Perfect Pitch

I don't usually post these, but I realize not everybody reads the News & Observer, where my columns appear once a month on Sundays. So here it is. It appears in the Feb. 21 edition of the Arts & Living section.

Perfect Pitch
Though I began my career slugging out words in a newsroom, for more than 20 years I worked from home. I loved the freelance life, leaving the office long enough to search for a story or meet with writing students, but I also loved that by the end of the day I was home and ready to collect whatever jewels my children chose to share when they came home from school.
Then college happened, and my husband looked at me and said: It’s time you got out of the house.
Just about that time, my church called a new priest, a man so young I could have been his babysitter. (After hours, he plays bass in an indie rock band.) He set to work, and his youth brought a new energy to our congregation, and soon he began to build a team to help him lead our parish through what would be a time of tremendous growth.
Some of these wonderful folks already worked there. Others, like me, he found within the pews. When he approached me about joining the staff for communications, I was reticent. I cherished my freelance work (and my flexibility). I liked attending church and volunteering, and though I loved the people, working where I worship? I wasn’t so sure.
Then he took me to lunch and talked about that “call” thing, and well, that got me.
In those first weeks I sat in a tiny office filled with somebody else's filing cabinets, trying to invent a job no one had had before me. But soon I was sharing space with my friend Lee, who had a similar lunch and was now leading our newcomer program. Then came Charlotte for endowment and Abby for youth — the Episcopal logo tattooed on her wrist long before she ever thought about working for a church.
Today we are a baker’s dozen — working in music and finance, youth and children’s ministry, administration, preaching and teaching, forging deep friendships as we go, doing what I now know is God’s work.
I think too often when people hear the word “ministry,” at least in the Episcopal Church, they think of hands folded, voices low, lots of fancy language and all that kneeling.
There is that, of course, but there is so much more.
Our weekly staff meetings begin with prayer, surely, and with sharing plans of how our work will help bring our people closer to God. But sometimes our spiritual conversations morph into how popular culture competes with Church, and to mask our frustration, my boss might ask us about our favorite characters in stories as diverse as “House of Cards” and “Star Wars” to “Mary Tyler Moore.”
The Mary Tyler Moore thing grew from a discussion about the preaching rotation (or ROTA), which morphed into “Rhoda,” and of course for most of us, there is only one Rhoda. The entire staff broke out with the theme song, and as it ended, our newest priest, with us only a few months, tossed his collar into the air like Mary did her hat. (No irreverence intended, of course.)
Who does this at work?
Everybody, I wish.
We often leave our meetings laughing, ready to take on the sadness our parishioners sometimes share with us. We’re here for specific jobs — taking care of the building, planning the Sunday anthem, counting pledges — but we listen, too, as we make copies, share lunch and conversation, hearing our people out, even when they think we are not doing our jobs.
A few weeks ago, the collar-tossing priest answered a new call, and we’re heartbroken. He pulled our circle in even tighter, and we will never forget his ministry to and with us.
When we heard he was leaving, the boss opened our staff meeting by saying a friend had asked him what it was like to work with us.
“You know the last episode of Mary Tyler Moore, when they all gather for that group hug? That’s what it’s like,” he said. Later Charlotte posted that image on our Facebook page, and we all wept a little.
Yes, at my office, love is all around, and on most days we try not to waste it, knowing this perfect pitch may be tossed our way again.
++++
Susan Byrum Rountree is director of communications for St. Michael's Episcopal Church.

writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author. She can be reached at susanbyrumrountree.com

these people

until about 10 years ago, i never worked in an office. of course i began my career slugging it away in a newsroom, and i worked in two of them for a few years until i didn't anymore. then i worked from home, raising two wiggly children who until that point were my most colorful of coworkers.

as i raised them, i carved out a sort of work like for myself, staking claim to a small room at the top of the stairs that was supposed to be the 'nursery' in the house we bought 25 years ago. it soon grew into my office, with built-in book shelves and a Pottery Barn desk with room for all of my files, a small closet where i could store all the accouterments needed for the life of a writer at home.

i loved this life, getting out of the office long enough to meet with writing students or interview very cool folk, but knowing i could retreat to my space by the end of the school day and collect whatever jewels my children chose to share with me about their day.

and then, college happened.

just about that time, my church called a new priest, a young man whom i might have babysat if i'd lived in his neighborhood— he was that young. but in time, he began to build a team of people who would lead him through a period of tremendous growth for our church. some of these wonderful folks were already at work there. others joined their ranks a few years in, tapped by my priest because he found them to have a particular talent he felt we needed.

when he approached me about joining the staff for communications, i was reticent. i loved my freelance work, my free time, going to church but having little responsibility for it besides my monthly pledge. but then he took me to lunch and talked about that 'call' thing, and well, that got me, so i signed on.

