Are You Ready? Probably more than you know.

But the passing life that we have here in our fleshliness does not know what our self is, except through our Faith.  And when we know and see truly and clearly what our self is, then shall we truly and clearly see and know our Lord God in fullness of joy.  And therefore, it is inevitable that the nearer we are to our bliss, the more we shall yearn -- and that both by nature and by grace.

~Revelations, Julian of Norwich, 46

We are installed!  Or rather, Seth is installed.  Praise the Lord.  The "Becoming a real pastor" process is finished.  He has studied, he has been examined, he has been ordained, and he is installed.  Now we can just settle back and grow into the role that God has given us.  One hundred and fifty people with all their worries and concerns, outreach to the community, expounding the Word of God faithfully and dynamically, administering the sacraments, church discipline, being model citizens of the kingdom below and the kingdom above.  You know, no pressure.

A lot of people have been asking me, "Are you ready to be a pastor's wife?".  And my standard response has been, "What does that even mean?". The days of a pastor's wife as a social institution, as a one-woman behind-the-scenes tirelessly working holiness machine are gone.  The jufrau is no longer a job title. I know pastor's wives who are teachers, nurses, social workers, crisis mediators, and pastors in their own right, and they all told me not to get pressured into any one role.  

However, Seth and I always dreamed of doing ministry together, and this is a great place to get involved.  Worship planning, special music, prayer and language ministries, and community involvement are all on my radar, in addition to the basketball schedules, volunteering for hot lunch, decorating for Christmas, and getting those gosh darn Christmas cards out that come with regular life.  Seth asks me to edit his sermons, and I am deep in the midst of three different books on prayer and devotion (in little pieces).  Does that sound like a pastor’s wife?    I feel a certain amount of anxiety because I have high hopes, and where hopes are high, failures are steep.  Am I ready to be a pastor’s wife?  Am I being what I ought to be? 

These are all unsettling questions because I feel like I don’t really know myself.  The older I get, the more flexibility I see in the parts of what I would ordinarily call “me.”  When I was a teenager, I could draw the outlines of “me” pretty starkly.  Life experiences have  stretched my personality so that the outlines have gotten diluted and fuzzy. I’m not as shy as I used to be. I’m also not as black and white.   I can see possibilities that I could never have entertained twenty years ago, and I am wise enough to know that possibilities are not necessarily givens. And I feel like the changes are still happening. How do I know when I'm ready?

As I’ve been pondering the question of readiness, I came across the above passage from the Lady Julian.  She wrote it when she was pondering something that puzzled her.  God had plainly shown her that He judged her in Heaven with grace and no condemnation.  And yet, here on Earth, Holy Church told her to judge herself sinful and reckon her failures.  She wasn’t sure how to reconcile the two until it occurred to her that we don’t really know ourselves in this life except by our Faith. In fact, we won’t really know who we are until we die.  

I can see that.  We know ourselves in a sort of retrospect.  We know who we have been.  I know how I developed as a Navy wife and a seminarian’s wife, but I don’t know what I’m going to become as a pastor’s wife, and I don’t know how the three of them will reveal themselves later in life.  I have been the mother of a small child, but I don’t know myself as the mother of a teenager yet.  We can’t know ourselves from the present forward because we are fluid and responsive beings.  Life shapes us, and until we get to the end, we don’t know what shape we’ll be.  The skills we've learned and will learn, the life lessons we've gone through and will go through, the gains and the losses, the triumphs and failures, physical and spiritual all get woven through the end product until we are finally ourselves. And if Julian is right, God doesn't judge us for being incomplete.

 Here is an idea echoed through all of Christian history.  The Apostle Paul wrote to the Colossians, “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory”(3:3-4). So our future selves are a mystery.  We only know a bit of what Christ is going to be like when He returns, so how can we anticipate ourselves?  We are sown perishable;  we are raised imperishable.  What does that look like? Well, it looks like dying to self and putting away all the sins and weaknesses that we've been comfortable with thus far.  

I had to wrestle with this concept for a while.  And I had to ask myself, Why is the concept of not being complete yet so frustrating? 

Well, I have a life to arrange. I feel like I can’t competently make those plans if I don’t know who I am.  One of the questions Seth asked me as we moved into this phase of life is where I wanted to go from here.  “What is your ordination, and how do you want to pursue it?” were his words.   And I didn’t have an answer.  I couldn’t get a picture of myself down the road in order to choose my next steps.  And that made me afraid of developing incorrectly and damaging what I was supposed to be.    

