Last weekend I officiated at the memorial service of a beloved congregant. I was up until 1 AM working on her eulogy because I didn’t want to write it. I don’t want to accept her death. But such is life, and we had a beautiful day and a full church for her service. I got through it fine (a few choked up moments during the prayer, but okay) until we stood to sing “Amazing Grace.” I had requested of my Music Director that she modulate and go up a key between the third and final (for us) verse:

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come
Twas grace that brought me safe thus far
And grace will lead me home… (key change)

When we’ve been there ten thousand years
bright shining as the sun
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
than when we’ve first begun.

But I couldn’t sing that last verse. The moment I heard that key change, I opened my mouth to sing and was able to produce only sobs. Even with a lifetime of theatre experience and two years of breath work and meditation practice, my body refused to obey my mind. Firm admonitions to self along the lines of “YOU HUGE LOSER, GET IT TOGETHER” did not work. So I stepped even further back from the pulpit, lowered my face into my program and sobbed as quietly as possible through that last verse. “You’ve got about ten seconds to pull yourself together, girl,” I told myself. “Breathe, breathe, breathe.” I breathed from way down in my gut. I made my voice work. The benediction was not the vocally strong proclamation of faith, blessing and peace I hoped for, but hey, it came out and people could hear it.

But… holy cow!!! Such is power of music. I had gone over the words of the memorial service late Friday night and many times the morning of the service. I had already shed many tears for Jackie.
I had cried that morning the shower, for heaven’s sake: I thought I had got it all out! I was emotionally prepared to sing “Morning Has Broken” and to hear a meditative piano version of “Rank By Rank Again We Stand” and to sing “Amazing Grace.” Hey, I’m a pro! But THAT DAMNED KEY CHANGE. Key change happens, my composure goes out the window. Even though I knew it was coming!

Even after all that, I’m sure the next time I hear “Amazing Grace” I’ll be fine. However, I was unable to hear the song “Claire de Lune” by Debussy for probably six or seven years after my father died; it was the last song played at his memorial service.

Other songs that often produce an “Augh, I totally can’t handle hearing this” reaction when I’m feeling at all vulnerable are:

1. “Hearts” as sung by Marty Valen
2. “Lonely Stranger” sung by Eric Clapton (on his “Unplugged” album)
3. “If You Believe” from “The Wiz” as sung by Miss Lena Horne on her live Broadway album
4. “Little Water Song” by Nick Cave as sung by Ute Lemper on the album “Punishing Kiss” (the creepiest, most chilling song of all time, seriously)
5. “I Fall To Pieces” as sung by Patsy Cline
6. “The Valley” by Jane Siberry from “When I Was a Boy”
7. “Love Is Everything” by Jane Siberry (ditto)
8. “Kooks” by David Bowie from “Hunky Dory”
9. “Wild Is the Wind” by Nina Simone on “Nina Simone’s Finest Hour”
10. “You Take My Breath Away” as sung by Eva Cassidy on her “Wonderful World” album (and almost anything by Eva Cassidy from “Songbird”)
11. “Elegy: Snow in June” by Tan Dun
12. Karen Carpenter singing “Bless the Beasts and Children”
13. Chopin’s Nocturne in C# minor
14. “Vissi D’Arte” from Tosca as sung by Monserrat Caballe
15. “Not A Day Goes By” as sung by Bernadette Peters on her London Sondheim tribute album, “Sondheim, Etc.”
16. Johnny Cash singing “In the Garden”
17. Judy Garland’s Carnegie Hall concert (any track) and “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from “The London Sessions”
18. Ray Charles, “How Long Has This Been Going On”
19. Shirley Horne singing “So Here’s To Life” by Artie Butler (on “Shirley Horne With Strings”)
20. Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” — I mean, is that not the all-time heartbreaker?

… and so many more!! So get out the hankies, gang, and share your own tearjerkers!

Had the child been killed by a drunk driver? I wondered. Thinking that might be the reason to essentially advertise his death on the family car, I looked for a MADD bumper sticker, but in vain. Who knows the story behind this little one’s death. His parents choose to drive around immortalizing his name and their love for him on their rear view mirror, and that’s their business. Of course, now it’s mine, too. Is this the new evangelism, using our cars as a way to broadcast not only our political, religious or social views but to bring in a whole new level of personal context to why we hold them?