i had not worked in an office with anyone since 1981, and in those first months, i found myself in a tiny corner spot filled with somebody else's filing cabinets. then he hired another, and the two of us picked out a soft purple color to paint the cinderblock walls of our new 'office.' he hired another and another, all i imagine taking them to that important lunch when he talked about 'call' and 'purpose' and leaving no room for 'no' in the conversation.

today we are a team, communicators and administrators and financial folks and children and youth ministry folk, priests and others, all of us forging deep friendships as we go about what i have truly grown to understand is a ministry.

i think too often when people here the word 'ministry', they think of hands folded, voices low, whispering in serious tones. grief.

and where i work, of course there is that, but.

we gather around the table at our weekly staff meetings, and we begin with prayer, surely. but as the meeting progresses, we might be asked who we are in the Star Wars trilogy, our favorite song from  the Sound of Music, or we might find ourselves breaking out in song to the theme song from Mary Tyler Moore. there is method to this madness (the MTM thing grew from a discussion about the preaching rotation (or ROTA), which morphed into 'Rhoda' and of course most of us are of the generation who would remember that Rhoda was MTM's best friend. that meeting ended when our newest priest took his collar and tossed it to the air. (no irreverence intended, to be sure)

who does this at work?

i hope everybody.

i love these people. and i hope everybody has staff meetings like ours, because it's therapeutic, particularly for those of us in ministry work. (and by that i don't mean ordained ministry, b/c 90 percent of our staff is not 'ordained'. but we have been called, to be sure.

and the joy of it is, we leave our staff meetings laughing, ready to take on the sadness many of our parishioners share with us daily, and maybe to offer them some hope. we are there to listen, to make copies for them, to share lunch and conversation, break bread in communion, to hear them out, even, when they think we are not doing our jobs.

tonight we gathered with the leadership of our parish to celebrate the end of what has been a challenging year — january brought a heart attack and open heart surgery for our priest. and each month that passed brought further challenges, either for our parish or for the Church at large. and because of the people i work with, we met the challenge.

tonight i want to thank these people (only a few of whom are pictured here) for welcoming me, for being my friend and for being a minister to me. blame the MTM song on the guy who photobombed the picture.

but be sure of this:

love is all around, don't need to waste it, you can have the town why don't you take it? you're gonna make it after all.

try singing it. see what happens.

(tossing a priest's collar is optional of course.)

writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.

Hooked, Day 5 (lots of mixed metaphors in this one!)

imagine flying. 

bird-like, with a view of the ground from just above the treeline, then in a flash, soaring up toward the milky way and taking a right at that second star, then on til morning. flying.

the unencumbered and unchallenged kind of flying, the look-at-me-way-up-high, Peter-Pan kind of flying. FLYING!

ever since i was a girl and saw Mary Martin soar in her green felt suit across the television stage, singing that song, i have imagined flying like that, imagined flying free, like the boy Pan.

the idea of flying, only to be stilled long enough to never quite grow up beyond where you landed. now that would be something.

if i could choose a year i didn't want to grow beyond it would be fourth grade. at 9 you haven't really made any particular mistakes that you'll have to carry with you like you might, say, at 11. or 16. your parents still think you are pretty smart and cute, your friends love you completely, the acne hasn't yet landed on your face and though you may have a boyfriend, he never actually talks to you, so he doesn't matter all that much. gotta love 4th grade.

you still believe in Santa Claus (well, at least in 1965), still have not yet shaved your legs or started your period or felt the rising and falling of unexplained and unexpected feelings. you are flying. and high, hoping to land in that place 'where dreams are born and time is never planned.' and where nightmares can still be calmed with a lullaby.

at that age, i was not aware that i might one day make mistakes i'd carry on my back for years and could not flee, no matter how i might try to fly above them.

+++

i have always loved anything about Peter Pan, and years after the Mary Martin production, my son and i fell in love with Hook, the story of Peter as a middle-aged man who has forgotten what it's like to be a child. there are no special lyrics, no dance of Tiger Lily, but it's a wonderful examination of how quickly we leave childhood and move into the things that hardly matter. watching Robin Williams in the role of Peter, who eventually begins to understand the value of thinking and believing as a child, you imagine that this is a role he was born to play. i can't think of Peter Pan without thinking of this great actor.