But how do I get to know myself? As I get older, I see that the best way to know myself is to test myself.  Or to put it another way, the best way to know myself is to look to God and say, "Okay, Lord, what next?" Because in spite of the fact that I am a responsible adult, my life is not mine to arrange. As much as I cling to the anxiety and satisfaction that comes with control, life doesn't work that way. The running joke at our house is that we don't plan anything more than six months in advance because God will change our plans. There was a point not that long ago that Seth was in the tech industry, and we were buying a house to retire in. That was five years, three moves, and a Master of Divinity (Seth's) ago.  

When we go out on a limb, God gets a chance to show us  His grace for our weaknesses and to develop our strengths.  At the same time, we learn how to lean on Him, look for His leading, and follow Him more consistently.  And then he reaches into this bank that He's developed over our lifetimes and pulls out gifts and abilities and experiences that we can use to meet the challenge that He has drawn us into right now. And the process repeats itself and builds on itself until someday we stand before God. And on that day, He judges us. We see what we have done and what He has done with it. We see God as He is, and then He shows us ourselves as we were meant to be. And then we know ourselves completely.  

The fear of failing and the fear of going in the wrong direction pale considerably when they are washed in the development of God’s grace and the constant presence of God’s Spirit (and the Spirit is present, always).  But that kind of confidence takes time and repetition and a desire to know God.  I wouldn't have been able to understand this twenty years ago, and I am only beginning to grasp it now. And now is when I need to understand this. Because I have this question to answer: Am I ready to be a pastor's wife? Well, evidently, God thinks so because we are here. So yes, I am.

Pictures, because people worry about me

Hello, Friends and Family, especially those at a distance.  

We have just gotten back to Minnesota.  Two weekends ago was our last foreseeable journey to the West Coast, at least for now.  Seth is successfully ordained.  He will be installed this Sunday.  This week is Thanksgiving (and I am cooking a whole turkey by myself for the first time). Advent is coming around the corner.  And snow is falling as we speak.  The all-knowing weather people anticipate 6 to 12 inches.   

It's going to be a fun week.  

Now, lest my west coast friends and family worry, none of our neighbors seem to be worried about our coming snowstorm, all though there are allowances being made for scheduled events.  "Weather permitting" has now entered the general vocabulary, and it sounds like it will stay there until spring.  We just went to Costco this past Saturday, so our cupboards are full.  As long as the pipes don't freeze, we should be fine.  

This is the living room, complete with new couch.  

Can you think of a more cozy way to watch snow falling?  

Seriously, I love watching falling snow.  Even in February, when the snow on the ground looks like chunks of funky oreos, and everyone just wants to see grass, I love to watch snow fall.  I just don't like it to stick at that point.  And when watching it from inside a cozy house with a big bay window, how can I go wrong?   The church is across the street, and we don't have to fly anywhere, or be delayed in an airport for 5 extra hours or drive all the way across the state of Minnesota until July at least.  So we're good.  No worries.  

The most popular question I got when we were back west was, "I bet you're going to be glad when this is done, aren't you?"  The answer to that is yes.  There are good reasons for all the processes of ordination.  The church needs to know that her ministers take their callings seriously and are prepared to execute that calling.  All well and good.  Still, we are glad the process is over:  4 years of classes, two internships, three episodes of moving house. two fouled up flights, and a lot of prayer later, we are glad to have a place to put down some roots.  My mom told me, "You look tired, Jenn.  It's time for you to start building your home." 

The second most popular question was, "You have a house, right?" to which I assured everybody that yes, we have a house and promised to post pictures.  It's a parsonage.  The church remodeled it after their last pastor left, and so we walked in to 

a big open floor plan, 

new cabinets

and vinyl that looks remarkably like wood. 

 As you can see, we already have our wall hangings up and books stowed.  In fact, for the first time in several years, we have unpacked all of our books and actually made room for them.  It helps that Seth has an office now to hold all his books from seminary.  That cleared up a bookshelf and a half all in itself.

In addition to an office, we have also gained the following:

 1. a spare room, which we have never had before.  In previous houses, our guests have had to use a) a futon in the Livingroom, b) a futon in the basement/piano desk room, c) a mattress in the tv room (because the futon finally broke), and d) an actual bed in the basement.  Now if you come to visit we can put you on an actual bed in an actual room with a closet, a window, and a door, and it's right across from the bathroom.   I don't think we've ever had all of those things in one place at once before.