I don’t know. Is this a positive way to deal with trauma, an unsafe distraction to other drivers, or something else altogether? What do you think?

Do you have a writing buddy — someone with whom you check in every day to compare notes, cheerlead for, or meet for coffee and procrastination?

Do you leave your home and write at Starbucks? I know my friend Stephanie wrote much of an excellent book on radical welcome that way.

Do you wake up real early, work out, eat a good breakfast, walk the dog, then sit your posterior down for an appointed number of hours, vowing not to budge for any reason, EVEN FOR LAUNDRY (or some other virtuous task that you can easily persuade yourself needs to get done)?

Do you light a cigarette, pour a cup of coffee, and smoke and drink and write until 3 AM, stopping only to wolf down a corned beef sandwich?

Do you write in short bursts, taking a little walk or reading celebrity gossip blogs to clear your head between each few pages?

I’d love to hear how you do it. I’m good at writing papers on deadline and I obviously love to blog and e-mail, but longer, more sustained efforts without looming deadlines are new to me and I’d like to make some progress on climbing this particular authorial mountain.

So she rested, and slept a lot. I’d call to check in. “Vicki, I just can’t get it going like I used to.”
“That’s understandable,” I said. “On my best days I can’t get it going like you used to. Do you realize what a whirling dervish of focused energy you’ve been for decades?”
We’d chat and I’d catch her up on church goings-on. She was my North Star.
She understood church better than almost anyone I’ve ever known.
We missed her a lot around the office. Before she took this “sabbatical,” she had been there at least three times a week. She was involved in everything. She had a furiously passionate view on everything. She read everything the UUA put out, attended GA something like 35 times, and knew what was going on at every congregation in the district.

She was devoted to what she called “the care and feeding of ministers.” I had been warned before I began my ministry at this parish that she would be a troublemaker to me. We laughed over this recently and I remarked that I was still waiting for the trouble to start.

She was my spiritual bodyguard for six years and although we argued, she was the one to constantly remind me to take care of myself. Sometimes she offered specific commandments on how I should accomplish that. “Take a walk and don’t bring your cell phone!” she’d demand. “Watch some TV tonight and TAKE THE PHONE OFF THE HOOK.” “Get out of town — we don’t need you here,” was her response when I considered attending the Festival of Homiletics in Nashville in 2007. She was my Worship Committee Chair and she simply informed me that they would fill the pulpit while I was gone, waving away my thanks.
She insisted that I take the Sunday after Easter off. She was there to assist at every wedding and every funeral: opening the door, showing the florist and caterer around (okay, sometimes ordering them around), turning on the sound system, thinking of things I might need before I knew I needed them.

I never asked her to, but I know she ran interference with parishioners who complained about decisions I made; with far less patience and sensitivity than I would have, perhaps, but trying to protect me from “petty complaints from people who don’t know their ass from their elbow when it comes to our tradition.” Try as I might to pry them out of her, she remained tight-lipped about details. “If it IS a real problem, Victoria, I’m sure you’ll hear about it. In the meantime, you have enough to do. Let me deal with the dummies.” I’d say, “C’mon now. Just because someone doesn’t agree with me or you doesn’t mean they’re dummies” And she’d respond in an arch tone, “I’ll think about that and get back to you.”
When I was involved in helping a family through a particularly sensitive crisis, she managed to get the word out without exposing confidences. “Step it up, people, and run your own church,” is the sort of thing she’d say. “The minister isn’t God here.”

At congregational meetings she held a minority viewpoint on most matters, and for that alone the church will sorely miss her. “LISTEN, FOLKS,” was her customary way of beginning a phrase that would express her rockbound view that we were heading straight to hell in a handbasket unless we listened to her. We’d all sit up straight and listen. The vote often did not go her way but she never quit the church. Many people actually feared her — especially newer folks who didn’t know what a solid gold heart she had beneath the crusty exterior, or who had never eaten her chocolate cake or her ham and beans.

