First Half Century

On Sunday I will complete the first half century of my life.  Doesn't it sound cool?  A half century. Jan likes to say "half a hundred," and I like the alliteration of it, but half a century just sounds so solid.  I'm very excited.  It's the start of a new half century, a new decade, a new year.  50.  I don't know why I'm so excited, but I am.  I bumped into a former parishioner at the grocery store today who said she'd been weighing whether to send me a card that included the number 50.
"Of course," I said, laughing.  "I think it's cool."

My adult life has seemed to be organized in decades, and each time I enter a new one, I wonder, "What life changing thing will happen in the next ten years.?"

The 20s were my theatre years.  I finished college, interned at the Berkshire Theatre Festival and Actors' Theatre of Louisville, taught a year of high school drama, spent five summers at Interlochen, and moved to Virginia to work at Virginia Stage Company for twelve year, with summer stints in PA and RI.  I attended church, mostly as a stealth parishioner, traveled some during spells of in-between-employment, and suffered through a variety of temp jobs and substitute teaching.  I bought a house toward the end of that decade and started to grow restless.

The year I turned 30, I went to the Holy Land on a pilgrimage with my church and began exploring a call to ordination.  The rest of that decade was spent discerning my call, jumping through hoops, three years of seminary, ordination as deacon and then priest, and my first year of ministry.  When I told people in the theatre that I was going to seminary, many laughed, thinking I was pulling their leg.  "I'm serious," I would tell them.  They couldn't imagine such a dramatic shift, so many of them refugees from the religion that had hurt them or cast them out.  Everything had to change, and it did, and yet, it seemed to be the fulfillment of the longing I had felt all my life to serve God.  The first time I celebrated the Eucharist, I thought this is what I was born for.

Turning 40 was the first time a birthday was hard for me.  It signaled that I most likely wouldn't be having any biological children.  Not impossible, but not likely.  I had a lot of grieving to do for a life that I had imagined.  Even when we choose the road less traveled and it makes all the difference, and we're leading a good life, there is still grief for other roads not taken, and it's important to feel the loss so that it can move on through.  This has been a decade of inner work as well as outer work. Much healing has happened, as I've experienced my first 10 years of ordained life: Hickory Neck Church and CNU campus ministry, SpiritWorks and Bruton Parish.  Jan.  I realized in a conversation with my spiritual director that the pool of sadness which lurked deep inside me is no longer there - or no longer as large.  How grateful I am.

Sunday I begin the 50s.  I've decided that 50 will be fun.  I don't have big plans for my birthday.  It falls on a Sunday, so I will be in church - no place I'd rather be than doing what I was born to do.  Planning a nice lunch and maybe a little kayaking and a nap.  We'll see.  My retreat was a present to myself.  I think I'm going to start tap class on Wednesday.  And maybe Jan and I will go to Greece with our little bear in the coming year.  Hopefully I'll finish my book.  Perhaps I'll even get something published.
Who knows what's next?  Here am I, God.  Your servant is listening.

One of my favorite lines from Sunday in the Park with George, "A blank page or canvas. His favorite.  So many possibilities."

The next half century:  So many possibilities...

Love is love is love

I confess.  Despite the urging and enthusiasm of some of my best-loved friends, I have not gotten on the Hamilton bandwagon.  Partly because I don't like rap.  Or hip hop.  It's hard to convince myself that a rap musical is something I would enjoy, no matter how clever and brilliant it may be.  My brain is just too slow to follow the rapid patter of words.  Part of it is stubbornness.  Sometimes I resist simply because everyone is telling me that I have to.  I have come late to many good things because I didn't want to join the lemmings, even though sometimes the lemmings are jumping into something amazing, and it would benefit me to be running with the pack!  So until now, though I have smiled at my dear friends' addiction to Hamilton, I have refused to engage with it.

On the Sunday of the Orlando shootings, I heard something about a shooting before heading into church, but somehow it didn't penetrate.  It's like my brain said, "Does not compute."  Maybe it was because the news story was so brief and there seemed to be so little information.  Maybe it's because I've become acclimatized to stories about shootings. 

It wasn't until I got home from church and checked in online that I discovered what had truly happened, and it started to sink in.  But I still couldn't feel anything.  I knew that this was a terrible, terrible thing, but I couldn't connect to my feelings.  Numb.  Depressed.  Discouraged.

After an afternoon of aimlessness, I turned on the Tony Awards.  I used to work in the theatre, and I used to watch the awards show, though I haven't always remembered in recent years.  These days I rarely know any of the plays.  I tuned in a few minutes late but in time to see the brilliant opening number that reminded me so much of a number we did in our high school one-act production of Magic! written by my high school drama and music teachers, Robin Bennett and Janice Folsom.  It was a collage of songs from musicals suggesting that "That could be me" in each one of them. Watching it transported me back to my childhood room where I listened to the cast albums of all those musicals and played all the parts.  

The rest of the night made me so proud of the arts community, for their passion and compassion, for their collaboration and inclusion, for their humor and joy, for their talent and brilliance and dedication.  Their witness shone out against the darkness, and I am grateful.  Watching all the performances made me nostalgic for the theatre.  Or at least for theatre people and opening nights.  Nothing can make me nostalgic for production meetings at midnight!

As expected Hamilton won many awards.  But what blew me away was Lin-Manuel Miranda's acceptance speech.  He wrote a sonnet.  If you didn't get to catch it, click here. A couple of the lines really hit me in light of what had happened in Orlando.  "When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised, not one day."  Oh yes.  My heart is breaking for the families and the loved ones of those who died.  Not one day is promised, but they didn't think it was today.  It was so unexpected - and it could happen anywhere at anytime.  This addiction our country has to guns and violence is something I cannot understand.  How do we stop the fear that seems at the heart of it all?

Not one day is promised but the enormous numbers of young people overdosing on drugs didn't think it was today.  We are losing them to heroin and other opioids.  Our country uses 99% of the worlds supply of hydrocodone (found in Vicodin).  Why are we in so much pain?  This may seem a non sequiter, but pain and fear are at the core of all this violence and death. 

Not one day is promised.  All we have is today is today is today.  Dear God, please help us use it for good.

Lin-Manuel's sonnet went on,
  "We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger
  We rise and fall and light from dying embers
  Remembrances that hope and love lasts long
  And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love
  Cannot be killed or swept aside"

Hate and fear seem stronger, but they are not, despite how it may seem right now.  Love and hope last longer.

Love is love is love is love is love is love is love. 

I believe in God who is love.  God who loves every single person whom God has created, including all of the people seeking safety and celebration at Pulse and even the man who gunned them down.
Love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. 
Sisters and brothers reading this, we must work together to let go of our fear and to heal our individual and collective pain.  We must. 

I still have not listened to Hamilton, but I'm getting closer to being willing.  Its creator has inspired me.  Thank you Lin-Manuel and the Broadway community, for the evening of hope.  Thank you God, for the love.