Today the air is a little better than it has been.  I can look up to the ledges on Rattlesnake Mountain and the haze is less obvious.  Still, you can tell there are forest fires in Canada. It feels like an annual event.  The local government reminds us that breathing is a risk right now.  We do it anyway. Yesterday every other person I saw looked like they had just wrapped up an hour-long crying jag. Thank you, particulates! Conservatives seem to think that by making Climate Change illegal it will go away.  Thoughts and prayers can't change the weather no matter how hard one tries.

There is plenty of evidence this summer of nature's presence intersecting with ours. A couple days ago an adult black bear walked by the back deck and out to the front driveway before heading north toward the mountain. I think we were just part of its commute.  The bear was massive. We had to delay dinner as Allison waited in the car until it had moved on. 

It has been a long time since I saw one.  I am not sure I have ever seen a bear in this particular context.  We live on a fairly dense street.  However, it is a dead end and there is forest all around us.  Hiking in Maine and New Hampshire we see them but not as close.  We stay away from them and they from us. We definitely do not feed them!  A bear that sees people as sources of food does not fear humanity. Then they are a danger and sometimes have to be relocated or killed. It is another sad story of human encroachment and human ignorance when it comes to the natural world.  The cops said we only have to call them if they get into the garbage. Otherwise, we are all trying our best in the space we have been given.

In other news, I managed to do something to my back on the journey to getting a new fridge.  As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, we got the smallest full-sized refrigerator we could find.  This necessitated removing the outside door to get it into our  vintage 1970's pocket-kitchen.  Our house has good bones but the idea that people would socialize where the food is made was foreign to the builders.  The kitchen was definitely an after-thought. One theory is that they had servants when the house was built in the 1890's. Anyway, I blame the door for a certain awkwardness in my moving about this week. We have a composter that needs assembly...but it will have to wait.

Yesterday As a rehab walk, I braved the hideous air and went over to Energy Park to check out the native plant garden.  It is a short stroll from my office.  I am still thinking meadow thoughts for next year and find it helpful to see some actual plants in the ground.  One can only get so far with the description on the tag; "heavy spreader, reaches 3'-6' tall." The park has a little exhibit that helps explain what I am looking at as well. This weekend we managed to get to the "Bridge of Flowers" which is rehabbing as well.  They had labels, too.  It was our first drive west of Greenfield since we moved.

​Other than that, there are small tasks that I think I can handle.  The yard-demolition continues.  When I can manage it, I cut vines here and there. Some of them are like tree trunks themselves.  It has been a long time since an attempt was made.

There is not much more to say.  Life in summer moves fast then it moves slow, even if you aren't on vacation.  Hopefully next week I will be able to report on a hike or two.  However...I do hear the heat is coming back...

I got a shipment of pamphlets this week.  They are about $5 a piece and cover an array of garden and garden-adjacent pursuits.  You can order them here.  They have ebook versions of their entire catalog but I am a sucker for print.  Yes, it kills trees.  However, I am the sort of person who reads a book or article with a pen.  I underline.  I put stars and exclamation points in the margin so I can find the good bits again.  Sometimes I write myself notes arguing or affirming certain assertions.  I have an "ereader", which does its best to replicate that experience...but I am not that good at it.  Therefore, my wife--who reads more and more widely than I do--and I also have a library that is more extensive than it needs to be.

I actually do fine "online" with some newer books and essays, particularly if I am reading strictly for enjoyment.  Yet an old book or a new book for work--which is frequently about old books--is best in its analog form. So, too, are pamphlets.  The form has an ancient history and certain early works--Common Sense comes to mind along with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers--had demonstrable world-wide influence. The Epistles are a kind of pamphlet. They are still around, it seems.

Before making decisions about crops and planting in general, I will be consulting the internet.  Youtube has taught me so much over the years.  That said, I will be using these as well.  They have a no-nonsense quality in conveying specific information.  Yet somehow they are engaging more generally.  I have already started underlining and "conversing" with a few of them.  