“He couldn’t organize a one-car funeral” was her disdainful assessment of anyone whose leadership skills she thought were less than up to par. But she did not hesitate to lavish direct praise on those whose dedication and work she admired. As I remarked recently in a tribute to her, her dedication to the church was such that she had earned both bragging and bitching rights to it.

By March, when she still wasn’t rested enough to get back to church and I was obviously in denial, someone noodged her to go to the doctor. She hated doctors and had avoided them for decades, cracking, “Why in the world do I need to pay someone to tell me to quit smoking!??” I think she smoked at least two packs of Maverick 100’s a day.

It’s a good thing that this noodging church friend was so persistent. She finally did agree to see a doctor for that nagging cough and arthritis pain and was sent for an MRI immediately, which showed a cancer that had already progressed significantly through her lungs and into her back. All her doctor could offer was radiation to shrink the tumor in her spine so that she might be more comfortable. She, who had always cared for everyone else, realized right away that she might have to begin to accept help herself. It was her last great work of spiritual growth.

A team of church friends mobilized right away. They took her to doctor’s appointments, and on a few emergency hospital visits when the pain got too bad to bear. One friend escorted her out of the hospital waving “SORRY” behind her frail back for the insults she had hurled at doctors and nurses at moments of pain and fear during her stay there. Church friends brought her food, pink gerbera daisies and picked up her laundry to do at their own homes because she had no washer and dryer. They even bought her cigarettes, because as she said, “Why quit now, for God’s sake?” They made visits to the Social Security office and tracked down her Medicare benefits for her, purchased her additional health care coverage, sent in a plummer to fix the toilet, drove her several hours out of town to visit her son, and purchased airline tickets for her daughter to fly in from Florida.

She was always a very proud woman, raised on a farm in Arostook County, Maine and tough as nails. She didn’t have indoor plumbing as a child and comfortably used a chamber pot until the last week of her life. In the winter, she did not use heat but kept up a steady fire in a wood-burning stove with recyclable items (she recycled or composted everything), dressing in layers and keeping warm upstairs under layers of wonderful old quilts.

She appointed me her Health Care Proxy in early April and we talked about the fact that she wanted to die at home. No hospitals — she bitterly hated them. No nursing homes. At home. Cigarettes and black coffee available at all times. Everything on her own terms. No hospice. No strangers coming in. When I washed dishes for her she fussed at me: leave them alone or I won’t be able to find anything. Always her terms.

We gave her The Good Egg Award at the Stewardship Celebration Dinner — her last appearance among the wider church community, and established a GA Scholarship in her name. She stood to accept the award and then made an unexpected speech. In her direct way, she told everyone that she was dying, that she wanted to say goodbye and thank you, and that for those who wanted to know if there was anything they could do for her, yes there was. “Love this church.” I was holding the microphone for her. “And take care of this lady, because this is going to be hard on her.” I put on my best neutral “pastoral care” face but I think the tears streaming uncontrollably down my face probably gave me away a bit.

As she got sicker, we adjusted the expectation that all her care needs could be met by non-medically trained folks. First she allowed the Visiting Nurses Association in, thank God. And then the hospice branch of the VNA. Pharmacare delivered to the house. Meals on Wheels came in. A wonderful nurse named Mary Ann. A social worker. Just a few days ago, she agreed to the first visit from a home health aid although she was very resistant to being attended to by strangers. She did it for those of us who loved her, who were afraid to make her pain worse while changing a shirt or a Depends, who were terrified at the prospect of dropping her or touching her painfully swollen ankles by accident. “Will you do it for us?” I asked. She closed her eyes and nodded.

Eventually it became clear that she would need around-the-clock supervision. The care team confronted the fact that her own home was an impossible environment to provide sufficient care in. Church friends offered their home. She could move into the guest room and church caregivers could stay in another guest room. She would have her own bathroom on the same floor, a washer and dryer in the house, a dishwasher, and working shower. She could smoke on the porch; some of our church guys could put together a wheelchair ramp in no time at all to get her down the one step if she needed it.

This past Monday she and I discussed it. She sat thoughtfully, cigarette in hand and agreed that when things became “unmanageable,” she would be willing to go. It was not,after all, a nursing home or a hospital. We agreed on a code word for when things became unmanageable. If she said, “STAT” to me, it would be time to move her out.

