how to 'make a difference' more truly.

Then at the end--when they have done a lot of hard work and wrestled with their angels--they introduce themselves again as their declarations as 'who the BE in the matter of their ministries. Those introductions go beyond goose bumps to being near tears of joy because 'being' is so much more powerful than 'doing' or 'having'. Those introductions complete the following open ended statements: "Who I am I;....". "The actions you can count on my for are...." "I will enroll ________ in my possibility...." And, "The difference I now see I can make is...."

I swear to you that each person's visage is transformed by the end of the workshop! They look transformed and transfigured. And each introduction is met by cheers and applause from the people in the room. Truly. I kid you not.

I have two more workshops to help lead this year--one in Chicago and one in Ireland. And as much as I hate to leave home, being the homebody I am, I am convinced I will come back from each of them transformed and enlivened anew.

I just will.

(Want to know more? Google "The Mastery Foundation" and read about the programs the foundation presents. And if you'd like to do the workshop and  have September 12-14 available, I'll be with you in Chicago....)

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig....

God, I love doing the Making a Difference Workshops!

I got home today after helping Ann and Bill lead one at the Bishop Malloy Center in Jamaica, New York. The workshops enliven me as much as they do the participants--which is like a 'transformation' of life.

This one was a Top Five or Ten of all I've helped lead--must be up near 45 or 50 by now (though I have no idea, having no working relationship with linear time.) Remarkable people, lovely people, people who 'make a difference' and, I believe, will know how to "make a difference" even more now, after their workshop.

And I work with Ann and Bill, who I've known for three decades at least and who I love. Truly. They make my life more wondrous and full.

And, in spite of all that, I am so glad to be home!

I have become a consummate 'home-body', no kidding.

A day away from my house, my wife, my pets, my life is like a month. I long, every moment I'm away, to be back with Bern and Bela and Lukie and Maggie and just be here in this house that was built 193 years before I was born, nestled in the rooms I love, with the furniture and pictures and art work I love...just like that..."home".

I'll be away for two more workshops: the end of September in Ireland and mid-September in Chicago. And both will be wondrous and full of new life. And The end of August and early September we'll be on vacation on Oak Island with Mimi and Tim and our friends John and Sherrie and, most important of all, on Columbus Day weekend we'll be at Tim and Mimi's wedding in Brooklyn. And somewhere in all of that, we'll go to Baltimore to see the 'girls' and Josh and Cathy a time or two.

And here's the truth, the next to best thing of all those wonderful trips will be this: coming home, jiggidy, jig....

I've come to grips with it. I am happiest and most complete when I am here, at 95 Cornwall Avenue in 'the Shire', Cheshire, CT.

I am a home-body. Maybe I've always been. Now I know and embrace and  celebrate that I am.

Really.

Three days away

I'm leaving in a couple of hours for a Making a Difference Workshop in Jamaica, NY.  I'll be away until Friday and am not taking my laptop. The workshop is really intense and there's not much time to write. Besides, I really dislike lugging a laptop around....

So, I'll be back and posting on Friday evening.

Be well and stay well.

Holy Oil Laundry

So, Easter was great, surrounded (literally!) by granddaughters and Josh and Mimi and Cathy and Tim and our friends who go on vacation with us (John and Jack and Sherrie) it was great.

By this morning everyone was gone and I decided to do laundry.

I washed my alb with a bunch of other stuff, neglecting to check the pocket and the vial of healing oil came undone at some point so one whole load was washed in holy oil.

Now, what to do?

Should I take the shirts and pair of khakis and other things I washed with my alb to some hospital, hoping the patients could wear them and get some benefit?

Should I wear them myself and hope I would get the benefit?

Should I frame them as relic-like things and hang them around my home?

Should I just quit worrying about the theological significance of holy oil blessed clothing?

I'm not sure which would be best. But I know this, when I wear those pieces of clothing (as surely I will) I'll feel differently about them.

That I know.

The girls arrive

Later than we hoped, Morgan and Emma and Tegan arrived. Tegan asleep in Josh's arms and taken straight to bed. Morgan and Emma, obviously tired but endearing.

Tomorrow, Mimi comes. And Tim on Saturday morning from Brooklyn.

Then, for a couple of days, the whole clan will be assembled.

Heaven.

Eggs to color, walks to take, reading to hear from Emma and Morgan, Tegan like a spring breeze. Our two, Josh and Mimi, under the same roof with us again. Cathy and Tim, much loved partners, here with us.

And a resurrection to boot.

What could be better, I ask myself?

And the answer: not much....

Such a wondrous ministry

Tonight was the monthly meeting of the Middlesex Area Cluster Ministry's Council. We had a presentation Marc-Yves Regis 1 about his remarkable ministry of holding a camp for 150 kids in Haiti and the Dominican Republic each summer for five summers. He is mostly funded by Episcopal churches but would accept money from anyone! Check out www.camphispaniola.org and marc@camphispaniola.org.  Marc was born and raised in Haiti but came to the US as an adolescent and is a professional photographer.

But what I really want to ponder is these three little rural churches--Emmanuel, St. James and St. Andrew's.