The process is quite pleasurable, actually. As with any art form that stacks words on each other to generate meaning, a pamphlet needs a good writer.  Knowledge of the subject is important.  So, too, is knowledge of the reader. None of this knowledge is useful if the writer doesn't know how to arrange words into compelling sentences. There are only 32 pages in a Storey County Wisdom Bulletin. For me to be brought along, every word has to do its job.

My favorite as of right now is All the Onions by Betty Jacobs.  By the end I felt like I knew some things. That is the goal.  I also felt a certain confident engagement in the subject, one that I am already interested in.  Jacobs loves onions. She feels I should love them, too.  For the record, I have chives and "walking onions" (Jacobs calls them "Egyptian Onions" but they are the same thing).  Now I am ready to branch out to a breed less perennial.  The question is which one.

Also high on the list is Great Grapes by Annie Proulx.  Yes...that would be Shipping News, Brokeback Mountain, Fen, Bog, and Swamp Annie Proulx.  One can add Great Grapes to her masterful works along with a couple pamphlets on apple cider.  Great Grapes gave me pause, though.  One thing she managed to efficiently convey is that--great as they are--grapes are also a lot of work.

I think I partly like pamphlets because they are just nice to have.  They have texture.  They have a smell.  They have a reason to exist that serves a clear purpose in society.  Also, they hearken back to the long tradition of informational writing.  I like that, too.  It is a form far greater than what comes in our IKEA boxes. My grandfather--who was a farmer and gardener among other things--had publications like these. Sometimes, after a hard day at the office, he found pleasure in figuring out what was wrong with the knot-tying mechanism on the hay baler, or how to properly bring back his own grandfather's apple trees.  

​As the world gets faster, we start looking for things that slow us down.  These pamphlets are part of that connection. Younger generations, tired of their phones and the meaninglessness of life's tasks are now looking to these early things. Nostalgia hits us all.  At its most toxic it manifests as MAGA, white supremacy, and the romantic (and untruthful) retelling of history.  There is a way, though, to look to the past not to replicate it, but to draw from it lessons and life-patterns that might make our own time more fulfilling.  These pamphlets are a way to reach back with an old form, but the content can reflect our needs and motivations today.

I am a preacher on Sundays.  With this in mind I have always taken an interest in another old form.  The sermon isn't exactly like the informational garden pamphlets.  It has more in common with the works of Tom Paine.  Still, there is a form and structure to a piece.  One only has so many pages. A sermon can go very much awry without boundaries and guides to get from beginning to end.  I use a few different forms and modes depending on the subject and how the congregation "listens" to it.  Sometimes those forms are explicit.  More frequently I use them without thinking.  Then when I look back I see the pattern that makes it cogent. 

I am learning a new congregation these days so I am thinking about this a lot.  Maybe that is why I find myself working through a collection of sermons by Jonathan Edwards. There are a number of famous figures by that fairly common name.  Of course this John Edwards is not the famously narcissistic politician derailed by a scandal that seems quaint today. Nor is it the underappreciated folk singer of the 1960's and 1970's who I saw opening for Arlo Guthrie a couple of times when I was a child.  This is the Jonathan Edwards,  a Congregationalist lion of the pulpit back before the revolution. He is also the sort of Pioneer Valley resident who might be the answer on an AP US History exam.  That gives him something in common with Daniel Shays, among others.

Much of Edwards' theology is very old fashioned today.  After all, his biggest hit--also possibly on an AP test--is Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The reason I am reading his sermons has more to do with structure rather than theology. He was considered one of the great public speakers of any era.  Some of the passages still sing.  The way he preached continues to influence how we do the same thing today.  His church is still just down the river. I don't have to dig too deep to see his influence.

One of the styles in a modern preacher's arsenal is the "three point" sermon. Not everyone likes to admit it...but it is still in use.  There are many variations, of course, but the idea is simple or "Puritan Plain";  There is a topic.  You say three related or escalating things about that topic.  Then you wrap it up. Edwards, who gave himself way more time for a sermon, has at least three little points for each of his three main points!  When taken as a whole, it can sound plodding today. 

