Adventures in travel, music, and ministry

Posts tagged ‘farewell’

Wrap Up

This has been such a busy week that I haven’t had time to write until now, a full week into May!

My sister Madeleine arrived from Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday, April 26–right on Jon’s and my 15th wedding anniversary. We enjoyed a nice TexMex dinner on a garden patio. Lovely plants, water features, and fans kept us cool at Vivo. Good food, too!

The weekend was awesome with a fantastic service and sendoff from Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church. Love that congregation! Love the friends and family members who came just for that final service. Some “Loose Threads” and other members of Tapestry Singers came to join the choir in singing “Seasons of Love.” (The one about “Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes . . . how do you measure a year in the life . . . how about love?”

Lots of hugs and love from people of all ages. I will miss the children and youth most especially. It is such a blessing to watch them grow up and mature year after year. They are now frozen in time in my mind’s eye. Adults don’t change nearly so rapidly, but they, too, have filled my memory bank for years to come as they are now.

Already the congregation anticipates the arrival of an Interim Minister who will assist with multiple transitions, both personal and congregational, beginning August 1. Meanwhile, lay led teams have been doing wonderful work in preparing to cover the 3 months in between. It’s exciting to imagine the changes going on already!

Now my key ring is lighter and my email has dropped to a manageable level. No complaints there!

Name this series!

Suggest a name for this series, the last of my sermons at Live Oak . . .

Over the next couple of months there is method to my madness. It’s this “bully pulpit” from which I want to cover a few foundational aspects of my ministry and that of the church. After all, I gave myself the title “Minister of Congregational Life.” Five sermons, five themes:

1) Mar. 4: How do we welcome people who come to Live Oak? It’s not enough just to have a comfortable place for ourselves, though of course we want that. We also have to make room for about 10 visitors every Sunday—to welcome them, share with them who we are, and invite them into further participation.

2) Mar. 25: How do we move from this sanctuary and oasis of the spirit into the bigger world out there? We need to find our voice and we need to take it out into the market square.

3) Apr. 1: This has to be fun! On April Fool’s Day we’ll take a lighter look at ourselves and how this can be an absolutely, positively delightful place to grow in mind, body, and spirit.

4) Apr. 8: On Easter Sunday we’ll have our traditional Flower Communion. For us, Easter is indeed about resurrection, but it is a resurrection of nature, a resurrection of spring, and a resurrection of community. The use of ritual and a lovely exchange of flowers is an important aspect of congregational life.

5) Apr. 29: Finally, we’ll look at departures and other journeys. I can’t help but think of the people whose homes, offices, and schools were completely wiped out in this week’s tornadoes. Departures can be sudden and devastating, or they can be well anticipated and prepared. Still, no matter how much preparation is done, the departure comes in the middle of the story and no one knows the ending. . . . Maybe good, maybe bad, too soon to tell.

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