 2.  more than one bathroom. In the seven dwellings that Seth and I have had since we got married, we have twice had more than one toilet available to us and our guests. Now we have three to offer, 

one in the main living quarters

 

one by the back door, as is tradition in country houses,

and one downstairs near the two extra bedrooms.  

 This has been an adjustment for our family.  We have had to get used to the fact that we have another option if someone else has gotten to the main bathroom ahead of us.

3.  a lovely deck which is just aching  for a grill and patio set.  We have the grill.  Seth bought it yesterday and brought it home in a blizzard.  The patio set will wait.

 4. and an attached garage.  But I'm not going to post pictures of that.  It's a garage.

The basement is not completely set up yet.  It is still ridden with cardboard and half-assembled furniture.  There's nothing on the walls.  So not pictures of that either.  All in good time.  

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.  Stay warm and dry and remember how much you have been blessed in the past year.  

Yearning . . . a healthy Christian thing?

I was reading the Lady Julian this week, where she discusses prayer in Ch. 41-43, and she says,

Prayer is a right understanding of that fullness of joy that is to come, along with true yearning and certain trust. In prayer, the lacking of our bliss (that we are naturally appointed to) naturally makes us to yearn; true understanding and love (with sweet remembrance of our Savior) graciously make us trust.

And thus by nature do we yearn, and by grace do we trust. And in these two actions, our Lord watches us constantly, for it is our duty, and HIs good ness an assign no less to us.

Let me break that down for you. The "fullness of joy that is to come" is being enfolded into God's joy, "to be one-ed to and like our Lord in everything" (42). We had this joy in the very beginning when the first people walked and talked with God. That's what she means by "naturally appointed to." This is what we were created for, but we don't have it anymore. We are "lacking" something, and we want it back. We really want it back. That's what she means by yearning.

The definition of yearning, according to Bing, is to "have an intense feeling of longing for something, typically something that one has lost or been separated from." Yearning is a craving, an unfulfilled passion, a deep tingling desire that can actually take your breath away.

And I wondered, do I yearn for God? Do I ache to be one with him.

I know what yearning is. I feel that mildly every spring when I walk past the garden section of the home improvement stores because there are all kinds of plants that I would love to buy but that I'm not really prepared to grow.

But more seriously, as a Navy wife, I lived with yearning every time Seth went out to sea. At 4 pm, every day he was gone, I would start listening for an engine in the drive way, and I would jump if a neighbor closed a car door, even though I knew that Seth wasn't coming home that night. I would stay awake until 2 in the morning because our empty bed reminded me that he was gone. That's yearning.

Yearning is a physical feeling. It catches you in the chest and the throat, and, if you be married, in other parts of the body too. Yearning is anguish, like being stretched, like having the skin of your soul lifted off of your heart and pulled in the direction of the thing you long for. "Leaning and harkening" is the phrase that John Donne used in "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning." Yeah, lots of leaning and harkening and listening and hoping and waiting. Those are not fond memories. Poetic, perhaps, but not pleasant.

But do I yearn for God? Julian says it is natural to us to yearn to be closer to God. Moreover, she says it is our duty.

This is the God-shaped hole but on a higher level. This isn't just a hole in one's soul. Julian isn't describing a need to be filled but a need to be joined.

I like to think that I hunger and thirst for righteousness, but I don't often sit and yearn for God. At least, I don't pine for him the way I used to pine for my husband. When I'm trying to get sin out of my life, I'm not usually working with the thought that it separates me from God. More present in my mind is the idea that sin hurts me or hurts my neighbor (And, hey, whoever does not love human beings, whom we can see, can't say that he or she loves God, whom we cannot see.) and makes God unhappy.

We are accustomed to seeing God as a Father, as a King, as a Shepherd. How often do we think of Him as a Lover/Husband? We know that God is always with us. How often do we think about how much closer we will be? The psalmist longed to see God's face. I can tell you, there were days when I longed to see Seth's face.

 I think I need to indulge more in longing for my Heavenly Husband.

Peace in Confusion

Grant Us Thy Peace

O Lord, my God,

grant us Thy peace; 

already, indeed, 

Thou hath made us rich

in all things!

Give us that peace of being at rest, 

that Sabbath peace, 

the peace which knows no end. 

Amen. 

St. Augustine

Peace.  The illusive quest of 21st Century life.  I have had several reminders this past week that I am not particularly at peace.  I am impatient, discontented, and edgy.  A bit lonely too.  Only by the grace of God have I not devolved completely into a Mrs. Bennet.

