On being a chaplain

It’s good to be with you this morning, sharing a bit about my work giving spiritual care to folks at the end of their lives. I thought I’d start out by telling you a little about myself and how I got here.

When I was your age, I was pretty excited about Jesus and telling the world about him through evangelism. So at the age of 18 I left my home community in rural western pa and headed for Mexico City, the 3rd largest city in the world at the time, to do mission work. Where the metro train held more people during rush hour than the entire population of my town. I spent the summer serving in a church, engaging in street evangelism, and staying with a host family. I absolutely loved it. My young adult life was marked by travel and the kind of simple living that made traveling possible. Community living, renting a bedroom from friends in D.C. and living in rural Indiana for two years without a car. I also continued to deepen and wrestle with my faith. I found the map of salvation I thought understood so clearly as a teenager became more complex as I interacted with people of other cultures. It seemed an essential piece of my faith and growing to dialogue with people who were different from me. I have prided myself on feeling like and defining myself as revolutionary next to my family’s somewhat comfortable homogenous rural lifestyle. After three years of living in Bolivia, three years in Mexico, a cross state move to attend seminary, and other adventures, my family and I landed in Landisville Pennsylvania where we have been for the last four years. There are days when I wonder what the 18 year old version of me would say about the 41 year old. What I can say is that sitting with people as they enter the season toward life’s end is an adventure all in of itself. Once a pastor who listened to my story made a neat connection. “It’s curious you find yourself closest to God when you are traveling. And now you are called to visit with those  who are in some ways making their final journey.” 

Part of my discernment process was feeling a call to ministry, but not feeling particularly drawn to being a pastor. I began with an internship at Lancaster General Hospital. And during those years, I remember reading a great quote from a chaplain, Martha Jacobs, noting the distinction between a pastor and a chaplain. She says where a pastor operates within a particular theological framework, and they use that framework to create a particular kind of community. It’s almost like the theology is a container that gets built to support the community. A chaplain, on the other hand, is grounded in their own theology, but uses the theology of the patient they are ministering to, so that the patient might have access to their own spiritual expressions when they need it most. There is something about the wideness and depth of my understanding of the divine that really resonates with this posture. To use what I have been given by my rich Anabaptist faith community, but to also hold that lightly as I walk into the spiritual territory of others.

The word hospice has its origins in Greek, and it means both to host and to be a hosted. Its double meaning is such a good description of what I do. On one hand, I am completely at the mercy of my hosts when I arrive in someone’s home. I am an outsider in need of a place to put my bag, and a place to sit down. On the other hand, I get to create the spiritual space to have a conversation, hosting both the patients and their loved ones. Each meeting is as unique, but there are universal needs and themes that emerge.

When listening to a patient one morning talk about her belief in reincarnation, and her need to stop smoking before her life was over, I heard the deeper theme of what we call “unfinished business.” She said she didn’t want to be granted a lower status in her next life, and so she needed to wrestle this particular demon, because if she could, a higher status in the next life would be granted to her. I could see the spiritual strength of her resolve. Her ability to understand herself as bigger than her addiction. Her spirit as part of something larger than the boundaries of this life.

Another client when I arrived said, “you know, I”m more of an energy person when it comes to spirituality. Rather than bringing practices that were tied to a specific religion, she asked that I check in with her about the spiritual practices she already had going, like walking meditation, and participating in a drum circle.

One person said, “It’s not that I don’t believe in God, I’ve just never had an experience of God.” He was a musician, so we talked about the bands he had been a part of in his life, and the natural flow of groups who would come together and then fall apart. I asked him if he had a sense of what this cycle ending might be like for him and whether he had any reservations about it. He said, “how can I be afraid of something I’ve never experienced before?” I saw through this phrase the faith this patient didn’t even know he had. I saw a little sparkle, like his spirit shimmered. I knew I could entrust him into God’s care, and that he was at peace. The 18 year old version of me would have been eager to save his soul. The 41 year old me knows that God takes care of what happens after we die. My job as a chaplain is to be a vessel for God’s love in this world, to help people make sense of their lives, and to find connection with God no matter what is happening.