Still, the framework is interesting.  It is old.  He also inspired his listeners who didn't mind sitting for hours in those pews. Studying his sermons today helps to see how both the form and theology has changed and how it hasn't. It connects us to our past--both beautiful and ugly--and it gives us a way forward that is hopefully both contemporary and traditional.

The sermon is an old thing worth keeping.  The content changes.  It has to be adjusted for new ideas and new ways of being.  However, it should be on that list of artisanal old-school media that can give something to the modern (or post-modern) person. Like the pamphlet, they also have a reason to exist that serves a clear purpose in society...or they can if we preachers are able to shift the lens to point to what is now than what we wish for in a mythological past.

I used to tell my interns that preachers are like blacksmiths.  There are fewer of us now. Both our art and our reason for existing has changed somewhat.  Still, we are here.  We are cooler than you think. We are--or can be--a part of someone's reaching back and reinterpretation of hand-made days.

It rained yesterday. What a relief!  There could have been more, though.  The clouds lasted most of the day and there was a steady drizzle, particularly as we got ready for church in the morning.  The soft and fertile soil of the raised beds seemed to have absorbed it reasonably well.  Still, when I planted some gift herbs (thanks to a friend who read of my distress a couple posts ago), I made sure to water them thoroughly.  Also, when I took the last of those plants--probably an enthusiastic but pot-locked version of marjoram--directly in the ground today, the hot, sandy soil was dry as a bone.  I soaked that plant as well.

Today is my "sabbath day"...in a sense.  It is the one day of the week when I am definitively "off" from work.  Errands get done. So does the garden.  There are always household tasks, too. This morning's first task, for example, was to make sure we could get the door off its hinges to accept delivery of a refrigerator in a couple days.  The fridge is the smallest and cheapest "full-sized" one we can find.  Our house, however, is built for a time before appliance escalation.  With the door off...maybe...we will be able to preserve our new food. 

That is all in the future, though.  The old fridge died spectacularly yesterday. It is conventional wisdom that when you move, the appliances in your new place will start to die.  Sometimes there is truth in these common beliefs.

After the door project, the dog and I took a long walk.  We back on to the M&M trail.  Our section--not surprisingly--is road but you can go on for miles.  Theoretically I could have ended up on Mount Monadnock or at the Connecticut border.  The dog is named Carrigain, after my final peak on the NH 48 4,000 footers.  We will go the distance on the M&M, but not today. It would require camping or car spots...and I didn't bring any water.  So after dipping into the woods for a moment to cool off, we turned back around.  Still, it was around 4.5 miles on a beautiful day. 

Now I am back.  This afternoon--after a meal of whatever the fridge hasn't destroyed--will be about making appointments.  There is a tree removal to set up.  The dog needs me to order more pills.  I should fold some laundry and catch up with friends if I can.  It is just the simple tasks of life, right?  We need a day for that sort of thing. 

For me that day is frequently Monday.  The most "sabbath" I get--at least in the way most people think of the term--is a Sunday afternoon when I don't have anything going on.  Then I will sit in front of the TV and cheer on whichever of my many teams happens to be playing.  That​ is relaxing....even when they are losing...which can be pretty frequently.

Whatever the body is doing on this sabbath, I appreciate the freedom of letting my mind wander a bit.  Today I have actually been thinking about that rain and heat.  Climate Change is real.  As I look at my small garden and consider larger dreams for the future, I wonder about expectations.  Maybe whatever berry bushes I order for the spring should be drought-tolerant or do well in the warmer "zones" that gardeners think about.  Certainly the lawn needs a different plan.  It crunches in places where I walk.  We will see what that marjoram plant does...

