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A Musing Amma

~ Gathering the pieces of our lives together under the eyes of the Holy

A Musing Amma

Category Archives: discovery

Ministry and Life in Stages

20 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in aging, Discernment, discovery, ministry, Uncategorized, women

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joy, ministry, women

PreacherWomanI was invited to assist in the worship service where I attend church this past week. In my muscles and brain I knew what to do, what to look and listen for, and how to behave. I have led worshiping communities in prayers of confession, pastoral prays of thanksgiving and intercession and dedication of the offering for nearly 35 years. This past Sunday morning I remembered  how many stages I have moved through in those years; this particular Sunday I was the Honorably Retired guest, stepping up to meet a need of the present staff.

Years ago I preached my first sermon. I had not yet entered seminary, and I had never heard a woman preach. Later, in two of my three parish calls, I was the first woman on staff. Those were years when little girls in the congregation would draw a picture of me and bring it to me as  a gift. Those also were the years when certain parishioners let it be known that they would not welcome a hospital visit from me, no matter if I were the only pastor available, because I was a woman. Those were years of great delights, deep stresses and tears, and a formidable learning curve for me and for the congregation. I was the new one in the life of the church, on many levels. My days were roller coasters of elation and despair, of joy and grief!

I moved into the middle and most active years of parish ministry where I found my voice as a preacher, where I was invited to design and speak at women’s retreats, where I was often the one called to stand in the gap when life or lives in the church frayed. My church worldview expanded as I encountered people from my denomination whose worship expressions differed from those I knew well, and then again as I moved out to engage people in ecumenical gatherings and interfaith dialogues. I had to learn with more sinews some interior spiritual practices of setting boundaries, of discerning which call was for me, of taking a “long, loving look at the real,” of listening to my own longings through the lenses of therapy and spiritual direction. I served three different churches as part of a parish staff, and became more adept in to “reading” a congregation. I loved so much about those years, and cherished not only most of the work and the people, but loved the sense that I had “come down in the place just right” for me.

My last years before retirement were teaching inquirers and students in seminary those things I had learned both in my D.Min work, and also the churches I served. It was a happy challenge to “pay it forward” to women and men seeking to serve God as pastors and chaplains.

And now I am the Honorably Retired pastor and spiritual director. My contributions are more often private rather than public. My congregation numbers one or 10, usually not too many more. It is satisfying and delightful soul work that I am called and allowed to witness.

But sometimes I am wistful when I see the opportunities offered to women in ministry now. There are congregations who can’t imagine a church staff that doesn’t include a woman pastor. Social media has opened the floodgates to women telling their stories of faithful listening to God’s calling them whether it is in academia, like Melanie Springer Mock, in her book Worthy, or like Kate Bowler in her  Everything Happens for a Reason; or women in the parish like Heidi Neumark or Rachel Srubas; or women who have carved out ministries at large, such as MaryAnn McKibben Dana and Diana Butler Bass. I read each of them with delight and gratitude, grieving with them where they have suffered, rejoicing with them in locating their particular calling, and letting them be beacons for Light for me as I in my present place also serve and wait.

It is a good and gracious thing to be in service to the Holy One, no matter one’s age and stage of life!

 

 

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Lent 4: Love of Wisdom

11 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in discovery, Lent, paying attention, peace, sacred reading, wisdom

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Denise Levertov, Jan Richardson, Lent, Lucille Clifton, Malcolm Guite, reading

sacredreading

It might have been said of me, “She is too fond of books, and it has addled her brain.” This quip attributed to Louisa May Alcott certainly captures my best pleasure or best vice, depending on one’s point of view. I am and have been an avid reader since I was four years old. So when Joyce Rupp suggests that in this fourth week of Lent we attend to a love of learning and wisdom by reading spiritual books, I dive in eagerly.

Her suggestion makes me ask some questions not only about what I am reading, but how I read them. Because I am a rapid reader, I can often read without being very careful about every words and nuance. Yet, for this kind of reading I need to slow down, maybe even with the rhythm I use in lectio divina, reading slowly enough to let a word shimmer for me, then meditate with it, pray with it, let it sink into the marrow of my soul. I am prone, I confess, to spiritual “obesity,” reading or gathering as much as I can without letting the full nourishing value reach into the places in me that long for transformation. So in the books that are coming to me of late, I have been invited to read more slowly, pay closer attention, and to let there be space in between intakes, even doing some written reflection on what I am reading and learning, seeking what the invitation there might be for me.