The STAT moment came yesterday in the morning during what the hospice nurse called “another pain crisis.” I got there just after the nurse had administered more medication and sat on a footstool in front of her, both of her hands in mine. “Is this STAT?” I asked. “Is it time? Are you ready?” She nodded yes, weakly. By the time the ambulance arrived she was in a blissfully deep sleep brought on by the medication. Free from pain. But I had to wake her. “Honey, they’re almost here to take you to Karen and Larry’s,” I said. “I’ll be right behind you in the car. I’ve got everything you need. Don’t try to get up. I just wanted to wake you early enough to have a moment to say goodbye to the house.”

With every last ounce of strength she had, she struggled to rise, swinging her legs one by one over the side of the bed. “No,” she said. And then “No!!!” I had tricked her. I had drugged her and lied to her. I had been plotting this for weeks. I tried to reason with her as she lurched slowly through the kitchen. “We discussed this, remember? Remember our code word?” She wept and reached the sink where she began to try to wash dishes. “I’m sorry, I know…” I said helplessly to her back. “NO, you DON’T KNOW,” she said. There were daggers in her voice.

The ambulance drivers arrived– two young females.

As she allowed herself to be strapped gently onto the gurney, she hollered and railed at me. She called me obscene names. She spat further accusations about my motives, my betrayal, my conniving. “We can’t take her if she doesn’t consent to go,” said the ambulance driver. “I understand,” I said. “So don’t.” But then I remembered that the hospice nurse had found her just that morning sitting half slid off her kitchen chair, a cigarette lighter in mouth, just about to flick her Bic without a cigarette end to put it to –and I became very frightened. I prayed for guidance and immediately received an image of a mother bear with a cub in its mouth, shaking it.

“I agreed to be your health care proxy because we trust each other, you ungrateful brat!” I yelled. “You can stay here and set yourself on fire and break everyone’s heart who loves you or you can come to the home of friends where we can stay with you 24 hours a day and keep you comfortable, safe and manage your pain. We have busted our butts for you because WE LOVE YOU. No one is STEALING FROM YOU, I am collecting your medication!” She hollered and I yelled back until the ambulance drivers were in tears and begging, “Stop, please stop.”

I waved at them to let us go on a moment more, I would explain later that she needed to rage rather than to grieve, it was always her style, and I needed to be the villain for this part of the story because there needed to be a villain.

“Are you ready to go? Do you give your consent?” asked one of the young women at last, and she swallowed and nodded. “Just keep HER away from me,” she said, gesturing at me. “If I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
“You won’t get that close,” I responded. “I’ll throttle you first.” I knew that was a come-back she would have ordinarily loved. As I hurried to get in my car, I thought we’ll laugh at that line in the next life, honey babe. She called me honey babe sometimes.

I followed close behind the ambulance and minutes later I was sobbing in the kitchen and trying to get a grip on myself to help unload her supplies and go over her medication protocol for the rest of the team. She was having a cigarette outside — still strapped to the gurney, mind you. At last they rolled her in. “How are you feeling now?” one of the gals inquired and she said with customary sarcasm and surprising energy, “Have you ever heard the expression ‘mad as a wet hen?’” All three of them laughed, along with the parishioner who was there to welcome her to her home and lead them down the hall.
They gently transferred her to a hospital bed in a clean, blessedly quiet room, tucking her into fresh sheets while I quietly placed photographs of her family and get-well cards around where she could see them when she opened her eyes.

When all the technicians had gone, I sat by her side in a chair as she rested. She eventually opened her eyes and we held hands. She was peaceful, relieved, comfortable. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said. We exchanged loving words. Nothing that hadn’t been said already, just nice to say again for the last time. The dog barked once and she opened her eyes in surprise. New sounds. And then she drifted to sleep.

Our DRE came and spent long evening hours with her, and then another church friend arrived at midnight. She had one last pain crisis, trying in her agonies to get out of bed. Brave church friends remained with her to keep her safe until the nurse arrived and doubled the Diladid dose. She slept comfortably at last, surrounded by friends, and died this morning at around 8:00. I came and anointed her and sang “Amazing Grace” to her; something I had hoped to do while she was still alive. More church friends arrived to keep her company until the nurse made a final visit and pronouncement, and then the undertakers arrived to take her away. We formed a little receiving line in the hallway to touch her covered frame one last time and say our goodbyes.