  People keep asking us how we are settling in. The physical answer is that the whole main floor of our house is ready for action.  The beds are assembled.  The fruit baskets are hung.  The dining room table has been delivered. The keyboard and dulcimer have their own little corner of the the livingroom underneath Seth's great big world map.  Judi's painting is hung over the kitchen table.  Physically, we are settling well.   

See?  All unpacked.  

But the word settle implies a resting.  Silt settles into the calm, slower moving part of the river.  Dust settles when the wind dies.  I am not settled yet.  There is a cognitive dissonance about moving here that I hadn't reckoned on, and I didn't really notice it until all the physical things were taken care of.  It makes settling hard.  

Cognitive dissonance is one of the first terms I learned as a young education student around the turn of the century (It was 1999.  I can say that.).  We all build patterns of behavior, expectations in our minds, and then when we encounter something new, we have to demolish part of our pattern and work the new habit or expectation in.   There are "should be's" in our brains, and when those should bes no longer fit the world in front of us, we feel uncomfortable.  We feel helpless.  We feel unprepared.  That's cognitive dissonance.  Look up Piaget.  

Like most first born perfectionists, I like to imagine that I have the information I need to live a productive, efficient, effective life.  Cognitive dissonance is my least favorite state of mind.  Living in a new community that by necessity does things much differently than any community I've lived in before, leaves me integrating a lot of new information into my current patterns (called schema by Piaget).  My current needs, like finding an orthodontist for my daughter, are running into my preconceived ideas, like there ought to be one within thirty minute's drive.  The same could be said for the kind of grocery prices that I'm used to.  An hour away at least.  When will the snow fly? Today, apparently. Cognitive dissonance!  Cognitive dissonance!

The locals recognize and sympathize with these difficulties.  They are full of advice, invitations, and the occasional offer to drive.  They also water all their perennials well before the first frost of November and schedule eating fresh vegetables because, you know, good, cheap produce is an hour away.  They know the game, and they appreciate that the game takes some time to get used to.  So I have no pressure;  I'm just uncomfortable.  

In the middle of all this emotional static, I came across a passage in The Complete Julian that really struck me:

To me was shown no more cruel hell than sin, for a natural soul hates no hell except sin, and all is good except sin, and nothing is evil except sin.  (Revelation 40, emphasis mine)

"Nothing is evil except sin."  Until I read that, I would have classified my discomfort as evil.  We have a habit, I think, of categorizing uncomfortable things as bad.  Speaking solely for myself, I know that I have an inner three-year-old who pitches a fit in the back of my mind when life doesn't feel quite stable.  "Aaaah, something is wrong. This isn't fair. This world is evil and out to get me.  I shouldn't have to go through this. This should be easier."   But if sin is the only thing that is evil, then my growing pains are not evil.

The corollary, "all is good except sin," is more shocking when you think about it.  I mean, it certainly applies to me.  Cognitive dissonance means that I am growing and learning. The roots and branches of my conscious mind (and unconscious mind, I'm sure) are expanding and broadening.  This is a good thing, and when I have a moment of perspective, I can see it that way.  That's one of the reasons I write: moments of perspective.

However, a lot of pains we can't call good without divine perspective.   A friend of mine is starting her second round of chemo for her third round of aggressive breast cancer.  Members of our congregation just lost  the family farmhouse to a fire.  One can't call those things good.  Up the ante and look at all the pains in the world that are caused by sin, by evil -- abuse, extortion, war, environmental destruction, murder -- and one's head whirls.   Julian knew plenty about pain and uncertainty living in the 1300s with plague and uprising and oppression, yet she could call everything good, except sin.  How did she do that?

Well, she had a divine perspective.  She understood that God wants nothing more than to have us close to Him.  Therefore, anything that pushes us closer to God is a good thing, and anything that pulls us away is evil.  And I also get the feeling that she expected a certain amount of pain in her life. She had already built that schema in her brain, so discomfort didn't cause her any cognitive dissonance.

It is the Wind, . . . but Nothing's Broken.

Anyone who has lived in more than one house in his or her lifetime knows that every house has its quirks.  In our last house, the bedroom door would not open unless we heaved upward on the handle at just the right angle.  We could shake all the furniture in our Forest Grove house by jumping up and down in one particular spot in the floor.  Every place I have ever lived has had something that was just part of the structure that just needed to be gotten used to.  Adapt and overcome, right?  Well, last night, we had our first major windstorm of the season, and we discovered something about this house that puts all the other houses to shame.