I found this article in the Boston Globe helpful. It says that within my lifetime we could have the sort of climate that Virginia has now.  That means different plants.  It makes me wonder what I can put outside to replace what is already there.  The lawn is a mix of things.  Someone many years ago must have put down grass seed.  However, wind and time have diversified the ground cover, which is fine with me. These days it is mostly clover and other low plants that survive being mowed occasionally.  In my planning I have a great deal of freedom.  I just left a place where the condition of one's lawn could be the topic of neighborhood gossip, judgement, and retribution.  That isn't the way in Farley.  

Anyway, if you can get through the paywall, I recommend it.  We will continue to move from grass to gardens, bushes, and flowers.  They have some suggestions as to how...

Yesterday in church we had to move back to the sanctuary from the air-conditioned Parish Hall where we had been meeting this summer.  There reason was wildlife.  A bat or bats had escaped from the belfry, which must be painfully hot, and began doing loops around the room.  The low ceiling would have made their motions rather...distracting.  So we decided to give them some space.  I remember early in my career preaching a sermon while a small bird flew about the sanctuary.  No one remembers what I said.  Least of all me.  There is only one sermon on a Sunday morning.  Sometimes nature is preaching.

Well I'll tell yah...  We finished!  Regular readers will know that I have a category on this weblog where I planned to reflect on each leg of that journey.  You can refer to it for sections #1 and #2.  I stopped posting for a variety of reasons.  However, the biggest is that this journey south-to-north the length of Worcester County---and therefore the width of Massachusetts--just didn't have enough variation for that level of granularity.

That said, I highly recommend it. A "section" hike of this sort is worthwhile, particularly if you want to get a sense of the local landscape.  Rev. Sarah Stewart, my hiking partner for this endeavor lives on Worcester, itself.  I thought I might end up there as well.  After all, the journey through time that we took encompassed my search process.

It may be worth noting that my first post for this trail was July 28, 2024.  What a year it has been...

In fact, as I went looking for pictures for this post, I found others; the final pictures of my time in Natick and at Eliot Church, the first pictures of 2nd Church, many, many photos of many, many houses that we visited but did not move to.  This walk took us a while. We paused for injury and weather.  Our longest gap was probably waiting for me to recover from a fall on the ice the same day I preached my candidating sermon.  However, in the end...we did it.  Sarah ordered the official patches.  I still owe her $5.

I do have one suggestion for anyone who wants to do this particular hike.  Do not hesitate to break it up!  We did reasonably well with that but then common sense abandoned us. We decided to hike over Mount Wachusett and the Crow Hill Ledges in one day...in the snow.  We managed, but we were very tired by the end.  In fact it was worse than that! One of us fell through the ice as well.  Cold and exhausted, we finished that section with very few pictures but one epic story...so maybe it was OK in retrospect... 

Anyway, No one will know or care if you do it straight through or in a certain amount of time.  This is not that kind of trail.  It is for enjoying and reflecting.  It is--as I said earlier--about getting a sense of place and sometimes of history.

The trail, itself--with adequate pacing--is not that difficult.  Most of the elevation is in that section with Wachusett and the Ledges.  If it wasn't winter we would have been fine there as well.  With that said, every hike is a challenge.  You are in the woods.  The trail is well-maintained in some spots and not in others.  Take your time.  Also, this is not a dog-friendly trail!  This may be important to some of you.  Much of the trail runs through various off-limits sections.  Any Audubon property is a no-dog zone.  There are good reasons for this so it is worth respecting the rules.  I took my dog out with us once or twice when it was clear we wouldn't be entering those areas...but it was tricky and required some work.

Obviously I am posting this to bring closure to the project.  Even though there was a sameness to the landscape, it was beautiful.  There is no shame in just spending time in the woods, right?  I do have a few posts that--while they were not directly about the Mid-State--cover the trail and its environs.  So here at the end, I thought I would share some links...

First, there are two posts for the very beginning of the Mid-State.  They are cleverly called Mid-State Section 1 and Mid-State Section 2.  These both have some greater detail and advice.  They also give a good sense of the road sections, which are greater in the southern part of the trail and then peter out once one gets north of Worcester, itself.