When she was gone we gathered in the kitchen as women will do, telling stories about the past months and piecing it all together, laughing about funny things she had said or done, figuring out further logistics, phoning people. We went into the backyard and Peg and I both smoked one of her cigarettes in tribute. It was an impromptu wake, girl style.

A couple of weeks ago when I had been sitting with her and she said, “I wish I could make it easier on you,” I said, “YOU wish you could make this easier on ME? I think that works the other way around, kiddo.”

This can’t be her eulogy, of course. It’s just part of the story of the end of her life, told from my point-of-view — a story of how we find our way through the work of ministry one step at a time, one decision at a time, one phone call, one plan, one meal, one fiery confrontation, one cigarette, one prayer, one organizational chart of medication, one cup of coffee, one life and one death at a time.

She liked this blog. She liked that it allows me to initiate conversation about ministry, the church and liberal religion — all beloved to her — with a much wider community than our one congregation. I told her one time that I was committed to not writing about specific people in the church unless it was to make a shining example of them. “I don’t care if you write about me,” she said, “Just make it good.”

I hope I did, Jackie.

In memoriam
Jacqueline Lee Magazu
August 3, 1940 - June 13, 2008

A few observations:

While UUs have made some attempts in recent years to address class issues among us, the prevalent questions I have seen asked thus far are more along the lines of “What are we going to do to address class discrimination in our congregations?” Then we move into the subject of the problem in our congregations around assumptions that everyone has a “career,” that everyone has a degree (or several), and how to be sensitive to economic difference.
I think what pushed the button here is that no one has yet asked, “Is hating the rich an option, religiously-speaking? If so, why?” Again, in case anyone has forgotten, I asked the question after one women vehemently expressed that the characters featured in “Sex and the City” were too rich for her to relate to, and went on to express disgust for the rich in general. Another woman (a UU minister) chimed in to say that she felt the same way, and my curiosity was piqued. It’s so rare that UUs will come right out and make a severe value judgment that I thought it was hot stuff. And I was right.

I had hoped to provoke only discerning, thoughtful responses. That was silly; this is far too emotional a hot-button topic for that to happen. Still, I hold out hope that we can continue. Some responses have been, in fact, very thoughtful and theologically grounded, trying to speak from a place of faith stance and not just shoot-from the-hip or bicker.

I am disappointed that no one among the 123 commenters has answered my queries about whether liberationist theological commitments draw faithful Christians in that direction. There’s been a lot of personal sharing, a lot of quoting of scripture back and forth, and a lot of information offered on housing prices and median wages and what it means to be an “average” American. But I still want to know: does the God/Holy of your various traditions call you/us to regard wealth with hostile suspicion, and the rich with hatred or something close to it? I think it’s clear that our dear Jesus was, as ever, enigmatic on this subject. For every “You can’t worship God and Mammon,” there’s an admonition not to judge and to love our neighbor, etc. If we’re thinking we’re going to get to the bottom of this with a final, authoritative word from Mr. J., I think we’re going to wait for a long time.

I said to Will Shetterly on his own blog that I think any disciple of Jesus Christ who possesses a banking account has got some ’splainin’ to do. Every time I check the balance on my pension fund and breathe a sigh of relief that it hasn’t tanked I know I’m not being a true disciple as Christ arranged the original plan. I do worry about the future, I do try to store up some treasures on Earth for retirement, and I do not think I could give away my shirt to someone who asked for it, let alone my shirt and my coat. Unless we’re living in community sharing all our possessions and out there preaching, ministering to and healing the world with nothing but our sandals on our feet and the garments on our backs, we’re varying quite a bit from the system of discipleship Jesus established. The good news is that there’s a thing called grace and we’ll not be sent into the fiery pits of Hell for just doing our best in this lifetime.

In case anyone was wondering, I have only VERY rarely in my experience as a UU seen anyone exhibit open prejudice against someone for their wealth. I don’t think it goes on much, I hope to God no one thinks I was suggesting that we have a rich-bashing problem (my LORD, all we need is another group of self-identified marginalized people in the UUA!).

