When I was a little girl I loved The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Oddly, some of my favorite parts of these books were the descriptions of nineteenth century food. The vivid way Ingalls Wilder described buttery pieces of stewed pumpkin, slow roasted venison, and maple sugar candy made my mouth water for things I had never even tasted. In my own family, we did a lot of eating together as well. It was one of the few things we all enjoyed. My mother cooked simple but delicious meals and we all sat down together most nights (which I gather is becoming more and more unusual). After dinner, my dad would usually build a big fire in the living room and I would lie by the fire eating a bowl of ice cream and reading. Those are some of my favorite memories of growing up.

On Sundays we almost always went to church. I don’t remember much of it except that I often used to count the arms of the brass chandeliers overhead. On some days trays were passed down the pew with cubes of bread and tiny cups of juice. I wasn’t sure why we did that but I thought it was cool that there were little holders for the cups in every pew. There is one particular Sunday that has always stuck in my mind though. It was the day we got to walk up to a big table in the front instead of having bread and juice in our pews. The table was piled high with green and red grapes and all different kinds of breads. Each of us received a napkin and were instructed to take as much as we wanted. I can still remember eating the grapes and pumpkin bread back in my pew. Church had never been so delicious.

I tell you these memories from my childhood to remind us of the way children experience the world. They are hungry little creatures searching high and low for stories and experiences that can help them make sense of the world. They use their eyes, their fingers, their ears and their mouths to explore things long before they can talk or read. But to tell you the truth, even though I am an adult now, I’m not sure I’ve ever really stopped needing to experience the world this way. It’s just the way I’m wired. Sometimes I think I became a preacher so that I didn’t have to be quiet in church anymore. That’s why I am so grateful for the new directions I see Sunday school curricula and worship taking these days, especially for the different ways we are worshiping in this community. I want church to be delicious for all of God’s children like it was for me that day when communion was served in a way I could better understand. Let us trust God to guide us and to use our different gifts and learning styles to make this amazing community even more reflective of God’s inclusive love. Amen.

This week’s scripture from Philippians (2:1-13) speaks of God’s power at work through our humility. I have chosen, therefore, to reflect on God’s healing and guidance during a time of failure. Many of you know I used to be pastor in Cambridge. You probably don’t know that, after 14 years, I was asked to leave. People’s needs unmet at a critical moment, programs I had not given enough support, but above all – the church needed a more charismatic pastor, a powerful preacher. This raised immense questions. Was I unsuited for pastoral ministry – a role to which I had felt strongly called? Plus I had brought many new young members and programming into a dying church. Yet, it was these very people saying it’s time to go.

At my farewell party, one supportive parishioner made a comment I will never forget: “David, the only way God could get you to leave here is to kick you out. But God has something else for you and you need to find out what it is.” To begin that daunting task, Barbara and I moved to become part of Church of the Savior in Washington, known for strong commitment to inward and outward journeys and a welcoming place for former pastors struggling to be ordinary people. As I prayed during silent retreats and worshiped with caring, spiritually attuned people, I became aware of a basic deficiency in my life. I had very few friends. In all my relationships I was the professional – pastor, trainer of field education supervisors, head of the minister’s association, chair of a commission of peace education for the city. Now, all those important roles were gone. So, who was I? – a much more fundamental issue than “should I be a pastor.” What was driving me to succeed, to always be the leader, to be “the best,” rather than just “me?”

I wrestled before God through journaling – writing questions, listening for a still small voice. My challenge was not connecting with God, but to see myself – as a fallible, yet redeemable, child of God, another follower of “The way.” I continued to explore the vocation question, but to let go of control I cast my net wide to see what door God opened. I applied for pastorates, jobs in peacework, and Ph.D study. But this discernment process didn’t work. I was offered my top choice in each category. After struggling in prayer as best I knew, sharing my quandary with Barbara, a spiritual director and others, I chose the job in peacework. One month later, funding for the position disappeared and the job never began. I had already turned down a call to pastor a church and Barbara didn’t want to move to Edinburgh, Scotland where I could begin a Ph.D. I wasn’t sure that was God’s calling either, so proposed asking for delayed admission, then seeing where we both sensed God’s guidance. The end of the next year, all the directionals we could see pointed to Edinburgh. I had no idea where the journey would lead, but felt a passion to answer a burning question: Could there be a different way to seek justice and peace than through opposition and confrontation? I would explore this through a program of study combining conflict resolution and spirituality.

I went with high hopes of a new start. But halfway through my 5 years, it didn’t feel like the right fit. Too many details required in Ph.D. research, the loneliness of studying something no one else was doing, and most disturbing – watching those old behavior patterns return in even more unruly fashion. It was a rough ride, “working out my salvation with fear and trembling.” By the time I started my new career, I had spent 6 years journeying through a wilderness, finally arriving at a new “promised life and calling.” The same old me was and is still there. Yet God had somehow opened a course for my life that I could never have predicted or foreseen. God had kicked me out, not only of a pastorate, but out of my comfort zone and beyond. God knew it was the only way I could begin to follow a call for a wounded healer to go places that seemed destined to fail. Yet I’ve had the extraordinary privilege of seeing the power of God touch traumatized hearts, transform hopeless peoples, and occasionally end strife and rebuild communities around the world. Thanks be to God who, despite our weaknesses, still offers us the chance to be co-creators of God’s good purposes.