+++

i thought about all this last night as i watched Peter Pan live. as soon as the stage opened to Wendy and her brothers, I felt much like a 9-year-old again, so absorbed in the story that by the time Tinkerbell needed me, I clapped hysterically to keep her alive just as i had when was was six.(my husband made fun of me on Facebook.) for a moment, even in fiction, i mattered, i was needed to bring about something important. 

there is something wonderfully freeing, flying-like, in abandoning all those burdens for a few hours, to remember what it feels like to be 6, or 9.

and to remember that years later for no explained reason, how you sang to your sleepy children words you had learned yourself as a child from Wendy, and Peter Pan.

how often, now ,does it feel like you matter. that someone's very existence depends upon  your clapping? 

and what do you think is around your bend, after you take that right at that second star? Morning, surely, but there has to be more.

sbr

Tender shepherd, tender shepherd, watches over all his sheep
one in the meadow, 2 in the garden, three in nursery, fast asleep.

writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.

we turned the page on the calendar, and...

my hall closet is crammed with coats. black wool coats, long and short. crisp spring toppers, fleece jackets and thin, hooded parkas. so many coats between my husband and me that we hang them on top of each other so they'll fit snugly, waiting to be pulled out when we need them.

you would think we could put the lightweight jackets away to make room for our winter coverings. but in the first month of this new year, i have worn practically all of them, some days changing out coats by the hour from fleece to topper to wool.

last week temps hovered in the teens, so wool it was, along with long johns and muffs for the ears. by the weekend, rain moved in with humid warmth and even the hooded parka was too much. the next week, the fog lay so thick by my mailbox that i could hardly see the street, so the jacket it was. today it's 60 degrees. tomorrow they're calling for snow.

i don't remember a winter this fickle, yet when we turned the calendar to 2014, we found the weather to be a mirror for what the month would be.

art by

@

debucket

i was so ready to turn the page, (and yes, i still do use a paper calendar), to bring out my 2014 planner and mark the squares with all the good things to be: a. trip to paris. paris! family visits (and not in the hospital), a new fitness routine. i was so ready to leave last year behind with all its changes and losses and move full force into hope.

on new year's eve, my husband and i found ourselves 500 miles apart, he making his resolutions alone in a Hampton Inn in Paduca, Kentucky, and me out with friends sharing ours at one of our favorite restaurants. his aunt was in the hospital, and since she has no husband, no kids, no siblings left, he was the only one to see about her. pull on the wool and prepare for winter.

on my way to dinner that night, i checked in with my son and learned he'd had great news at work. i felt the sun breaking through the clouds. on the first day of the year, i planned my trip to Paris. on the second, my husband headed home in a blinding snow storm. wool again. by the weekend, the temps hovered near 75 degrees, and all was steady, no coat required. then good news again: Aunt Betty left the hospital, and our daughter shared her own work milestone. i found myself thinking, well, maybe we can put our winter buffers away.

on the fourth day, we opened our home to the family of the newest priest at our church — or he would become one the following day— welcoming them with a warm fire and hot soup, filling our house with laughter that seemed to have been absent for too long awhile. on the fifth day, we witnessed as priests surrounded him with the powerful laying on of hands. all warmth and bright sunlight, hope. 

on day 6 i had my annual mammogram, opting for the new digital kind, bracing myself for a minute discovery. but all was clear. on day 7, my great-niece celebrated her first birthday — steady winds and bright sun, little outerwear needed.

then on day 11, the wind shifted, and i felt myself pulling on my heaviest coat to brace for it: the dog and i hid in the hall bathroom as trees swayed and 65 mile-per-hour winds passed overhead. and just about that time (i later discovered) my boss was having a heart attack. he is 44 years old. day 13 brought triple bypass surgery for my friend, and hours of waiting and days of fear for wife, my friend, and his three young daughters. on day 14, a dear friend lost her husband, 66, to

frontotemporal dementia

. on yesterday we bid him farewell.

today the winds calmed. the sun came out. the boss's health has improved. things settled in the the family. 

yet my coworker said she was tired. last week her dog almost died, had to be raised up in an oxygen chamber at the vet school, and today she felt the pieces of january weighed her down like a giant wooden puzzle.

we are just about done with it. january. a month i have loved for its fresh start, for the fact that my son was born at the end of it. but i'm weary, too, from all that has happened to those around me. i know the fatigue, the sadness and fear that grips them.

so i long for snow, the makes-you-stay-put kind, the watch-the-world-transform-into-swirls-of-white-and-crystal kind, that finds you pulling on that wool you are so tired of and heading outside. to hold your sleeve out just-so, to watch the tiny iced-jewels — each of them their own sculpture — rest on your sleeve, to show you that despite all, hope is there. God. Is. There.

writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.

dear Nell

on sunday when we heard the news, your fellow writers gathered around the large table and talked. about your yellow suit. we read your stories, finding particular meaning in your words, especially now. how in 2006 you wrote about how afraid you were to live alone when Mel's Alzheimer's required that he live away from you. how you loved nothing more than to do his laundry in those days, and found joy when for a fleeting moment he knew your face. how you used to be a 'ready, fire, aim' kind of person (your words), then one day you reversed the order of your day, placing 'aim' in the middle, and oh my, what a difference it made. 

we heard about your trips, and how at 80 you took yourself on a pilgrimage to Scotland of all places, lugging your heavy suitcase across the whole country, it felt like, and then subway and ferry, to get to a place you weren't sure you really wanted to go. and even though your body didn't feel like climbing the rocky hill to the ocean, damn if you didn't do it. 

and we got the metaphor, all of us wondering, could we? 

at the end of your climb, you found a rock to throw into the ocean, the whole thing weighing you down. 'what rock will you throw away?' you asked us four years ago, and again on sunday. and we thought of how, not a month ago, you stood before us and told us all about other rocks. choosing love over science when you were young, but now that the love of your life is gone, you are giving back to science, and to a young man who wants, as you once did, to be a doctor. 