Someone’s suggestion that wealthy people don’t do social justice work in the UUA is patently ridiculous. I can’t even begin to count the number of affluent UUs of my acquaintance who spend a tremendous amount of time in the work of social change and social justice, and in a far more hands-on way than writing checks. I’m sorry that this hasn’t been the experience of all the readers of this blog.

I am no defender of the wealthy, and I liked best ChuckPhilly’s comment that a backlash against the very wealthy may have begun because we all *know* now what that Hummer and that monstrously enormous house costs the environment. We are beginning to see the connections between conspicuous consumption and the perilous state of the planet in a way we never have before, and we’re horrified by those who mindlessly contribute to it. What interests me the most now is this question: is God’s preferential option for the poor (a basic tenet of liberationist theology that I believe in) not only about the heart of divine compassion but God’s practical nature at work (as in, I love the poor not because I love poverty, but because I need you ALL to look to that simplicity of being and realize that I need you ALL to embrace that so that everyone can eat, and the planet can survive)?

If so, does that still validate hatred for the rich? Not because you or someone you love personally feels like hating the rich, but because there’s a theological imperative to do so, as we would hate any evil?

If we want to change structures that create hideous disparities in wealth, should we stop hating the structures and hate the people who benefit from them? Is that where some of you are moving? If so, please say so. I’ve never heard such a thing suggested in polite circles, and while I don’t agree with the premise, I’d certainly appreciate more explanation of your reasoning.

Is active animosity directed toward the rich a potentially effective tool for change, given the intimate connection between wealth and social status? An interesting idea. It wouldn’t be my chosen approach, but some of you may have a persuasive argument up your sleeve. If so, bring it on.

It seems to me that commitment to being the Church (not just attending church, which anyone can do) happens at two levels, and that it requires maturity to live on both of those levels at the same time.

On the first level, we abide side by side as human beings turning our hearts and minds toward the Holy, trying to orient our lives in the direction to which it points. We rely on our various traditions to help us know the way. We are all radically equal before God and regard each other as sisters and brothers regardless of any difference or disagreement among us. This is the first discipline of community,

On the second level, we are called to work for a better, more just world of equity and compassion between human beings and active reverence for all of creation. Because of this second commitment, it is entirely appropriate to hate social structures that divide people into haves and have-nots. It is appropriate to challenge individuals who support those structures and benefit from them.
But we do not engage in this second level of work (which is not hierarchically “beneath” the first level, but exists side-by-side with it) without being religiously and morally and behaviorally devoted to the first.

Obviously not an easy thing to do. And therefore no wonder that we tend to gather in communities of people Just Like Us so that we can have a much easier time of the first, and enjoy rabid communal self-righteousness while engaging in the second.

I just came back from a reunion in New Canaan, Connecticut where I grew up amid considerable affluence, and even I was disgusted by the obscenely huge McMansions that have cropped up where once there stood grand and beautiful colonials. We lived in a nice house when I was a kid and certainly wanted for nothing, but we were not as wealthy as many of my peers. I suppose I noticed it and perhaps even cared about it at one time, but after I left New Canaan and lived in other places I left behind any thought that I’d live like that again.

I do live in an affluent suburb now, but in a parsonage that I most certainly couldn’t afford to rent or buy if I had to do either. I have some very wealthy members of the congregation and some not-so-wealthy. Some are truly struggling. I see them all as people: they all have legitimate stress, they all have problems, they all have strengths and weaknesses. It is my observation that in some cases poverty builds character, and in some cases considerable wealth builds character. Sometimes wealth makes people shallow strivers. Sometimes poverty makes them bitter and accusatory. As an observer of the human condition, I can’t say that wealth creates any particular dysfunction that folks without such financial means can’t also fall prey to.