I'm trying to remember how long I've been their interim missioner, but, if you've read much of this blog you know I am awash in linear time. Maybe three years? Let's let it be that.

And I am an interim, which means there are time limits on my time with them. And I am, after all, 67 on Maundy Thursday and though I think I have all my faculties, that's just what I think....

So, in June we're going to begin the process that leads to 'what comes next'...like when there is a part-time missioner and not an 'interim'.

These three churches are so different, but one way they're not different is that they are all wondrous and remarkable centers of spirituality and faith. Each of them in a different way.

Emmanuel is, perhaps, the most 'traditional' Episcopal Church of the three. Highly educated, mostly affluent, lawyers and doctors and IT folks and  judges and such. But with a boat load of children...a youngish group on the whole. And profoundly committed to their community.

St. James is a middle class, hard working bundle of contradictions. Everyone has an opinion about everything and the interchanges are heart-felt, perilous and full of life. They do stuff you can't imagine they could do.

St. Andrew's is like a 'family' in the best sense. And they are, many of them, tied by blood in complicated ways. They don't recognize or imagine how wondrous they are. They feel like they are shrinking and fading away. Yet this year they have a 250th anniversary celebration that churches 10 times their size couldn't have pulled off.

It is so amazing to me to be with these astonishing people and serve them and love them.

It is time to look to the future. It is time to dream dreams and ponder possibilities. I look forward to that journey with them.

And I am so thankful to God that I was led to this place in this time to be with these astonishing people.

I only wish that they could see themselves as I see them--starlight and ashes, powerful. and limited, full of Promise, full of Wonder, full of Possibility....

Maundy Thursday

Maundy Thursday is my favorite holy day. Mostly because it's about eating and eating with those I love is about my most favorite thing ever. Also, my birthday will be on Maundy Thursday this year, that  makes it even sweeter. I almost never wrote down my Maundy Thursday sermons and I always talked about eating with those I loved. But I did write one down and I found it on my computer and want to share it with you. So here it is.

Maundy Thursday 2008

Maundy Thursday is always my favorite holy day

And I always talk about eating.

And often I get too long winded and go on and on and people wonder when I’ll ever finish.

Something about ‘meals’ keeps me talking beyond what is necessary.

So, this year I wrote it down so it would be controlled and less than 10 minutes and you wouldn’t have to wonder if I’d wandered off into some crack in my brain and wouldn’t be back for a while!

Easter dinner is special in our home. We aren’t surrounded by ‘family’ so we have invented a ‘family’ for holidays. We have friends who come to share our table on Thanksgiving and Christmas and, most of all, for me, on Easter.

John will be there—a friend of mine since college who lives in New Haven and is a Warden at Christ Church. West Virginians through and through—John and I. We have a patois that is Mountain Talk that few can follow if they didn’t grow up in that lush and deserted place.

He’ll call me and say, “Hey, Jem….”

And I’ll answer, “Hey, Jonn…” and we’re off and running about the dogs that won’t hunt and the crazy aunts and stuff no one else understands.

Jack and Sherry will be there—our friends who we met when we lived in New Haven. They are southerners—Virginia and South Carolina. They usually bring a country ham and dandelion risotto for Easter dinner. But they’ll be getting back from a trip to Italy and Greece and won’t have time to cook this year.

I know John and Jack and Sherry as well as I know myself. We rub against each other in ways that make life make sense.

And Mimi will be there. My ‘princess’, my love, my precious girl. She is nearing 30 but she is still my baby girl. An hour with Mimi is like an eternity in heaven for me. I love her so. She is so wondrous—did you know she has become a girl scout leader in Brooklyn for young girls from the projects? She raises money for the American Ballet Theater for a living, but she embraces young girls who need a mentor to make her life meaningful. She is so precious to me I can hardly speak of her without weeping. And she will be at the table.

This year, we will have ‘family’. Uncle Frankie and his son, Anthony—Bern’s favorite cousin, and his daughter Francis and her life-partner Lisa will be at the table. They hale from West Virginia but all live in Rhode Island now. They will be there, bringing memories and stories that would otherwise not be there.

And that is what the meal is about, after all, the telling of stories to help us ‘remember’ and to give us hope to go on. And we will eat the ham and the onion pie and the deviled eggs and the salad and the scalloped potatoes and tell the stories and be present—so remarkably present—to what is alive and real and wondrous, even in the sad stories of Aunt Annie’s death and the fact that Josh and Cathy and our granddaughters, Morgan and Emma are in Taiwan this Easter and not with us. They will gather around other tables—not to celebrate the resurrection because they are either Buddhists or nothing at all—but they will gather around a table to eat and tell stories and love each other and be present—so present—to the heart of God.

That’s what this night is about. How being around a table, sharing food, telling stories, loving each other, hoping for the future, wondering what happens next….

That’s what this night’s about. A table set and full of food. Family and friends gathered. Passing the bread, sharing the wine….wondering what will happen next.

Because Jesus sat around that table so long ago and shared his body and his blood with those he loved and those he would never know.

Just sitting at a table, eating with those you love, is a holy thing. A holy thing. A holy thing. Remember that always. Remember that. Remember…