Category Archives: inspiration

May29

Memorial

Posted on by
Standard

Five years ago this weekend…

I know that Memorial Day is a tribute to our brave armed services members past, especially those who gave their lives in service to our country, and I am grateful to live in a place that observes such a holiday.  America is not perfect and the great experiment of democracy is still very much that, an experiment.  This post is not about politics or patriotism, however.  I have other people and events I’m remembering this weekend.

Memorial Day weekend Sunday, 2012, I took the pager for my last overnight on call during my extended unit of Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE.  We had already celebrated our graduation and I’d presented my final self-evaluation to my peer group and received their evaluations of me during the unit.  This last on-call night was all that stood between me and my final evaluation from my supervisor, an insightful pastor and educator who managed both to bust my chops and to affirm my gifts for ministry during our time together at the hospital. I needed someone to provide both these things for me and I received them in spades from Randy, for whose insights I am forever grateful.

image

I’m sure I hoped for a calm night as I dropped off my belongings in the small on-call room with its bed, toilet and sink, desk and lamp (the shower was down the hall and everyone on call took turns taking hurried showers and praying not to get paged while we were in there!).  This was my home away from home 2 nights a month from January through the end of May that year. I didn’t get to spend a lot of leisurely quality time there, as Sunday nights were notoriously busy!  Looking through my notes from the unit I remembered each patient who came through, each page to a room I received, hugs and prayers and tears shared.  And laughs, too, with my peer group and mentors, other staff members, patients and families.

My last night on call was typical of every other Sunday night I spent there, crazed, rushed and filled with the sounds of the pager beeping with one trauma after another…with one notable exception.  Every time I was on call and a code was called because a patient had gone into cardiac arrest, I watched as the transport team, doctors and nurses resuscitated, defibrillated and revived the patient, achieving at least a brief reprieve between life and death.  This last code did not end that way.  The patient did not come back.  It was the only time I saw that happen, and it has stuck with me.  As the chaplain on call, I sat with and attended to the family as the doctor explained what had taken place, offered presence and care while they attempted to absorb the news, and when they asked me to pray, I did so with solemn gratitude for the privilege.

It is a sacred space we occupy when someone dies.  Sharing that space with my own loved ones, and with acquaintances and strangers during my time as a hospice volunteer and working through the extended unit of CPE, honored, humbled, taught and blessed me in ways I am still processing even now.  Presence in that space has informed the ways I interact with everyone in my life, and it will continue to do so until it is time for me to be the one who dies.  I pray that the people who share that space with me and my loved ones when the moment arrives will draw comfort, strength, insight and peace from being there.

imageimage

May16

Shared

Posted on by
Standard

“It’s not nice to be selfish…”

It has been more than 2 months since I wrote a blog post.  These months have been fraught with extremes in my emotions, as I have tried to process some of the relationships in my life and determine which ones matter.  I suppose we all have these moments, times when circumstances force us to realize who needs to stay in our lives and who we need to sever. I’m in the process now, of both bonding and severing.

I remember when I was a little girl, my sweet Mama teaching me how important it was that I learn to share.  “Share your toys, Leslie…”  “It’s not nice to be selfish…”  Being selfish might feel good for a minute, but sharing feels good forever.

A stark, beautiful and painful thing has come to light for me in this process…some people just won’t share.  Anything.  Not time, feelings, words, truth.  As painful as it has been to try to salvage a “friendship” that turned out never to have been genuine in the first place, it has been liberating and beautiful to compare and contrast it to the ones I cherish that are, indeed, the “real deal”.  So more than being sad over what is not, I am happy for what is.

I am happy for the friend who, among other caring gestures, always wants to know I got home safely after we’ve shared supper and said good night.

image

I am happy for the lifelong confidante who shares what my company does for her.

image

I am happy for the new-ish friend whose genius I admire, whose goofball humor I enjoy since it is much like my own, and whose insight I take to heart.

image

I am happy for the friend who sings, laughs and cries with me, who stops when he finds a feather and picks it up to bring to me when we see each other just because he knows that feathers bring me joy.

image

And I am happy for the friend whose love for me is abiding, selfless and genuine.

image

So, when I have friends in my life, LOVE in my life, like this…why in the name of all that is sacred would I ever settle for anything less?  Answer:  I won’t.  Never again.  Love like this gives me the strength I need to sever from my life the people who don’t care for me.  Because this…this is connection as it should be.  This is love…Shared.

