Once a year or so, the bishop of my synod makes the rounds to the different conferences and connects with the pastors at ministerium (fancy word meaning basically a bunch of pastors), and then invites lay people to have dinner with her and ask her questions about whatever strikes their fancy. Today was that day, so our time at ministerium was spent checking in with our bishop. She just finished a sabbatical, so her question to us was, "When have you experienced sabbath?" In other words, when have you found a time to experience God's presence, to be rejuvenated by the Spirit?
I came up with a couple - remarkable, given how frantically busy I have felt lately - and I wanted to share them with you.
The first one is concerning the hobby I am currently trying to cultivate: sewing. I have a couple projects in the works, one of which is a stole for my friend's graduation present. This is actually a joint project, by another seminary friend (Victoria) and myself. We designed together an Advent stole, and picked out the fabric, then she cut out the pieces and created a pattern, and sent it to me and I was to assemble it. I was afraid for a couple weeks - afraid I would mess it up, sew the wrong pieces together, mess up the margins, and generally make it look bad so that my friend would wear it only because she felt obligated but would dread Advent each year because she had to wear this stole that was so terribly assembled by her inept friend. In the midst of my silly fears, my friend, who was having some thyroid issues, found out that her thyroid in fact had developed pre-cancer. Well, that was all too familiar. (She is also planning a wedding, being married only a week after I am, so we have been following each other's paths in more ways than one!) A couple weeks ago, she had a thyroidectomy, and I decided that now was the time to put my silly fears aside and work on the stole. And so, on the eve of her surgery, I sewed, and I prayed. I prayed for her health, for her ministry, for peace and calm in her heart, for capable doctors, and I gave thanks for the many gifts she has to share, as a beautiful person and as a pastor. Because Victoria had already so ably cut the pieces, I didn't have to worry about what is for me the most stressful part of sewing. Instead, I felt I also was sewing Victoria's prayers into this stole, this stole that will be worn during the part of the church year that we focus on hope and the coming Savior. It was a lovely way to finish a busy Monday, and truly a communion with God. (By the way, the surgery went well! Thank you God!)
The other one is about communion. I have often thought about how somber people sometimes are coming to communion, and how much it fills my heart when people smile when they come forward. (Often smiles are a result of a kid doing an adorable thing, like one toddler who usually says her own "amen" after I bless her - melts my heart!) This is supposed to be a sacrament of thanksgiving, and in my experience, people usually smile when they are giving thanks! We are receiving here a sacrament of great joy - so why do we so rarely look like we are? Well. A few weeks ago at a special Lenten service, we had communion with real bread. I had invited the 20 or so people present to come gather around the altar. Many had fasted that day, as a part of our Lenten hunger series, so I was giving large pieces of bread so people could really feel that they were being fed in this sacrament. Good idea. But as a result, when it came to my turn (last), it took me forever to chew my piece, and everyone was watching for probably a minute as I was trying to down this huge hunk of host. People chuckled and haven't let me forget it. Then this past weekend, we had a special women's worship service, followed by a brunch. Again, I had them gather around the altar. As I started to hand out bread, the first person (who had been my assistant in the previous incident) whispered to me, "Smaller pieces!" I remembered for a moment something I'd recently read about the spirituality of large pieces (what I mentioned before), as well as the practicality - more to hold onto when dipping. I handed her a small piece and moved on, then heard her say, "Oh..." She had accidentally dropped the whole piece in the cup of wine, and looked at me very sheepishly, but smiling. I burst out laughing, and so did everyone else. And for the rest of the distribution, and even afterward, everyone was grinning. There was so much JOY in that celebration of the Eucharist! And it truly did feel like God was smiling with us.
After several people had shared their stories of sabbath, the bishop pointed out that nearly everyone's countenance had changed: we were almost all smiling, having shared these stories. I suppose sabbath can have that effect on people!
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