I should reiterate that we have been lent a very nice house.   The living and dining rooms were completely redone in an open floor plan before we got here, and there's a big bay window that lets in lots of natural light.  (I intend to post pictures for my out-of-town friends and family as soon as we get our kitchen table.) However, I think the pleasantness of our current dwelling lulled us into a false sense of security.  Everything looked so new that we weren't really expecting this. 

Our house farts.

Seriously, when the wind hits the back wall at the right angle, it makes the sliding glass door vibrate against the rubber seal, which makes a noise a lot like a little boy blowing on the palm of his hand to simulate flatulency.  Here's a short clip.  You can see from the trees how windy it is outside.

At first, Seth and I couldn't figure out where the noise was coming from.  We knew neither of us was making it, and it would happen at the strangest times.  Nobody was flushing anything.  We weren't even moving.  Hearing it was a little creepy.  Then I noticed that whenever I heard the noise in the dining room, the wind would howl outside the kitchen window.  Then Seth put two and two together and found the source of the noise. We were highly amused.

Minnesota is a windy state (Our house is surrounded by wind turbines.), and I understand it only gets windier as winter comes on.  So we are going to be visited by our ghost a lot.  He loves to interrupt conversations and put his two cents in, and he has phenomenal comic timing.  We've always had pets that liked to "talk;" now I guess we have a house that will fill that function.



Speaking of bodily functions, my favorite place to read deep theology is in the bathroom.  I find that deep thoughts are best processed one or two paragraphs at a time, which is perfect for bathroom reading.  You can always find something serious on the tank of my toilet. My current source of meditation is The Complete Julian of Norwich (pronounced JU-li-inn of Nor-itch); translated and edited by Fr. John-Julian, OJN; published by Paraclete Press, Brewster, Massachusetts.

Julian was a medieval minor noble woman (probably about the same social rank as Elizabeth Bennet for my former English students).  After two marriages and five children, Julian experienced a nearly fatal illness that left her convalescent for a while.  As she was recovering, she experienced 14 "showings" from God, which left her plenty to ponder for the rest of her life.  When her second husband died and her children were all provided for, Julian entered the life of  an anchorite.  That means that she set up for herself a little room on the back of the local church, and let them lock the door and throw away the key.  Her income as a noble woman provided her with food and clothing, and there would be a little window through which she could speak to passers by, pray for them, and possibly offer them advice from her prayers and meditations.

Here is a bit from Julian that I found comforting after last weekend's ordeal:

One time our good Lord said: "All manner of thing shall be well"; and another time He said: "Thou shalt see for thyself that all manner of thing shall be well"; and from these two sentences the soul recognized several implications:

One was this: that He wishes us to be aware that not only does He take heed to noble and great things, but also to little and small things, to lowly and simple things, both to one and to the other and so means He in that He says, "All manner of thing shall be well"; for He wills that we be aware that the least little thing shall not be forgotten.

Another understanding is this: that, from our point of view, there are many deeds evilly done and such great harm given that it seems to us that it would be impossible that ever it should come to a good end; and we look upon this, xorrowing and mourning because of it, so that we cannot take our ease in the joyful beholding of God as we would like to do, and the cause is this: that the use of our reason is now so blind, so lowly, and so [limited] that we cannot know the exalted wondrous Wisdom, the Power, and the Goodness of the blessed Trinity.  And this is what He means when He says, "Thou shalt see for thyself that all manner of thing shall be well,: as if He said, "Pay attention to this now, faithfully and trustingly; and at the last end, though shalt see it in fullness of joy."   (Meditation 32, p. 161)  

I needed that last Friday.  At certain points during that night, I was ready to consign the airline to the deepest parts of unmentionable places for putting my husband in such a fix (see previous installation).  I saw only forces of evil and incompetence trying to keep my husband from his God-appointed calling.

However, Seth got safely to Oregon.  He passed his examination.  He gave a resounding testimony to God's faithfulness.  And I learned that I can pray through the night when properly motivated.  My understanding (reason) last Friday was "so blind, so lowly, and so [limited]"* that I couldn't see beyond the next morning, and, a week later, I feel pretty foolish about that.  However, Julian also had words to say to my incompetence.

God shall do this, and I shall do nothing but sin, and yet my sin shall not prevent His doing  it.

So we got through after all.