Let there be light.

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was waste and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God moved upon the waters.  And God said, "Let there be light."  And there was light.  Genesis 1.1-3

It's Easter Sunday.  I just got cleaned up; I am dressed, sitting here watching every second tick off the clock before I can get in the car and go to my last day of work.  I am excited about it being Easter, but oddly enough I have this concurrent empty feeling.

Of course by "last day of work" I mean, the last day before I go on sabbatical.  I'll be back in a few months.

It's hard to describe what I'm feeling today.  It's something like when you finish your last day of work before retirement.  In the back of the mind your thinking, "I've done this for so long; What am I going to do when I wake up Monday morning?"

We live our lives in patterns, and we become very accustomed to those patterns.  It's disruptive when the pattern we've lived for so many years is coming to an end.  Or better stated, it's disruptive when we come to a new beginning. The change leaves me feeling somewhat empty and curious about what to expect in these next days.

Even though I have a plan for my sabbatical, I don't know how that plan will unfold. And I know it's not like the regular pattern that I've practiced for the last ten years.  Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and the long Green Season is the Christian calendar; it's the pattern I've followed for these many years.

And Sunday to Sunday I prepare my thoughts and explore modern writings, news articles, ancient texts only to produce a sermon that I often feel is inadequate to represent God's desires for his people.

This pattern is peppered with the pastoral visits and phone calls, and meetings; people popping in to chat.  Even the expected disruptions are part of the pattern.  And somewhere we integrate preparations for a discipleship class or discussion on congregational development and phone calls about the sick and dying, all needing a sense of God's presence.

Please don't take this as a complaint; these are just the daily occurrences of ministry.  This is what I'm called to do and have been gifted to do.  And I am privileged to be a part of people's lives in this way.  But I can tell that recently I haven't been doing these things as well as I would like.  It's because I need to lay it all down.

And that's what I'll be doing tomorrow; I'm laying all this down.  That's why I feel the emptiness. What will replace these things that have left this void?  What replaces the anxiety of preparing a sermon?  What will I replace the feeling of meeting the challenge to lead and instruct God's people?

Do the thoughts and words that I put down on paper comfort or afflict people, spur them on to trust the unseen or change that which needs changing?  This is my greatest burden, which I am both glad and embarrassed to lay down.  I'm glad because it is spiritually and emotionally exhausting. Embarrassed because this is what priests do and I feel the pressure of needing to be stronger for my people.

In the regular pattern's place I will have filled the first week with empty days.  But in another week I'll begin the Camino de Santiago, a 500 mile trek across the northern region of Spain.  Those days will be filled with physical exertion and the daily hours of prayer.  The days will also be filled with picture taking, meeting new people, and writing.  I'll have quiet isolation but fellow pilgrims along the way will fill necessary companionship.

Still, even with this plan, I can't help but feel the void.  When I consider all my friends in my parish family,  many of whom are retirees, I wonder if this is something that you feel or have felt in your own lives.  How did you feel when the daily patterns of life changed?   Did you wonder what the future post-career pattern would become?  Was there a void?

Of course this isn't exactly the same thing.  I am returning. But I'm going to return changed somehow.  And I don't know what the new me will look like.

No matter the questions, I am encouraged that your presence in the church means you found some answers to your changes and transitions.  And that encourages me that I too will find answers to questions as I start my journey.

I'm Looking into that obscure void in hopeful expectations of light.

Tickling the Ivories

No one has asked the question, but I've been intending to update folks on one of the projects we started  last summer.  We hosted the Jazz festival with the integral help of many parishioners.  It was a great celebration of music!  We had intended any proceeds to go toward replacing our existing piano.

Becky and I were hearing some irregularities and just plain tuning problems when certain chords were played.  She quickly deduced that it was likely that the pin-block was cracked which was later confirmed by our friend at Fort Bend Music.  The piano can be tuned but quickly loses its tune as the wood flexes the strings.  Eventually we would no longer be able to tune it.  So we started the process of looking at pianos to replace the one we had. 

In the ensuing time period we had some requests made that could create opportunities to host piano recitals.  The idea of music students of all ages coming to play in the nave was a wonderful notion.  It would help bring folks into the church and give us an opportunity to welcome and invite them to All Saints. In speaking with other venues we learned that to host recitals, instructors would be very selective about the quality of the instrument that their students would play.  The quality of the instrument impacts its longevity, its ability to remain in tune, and most importantly the quality of sound.  While these things may not be important to the casual listener or folks just needing an accompanying instrument, it does matter to musicians trying to perfect their craft.

Well we haven't gotten very close to the price range we need to get a modest quality instrument.  And I hope this newsletter serves as effectively communicating where we are in the process.

While I would still like for us to think of creative ways to bring community members into our church we haven't moved forward with these efforts.  And it seems that fate has put off the pressing need to replace our piano.

After the Strings Infinito concert last summer we had relocated the piano and tuned it again.  Since then we haven't heard a great deal of dissonance from the piano.  We've deduced that when we moved the piano back into place we put it over a section of the floor that we knew to be uneven.  That unevenness actually might be compressing the pin block keeping the piano in better tune than before.

While this is a good reprieve from the problem it's still only a temporary fix.  We don't know how long this will help keep the piano in tune, if it is the cause.  And if we are faced with the need or opportunity to move the piano again we don't know what impact it might cause on the pin-block.  Unfortunately it doesn't address the opportunity to reach out in different ways to community and invite them in.

For the time being we'll continue to faithfully care for what we have.

As a result of our parish meeting the vestry has responded to the call to do due diligence on our campus planning. And for the time being we'll pray for God's direction on how to better use our vast space.

I believe our strategic planning process over the next four months will give us a clearer vision on how to address the piano and our evangelism efforts.