Sometimes patients leave us in stages, and their minds and personalities change to the point where loved ones can barely recognize them. Some patients I see suffer from dementia, where mood and thought processes can vary greatly from one visit to the next. In general, short-term memory is a challenge, but long-term memories can be quite vivid. I was working with another chaplain recently who specializes in working with dementia patients. It was fun to watch him interacting with our patient. Offering different thoughtful phrases. He said after the visit he likes to try a variety of things, “because you never know what’s going to land.” I knew what he meant, because I have seen it for myself. 

The other day, when I entered the room for a visit, the patient seemed agitated. He asked me to position his blankets and pillows in a different way. When I asked him questions about what he might like from me, he seemed confused. Scripture, praying, singing? No answer. But when I started the phrase, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” A smile spread across his face, and he began saying it with me from memory. Because reciting Psalm 23 was a part of his faith, there was a well-worn path in his brain that could make a connection with it. The scripture served to create a pathway home for him. After finishing with the phrase, “and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever, he said, “yes, thank you.”

It isn’t always so beautiful. Sometimes the journey toward life’s end is a bumpy one. One of the significant jobs I have as a chaplain is to talk with patients and families about their grief. Sometimes it takes the form of the things the patient wished they could have done. Other times it’s about family members and the hard work of letting go of their loved one.

I sat once with two sisters.  One was dying of cancer, and they were both mourning how little time they had left with each other. They loved traveling together, and as they mourned all the trips they would never take, I asked them about their sense of the afterlife, and whether there was space to imagine that even though she couldn’t be a part of the trip physically, there might be a way that the dying sister could be present with the living one. They were intrigued by this idea and went on to make a list together of all the trips they would do. One sister here in the physical world, and the other from her place in the next life. 

In my line of work we call this movable hope. Hope and connection shows up in each season of our lives, but the way hope and connection shows up can change. Finding that and reorienting oneself is a little like looking for signs of life in the middle of winter. Life is there, but it takes more time and attention to identify.

In closing, what I know from my experience is that God is present for every day of our lives on this earth. And death is simply the holy completion of the cycle of life. Even when there is suffering or loneliness or struggle, my job as the chaplain is to show up and stay present with whatever is there. Holding the post in the knowledge that God is there. Believing in the truth that in life and in death, everyone eventually gets what they need.

Pies

I had a dream with my Grandma last night. I was going to visit her. We both knew she was dying, and this would be our last visit together (in real life, she died in early December last year). I was preparing for the visit, searching desperately for one last thing we could do together. Crochet a prayer shawl? Probably not enough time for that. I got a phone call from my dad asking, “do you want me to pick you up a bushel of tomatoes so you can make sauce with her?” No, too messy. I was fiddling around with canning jars and pickled vegetables, knowing I was wasting precious time. But I couldn’t let go of that need to fit one more thing in. And then I woke up, without ever actually getting to the last visit.

It was a powerful dream in its likeness to real life. My grandma taught me a lot about what it means to be a woman in this world. She and I (and many of the women in our family) are earnest about learning to make things for our family. In taking time and care to create something that was not there before and sharing with others, our love is transferred through the physical object; whether it be food or clothing or otherwise.

I don’t know if it is the upcoming anniversary of her death, the kind of work that I am doing right now in offering spiritual care at the end of life as a chaplain, or the way covid changes our lives so quickly before plans can even be made. But something has brought up this need in me to create and share with the ones I love. I woke up from the dream all prepped and ready to make the Thanksgiving pies; ones I would take pride in with ingredients that grew in our back yard.

But the dream is also a bit of a warning.

A piece of advice perhaps from my Grandma on the other side of the veil; to not let my desire to create something perfect get in the way of an opportunity to simply love on someone, in just the way they need it. Whether I’m baking pies, or parenting, or working as a chaplain, if I’m focused on the product of my labor rather than the relationship at hand, I might miss the subtlety of what is truly needed (like a last visit with a loved one).