Then there are a few other posts that cover parts of the trail, particularly that northern part.  They are also listed in "Section 1" but may be worth posting again with some commentary.

Mount Wachusett: Out of these three bonus posts, going south to north, this would be the first of the areas you would encounter.  We began in the same lot as the hike in the video, which I did as an out-and-back on a very hot day. The video documents that hike. The actual essay is about a shorter walk.  I love Wachusett and am pretty sure I have done all the trails by now.  It is one of only two legit mountains in the eastern part of the state.  The other is Watatic, where the Mid State symbolically ends...

Crow Hills Ledges:  We really should have stopped here after Wachusett and saved the Ledges for another day.  We were really too tired, wet, and cold to enjoy the view!  That said, I recommend this as a loop.  Also, the video has some more pictures of what we saw on our epic slog.

Finally, my favorite mountain, Mount Watatic.  As with the other two posts, the video and the essay are of separate hikes.  That said, there is only one way up Watatic.  It is easily the best bang for your buck with beautiful views and less effort than one might think...but it is still a mountain!

It's been a minute since I wrote about gardens.  Maybe gardening--a slow and stumbling project in the best of times--hasn't been fully on my radar for a year or two.  My garden was always small.  There are couple or three raised beds containing herbs, mostly.  Also, over time I accumulated a massive number of pots...mostly for flowers and weeds.

Now we have a house that we plan on being at for a while.  Of course I do see the irony of the "temporary" parsonage lasting over two decades and--with all the factors of life--the real possibility that we will never live in another place as long.  Here though, I have "permission" of a sort to move things around and plant, not just for right now...but for an undisclosed future.

With that in mind, I have been at work.  Mostly it has been "garden demo."  Many ornamental plants on the property have grown to stupendous size.  The owner before the woman we bought it from loved both lawns and gardens. He put in a number of flowering bushes--rhododendrons mostly--and some of them went feral in the intervening decade. 

​I totally get it, actually.  They are big and beautiful.  However, they were also filled with vines and absorbed a number of other bushes along the way.  I have been trimming some and removing others.  

One massive collection of bush and vine has been completely removed.  Next year I will use it for planting fruit.  I haven't completely decided between blueberries (high bush), blackberries, and raspberries.  That is OK.  The best time to plant them appears to be in late May.  I have a literal year. There are some wild black raspberries peeking out from some of the brambles, though.  When I find one I stake it...and try not to kill it as I thrash about. In any case--given the growth patterns of these berries--I am a good 24-36 months from a meaningful harvest.

There is a heat wave and a drought here.  This has presented its own challenges.  On the good side, my lawn can be maintained with a grass-whip and some spot mowing with my reel mower.  Reel mowers are what we call the motor-less contraptions of yesteryear.  Mine is made by Fiskar, an actual scissor company. 

This same drought has been hard on the two raised beds I managed to salvage in the move.  Really they are  more the spiritual descendants of the parsonage beds rather than the actual ones.  Each is a third new wood.  However the perennial herbs all survived the trip. Some--like the walking onions--are establishing a new generation while letting the old one pass.  Others need to be trimmed and either dried, or chopped and frozen...maybe next week.

There are a lot of beasts about.  My kale basically feeds the local rabbit population, who have decided the bok choy is my portion. We have had a front-row seat to two different hatchings of two different families of small birds.  I am fighting a loosing battle with some yard-dweller about who gets to enter the compost bin that the previous owner left.  Now I just leave the little door open so they don't damage my plants.  Carving a human space in all this is a chore.  I knew it would be and--so far--I enjoy it more than not.

Anyway, that is where we are right now.  It took a lot of work but it doesn't seem to take much time to write about.  I have empty pots and big dreams.  I am reminding myself that I also have all the time in the world for this.  Nature moves slowly and so should I.  I should see whatever annuals are still about in the garden centers and bang them in the few pots that have soil.  Basil and parsley seem hard to find now, which is too bad.  I have space left over from harvesting choy. There is always, always spot-watering thanks to the heat.