Mar9

Respite

Posted on by
Standard

How decades can vanish in an instant…

Last April, Jeff and I went to Destin, Florida for a vacation.  We used to live and work in the area and every time we go back for a vacation, we drive through that same little town on our way to the beach.  And every time we do, I always remember the people we worked with and wonder whatever happened to them.  Last year I finally did some research and found out about my favorite one.

Martin was my first ever “work husband”, at my first radio job, so early in my career that I didn’t even have terminology for what that relationship was!  He worked the same midday air shift time as I did, in the FM studio while I was on the air in the AM side next door.  I couldn’t begin to count the times he put his side on “auto-pilot” for 10 or 15 minutes and came to stand in my doorway to talk and laugh with me.  He left the station, and radio, in 1989, about a year before the company was sold and everyone else was laid off, resulting in Jeff’s and my return to Knoxville.  We lost touch with many of our connections from there, including Martin.  But I often thought of him and wondered how his life had worked out.

Flash forward to last year’s vacation when I searched his name on Facebook and found several entries, including a face with a smile that was warm and familiar.  I sent a message and introduced (or re-introduced!) myself, apologizing if he was not the Martin I remembered and saying to have a nice day, and if he WAS the Martin I remembered, I hoped he would get in touch.  It was, and he did, and we became Facebook friends and began a correspondence.

Over the ensuing months Jeff and Martin also connected on Facebook…but the more substantial communications were between Martin and me. (I was always a letter-writer…now I am also a message-sender!)  We all decided that a trip to Asheville to visit Martin was in order, and I couldn’t help thinking it was a little ironic that we had all met 500 miles away in Florida only to end up living a couple of short hours apart.  Other things developed over the ensuing months as well, resulting in much more frequent messages between me and Martin…changes in his health and home life, a hospital stay, drama, frustration and sadness as he is in a transitional life stage now.  I’ve been humbled and amazed at his transparency and his remarkable sense of humor in the midst of all he is enduring of late…the same humor which endeared him to me almost 30 years ago when I first met him.  He often makes me “snaughle”—my term for the snort-laugh.  We have become family…which I warned him might happen, saying, “We’re bonding and God help you, because my friendship is relentless.”  He has assured me that he is OK with it.

For a brief moment I was nervous about us seeing him again in person, thinking we might end up with nothing to say to each other and the whole situation could become weird and awkward, especially since we had planned for him to spend the night with us.  The exact opposite scenario played out, as we stayed up very late with rarely even a moment of silence amidst all the catching up, storytelling and abundant laughter.  Jeff finally put himself to bed and Martin and I stayed up for maybe another hour winding down and feeling grateful…and decades vanished in an instant.

The next day came, and with it, Martin’s time to leave.  Jeff and I both hugged him goodbye, thanking him for coming to visit with us and for all the laughs we shared.

image

Walking out onto the gravel driveway in my stocking feet and watching him pull his car away, I felt happy and sad and a little weepy all at once.  The end of a sweet visit often evokes such emotions in me, and this one, which had been so many years in the making, seemed especially poignant.  The rest of our afternoon was spent poking around in a bucket-list bookstore I had wanted to visit, getting supper and stopping by a fancy chocolate shop for treats, enjoying Jeff and his company.  The whole trip was a much-needed respite from the stressful realities all of us deal with on a daily basis.

The following day it was time for us to head back home, and back to reality.  Messaging with Martin, I admitted that I cried when he left.  He was understanding and sympathetic, as he always is.  And as always, a joke happened.

image

image

Feb2

Holding Space

Posted on by
Standard

Learning by doing…

Recently while reading I came across a phrase and a concept that instantly struck a chord inside me:  holding space.  Specifically, holding space in my heart for others as they walk their path in life, especially when that path is a difficult, painful one.  It is actually something I have been learning to do my entire life.

Sometimes I’ve described this concept with the following phrases:

“You are in my prayers.”

“I’ll be remembering you.”

“I’m thinking of you.”

“My heart is with you.”

During my work in CPE, I learned that the work of the chaplain is mostly about meeting and caring for people where they are, walking alongside them in their pain, providing compassionate presence, sometimes without words.  It is often uncomfortable simply to “be” with another person, without trying to fix what they are enduring.  We want to fill the silence with words, or noise, or activity.  Often what is needed is for us just to sit with someone, quietly.  These are ways we hold space for a person in need, or in pain.