'many blessings have come to me through my family, my friends, and especially my church,' you wrote this fall. 'what else could I possibly want and wish for? even though there are times i regret i did not pursue my dream, i see that God can bring many blessings out of disappointments and help us find peace as we take a different path.'

your words.

of course by then we'd heard the story. of the heart attack, and how, caught away from the phone, you dragged yourself across the floor to get to it. and it took you hours. and then, you got better, then worse, then better again, and we all knew come Lent you would be sitting in your chair to the right of me, writing only part of the story with the rest of us captured and waiting to hear the rest of it, as is your way. how many times did i say it: Nell, you have to write your story. or at least let me come and sit at your knee and listen as you tell it, and i will write it down for you.

we knew, knew, you were not done yet.

when we last spoke you told me stories of your life i had not yet heard. and i found myself thinking: will i ever be able to look at life as Nell does? will i ever stop mourning dreams i've lost and think, as you, instead about dreams yet to be?

you changed things. i remember the first time i knew who you were, when i walked into the room with the giant table we would gather around together for two years, searching for someone to lead our church. and you prayed a very Methodist prayer (which was not a bad thing at all, but different) and i wondered how you would get along with some of the folks in the room, how we would all come together to find one leader, but you implored us to approach the whole thing in prayer, and well, we did as you asked. and it worked.

i remember, too, how when our group of varied folk finally settled on that name, and he came to visit, climbing into the pulpit, you and i stood in the back of the church and you said: doesn't he look good up there? and just this week, you would have said the same, except this time, he spoke about you.

last year when all the women gathered for this new idea nobody really knew would work, you gathered the women in your age group and you stood in front of everyone, looking out at the 30s, 40s, 50s, the 80s and said: isn't this grand?

nell, you are grand. 

and oh, you would have loved it. the whole thing. how every single pew was filled (even the new seats). two bishops, not as celebrants, but sitting there in the pews with us, missing you. how we sang O, God Our Help in Ages Past, which i have been singing since i was a child and know every single word. as i sang, imagining you singing with me, i looked up at that big cross that you sit closest to, thinking oh my, she is there.

and all the words said about you that were just right.

and that most beautiful Goodall arrangement of the 23rd Psalm which is not sad at all, but promising, and as i listened it was clear to me you were with us, too.

i was sad, nell, we all were. we sang I Sing A Song of the Saints of God, a child's hymn, really, but you always considered yourself a child of God. and you have been a saint among us.

i watched as greg sprinkled dirt from the garden over the pall. watched as your handsome grandchildren clutched each other, wondering what part of you each of them takes with them, listening as just then, a breeze blew through the wind chimes in the garden and it just felt like you, all over the place. 

writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.

pulling out the stops

let me start off by saying i am not an overtly religious person. being a cradle Episcopalian, i am not at all comfortable talking about God to people i don't know. but i pray every day, i go to church every week, and i understand that God does work in my life all the time. even when i don't ask Him to. and even when i least deserve it.

i've said before on this blog that i work at my church. and i love my job. it allows me to do everything i have learned in 30 years as a writer and even to learn a few things i didn't know before. and i love the people i work with.

people who don't work for churches might think that in every day there are moments when God is just about everywhere as you work. that may be true for some, but a lot of the time, i've found a day's makeup to be much like i imagine that of the secular office world — things like yelling at the office copier for not printing things right (ours is apparently post-menopausal) or not understanding how the phone system works. or having people stop by asking you to do things that aren't in your job description or emails about all the typos you make during a given week. (that would be a lot).

sometimes, though, you do find God moments, and not necessarily when you're sitting in the pews on Sunday trying to listen really hard to the message and not think about the mess you left on your desk just down the hall or the work you have to get started on the next day when you come back to work.



one thing that probably doesn't happen much in the secular world is having organ music waft down the hallways. real live organ music, not some recorded stuff, emitting from thousands of pipes that are just getting used to their voices. and it's loud and sweet and moving and oh, so, like you think God's voice would sound like, if you could actually hear it.



a God moment happened this week, and it began with music. my boss heard it first and wandered down the hall toward the church as if drawn by the pied piper, and i followed. we've recently installed a new organ in our nave, (well, i lifted nary a pipe) and it is not unusual for us to hear our organist, Kevin, practicing for Sunday. but this, well, this was different.