I have ordered a better composter. This time it is one the critters may not figure out right away. Also, I have a lot of studying and watching to do. I have books and videos and sketches of what could be.  There is plenty going on at the church these days.  It is nice to have this other work that leads to its own kind of prayer.

About a week ago I got my car back from the body shop.  I had two claims on it.  The first was from January.  When I realized that I would probably have to change churches after 22 years it made me a bit distracted.  I survived the Advent/Christmas insanity by focusing on work and, of course, on the actual holiday itself.  However, When the new year began there was nothing to distract me from the massive changes ahead.  Anyway, in a state of general overwhelm I managed to gently back my car into a metal barrier at a local gas station, damaging a rear door while leaving the barrier blissfully unaware.  After the "accident" I didn't have the spoons to get it fixed, so I spent six months driving with a slight dent, a blue streak on the door, and a piece of trim flapping in the breeze.

The second claim was a gift from my son, who was raised in the 'burbs with a mailbox screwed to the house.  He backed the car over the regular old rural delivery mailbox at our new home, surgically removing the car's bumper.  That was much more recent, of course, and the proverbial straw that forced me to do something.  He has been distracted, too.  We all have.  However we are settled in to our new place in Franklin County.  I have a month under my belt at 2nd Church of Greenfield.  We are moving on.  Life is fine.

Allison and I even got to go for a hike last weekend!  That was a fun return to normal.  We live in a valley along the Millers River with trail heads pretty much everywhere.  It was just a walk in the "neighborhood" that I would describe further but...we are supposed to keep hiking traffic down thanks to the presence of a VERY popular rock-climbing site.  Its popularity can create a few bottlenecks for hikers, climbers, and residents alike.  Suffice it to say...if you know, you know.  If you would also like to know...just email me.  Everyone involved is very friendly, just also concerned about the ecosystem.

The hike itself was short and lovely.  There was a classic Massachusetts hiking view.  No great snowy or craggy peaks...only a gentle hill across the river and just a hint of Watatic to our east if you risked your life on the ledge to see it.

​We need to get back in shape after a long hiatus of life interfering.  Al's dissertation still lurks but the "search and call" is behind us.  Getting back out will be a slow process, but a pleasant one.

One thing I have been thinking about lately is how location can change a person.  I feel like I am in the process of becoming at a rate that feels unusual to me.  In Natick I wasn't stagnant by a long shot.  However, now I am moving among different people, with a very different congregation.  I have been pushed spiritually, socially, and physically. Also I am back living in the country.  For the most part I have only visited it for the last two decades. Before that, it was just life.  Now the re-entry is...interesting. Nature is overwhelming here--or feels like it.  There always seems to be a reason to head outside. I am planting a small garden now and planning for the springs of '26 and '27. I am always discovering mysteries in the soil and beds that I am now responsible for.

When I get out of work I come home, put on a different sort of work clothes, and then move brush, or fix the mailbox, or plant the flowers and the vegetables...or perform any number of tasks for the slightly-falling-down house that was built in the late 19th Century.  I am trying to remember the skills I was taught by my grandfather starting 40 years ago and ending a quarter century ago. Then I will read up on whatever needs reading up on.  Then I will do more church work and hang out with the family. 

​I will no doubt write more on this at some point.  For now I am trying to enjoy the ride and the different sort of busyness.  We shall see where we end up in the end.  However, I am happy with the new start.

I don't know why I did it, but I grossly underestimated the amount of time and energy it would take to go into search, conclude a search, and work through the many complications of moving, buying a house, ending a ministry, and starting another one.  So in my ignorance I signed up for courses and workshops.  Early in the year they worked out well.  I took a course on non-profit administration, for example.  I felt I would need those more "secular" skills if I stayed at Eliot and worked part time somewhere else.  I highly recommend it if you are from Massachusetts and don't mind the occasional drive to Framingham.  However, this was early in my process and part of the process.

