Six Long Months

...but who's counting? It had been six long months since I last climbed the stairs into the high pulpit at First Parish and preached on Easter Sunday, March 23rd 2008. And there have been times when I have worried that maybe that was it...that I had actually preached the final sermon of my career, and would never feel healthy enough to return to the pulpit again.

Of course, it's not as if I haven't been to church since then many times. I was formally installed here last Mother's Day (as well has helping to dedicate a child at the regular morning service that same day): have prayed and participated in the candlesharing several times (not to mention taking up the offering!) over the summer: and even delivered a brief homily from the lectern a week ago as part of our Ingathering Water Ceremony.

But this past Sunday I finally had the opportunity to conduct the entire service from Invocation to Benediction, with a little gracious assistance from members of both the lay and ministerial support teams that have rallied together around me during this time. And yes, with my arm around his shoulder and his arm around my back, I was able to climb the five stairs into the high pulpit with the assistance of a choir member, and delivered this message on "Progress, Not Perfection" which I think came off pretty well. Sat on a barstool to do the actual preaching, which worked out very nicely (even if I did have to borrow one, since the stool I ordered on-line a month ago STILL hasn't arrived) and gave me a much fuller voice than I have when speaking from my wheelchair. Biggest surprise came when I went to put on my clean white shirt, and discovered that my neck size had grown FOUR INCHES over the summer! (I'm blaming it on the steroids...)

Shook about a million hands too -- at the front door as people were arriving, at the side door as people exited the Meetinghouse for the Parish House (and coffee hour), and of course before and after every time I spoke to someone individually as well. When cold and flu season arrive, I will feel like a potential germ vector of epidemic order; although, ironically, it was the desire to receive my first ever flu-shot, and the need for me to find a new Primary Care Physician here in Portland, that lead to my original diagnosis in the first place.

And then finally, Monday, an honest-to-God day off. Used it mostly to run errands with my Dad (including shopping for a new white Oxford button-down dress shirt), but it was worth it...and I'm sure I'll get better at taking time off as time goes by. For most of my career I've been pretty "Old School" about these things -- never really scheduled a regular day off (because, after all, when do I stop "being" a minister?), and was almost always in the office Mondays just because it is such an important day for catching up and getting launched for the week to come. And likewise, no matter how early in the week I try to get started, I've always been a Saturday evening (morning, noon...) writer as well -- who would ever DREAM of inviting guests to their home for a special Sunday Dinner and serving them a warmed-over meal you'd prepared last Thursday?

But this year I'm finally going to figure out both those "issues" a little better. Especially if I can take this business about "light duty" to heart, and keep it down to one day in the office, a couple of afternoons in my private study at the Eastland, and only preaching every other Sunday. The meetings and phone calls and e-mails will always be with me, I think, but this might also be a good time to get disciplined about actually writing those all-important paper thank you notes which so easily disappear in the static of our wired society. And attending to some of those other "higher order" disciplines which drew me to this vocation in the first place, and which feed the soul in the same way that healthy food feeds the body.

And then finally, Monday night I met up at Bingas with a parishioner of mine, her husband, and her departing-tomorrow-for-college son for my now-habitual Trivia Night. Janet had been bedeviling me about this all summer long, and last night we were finally able to make all of our schedules work. Won't try to repeat the blow-by-blow details here...played under the name "Aboriginal Kegheads" (in honor of Dartmouth College, the destination of the college-bound son), and let's just say that we ate a lot of things we probably shouldn't have (and enjoyed them tremendously); beat our closest competitors by 30 points; and there's talk of limiting the number of UUs who can play on the same team, just to make it fair for all the others. OK, not really...I mean, other than around our little table. Still, it always feels good to feel like a winner, and to be able to share that experience with others. Even if it is something as "trivial" as recognizing the 19th century Manhattan street address of Brooks Brothers....