I remember the morning a few years ago when my friend’s father was actively dying and ultimately passed away, when my friend and I sent Facebook messages to one another as she kept vigil at his bedside.  Just four months ago, another friend and I exchanged messages and a photo as he lay with his beloved dog while she died.  Even though I was unable to be present with these friends in a physical way, I was able to love and care for them…holding space.

The truth is, I’ve been learning how to hold space all my life…I just didn’t know it was called “holding space”.  And that phrase may be one that comes and goes away, replaced by another “concept-of-the-moment”.  I do like the idea, though, especially when someone is of a different faith tradition from mine, or from no faith tradition at all.  Sometimes telling someone that I am “praying” for them might hold negative associations, if the church has hurt them (which happens so much more often than we want to acknowledge).  Sometimes my own spiritual life is not such that I can truly pray…but I can always hold space.  God hears what I can’t say, and the person I am caring for knows they are being remembered with compassion and tenderness.  I’m holding several people even as I write this, people dear to me who are enduring pain that I cannot begin to imagine.  I communicate as best I can with them, and when we are not talking or writing, my heart is with them…holding space.

image

 

 

 

Jan12

Because I Am That Person

Posted on by
Standard

Most of us have one…

 

“You showed up in a dream last night and I wanted to check in and see if everything is all right…”

“Are you nervous about this appointment?”

“Let me know when you get back home safely.”

“I’ll be here for you in the morning before they take you back for the procedure.”

In the past few weeks I have uttered all these phrases, some more than once, to various friends or family members.  I can’t seem to help myself.  I am That Person.

Everyone has That Person in their lives, the one who asks if you have a jacket because it’s supposed to turn cold later on, who holds your hand when you’re sick, who makes friends with your dog…and everyone else’s.  When you are experiencing heartache, challenges, a loss or a life change, That Person will gift you with marbles, to remind you that you haven’t lost yours.

 

That Person genuinely cares about you, your life, your family.  She (or he in some cases) has a true heart, one as strong and sweet as Southern iced tea.  And it brings great joy to That Person when he or she is able to offer you care and compassion.

Sometimes people don’t know what to do with her, or about her.  And that’s OK.  She doesn’t care for you in order to be cared for in return.  She does it because she doesn’t know any other way to be.

So, if you have That Person in your circle, accept the care she offers in the spirit in which it is intended.  Be honest with him when he asks how you are, because he really wants to know.  At some point you may end up becoming That Person for someone else.

 

Nov3

Shelter

Posted on by
Standard

We all need to feel safe…

Recently at work I noticed a small bird on one of the patios, sitting very still.  I thought it might be dead, as often birds fly into the mirrored windowpanes and break their little necks.  But this one was alive, just sitting in the shade of the building, getting wind blown.

image

I approached slowly, not wanting to scare it, or hurt it.  But it didn’t fly away, even though there were no visible injuries on its little body.  I think it may have hit the side of the building and just stunned itself temporarily.  Still, it was so exposed I was afraid that a predator might take advantage of its helpless situation.  So, very gently, I approached it…and it let me pick it up!

image

I moved it to a place in the mulch between two shrubs where it could have some shelter from the wind and protection from larger animals.  I always feel compassion for the vulnerable ones, those who are exposed, those victimized or exploited by so-called friends who turn out to be emotional predators.  It’s a difficult place to be.

People have always shared their hearts with me, from close friends and family, to workplace peers, to strangers standing in the grocery checkout line.  It’s amazing what people will reveal…and sometimes they regret having done so. I never want anyone to feel sorry that they shared something with me.  My goal is to justify their trust, to cradle them in safety…to offer them a place of Shelter.

image

Sep21

Wings

Posted on by
Standard

The blessing to soar and to sing…

This past Sunday the lovely people of Messiah Lutheran Church where I have sung and served since 2013 said “Farewell and Godspeed” to me as I have begun a new chapter at a different church, Ebenezer United Methodist.  Both churches have referred to my “ministry”, which I have never considered my singing to be.  For me, it’s just doing the thing God gave me to do, offering back to Him the gift that He has lent me to use while I am here.  Semantics, I suppose.