once inside the almost empty church, i chuckled as the theme from Star Wars shouted from the pipes. then my eyes moved toward a small cluster of women gathered in the pews. one sat in a wheelchair, and as i drew closer, i recognized her as one of our parishioners whose body is waging a battle with Lou Gehrig's Disease. i last saw her two years ago when she came to have her picture taken for the church directory. dressed in a sweater as blue as a bachelor's button, she was beautiful, and i told so. she tried to speak, but had clearly lost her voice, and i asked if she had laryngitis. she wrote on a pad and handed it to me, explaining that the disease was talking now. 

today she can no longer walk, though she can grip the pad and as she sat next to the pew, she wrote down the music she wanted to hear Kevin play for her own private concert. 

i sat in a pew across the aisle and listened, as Kevin played 'Silent Night' and 'Amazing Grace' — in ways i'd never heard them in all my years of listening. i pulled out the prayer book and said a few silent prayers for another parishioner and friend in the hospital. (and a couple for myself.)

and then Kevin said: now i'm going to pull out all the stops.

from the moment he played the first notes of Bach's "Toccata in D minor"  (having no real classical music knowledge, i know it as the organ music from Phantom of the Opera) the change in the room was palpable.

i watched Kevin play, wishing i was sitting behind him so i could see the movement of his fingers and arms as he worked at the console, pulling out stops and playing keys and pedals, giving his new console a real workout. then suddenly i felt the music wrap itself around me, and i just closed my eyes, hearing each organ note, not only with my ears but within me, transported, as he played, to somewhere i had not visited before.

and he played on. and on, notes i had never heard, like a new parent coaxing this infant instrument to speak up, and clearly.

photo: graham rountree of rountreemedia

when i did open my eyes, they were drawn upward, toward the pipes themselves, their powerful notes blending as they shouted, whispered, shouted again. i have not yet found the adjectives to adequately describe what i heard. but it was beautiful.

finally i looked at the clutch of women gathered around their chair-bound friend, and they were weeping. 

Kevin played more softly then, and my boss and i slipped quietly out and back to the work at hand, but the moment hasn't left me. Kevin's playing was meant as a gift for a woman who can rarely, if she ever will again, hear music played in the church she loves. yes, the gift was hers, but all of us present received it, too.

for the past few years i have reported on the progress as our new organ was being built. and in august last year, when the first pipes began to arrive, i started taking pictures — hundreds of them — to record this historic moment in the life of our parish. i've climbed up in the pipe chamber, learned that pipes are made of wood and steel and range in size from the height and breadth of a fledgling oak to some the size of a golf pencil. they are round and square. and the keys that make them work are crafted of polished bone and rosewood. i've listened as the organ builders refined the voice of each of those thousands of pipes to fit our space. 

but in that moment, i came to understand just how an organ is so much more than a collection of pipes and wood. it's a breathing thing.

i've written and rewritten that last sentence a dozen times now. it just sounds so over-the-top, clichéd to call a musical instrument a living thing. well, it was an over-the-top moment for me. it felt to me like God's voice got down from the lofty place we often put it and sat in the pew with me. and with the woman in the wheelchair. i don't know how she feels about her disease, but i can imagine how i would feel. I would want to roar as loudly as those pipes, saying 'can't you hear me? i am angry!', and then i would probably cry softly for a little while.

if you think about it real hard, maybe what happened on monday of this week, was that our new organ gave God a voice to speak to a woman who won't ever have a voice again and He said i am angry too. and i am crying with you. but despite all, there is still great beauty in the world. and she — we — all understood what He was saying.

writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.

in praise of beautiful women

mel & me

i met my friend melanie almost seven years ago, when her husband was called to be rector of our church. i was on the search committee, and when melanie came to visit, she brought with her a tiny baby girl she kept in a bucket. well, not really a bucket, but that's what she called it. the day they moved into their house, i arrived, offering to sit with sweet baby coco as her parents told the movers where to put what. 

mel was young, uncertain of her role as rector's wife. how would she do it? it would take time for her to figure out. coco is now in first grade, and two sisters have joined her, one of whom is my godchild. and their mother has grown, too.

mel played lacrosse at brown, was now refs for the acc and runs 10 miles on an ordinary day.  i played with barbies, and on a particularly athletic day in college, i might have run to krispy kreme toward the hot doughnuts now sign. but we are both writers, and so connected over words.

mel wears spiked heel shoes to church on sundays. i almost always wear flats because of my bunions. (bunions?) I dress like my mother. she dresses like nobody's mom. and yet, we have found common ground.

the wife of a priest is traditionally expected to champion some sort of ministry within the parish. kind of like the wife of a president. choose a platform and make that your baby. well, mel had three babies in five years, so it took a little while to carve out space enough to find her church passion. in between she joined our parish writing group, pouring her soul into beautiful words that everybody i know — and everybody i don't — should read. she needs a blog!

keynote patti digh

a few years ago, mel and i attended a women's event in richmond, va., where she lived before she came to north carolina. it was such an experience for both of us, that we dreamed of creating something similar at home.

