Along the road

Last week I was at my seminary, Colgate-Rochester Crozier Divinity School in Rochester, NY, for alumni/ae reunion days.  It was the 30th anniversary of my graduation, and I was a little leery about going.  For one thing, only one of the faculty members with whom I studied is still on staff, and he was a first year professor my senior year, so I didn't know him well.  And I didn't know who else from my class would be there (it wound up I was the only one!).  But I have dear friends in the area with whom I could stay and friends from other classes who go to these things regularly, and I wanted to hear the featured speaker, Diana Eck, who spoke on inter-faith realities in America today.  So I went.

 I had a few of my own "Aha!" moments as I was walking around the halls of CRCDS.  The first was a reminder of how attached we all are to the way things were.  Even though I've seen some of the changes that have happened over the years a umber of times now (to the library, for example), I realized I still mourn them -- I think that's partially because they represent decline to me.  We couldn't maintain things the way they were, so we had to do this...But I also realized that  maybe I need to reframe these changes in terms of intentions for healthy living in the NOW.  There are all kinds of structures and practices we need to let go of if we are going to live fruitfully and healthfully today.  

And I was absolutely disoriented inside the old residence halls which were gutted and transformed into the Hope Lodge for the American Cancer Society.  I literally did not know where I was in halls that I walked every day for three years.  I was pleased with what had been done there and the purpose for which it is being used, but it was also disconcerting and I was not anxious to linger there.

I don't think these feelings are a unique reaction.  The pastor in me needs to take those feelings with me to the congregation.  I want to invite them to acknowledge and live into and through these feelings as we work to live into a transformed way of being Church.  (I know that's a lot of "lingo" -- but quite frankly I'm at a loss for another way to put it).

The other insight I had was recognizing a sense of confidence in myself that I had never had when I was a student, and I thought to myself, "I have finished apologizing for my existence."  I hadn't realized that that has been a constant thread through my life, but I suspect it is one of, if not the driving force in my need for perfection.  That was the only way I could justify my existence, was if I was perfect.  But I'm beginning to understand that existence is not the end/goal/reward of our being (which gets translated in its extreme into "if I am good I will live forever"), but the means to...I'm not sure what.  Something else.  Maybe it is a path to grace.