The warning helped me enter into the pie baking ritual in a slightly different way. I didn’t measure ingredients. I remembered the tree out back when it was full of cherries. I tasted the warm June day when I harvested them. I remembered the smell of my grandma’s kitchen as pies were baking, where I was wrapped in the anticipation of a big family meal.

I will take the finished products to gatherings this Thanksgiving, and I’ll offer them as a symbol of my beautiful imperfect unfinished love.

PPE as vestments

Me in my chaplain vestments.

As an Anabaptist, I had never experienced the ritual of putting on vestments before holy rituals. I have sat in Catholic mass in Latin America and admired the beautifully crafted stoles of the priest. I have listened to Episcopal colleagues discuss the meaning of each color of vestment (it seems we’re in high purple season right now during Lent). But I haven’t been the one putting on the vestments until now. This year, I am working as a hospital chaplain in the era of Covid, and as such, some of the holiest rituals require the most intense PPE. 

As I talk with other chaplains, there are certain rituals that are emerging. There’s the call to comfort, where someone is hospitalized with COVID, and they have just learned that their spouse has died of the same disease. There’s the call for prayers when a patient knows that their breathing is too labored, and they need the support of a ventilator. Keenly aware that they may never regain consciousness, their future is filled with uncertainty. There are calls for prayer for a miracle when a patient spends days on a ventilator without showing any signs of improvement. There are calls for support when it is time to withdraw support knowing death is imminent. There are calls to guide families through that one last tearful goodbye as visitors are able to come in to visit at the very end. So many kinds of suffering, so many prayers lifted to heaven. 

As chaplains we use our bodies to enter into the lives of patients, sometimes serving as a surrogate for the family and clergy who are not able to be physically present with them. The PPE we wear becomes the symbol for the holy work we are called to, that unique place of ministry. The other day I was ministering in a room and the patient coughed, and it served to remind me that she has Covid and I had not properly suited up. Suddenly I felt naked as I sat there with only my surgical mask. I excused myself to put on the gown, gloves, and N95 mask that I needed in order to safely do the work. The worry that I myself might get covid has gone down over the last few months, especially now that I have had access to a vaccine. But PPE continues to be the best way to protect everyone to the extent that we are able.

Part of the beauty of seeing PPE as vestments is that it demonstrates the holiness not only of the chaplain’s work, but the other providers on the patient’s care team. The nurses, doctors, cleaning staff, respiratory therapists and countless others whose essential work offers the best care possible; they also put on these vestments. Their work too is holy. And the courage and persistence which they bring each time they suit up encourages me and keeps my work sustainable. Together we learn and live our way into this new reality.

Imagination and Abundance

Another example of imagination at work in our household this week, a poster for the teacher parade!

As we began a new rhythm last week of staying at home, Ramona and Ruthie started exploring our backyard and reclaiming it as their space after abandoning it during the winter season. Ruthie chose an outdated Little Tikes climbing cube (hailing from their days as infants), and turned it into an ice cream shop. She piled it with plenty of inventory (dead leaves), and invited us to her store. I told her I had no money, and she quickly responded by running over to the neighbors fence where the dead leaves have collected. Bringing over a fresh pile she said, “The leaves are the ice cream, but the leaves are also the money. Here you go!” Then she hopped back in and said, “What can I get you? We have every flavor there is!” I delighted in thinking up an ideal flavor, “How about chocolate peanut butter cookie dough?” “Coming right up!” she said. After I paid her I said, “well maybe I’ll leave the extra money here outside in case someone else comes to your shop and doesn’t have any money with them. She replied, “Oh that’s ok, there’s a neighbor who comes by sometimes and she doesn’t have any money, but I give her ice cream anyway.”

After a week of feeling scared, watching others around me feeling scared, seeing the scarcity we create when we’re convinced there won’t be enough, it brought me great joy to follow the lead of my 6 year-old daughter in imagining a world of possibility and abundance. One where nature’s provisions (last year’s abundant leaves) are exactly what we need. Where producers are generous and share with those in need. A world where there is enough, and then some. 