and this weekend, we did. with the help of a whole bunch of amazing and beautiful women. and another 200 amazing and beautiful women who attended.

when she was welcoming all those women, Melanie said this:

Please take a moment to look around. In front of you, to the left, right, and behind. Tell your seatmates your name. We are here to share stories. To hear our own again. When we share, it becomes bigger than us. The Gathering was born out of a desire to do “inreach” to feed the souls of women who do so much for others, often placing our own needs last on the list. When we nurture ourselves, we nurture others. When we let our light shine, we give others the freedom — the courage —  to do the same. We got to this day by a series of “God-instances.” With each idea, we were shown a path. With each hurdle, we were given a gift. 

one of the gifts i have been given in lo these 7 years is just knowing her, watching her beauty, her joy, as she found her ministry, has done what she was expected to do, but with surprise. sure, she does the bake sales, prepares church suppers, but her calling is much deeper.

i have written in the past that in preparation for the gathering, we taught a class, one centered on four words we can keep in mind as we move through our days. one of many represented in the books of patti digh, was this: open doors for people.

the gathering committee rocks!

i can think of 200 women over the past friday and saturday — some of whom probably thought the door was firmly shut — who found it open for them, just because of mel's vision and her ministry. those of us involved in the planning have been opened to new friendships, new doors we thought had been locked long ago.

find a door. open it. Wide as it can go. let people in. do. welcome. it will be good for you.

view from the pew

i'm not a front pew sitter. left side, five pews from the back, right on the aisle is where you will find me on Sunday. But this weekend, at least for a little while, my view was from the front pew.

my friend melanie had the vision, and i joined her with a dozen other women to make it happen. We  planned for almost a year, to gather women in our church and their friends to celebrate story, the story found in each of us, as a way to connect to our God-created creative center.

and it finally happened. and  for two days we talked. shared. wrote. drew. listened. celebrated. sang. ate. wept. laughed.

patti digh, our keynote speaker, gave us challenges. one was to turn around to the person behind you and ask: what do you love to do? the young woman behind me looked lost when i asked her, had no clue how to answer this question. i'll tell you what i love to do, i said. make yeast rolls. get my hands in the dough. turns out she loved to dig in the dirt, and though the rabbits were eating everything she put out, we shared a love for peonies.

another exercise: look into the face of the person on the pew behind us. for two minutes. the woman behind me was elderly, my mother's age. as i stared into her green eyes, watched her eyebrows lift into sly smile, dip into frown, i pondered the story in her wrinkled skin.

then, patti said, said, close your eyes, think of your favorite childhood game, your first love, a place where you feel safe. open your eyes. see the woman before you. she has the same remarkable story as you. introduce yourself.

i asked carmen, my new friend, about herself. she is the wife of a retired priest, was there with her daughter, and when i heard of her husband's occupation, looked at her name again, something struck. could she have spent time my hometown, been friends with my mother? yes, in fact, she did. was.

and there were other stories. a young woman with colored dreadlocks came from south carolina to meet patti digh. when she left, she left behind beautiful drawings to remind us of her presence. mothers who came with grown daughters. cancer survivors hoping for a fresh start. mothers caring for young children. others caring for aging parents. all eager to renew purpose in their lives. to learn how to live their lives as art.

jill staton bullard, was one of our breakout speakers. she started a movement when she watched a fast -food company throw out good food because the day shifted from breakfast to lunch. Jill asked this question of her group: tell each other about someone who has changed your life. the room soon filled with babble. next question will be harder, jill said: now tell each other about people whose lives you have changed. we don't own that one, she says. other speakers talked of the angels in their lives, how God works in the garden (i hoped my gardening friend was in that one), feeling God's presence in art, in the pew, in the world around you.

the weekend ended with a eucharist, a celebration of all things woman, with kites and candles,  hymns and wine, bread and prayer.

as i sang, i looked around, at my friends mel and barbara and martha on the pew beside me, lee and linda and sandy and charlotte in pews or standing all around, nell and patti, a generation apart, singing in unison from their own pew. somewhere behind me i knew were grace and diana and katherine, dawn and lynn and sally, frances and diane, marty and laurie and countless other women who are important to my life, and i could not keep from weeping.

it was the kites i noticed then. two young women, sisters — twins — flailing dove and spiral above as  all our heads lifted, watching them soar.

+++\

please check back tomorrow, as I will post more pictures.

in a word

it's gonna be a great day!

What Must I Do?

Lately I have been doing a lot  of prep work for The Gathering, which I have written about in this space before. On Monday, I met with a group of women to pitch the event, hoping more than a few of them would sign up to attend. I talked about how we found Patti Digh, our keynote speaker, and the other women we have invited to lead breakout groups designed to spark creativity within us — in work, in community, in faith and daily life. Being part of the planning for an event we hope will help reshape the lives of many has been daunting, and so rewarding to me.


