Throughout the week, I've been in touch with so many friends in Portland. One pastor, who was the pastor where I did my first fieldwork, has given me some incredible ideas. At her ordination, she chose a few extra admonitions* that were meaningful to her. She suggested I consider doing likewise. She also had people present her with meaningful trinkets symbolizing her unique call. So, when I haven't been driving someone to the doctor this week, I've been pondering quotes and symbols. [* admonitions are the charges given to the newly ordained pastor to remind them what they are supposed to focus upon and be about]
So far, I'm considering the following additional admonitions. There are too many good ones out there and winnowing these down to 2 or 3 is tough. Any opinions?
"I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer..." - Rainer Maria Rilke
"Be avid. Create apart from perfection. Risk failure. Cover your words with sweat. Excruciatingly touch. Laugh until you cry. Dance with your eyes closed. Understand you die a little every day. Be enlivened." - m.a.r. hershey
"Silence is God's first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we much learn to be still and to rest in God." - Thomas Keating
"You have a solemn obligation to take care of yourself because you never know when the world will need you." - Rabbi Hillel
"Do not look back in anger, or foward in fear, but around in awareness." - James Thurber
"Anytime the Gospel is used to harm rather than to set free, it is no longer the gospel."
"The journey may take you through roads long and weary, may lead you through nights long and cold, but.... you can move mountains by singing the song of your soul. Sing til the end, dance from the start, raise your hands and your heart, and sing."
"It’s an illusion to believe that anything can make the road smooth, without potholes, and that you can make the journey without getting shabby and uncomfortable. Transitions invite us to make a space for God on the journey, to let go of the reins and be creative in new ways. Be willing to become sacramentally dirty as you undertake your ministry." (All but last sentence, Debra Farrington)
The gifts have been a fun endeavor. Rab says I'm only doing it so I can get presents. He's silly and funny but not right. I love symbolism and these items hold great meaning. I'm considering the following items:
A pottery fountain representing God's call to lead others to Living and Life-giving Water
A sculpture of two hands representing hospitality, care, and ecumenical/inter-faith relationshipsA soap stone sculpture of a family joined hand in hand representing both the call to my own family and as a pastor to children and families
A scroll and cool pen representing a call to the ministry of writing.
I also considered a Now watch to remind me to live in the present moment, but then I found out there's kind of a New Agey thing going on with them, so now I'm not so sure. I'm also pondering one of those joined-hands candle things for the ecumenical/inter-faith deal.
Oh, one last thing: Last night while Rab and I were out to eat, my ordination preacher (the pastor who baptised me, confirmed me, and presided at our wedding) called to run his sermon ideas by me. This man has been kind of a pastor-on-a-pedestal figure to me most of my life, so the experience of having him run his sermon by me was pretty unreal. His ideas, just as I would have suspected anyway, are fantastic. I can't wait to hear the final words!
1 comment:
I like nos. 1, 2 & 5. Of course, they are all great quotes, but these stuck out to me.
Good luck.
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