Over the years, there have been times in my life when I would have given a really active answer to the question “How has God been at work in your life or the communities that surround you?” For example, God nudged me outside my comfort zone to go on a mission trip to New Orleans with this church I’d only recently started attending. And God went along with us on that trip, and God was most definitely partying with us on the roof on the beautiful day we were laying down new shingles!

But more recently I’ve been in a spiritually bleak place, where God has seemed far away, and heartfelt prayers have been answered with disappointment and sadness. Sound familiar to any of you? In my quest for comfort, I ended up borrowing a book of Taize prayers from Hannah, and a couple lines from the book really jumped out at me: “God of consolation, we are never deprived of your compassion. It is not you who is remote from us, but we who are absent.”

Something about that phrasing, and the word “absent,” instantly catapulted me back to my 4th grade homeroom teacher, Mrs. Griggs. That woman could whip through an attendance list in 30 seconds flat. And you had better be paying attention, and ready to say “here” the instant she called your name, or she would mark you absent, even if you were sitting right in front of her. In retrospect, I’m not sure why Mrs. Griggs was always in such a hurry, or what she did with the other 9 ½ minutes of homeroom every day – maybe eat her breakfast? Regardless, that’s pretty much my only memory of 4th grade: listening anxiously for my name to be called, so I could reply “here.”

But if Mrs. Griggs had deserved that much focused attention each day, what would happen if I now tried being equally present for God? I got into a pattern of coming home from work each day, sitting on the back stoop, and looking out at the garden. I read a few prayers that focused on God as all-knowing and ever-present. And then I didn’t ask questions, or make requests, or hunt for explanations. I just sat. And it didn’t take long before I could feel God sitting there with me on the stoop. There still weren’t any answers or explanations. But I found a lot of comfort in just sitting with someone who knows what I’m wrestling with, and who cares deeply about me – now, and for the rest of my life, and for an eternity to come.

This has been one of my busiest and most exhausting weeks at work, truly depleting. It is ironic that I am asked to speak a testimony of God’s work in my life today. Or is it serendipitous? It raises for me the real challenge of balancing the inner and outer journeys of my life and faith. So, I have remembered two book titles that sum it up. First, God is the Still Point in the Turning World. Second, Are you Running with me Jesus? I could stop there.

I told the gathering of the Worship and Welcome Ministry Tuesday night that I needed to have my soul catch up with my body. I want to find that still point amidst all the changes and running and distractions. How do we do this? At different times Scripture reading, sometimes journaling, but for me recently it has been breath prayer, a simple way to be still, to affirm God’s presence and life. I use and repeat a phrase like, “living water, renew, flow through,” or “God of light, lead the way.” Linking those words to my breathing has been calming and centering. It allows me to linger in the promise of God’s life in me. It allows me to soak in the Spirit.

But then I believe God enters the fray with me, Jesus running if need be. I count on it. I don’t believe God is on the sidelines. God is there to prompt with unconventional and foolish wisdom, to give strength and compassion beyond my own. I need that as I support people living with the challenge of mental illness.

 This is one of my favorite times of year – kids back to school, new program opportunities in the community, perhaps a new beginning in a new job – because it is a time marked with a new energy. Today is Covenanting Sunday, where we all reunite after our long summer Sabbath and begin a brand new programming year in the church. Lots of changes this year! Staff changes, curriculum changes, worship changes (the addition of this testimony being just one example), and it is all so exciting. Hannah asked me to be the “guinea pig” today, so to speak, and give the first testimony during our newly revised First Sunday Worship service. “Talk about how God has been at work in your life,” Hannah asked me. I accepted the challenge, and then promptly did not think about it again. As you know, I just recently officially began my new position as the Director of Children’s Ministries here, and the last few weeks have been incredibly busy getting ready for the beginning of Sunday School and welcoming our children back to church. Every once in a while, while I was busy answering an email or getting registration forms ready or reviewing our new curriculum, I would think, “Oh yeah – the testimony. Think about how God has been at work in my life,” for about a second. Then I would move on.

Meanwhile, during this busy prep time, the preschool teachers and I wrote 38 personal letters to the children of our ministry, welcoming them back to church and inviting them to our very special Open House event today. Phew! One more thing checked off the to-do list. “Oh – the testimony! Yeah. I’ll get to it later.” Switch gears to the beginning of a new school year for my children, room parent responsibilities, gymnastics, karate classes, cub scouts – oh boy. While I am running to and fro, trying to think, “how has God been at work in my life?” I hardly stop for a minute.

Then a few days ago I get a lovely email from one of our families. “Thank you so much for the sweet cards you wrote to our girls. They were so excited to receive them – it made their day! We are looking forward to seeing you in Sunday School too.” And there it was. God looking at me from my computer screen, of all places. Because this email truly made me stop – stop and remember where all this work goes, who this is all for. These are the moments that refresh me, renew me, and get me even more excited to begin this new journey in my new role at West Concord. How is God at work in my life? In the faces of wonder and excitement of our children, in the gratitude and support of our families, and in these tiny moments where God reminds me, “This made a difference. This mattered. Keep going in your journey. I am right here with you.” Thanks be to God.

Here’s our first installment of WCUC summer adventures. Send in your own summer pictures of activities near or far!

Tom, Judy, and Ann were in New York City in June for Judy’s brother’s wedding reception. It was at a Chinese restaurant and included a traditional 10 course meal.

Dorothy and Linda hiking up Pemetic Mountain in Acadia National Park, Maine