This week, how might we as followers of Jesus participate in this world of imagination and abundance even as the world around us continues to panic? Who might we call on the phone  this week to make sure they have enough? Enough food, enough supplies, enough human interaction? What creative project have we been putting off doing because we haven’t had the time, until now? Who do you have in your life who you can reach out to, someone to help you see that world of abundance when you are feeling scared?

We need each other. And these are important moments for both reaching out to others and letting others reach out to you in new and creative ways. 

Blessing the tattered pieces

One of my most prized tattered pieces, a quilt we use for picnics.

One of the strangest aspects of my work as a chaplain this year is bagging up belongings of those who come to the emergency department for serious injuries or traumas. There is a protocol where medical staff cuts off all clothing, and places them with all personal belongings in a basket. As a chaplain, I have two jobs in this process. One is to call family members and care for them, and the other is to take the basket, to organize and chart all of the belongings, and to gather them into a bag to be given to loved ones or to the patient. I am told that it’s a fairly unique thing about our hospital for chaplains to do the work of handling belongings, and the rational is that clergy have the moral authority to handle valuables. 

What I am most struck by in the process is the visceral experience. The smell of anxious body odor, the feel of bodily fluids (even through the gloves I’m wearing), the sadness of a cut up pair of Carhart jeans. Part of what’s troubling is the evidence of simple daily life interrupted by trauma; work keys, mints, checkbooks. I often smile as I am folding up underwear. It’s that classic moment that everyone worries about as we evaluate the state of our underclothes (what if I end up in the hospital, what will they see?) During orientation, we were taught to give everything back to family, no matter what it looks like, because you never know what will be important to them.

My instinct is to hate this process, to run away, to get angry and wonder, “why on earth is this my job????”

Early on, I was being oriented to this aspect of the job by another chaplain. The clothing had blood on it (we have special red bags for that to alert family members). So I was racing to bundle up the cut up clothing and tie off the bag. The chaplain who was with me said, “now I always take a little time and fold these things neatly. It really matters to the people who receive it.” I reluctantly pulled out the ball of clothes and started again, folding each piece with care. I found a squishy bulge in a pocket, I reached in to find a smashed banana. I laughed and cried at the same time (relieved it wasn’t something worse, aching because this poor man set off on his day with a banana in his pocket and look where he ended up?) 

The chaplain standing beside me said, “go ahead and pull it out, that part we can throw away.” She then had me wipe down the inside of the pocket, so I could fold the coat up neatly with the other things. 

I learned a few days later that this patient didn’t survive. These belongings we turned over to family were the last tattered pieces of their husband/father/grandfather’s life. Such holy relics. Of course they should be blessed, folded neatly and treated with care. 

I’m getting to know myself in ways I never expected. I’ve found that my own haste in getting done with the task and being grossed out by it is really about the fear I harbor for my own death, my own squished banana, my own tattered pieces.

And all I can do is bless them.

Chaplaincy is giving me a keener sense of what it means to be human. Sometimes that causes in me deep dread and awareness of our brokenness. Other times I feel inexplicable joy and gratitude. My most recent prayer has simply been, “Thank you God for making me human. Bless our coming and our going, and the tattered pieces in between.”

Let the oppressed go free

One of the ways I’ve explored my own freedom this summer is by learning the technique of acrylic pours.

This week I got to experience an unusual amount of joy during my visit to the York County prison. A young woman I’ve been visiting this summer, who had a preliminary court date in July, and was scheduled for a follow-up in October, sat down with me, and with a huge smile on her face said, “I’ve come to say goodbye. I’m getting out of here!!!” It seems she had submitted all her paperwork, so her court date was moved up, bail was set, and everything moved faster than she had anticipated. The next 30 minutes were an expression of pure joy I’ve never quite observed or felt before.

She could hardly believe the freedom that awaited her. 