One of the many questions Patti asks in her book, Creative Is A Verb, is this: What is the one thing you MUST do?

We all have our daily "musts". Today, for instance, I must work, set up a new computer, create and distribute a weekly e-newsletter. I must have my Diet Coke, must finish this post, must check to see if I have enough money in the bank, must make the bed, clean out the coffee pot, walk the dog, write my Christmas thank you notes, plan supper. A long list.

But if I didn't do one of those things — or all of those things — the world wouldn't shake on its axis, and few, if any, would care at all. (Well, the dog would care, my mother would care about the notes, and my husband might not care about supper, too much.)

But this kind of must is different from the daily must do, something so imbedded in our souls that if we don't do it, we somehow feel a lost. 


So I asked the women, most of whom I know fairly well, to take three minutes and think about it. Write it down. What must they do, or they would not feel whole? Just one thing. 


Here's what they said:


Knit. Talk. Exercise. Organize. Connect. Be part of a church community. As they shared, I got a better sense of their inner lives, of what makes them who they are. And how their "must" connects them to those around them. Each of them, unknowingly, is creating art in her daily life, just by living within that must. The knitter showed her scarf. The talker talked of losing her singing voice to surgery, but of gaining her willingness to speak up. The organizer shared this: that hidden in that need to organize was her real need to connect people with each other, to find places where their talents can be shared.


As I listened, I thought: now this is one thing I "must" do. Pull the story out, particularly from those who think they don't have one. It gives me such joy to hear someone say: I never thought about it just that way before, when I ask a question and a story tumbles out of them that surprises. It's usually something they do think about but regard as so small, it is not worth sharing.


But of course it is the tiniest of things that can mean the biggest of things, when considered a new way. And what I must do, is capture those moments that bring meaning to the musts. 
sbr

I ought to be in pictures: Ok, so I cheated just a bit

Photo - a present to yourself. Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

Amateur photog that I am, I have taking well over a thousand photos this year, 999+ of them of other people. And of the two or three of me taken, they all seem to say: tired, old, fat, and tired again. Now, if this was last year, it would be easy. Despite 9 months of lost sleep and fretting, I looked pretty damn good on my daughter's wedding day, if I say so myself. What a happy day that was, for all of us. (Thanks, Joey/Jessica, and Linda, and Eric.)


But in 2010? Not so much.

Oct. 10, 1982

My husband and I have a tradition, though. Since Oct. 10, 1982, we have kept a photo record of our anniversaries. The idea came from the wedding gift of a dime store photo album from one of my mother's cousins, who gave us instructions to fill the album of photos taken on our wedding anniversaries, and looking back, we would be surprised at the stories the photos tell. That first picture was captured on a humid Georgia Sunday, and we dressed up in our rehearsal dinner clothes. I have written before that it looks to me like we are a couple a little unsure of the road we are traveling together. He holds me as if he will never let me go. I look like I could use a few pounds. What the picture doesn't show is the gnats flying around our faces, and the sadness we both felt, because my husband's father had had surgery to remove a necrotic brain tumor the day before.


Not all the Oct. 10ths between then and now have been quite so awful for our family, though one or two have been marked by loss. We've celebrated pregnancies, moves, new houses, even something as seemingly inconsequential as yet another year together, just muddling through. I often give photo albums as wedding gifts, being careful to choose ones that have at least 50 pages. A few years ago, I had to buy a new album, because our old one was filling up.

Oct. 10, 2010

On Oct. 10, 2010, a Sunday, we got up early and took our dog to church. Now smart as he is, Reagan is not quite up to all the bowing and posturing and kneeling we Episcopalians are known for, and as far as I know he couldn't tell a credence table from a lavabo bowl. But the date of our 29th wedding anniversary happened to be on the Feast of St. Frances, when everybody brings an animal to church for a blessing.


The photo is taken by our friend Claire, just a quick snap so we could have it for the album. When I look at it now, I search for traces of the skinny girl in the Princess-Di-style dress who wasn't so sure about marriage at the end of that first year. Now, this woman seems to understand much more (though there are still some things she has yet to learn), and her groom has loosened his grip a bit, sure now, that she is not going anywhere. She's put on a few more pounds than she needed back in 1982, but she's added some laugh lines, too, and I'd like to think those lines show that today she can giggle a little more freely than she did that first year.


The picture may not be worth a thousand words, but it is worth more than the 10,585 days together that it represents. We have grown up and older, loosened our grip of each other enough to grow into ourselves. And I hope that keeps on happening, as we move toward 7,665 more October 10ths, to 50 years, and beyond. 


And what I said before about another year together seeming inconsequential, that is not true, not true at all. Even though on some of those days we have lost time arguing at stoplights, have forgotten to give each other a kiss goodbye, just have nothing new to give each other at the end of the day except a burden, on other days we have watched our children tickle toes with the ocean, take hold of a new family, find their gifts. We have watched each other grow businesses, write books, fail, then try again. 