People who know me, or who read this blog, know that I collect feathers.  On my way into the church, I spied a tiny little white feather on the ground, no bigger than my thumbnail.  “Thanks, Lord, ” I thought, tucking it into my bag.  It was a beautiful little piece of comfort on a bittersweet day.

image

 

image

Joan, Messiah’s director of music, had mentioned in an email that I collect feathers and that if anyone at church found one, they could bring for my last Sunday as a member of their staff.  What a sweet gesture, I thought, and such a nice way to say not “Goodbye”, but “Until we meet again,”.  Because Christians, and musicians, never really say goodbye.  We remain part of the same family.

I had the chance to sing some of my favorite things, with some of my favorite people, in a place that I’ve grown to love.  At the end of the first service my friend Anne came up and handed me a Baggie with a collection of large feathers inside, explaining that she had her son Cameron had collected them on walks over the years.  I said, “I hope this isn’t the whole collection!”, to which she replied, “It is, and Cameron wanted you to have them.”  When I went into the choir room to drop off my folder before Sunday school I found a feather lying on the floor, and picked it up thinking someone had just dropped it.  They had…and that one was just the start.  All over the fellowship hall floor, feathers…on top of every table, feathers…little children tugging on my skirt to bring me feathers!  It felt like I’d won the lottery!

image

image

During Sunday school, Joan presented me with a parting gift, a gorgeous piece of art depicting a treble clef and feathers combined, inside of which she had tucked a small white feather that one of her dogs had tracked into the house after a walk.   And then she had me explain the significance of feathers in my life, how God sends them when I need comfort, a reminder that He is watching over me.  When I see a feather I pick it up, because, while my brain knows that feathers come from birds, my heart likes to imagine that the feathers drop from the wings of guardian angels God has placed in my path to look after me.

As the choir gathered for the second service, Mary Soprano (because we also have a Mary Alto!) presented me with her own take on a feather gift, a hilarious pink and purple boa, which everyone agreed suits my Diva personality perfectly!  I squealed like a child when I opened it, and posed for a photo showing my bounty of gifts and blessings from the day.  Pastor Eric prayed for me during both services, and Pastor Pauline blessed me, anointing me with oil after I had received communion.  Tears of gratitude welled up as I received love, hugs, affirmation and the blessing to continue singing in another family even as I remain loved by this one.

image

Over my shoulder the banner reads “Cantate Domino”, Latin for “Sing to the Lord”.  I LOVE that Joan framed the shot this way.  It’s a reminder for me why I do what I do.

And I love that my feather gifts remind me of both the birds and the Angels, creatures that soar and sing to the Lord.

 

 

Sep14

Broken Ground

Posted on by
Standard

The 15th anniversary of 9/11…

I remember the events of 9/11 as vividly as if they occurred yesterday.  We all do.  My closest connection with the tragedy was the fact that my brother, Reed, was caught up in it.  He worked for American Express in the World Financial Tower, which was very close to the WTC towers that were destroyed that morning.  Like many other families, we watched the footage unfold on TV, horrified by the images bombarding us.  And like many other families, I and my loved ones anxiously waited to hear from Reed, praying that he was safe, at least physically.  We were among the more fortunate families, hearing from him hours, rather than days, after the towers fell.  I was working for the local Fox TV affiliate at the time, and I reported to work that afternoon, thankful that Reed was out of harm’s way, and surrounded by my work family as we all watched the horror replayed for hours on end while news people and experts tried to make sense of it all.  Our boss, Tom, my friends Larry and Dan, and I, kept master control running that day and into the night.  One of my clearest memories of the day was when Dan’s sister came by that evening with her baby boy, and she let me hold him.  Cuddling that sweet child comforted me, reminding me that God is still at work in our world, and that life indeed goes on.  Dan told me on Facebook that his nephew has his learner’s permit to drive now, and that he has been told the story of how he blessed me on 9/11.

The world seemed to break that day.  Buildings, peace, faith, even the very earth underneath the city.  Broken ground.

Flash forward 15 years, and I am sitting in a church service at Ebenezer United Methodist Church where I have just recently accepted a call to sing and serve, leaving behind a church I have served since 2013.  The decision was not made lightly or without deep soul-searching, consideration and prayer.  On the 15th anniversary of the broken ground of 9/11, my new church family celebrated the groundbreaking of a new sanctuary, welcoming me into their heritage.  The significance and timing were poignant and emotional for me.