A coworker of her brother’s had acted as her sponsor, and he was coming to post her bail and to pick her up (I’ve learned over the last few months that lawyers, money for bail, and sponsors are all really critical things to have if one is detained and trying to fight for their freedom). 

During one of our visits together she talked at length about her one deep desire to drink a coca-cola. I asked her about it yesterday, and she added, “Oh, and a bottle of water.” Thinking it a curious addition, I asked her why water? She said, “everything here tastes like chlorine, but thanks be to God that we have had things to eat and drink.” 

The second part of her statement made me smile. She was so full of joy that she couldn’t even complain without being thankful as well. She expressed gratitude for all the women of the group who came and spent time with her. “You will never know how significant it is for us to have someone to talk to who is on the outside,” she said. 

This comes at a time when our group has just received this press release from the Advancement Project about what the inside of the York County prison looks like. Many of us were surprised about the findings, because when we visit, we try not to ask probing questions about conditions, but allow for the inmates to share what they want. And in my experience, people want to remember life outside of imprisonment, whether it’s happy memories from the past, or brave dreams of the future.

Our job, as visitors, is to hold those things, for however long they need held. It was such a gift to hold the joy of being set free. To be reminded that life in its simplest form (the gift of eating what you choose to, of sleeping in the dark (because in prison they sleep with lightbulbs in their faces), of going to the bathroom in private) connects me to my own freedom, which is tied to the freedom of prisoners. It also gives me another layer for exploring my faith, and new meaning to Luke 4:18, “The Spirit of the Lord has sent me to proclaim release of the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” 

A visit

When I was in youth group, we did this pantomime to a song about Matthew 25; the sheep and the goats. I remember the line “for I was in prison and you visited me,” hitting me with a thud of conviction. I felt uncomfortable that although we Christians do an ok job sometimes of clothing the naked or feeding the hungry, we are real goats when it comes to visiting prisoners. I must’ve put some kind of mental bookmark in this experience, because it came back to me the minute I heard that a local church group has started visiting detainees in the York County Prison. I felt a calling to join them, and it immediately connected me back to this moment of conviction as a teenager.

The church group’s story is one that needs told (and I’m sure it will be eventually). But the story I want to tell today is that of Esther (not her real name). She is the person I have been visiting. All the while, she has been visiting us in this beautiful country, but you might not otherwise get to know her, since she is being held in prison.

She is a mother and a deacon in her church in El Salvador. She has a smile that shines and shows off the bright gold outlines of her front teeth, a classic mark of Latin American beauty. Our first visit got off to a rough start. Esther didn’t know exactly what she was getting into when she requested a visit. By the time we sat down she was crying (and we hadn’t even gotten over the hurdle of making the phone system work). Thanks to the help of each of the other detainees helping her type in all the right codes, we eventually got the phone to work. She told me about her feelings of discouragement, her depression, the pills they had given her to manage it, the claustrophobic feeling of the confines of the same eternal four walls. Then she asked me if I was a Christian, and her mood shifted dramatically. She began singing praise songs, and we recited our favorite bible verses (I am secretly ashamed at how much more of the Bible she has memorized, even though I’ve been to seminary!)

This last time together she told me a beautiful story about this one corner of the detention center where there are windows and you can see out. She said she stopped by and looked out one day and was delighted to hear birds singing. She only wished she could see them. So I told her all about the bird excitement I’ve had in my life this past week (tons of robins, the harbingers of spring! Also a neighborhood woodpecker sometimes outside of my window, sometimes at the end of the block by the bus stop, and the constant stream of geese overhead).  She said the birds she heard may have been ducks, and we talked a little about the difference between geese and ducks (geese migrate, just like people).

We don’t talk about how she got to the detention center. Apparently some folks are sent directly from the boarder to the York county prison; others are apprehended by ICE at some point during the course of their daily lives (one man we visit has lived here in the US for 23 years). She did share that she had a hard day on Tuesday, because she had a hearing where her sister showed up hoping to post bail. While some inmates have had their bail set low ($800-$1500), the judge decided to set hers at $15,000 (a random thing completely up to the judge’s discretion).