I find myself profoundly grateful to live in a time when so many sources of wisdom are so freely accessible to all. Between the old resources like libraries and newspapers and the newer ones on electronic media, I am never without wisdom at hand, at least on one hand or the other. So in this season I have been touched by memoirs of the dying and those growing older, of those in seminary, of those on the front line caring for others. I have been challenged by theologians, from my own tradition and other traditions; on my stack of books awaiting me is the papal encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’. I am accompanied by spiritual writers, again from many traditions, from many places in the world, from many location in our own country; I have seen that spiritual practice often has a different face in snowbound or rural settings, far away from my Southern California urban life. Novels continue to touch me, particularly those whose central character seem to be on a quest for touching, feeling, loving the Mystery. And, the dessert course to almost every meal is the poetry, whether it is Malcolm Guite, Jan Richardson, Denise Levertov or Lucille Clifton. The wisdom that lies in the language of the poet touches deeply, lasts long.

I have also had a shocking encounter with an old realization about reading this week in this practice. I am an avid collector of lists of “bests” in reading from magazines and blogs, copy them down, often ordering them on the basis of recommendation only, rather than discerning whether or not they might be a fit for me, for my journey thus far, for my particular sensibilities and ways of knowing. Over my journey I have come to know a great deal about myself, especially what builds me up, what nurtures me and challenges me, and also what diverts or oppresses me. Some events that are reminiscent of past wounds and scars, some language that is punitive and exclusionary, some tones that are arrogant and condemnatory, even if the writer’s intention is pure, are writings that do more harm than good to my spirit. My own wisdom can be a discerning voice, were I to listen to it. This week I didn’t!  I picked up a book from a list and forced myself to read it all the way through, even though a few pages in, I knew it was not good for me. My reading resulted in nightmares, a very infrequent occurrence at this point in my life. Had I listened to Lady Wisdom, I could have prevented that fear and anxiety.  That very good book wasn’t wisdom to me.

I love the quest for wisdom. I take to heart again the words from the book of James:

The wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace. (James 3: 17-18)

As I seek wisdom this week, I will also seek the things that make for peace.

 

 

Lent 2: Discovering the Goodness of Creation

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by Elizabeth Nordquist in beauty, creation, discovery, earth, Lent, Mystery

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creation, earthliness, Lent

yellowflowers

As I continue to follow the recommendations of the reflections of Joyce Rupp, I am practicing another the emphases of Celtic spirituality this week–discovering the goodness of Creation. She suggests “listening to creation,” pausing to look at what you see, finding something new to you, and letting creation reveal its deeper meaning. This is much more challenging to me than last week’s call to see God’s presence in the ordinary, in my case blessing each of my children morning and night. I seem, either by nature or nurture, to need to work at connecting with creation.

I have been working hard at trying to engage what Calvin calls the “second book of revelation,” the natural world, and so this invitation to a focused practice is welcome, though not easy. However, I have received a gift that has made the practice more central in this past year which is the installation and blossoming of a drought-resistant garden in our front yard. We chose to embark upon this project for practical reasons: the merciless drought in Southern California has frightened and threatened us all. We have been given standards by which we need to decrease our water usage, and have been seeking ways to be good stewards of the water we do have. The garden took longer to install and cost more than we first estimated, despite the rebate that came from the state government. Yet what has developed where our lawn used to be is a constantly unfolding display of wonder and beauty. Under the tutelage of the marvelous Merilee, a garden designer, we were able to create and execute a garden that not only saves water for our parched land, but gives us examples of the ways that God’s mercies are new every morning, much to our surprise.

It begins in the dark. It is full of surprise. I am never sure when I go to bed at night what I will find in the morning that has blossomed. During Advent our purple bearded iris on the south patch kept us entranced with a new bloom almost every day, a continual parade of glory from one violet sentinel to the next. Now in Lent the white iris on the north side sheltered by the salvia has begun the same array, one blossom per day; is it marching us toward Easter?

The variety seems infinite. Just when I think I have noticed each plant and flower, another one emerges in shape and color utterly different than the one next to it. What are those little neon green capsules all in a row? What are those tall drapy red leaves in a bush? What color are those tiny florets hiding behind that prominent plant? Creation, when I focus my attention, has more manifestations of beauty and design than I can count.

I continue to be challenged by beauty. I have long known that I am “buoyed by beauty,” a phrase that I read in a narrative describing my beloved isle and community of Iona in Scotland. But my own little clusters of drought-resistant plants in front of my house keeps expanding my definition of what beauty is–not only vivid color, now only shapely fronds, not only striking succulents–but odd outcroppings, angular leaves and open patches are beautiful too. And how glad it makes me.

This week I am taking care to observe–truly, madly, deeply–the creative array that proliferates in my front yard, and ask myself how this reveals the Holy One to me. Calvin teaches me that there is much about the Mystery that can become known in creation. I am hoping that is discovering the goodness that is there, I will also have a deeper intimation of the goodness of God.

Personal photo from front garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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