At the end of the service, we each received a river stone symbolic of “raising our Ebenezer”, then went out onto the lawn to stand where the new sanctuary will be built in the days and months to come, to pray for God’s continued blessing on the church family, and to break ground.  As I took my place on the lawn with the rest of the choir, I noticed something at my feet that has become a meaningful symbol of God speaking to me…

 

I hollered at my friend Marc to show him the feather, and he said, “That’s just like something that would happen to you!”  I replied, “It’s more like something God would do,”.  Then he and I dug into the dirt and celebrated the same blessed peace that holding that sweet baby 15 years ago had given me…that God is still at work in the world, and life indeed goes on.

Sep6

Taste And See

Posted on by
Standard

Singing, serving, and sharing

Mama always used to tell people that when I was born I came out singing.  More likely, I came out squawling, but I think I probably started to sing not too long after that.  It has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, and often, it has been the biggest and best part, facilitating other blessings.  Yesterday was a day like that.

It was a Communion Sunday at church, and my longtime friend Marc and I sang a duet called “Taste And See” right before the sermon.  The song is a paraphrase of Psalm 34, and among Marc, me and our friend/accompanist/collaborator John, we put together what turned out to be a heartfelt and lovely arrangement that seemed fitting for a Communion service.  Singing with Marc is often a bit of a mystical experience; the blend of our voices is special, and added to the decades of friendship we share, the music always seems to become more than just the sum of its parts.  Added to that dynamic was the brilliance of our new friend John pulling an accompaniment out of his gifted head (and in a different key than the score he was playing from!). So our musical offering felt special indeed.

But it was only a foreshadowing of the moments yet to come in the service.  For, after the sermon was preached, the familiar and poignant story of the Last Supper was re-told to us, and Pastors Ann and Jason modeled a new way of offering communion for us to follow.  We were to accept the elements from the person in line ahead of us, and in turn, we were to pass to the other side of the table and serve them to the next person in the line behind us.  In all my decades of church services and taking of Communion, this was a first for me, a chance to serve the Body and Blood to a member of the church family.

The person I had the privilege of serving was my longtime friend Marc.  John’s beautiful piano music as we communed added such a warm and lovely atmosphere to the service, and as Marc and I approached the altar, John revisited “Taste and See” that we had sung earlier.  As I touched Marc’s hands and looked into his face, offering him this Heavenly feast, with the words, “Marc, this is the body of Christ, given for you…this is the Blood of Christ, poured out for you…” I had to fight back tears.

After Marc and I had communed, we took the elements up to the piano and served John last of all.  Marc gave him the Body and I served the Blood.  The power of this whole experience humbled me in a way I could not have anticipated, and cannot explain.  I suppose it is just the chance to share music and God in a new way and deeper level with friends both longtime and recent, musical partners and brothers in Christ.  Yesterday was a little glimpse of Heaven for me and I am so grateful for the chance to have experienced it, to Taste and See the Goodness of the Lord.

Aug25

Challenged

Posted on by
Standard

Bible Boot Camp, writing…

Since 2010, I have done a yearly “Bible Boot Camp” every summer, during which I have read through the Bible in 90 days starting June 1 and ending sometime toward the end of August.  I finished up this year’s installment yesterday and remarked that it had been a little more challenging than usual, in part due to reading a translation I had never used before.  God has always been so faithful to teach, comfort, and yes, challenge me, through this journey, blessing me so much more than my small investment of time deserves.

Because of the special challenges of this year’s Boot Camp, I’ve let a few weeks go by since my last blog post.  Maybe that’s a good thing.  I will admit to a lack of inspiration lately, not because there’s nothing to write about, but because my ability to string coherent thoughts together has been…challenged.

We all have those moments, don’t we?  There is so much to say that we stumble over how to say it, or like me in recent weeks, experience verbal vapor-lock and end up saying nothing.  Even our prayers don’t seem to flow naturally, instead coming in fits and starts, or such seemingly scattered random thoughts that we wonder if even God can make sense of them.

He can.  He hears and understands the things that we cannot say in words because He listens to the heart.  And He cares about all the details of our lives.

So, as I attempt to get myself back in gear for the activities resuming this season with music and church, I will hope also to find my words again.  I NEED to write in order to maintain some sense of balance.  I need to share my story.  Most of all, I need to embrace the times when I find myself Challenged.

image