The first day we met I told her a little about living in Bolivia and Mexico for several years. I raved about the incredible way I had been received in people’s homes and towns and villages. I told her about the countless times I was given the best the family could offer (and often the last tortilla in the kitchen). I told her about how much I had learned in Latin America; how grateful I was to be hosted.

That’s another reason I’m choosing to make a prison visit (even though it takes 3.5 hours of my day to do this half hour visit), because I’m so saddened by the fact that in my country we have a lot to learn about how to host. I heard a quote yesterday on NPR that over 100,000 people have crossed the boarder this month alone; escaping one broken system and entering into another.

In the prison, I feel like I’m playing the role of both host and hosted. On the one hand, I am a visitor in a completely foreign land. On the other, I am making myself the host to this human being, her joys and her woes; perhaps the only one really listening to her while she treads on our soil (or cement, in this case). I told her I wished we could be in my kitchen drinking coffee. She said I remind her of a neighbor of hers on the hillside of her town in El Salvador.

When our conversation is over, some of the ladies of the church group have started the tradition of putting our hands up on the glass, inviting the ladies on the other side to do the same. When I tried this with Esther, she tried it out, but it wasn’t quite right (I think it was just too disappointing to feel the cold glass instead of the warmth of a human hand). Instead, she blows me a kiss. It has had its clumsy moments, but together, we work to create the liminal space of hosting and hosted in the midst of this impossibly broken and hopeful world we live in.

Chicken

If you try to buy chicken breasts in a Mexican market, you will understand what a ridiculous thing it is. One by one with enormous scissors, a young woman will cut the bird into pieces before your eyes. Half carcasses will pile up beside you, mocking your decision as you wonder, “who will buy the half that’s left??” It won’t help to explain to your friend that you much prefer to buy the chicken that’s wrapped in plastic and styrofoam in a grocery store; the kind whose fluid is even sopped up by a little plastic diaper underneath. “That way,” you explain, “there’s more consistency with the temperature and it’s safer to consume.” The friend will smile gently and say, “but how did it get there? Have you ever seen a refrigerated truck here? Dead chickens ride in the warm sun for days, then they get bleached of their worms and wrapped in bright packaging! On the other hand, room temperature chickens in the market can hide no secrets! If they have worms, you see them crawling, if they are from the day before, they will smell. It is much better to buy it in the market,” they will say.

Somehow, that will all come to make sense to you. So much so that the bright styrofoam packaging with absorbent under-diaper will have no appeal to you even when you are in Pennsylvania. Instead you will seek out one of the last Amish farms still left in the county, one who has not yet sold their land for top dollar to a developer. You will buy from them the chicken whose offspring still populate the hillside. It doesn’t even matter to you what you pay for it, because it is such a holy thing. You will rejoice as you dig your fingers into the sinews and you challenge yourself to use each morsel of meat. The bones will tell you the story of the hillside, the rippling brook, the bright green grass. You will toss in a little epazote to remind you of your Mexican friend who carries it in her pocket so she never finds herself without.

You rejoice in the aroma that comes out of the pot. Deep in your belly, you know your chicken will only taste as good as it smells if you can share it. If you can fill your house with love and joy and laughter as you devour this bird together. The bird that fills your belly and also, somehow, hems you in with the hillside, the brook, the grass, your friends, the Mexican market, and everything that is alive.

Winter

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jellaludin Rumi,

This is a season I’ve been fairly content to avoid the past three years. There is something about the deep cold that settles into my bones; a physical sensation that connects me deeply with my sorrow. The winter we returned from Bolivia back in 2009 was one of the coldest seasons in my life. One of the hardest parts of saying yes to moving to Mexico in 2015 was the fear of knowing we’d have to re-enter. I had almost convinced myself that the reason it was so hard was because we hadn’t built enough time for grief and processing into our schedule (we gave ourselves 6 days between the goodbye of our Bolivian neighborhood and full-time seminary with part-time jobs). And this time, we knew better.  There were weeks of space built in. Beautiful rituals around goodbye and hello. And yet, here I am, in the midst of the winter season once more, entertaining all kinds of rowdy guests, as the Rumi poem invites me to call them.