As for myself, I am a lot happier not trying to keep up with the Joneses, as I think we all felt when I lived in New Canaan. It was an incredibly materialistic community and if you didn’t have Silver Star skates and belong to the Winter Club (as well as to some summer country club), you were looked down upon. Thank God my parents always warned us not to get caught up in the nonsense, with their constant mantra, “This is NOT the real world, children.” It wasn’t. As a minister now, I occupy that funny middle-class position of serving a mostly middle and upper-middle class congregation and appearing to be one of the wealthy Main Street home-owners. Now that’s rich! Neither SweetieBang nor I could ever take care of a house this big on our own: we’re completely useless around the house, and we hope to someday be proud condo owners. If I won the lottery, I’d still live here to serve the church but buy two small apartments: one in Cambridge, Massachusetts and one in New York City. And if the lottery jackpot was big enough, a little flat in Paris or Barcelona. I would never want a big McMansion; I truly think that kind of size madness is evidence of a serious spiritual problem.

But this isn’t about me and my lottery plans. This is about honest folks who wrote in to say that they have hostile feelings towards the very wealthy, and I think we should talk about it. What’s that about? What does it mean for our congregations? What are our assumptions about the rich? What constitutes “rich enough” to earn hostility (for those who have those feelings)? Is there any corollary here about the un-rich? Do they merit special favor for those who harbor hostile feelings for the extremely wealthy? And finally, is this a personal prejudice or is it a liberationist stance aka “God’s preferential option for the poor?”

Are we called to love our neighbor only so long as they’re not stinkin’ rich? How do our religious values guide our thinking on this matter?

I made it explicit that SweetieBang has care of my four-legged children and should preside over distribution of my possessions. Rev. Perpetua is entrusted to be Major Domo for a memorial service, with a team of minister buds I hope would help her in any way she needed. I find that I still want to be buried in white pajamas with a cotton quilt tucked around me, in a pine box (a romantic notion — I know by law I’ll probably have to be put in a stupid vault). I would like it if friends would put sprigs of fresh rosemary and lavender on top of the casket or in there with me. I don’t want to be embalmed if there’s any way to avoid it — I left instructions to my friend Bob the undertaker to “keep me on ice, if need be!”

I chose music and wrote out all the details of my biography so no one will have to compile all that nonsense on my behalf. I left SweetieBang a big passel of emergency numbers since he would have NO IDEA where to start if I perished.

This is a really satisfying exercise. Have you done it? It’s not legally binding or anything, but it’s not for that purpose anyway. It’s about not leaving people you love to try to figure out what the heck to do to dispose of your remains (if there’s any of you left to dispose of) or to discern how you would like to be memorialized when they’re blind-sided by grief and loss. So seriously, do it. For them.

I am currently on a five-week sabbatical from church and taking an intensive course in the spiritual discipline of discernment. I leave on Sunday for the Festival of Homiletics.

It was SO HARD not to go to church yesterday… but it helped that I’ve had a stomach bug and a bad back for a few days. It took the strength of ten men not to call my DRE and ask, “HOWDITGO?”

This time away from the rhythms of church is interesting. I sometimes can’t figure out what day it is. I read for three to four hours a day, spend hours thinking and figuring things out (how is God really calling me and my congregation to use my sabbatical time next year? What does it mean that my life has changed so radically in the past six months? How does the body respond to letting go of consistently hurtful and even abusive relationships?) and write papers. I am working on a 20-page paper that is due for another class. If it wasn’t for SweetieBang and PuppyBang, I’d probably stay in my pajamas until 2 pm and eat cereal for every meal. Having the guy and the dog here give me different kind of energy and a focus outside of myself, thank Gods. I use laundry and cooking as welcome distractions from brain work (although I don’t hesitate to yap at SweetieBang if I need him to contribute more in that arena).

I await the birth of a healthy, precious Baby Philocrites. I hope to fit in a Washington, DC trip in July for ChaliceChick’s birthday soiree. Life is so sweet, and having things to look forward to make it even sweeter. Some people counsel always to live in the moment but as far as I’m concerned, some moments aren’t worth giving that much attention to. Most moments these days are, and I’m so grateful for that I could toss a bunch of flowers in the sky just for God.

Although I read dozens of books on pastoral care. I found these two books to be most helpful in framing my sessions:

A Pastor in Every Pew: Equipping Laity for Pastoral Care by Leroy Howe
and
The Lost Art of Listening: How Learning To Listen Can Improve Relationships by Michael P. Nichols, PhD

I just thought I’d let you know.