A week and a day....

And this past week has been one of the strangest of my lifetime, although unfortunately I don't really feel like I can go into all of the details at this time. But it has left me flabbergasted, as well as with a whole new perspective on ministry, the church, and my own future in it. But I'll get back to that some other time. Meanwhile, for those of you who are wondering what ELSE I've been up to this past week, preached another strong sermon Sunday about the authority of religious experience, "Mystics, Skeptics, and Dyspeptics," then attended a "Pageant summit" with members of the Worship Committee and the Pageant Committee to discuss the possibility of updating the words of some of the Carols in order to reflect contemporary Unitarian Universalist Beliefs. Finally, I interviewed a prospective candidate for our open Director of Religious Education position, and eventually caught a ride home from church at about 2 pm. Even more exciting news from my daughter later that night, who informed me that I can expect to become a grandfather this August! Here's the link to HER new baby-blog, Little Sullivan-Bowen along with a photo of the little "Mexican Jumping Bean" at 11 weeks.



Anyway, Monday and Tuesday were pretty much taken up dealing with the on-going weirdness I mentioned earlier, but Wednesday was really remarkable. Left the wheelchair at home, and equipped only with my trusty "Rollater" (a fancy walker with a seat and wheels) rode with my colleague Kitsy Winthrop to the Minister's meeting in Saco -- only the third time I've been able to attend one of these meetings in the past 12 months. It felt very liberating to be out of the chair for such a long time (basically, the entire day), and also reassuring to see so many other colleagues, and to reconnect with them for mutual support and encouragement. These are hard times in a lot of churches -- budgets are tight at precisely the moment that people seem to need the church most, and are flocking to them in ever greater numbers. I just hope we are up to meeting the challenge both here in the short term, and over the long run as well.

After the meeting Kitsy and I decided to have lunch out. My first thought was the vegetarian restaurant on Congress Street, but Kitsy was concerned about that parking...so we actually ended up going somewhere very different: Wild Willy's Burgers, a western-themed hamburger place where Kitsy had the Bison Burger, and I enjoyed the original "Wild Willy" -- basically your standard high-quality bacon cheeseburger with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions and such. Hand-cut fries, batter-dipped rings, Raspberry Lime Rickeys, a real grease-feast...so out of character for Kitsy, and these days more and more a rarity for me as well.

And then after THAT, since we were already out, we stopped by the hospital to visit one of our parishioners who has been there now for two weeks, and is expected to be there for at least three more. A full-blooded Navajo Indian and US Army vet, he had been living on the street (or actually, in people's gardens) in a tent and sleeping bag, but has also attended church fairly regularly (when he's in town) for over a year. Last year he broke his leg after being hit by a car, and after they removed the metal rod last October his leg gradually became infected until he was no longer able to walk, which is what precipitated this hospitalization. In any event, it was good to be able to see him face to face; he's clearly feeling restless being confined like this, but he also appreciates that he needs to heal, and is working with a caseworker about better housing and the like when he is finally discharged. So I'm hoping for a happy ending, but I'm still not sure what that would really look like.

Tomorrow is Lincoln's 200th birthday, as well as the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin...pretty amazing, when you stop to think about it. And a week from that, Thursday February 19th, will be both the one-year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis, and also "moving day" for me, when I will leaving this small suite of rooms I've been living in since last summer, and moving into a similar-sized apartment where I will no longer have a balcony, but will enjoy both a full kitchen and in-unit laundry. So I'm pretty excited about that. I'm not certain how much surviving a year improves my own statistical long-term survival rate, but I imagine it's pretty significant. Not that I really care -- I've always assumed that I'm going to be in the 90th percentile anyway, and am hoping to live another 15-20 years. Why not? Somebody has to live that long....