I also signed up for some courses and trainings in the area of ecology and religion.  I do this sometimes when I am stressed out.  Learning something that is separate from the chaos is fulfilling and useful for the future.  However...in this case I had to back away.  Before I did, though, I managed to complete an assignment in which I wrote a "Psalm" about the county where I am moving.  It made sense to focus my energy there since we were heading out for house-hunting, candidating, and other meetings.  Anyway, here it is.  I didn't finish the course but I recommend it. I also recommend the platform for people who are interested in the study of religion...

I haven't posted here since October.  It isn't that I didn't have things to say!  It is just that there has been a lot going on.  Also, at sensitive times in an institution like the church, it is important not to over speak.  My last post was about the Eliot Church downsizing their staff and what that meant for me.  A great deal was pretty open-ended back then, but now there has been quite a bit of resolution.

Long story short...I am moving. I went into search while looking at part-time options that would have kept me in Natick.  In the end, I accepted a full-time position as Pastor at the Second Congregational Church of Greenfield Massachusetts.  I am in the process of buying a house in Franklin County.  Allison and I (and to greater or lesser extent the boys) are leaving Natick after over twenty-one years.

This has been a whole process, of course.  Which no doubt I will reflect on when the time is right.  However, I wanted to get back into the habit of blogging and--now that there is some certainly around future and current roles--this seemed to be a good time.

One of the trickiest parts of this transition is saying "goodbye" and then saying "hello".  Part of both processes involve boundaries.  In the ministry there are rules about when, where and how we interact with former congregants.  These rules loosen up a bit over time but right now they are in effect.  That is OK.  When we live our lives in the church we try to promote healthy relationships both when we arrive and when we leave.  Here is the newsletter column I posted for the Eliot Church about how the goodbyes will go through the last few weeks of my time at Eliot and for the next year at least...

 I Just got back from a vacation I sort of backed into.  Over the summer we thought it would be fun to go do some hiking and sight-seeing in Ireland for a couple weeks.  We did the preliminary planning and took the time off. We got people to commit to preaching at the church in my stead. Then...we didn't go. Life got complicated.

Still, we had the time so we went up to Maine for a week and visited family.  We saw my sister and brother-in-law's new house.  We checked in with my mom.  We stayed with my brother and sister-in-law.  We stumped around the part of the state where I grew up. We caught a friend's book-launch and poetry reading. Then we also hiked, ticking off visits to the Camden Hills and to Gulf Hagas.  It was a restful trip that I would love to post about some time in the future. However, that is not what I am up to today. Instead I want to touch briefly on developments in my church.

You see, for years we have been talking about the future of churches in the United States.  I have written about it, talked about it, and preached about it numerous times. In that broader context I and others have set the life of our specific congregation. Things have been hard for the modernist institutions we think of when we hear the word "church".  Progressive or conservative, they come with buildings which are often too large for their needs.  They come with a struggling staff in desperate need of retraining and revisioning. They come with programs--like Sunday School--that are much less popular now. They come with the perception of arbitrary judgement which--while not as common as people think--still holds true in many places. The post-modern world has caught up to us.  Congregations--progressive ones anyway--are adapting...but slowly.

 While religion may just be fine, our old institutions may not be. They must change and learn in order to grow.

All of this is to say that The Eliot Church, where I have served for twenty-one years and two months, will be cutting the pastoral position from full-time to half-time starting no later than September 2025. It gives us as a congregation time to plan for what that will look like.  It gives me a year to figure out what I will be doing for the rest of my career. It feels like a long period, but it isn't really.  We are adapting to the new reality--churches must be more flexible, more creative, and more stable ​going forward--but we are still an old and venerable institution. Pastors also need to be these things but I, of course, am older, too.  I am glad we are facing the current reality, even though there will be some hard traveling both for the congregation and for me.