Though on some days we have buried our parents and dogs, on others we get to take our dog to church, or like today, watch him playing with our granddog in a new snow fall. And though we may end this day, both of us snoring side-by-side (as the dog snores on the floor next to us), every single one of our days is a prize. 

Community

Reverb10: Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

Work — My office walls are a pale lavender — a color my office-mate and I chose a couple of years ago thinking it soothing, particularly in summer. Though we weren't thinking of it as a liturgical color (purple is Advent and Lent,) it seemed the pale hint of purple seemed to fit with our liturgical jobs. With this soft hue surrounding us, we have shared our stories, our ideas and our work space. Parishioners stop in to visit — and occasionally to share a pastoral need — and if it's their first visit, they look around at the walls and say, are these walls purple? Yes, we say, and we invite them in to experience what purple can do for the soul.

Lee and I, and my other friend who inhabit the office wing of our parish, usually share lunch on Tuesdays. In the last year, this ritual has become much more important to me than just food for the body. Those who tag along each week might be different, but as we commune over soup or burgers or the special of the day, as trite as it sounds, we fill ourselves with soul food. Over lunch we've solved creative quandaries, built each other up, laughed and cried, encouraged and consoled, returning to our purple room quenched and ready to start again.

I worship where I work, and when I come into the church on Sundays, kneeling as I come into the pew, I look up, then around at those entering the church. The first time I came to my church, I honestly prayed: God, is this the right one? So hungry I was, new in what had been my college town, seeking community somewhere. (I have written about this before.) When I rose from the pew that day 21 years ago, the first person I saw was a woman I had known from my childhood, the older sister of my brother's best friend. My past community, reaching out to this new one, and I stayed. I raised my family here.

Writing — Nothing fuels my work more than sitting down with other writers to gnaw a little while on words and ideas. Dawn and Jane and Elaine, Candy and Diane, Miriam and Lynne and Melanie are just a few of the folks that spark my writing energy. Years ago, I had no sense of community in my writing, simply toiled away alone at my bedroom table, hoping one day somebody would know me. I first met Dawn after answering a notice in the NC Writer's Network Newsletter for people who wanted to join a writer's group. (Who knew there was an entire COMMUNITY, just for writer's in our state?) 

Dawn and I have been critique partners for about 15 years now, both of us working as professional communicators during our days, our nights and weekends spent noveling, when we can. Though that original group no longer exists, writers come and go, depending upon their place in the writer's journey. We met Jane at an NC State workshop. She writes wonderful stories, and in a lot of them people are driving places. It seems to be a metaphor for Jane, who is going places as a craftsman of words. Elaine is new to our group, young and committed to this thing that for all of us has pulled since we were small. My other writing friends, CDM&L, meet semi-regularly for supper and support, and when we met last week, we laughed at the fact that when we first began these suppers, we spend all of our synergy talking about our craft. Now, some 10 years later, we talk about our hearing loss, our cancer, our grandchildren and those we hope for. But we always leave our discussions filled with a new power.

Melanie has not yet owned the fact that she is a writer, not yet. But she will. The mother of three young girls, she is a keen observer of what living a life of faith and raising children in it is all about, and she is just trying to get it write.(yes, I did mean it two ways.) She casts daily life in lyrical phrases, tossing them like softly spun silk against the wind for others to catch and twist around their fingers for a little while. Her stories inhabit you, they are that good. You can read her latest piece here. (click on December, and read page 8). 

Living within this writerly community keeps me whole, even if I can't manage to write so much as a grocery list, I know they believe in me, even when I don't.

Cloos' Club — I can't complete this post without writing about the folks at Cloos', a place on the other side of town where some of my friends and I gather on Fridays to commune over the most awesome French fries in these here parts. We've been gathering for about 10 years I guess, crunching on those fries and giggling, mostly, about friendship, husbands, church and sex (yes, at Cloos' Club we can mention that in the same phrase). I've been writing a novel based (loosely) on our Friday experiences for what seems like a lot of years... I so close to finishing it's scary.

Cloos' Club all dressed up!

I might not be a part of this group if it weren't for Sandy, (shown above with the fabulous Charlotte) — the most inclusive person I know. She invited me to lunch some years ago to meet her friend Greer, because we both like books, and when our venue was torn down, we moved to Cloos'. Along came Trina and her sister Anna, then Sidney and Walker joined us later on. Sandy has a song for every moment, and she can play a mean nose guitar, even when she isn't asked. Cloos' is the kind of place where if they really do know your name when you walk in, and often your favorite thing to order. It's a real community, the people who come to Cloos', and it is not just about the food. When I turned 50, the entire place sang Happy Birthday. What a wonderful moment that was.

The community I'd like to connect with more deeply next year? Family.