The guests come as a result of various life happenings; the loneliness of transition, the complications of my children adjusting to US school, the challenge of finding new community while reconnecting with others. But I see the challenges as simply the clothing the guests wear; their presence is connected to something deeper.

Early in the season, I was talking with my neighbor who has spent much of his life in a warmer place, and does not love the cold. After a little mutual complaining, he pointed to a big tall pine tree at the edge of his yard. He said for years it had a fungus that he couldn’t manage to get rid of. He tried different kinds of remedies to no avail. “Then, last year,” he said, “there was a deep cold spell, and something about the cold froze off the fungus. Look at the tree now, even more beautiful than before.”

As I pass by the tree on my way out of our neighborhood, I look up at it and smile. I ask myself, “What is there in me that really needs the deep cold in order to transform? What are these rowdy guests trying to tell me? What do I need to let go of that only the deepest cold can freeze off?”

Plenty.

And I eagerly await what this time of clearing out will bring….

Preaching for advent

I have a memory of a debate between my aunt and my grandfather from the early 90s.

They were standing in my grandparent’s kitchen in Hagerstown, Maryland. Aunt Missy had been invited to preach at the church where my Pappy was the pastor, and I tagged along for the weekend. The debate came out of the sermon, or rather the style of crafting a sermon. Missy is a gifted writer and an author, and she had taken the time to write out her sermon. Pappy sweetly questioned her about it. He said he didn’t like to write too many notes before preaching, because he didn’t feel like he was giving enough room for the Spirit to move in him during the moment of preaching (he was influenced by a Holy Spirit movement in the Church of the Brethren later in life, and his spirituality was marked by a radical obedience to the spontaneity of the Spirit).

Aunt Missy carefully pushed back and said she experienced great movement from the Holy Spirit at her desk during the week as she prepared. And that preparedness showed respect for both the Spirit and the congregation with which she was sharing.

I’m not exactly sure why this moment was so formative for me. It could have been the topic interested me and I found the idea of theological debate intriguing. Or it may have been the first time I had seen two family members argue well. Grounded in their own point of view, but making space for the other. It certainly reflected the work they both had done in their lives of speaking truth and seeking reconciliation.

I didn’t know at the time the deep influence they would both have on my life. Pappy’s experience of the Spirit led me to participating in a Holy Spirit conference at the age of 14 that grounded me deeply in the love of God, and dispelled doubts I had over the existence of God at the time. Missy’s thoughtful care for the written word and for healthy churches guide my own steps even as I write this blog.

During seminary, I had a wonderful opportunity to take a preaching class, where the mandate was to write out the sermon. I enjoyed it so much that ever since I have been the first to volunteer to preach in whatever congregation where I find myself. I love digging into the text during the week. Letting it sit in me, infusing with my own life story, and the news of what’s happening in the greater world. I love bringing the word in a careful, thoughtful way, and sitting down to write is a critical part of the journey.

But when it was time to preach during this particular advent season, I found myself and the sermon I was going to preach needing something different. I decided to try out another part of my relationship with the Spirit; the one I have inherited in part from my Pappy. I made a simple outline. I filled it in a little in my mind (but not word for word). I carried the outline in my pocket when I preached this past Sunday, though I didn’t pull it out.

I noticed the experience was scarier. I didn’t always know what was coming next. But I felt freer. I looked more into the eyes of the congregation, I had a sense of the emotions my words were generating which made me feel like I was present with them. I don’t know that this will be my new style when it comes to preaching, but I get why Pappy chose not to fill in too many of the gaps. I loved the thrill of leaving gaps for the Holy Spirit to fill in, and I’m challenged to look for other ways to do that in my life, especially in this busy Christmas season.