I don't think it is time to dwell on the details.  These will come in time and I will probably post some of what I witness and learn here on Sabbath Walks. However, on our way up to Gulf Hagas we happened to drive past my first church settlement.  I was 1/3 time but they shortly re-connected with another congregation who hired me for 2/3 time. This gave me the same "uneven yoke" that my predecessor had.  Both of those churches are still there, surviving in the face of all the difficulties that this era brings to voluntary associations. Seeing the old parish was a good reminder that life goes on, as does love.  It reminded me that God does not abandon us. We just need to make sense both in and to the society and culture that needs our message.

We have made a big step.  I do not know what it means for me or my family.  I do not really know what it means for the congregation.  What I do know is that we are acknowledging a change that leaves room for celebration as well as grief.

"Remember your baptism" is a popular phrase in my life.  My colleagues and I are urged to do so--and to encourage others to do so--every once in a while throughout the year.  There are good reasons for this, of course.  When we remember this moment in our lives, we recall our relationship with God.  We also recall our relationship with the holy people who gathered together to witness the moment.  At least some of those people are our family, or chosen family. Sometimes it is done in the midst of a congregation as well.  In my congregation on Ingathering Sunday we bring water from places that have been important to us.  Then we use it for baptisms and other things so the congregation is always there in spirit. A baptism doesn't need witnesses.  However, when they are present, they remember their baptisms, too.

Of course, many people don't literally remember.  They were infants at the time.  Also--after the baptism--some people have few opportunities to be reminded of it. Families don't attend worship like they used to. In the absence of anything other than a very occasional visit for Christmas Eve, more and more adults give little thought to their children's spiritual lives or their own. The ritual can be just a thing you do in those early days before other things take precedence.

I am not saying this as a complaint.  It is just a statement of fact.  In fact, I literally remember my baptism.  I was 18.  The reasons my parents decided to encourage me (along with my siblings) to be baptized were complicated. Neither we nor they attended church regularly.  However, even at the time I found it moving.  I had been hovering around the edges of my friends' churches for a while by then.  I had questions about life and its meaning and the people I met in church--while they didn't have answers--seemed to have a path.  Now I am a pastor and so is my mom.

During worship this past Sunday, I officiated a baptism for an adult who was formerly a member of the youth group. It reminded me of my own experience.  Before the service I told him that there would be times when it meant very little to him and times when it meant a great deal.  That is how these things work.  Baptism is one string that connects us in every direction to Creation.  We don't always notice it, even when we know it is there.  Then...we really do when we need that connection.

Baptism is a sacrament in the tradition I represent.  There is only one other.  That is communion.  The reasoning is that they are the only ones that appear in the Gospels.  John the Baptizer stood down by the river. Jesus sat in the upper room. Other traditions range from having no real sense of sacraments to having seven or nine.  Each tradition chooses different things as well. That is the richness of how we see God.  We are humans, the Divine speaks to us in a language we understand. We all have different "languages" that we speak.

We had communion on Sunday as well.  It was, in fact "World Communion Sunday," which is a celebration of diversity and ecumenism held on the first Sunday in October.  It is another opportunity to consider our spiritual connections.  At Eliot we pass the tray of bread cubes and little glasses through the pews.  We do this so we might serve each other in the process.  Also, it is a recognition of the divine spark within each of us.  Other congregations go to the front to break bread off a communal loaf or take a wafer from a priest.  Frequently there is a communal cup as well.  That we recognize each other in our diverse manifestations of ritual is important.  These are small differences that reflect the wide variety of roads we take toward God.

When I was first getting interested in the United Church of Christ, a UCC colleague asked me how I planned on dealing with participating in a more sacramental tradition.  I had spent some time as a Unitarian Universalist pastor where the word "sacrament" when it is used doesn't have the same weight.  She had also entered the UCC from a less sacramental tradition.  I didn't have an answer then and she didn't expect me to.  It was more of a "head's up" that I might want to start thinking about baptism and communion more seriously and systematically.

I am glad I took her warning. I have learned over the years that ritual can be built over differences in style and belief.  It creates common ground upon which we can sit and converse. We can see our commonality in the quest toward unknowable mysteries.  It also gives us a way to show our love both to God and the world.  Amen to that.