The End is Near

So.  I have one more "normal" work day and Sunday's Pentecost service before I am officially retired. 

Today's plan is to finish packing up my office (sharing books with two colleagues who are coming to glean from what will not travel with me), move everything out (transporting it in my Mazda 3), make my final farewell visit with a shut-in, and decorate the sanctuary for Pentecost.  Oh, and write the sermon.  Yeah, probably not going to happen.

Those of you who know me know that I am a somewhat demonstrative person.  I wear my emotions very close to the surface.  I am worried about getting through this without a full-fledged meltdown.  Not a two-year old's "I don't want to go" tantrum  -  because I DO want to go, I am anticipating a wonderful new adventure and I'm excited to begin.  But saying good-bye in a worship service that is thickly-layered with emotion to a group of people I have come to love and maintaining the demeanor of a worship leader is looking like a daunting task.  I've left churches before, but I was generally going to another church, or knew I'd be taking "a break" but going back soon.  This time I am closing a door in a far more definitive, far more permanent way.  I do not believe I will ever be the Pastor again.  And in or out of work, I have been a Pastor for the last 31 years.

And they want to sing "the song": Blessed Be the Tie that Binds.  Now on an ordinary communion Sunday, standing in a circle around our worship center, looking at that extraordinary array of faces and cultures and stories, it is hard for me to get through one verse of Blessed Be the Tie.  I tried to talk my lay leader into doing "We Are One in the Bond of Love", which we've been singing most weeks as our response to the benediction for some time now.  But no.  He wants The Song. 

How I will do this without breaking down, I do not know.  I'm not talking tears trickling from the corner of your eye and a few sniffles.  I'm talking face-hiding-snot-on-your-hands sobbing.  Sharing this fear in a colleague group yesterday, I was reminded that we do our most significant ministry from our own brokenness, that Henri Nouwen's image of the Wounded Healer is our model for helping others and our willingness to share our weakness is an opportunity for the grace of God to work through us (and in spite of us).  I don't think my folks who are first generation Americans will have a problem with it, though my African-American members and my Euro-Yankees may be very uncomfortable.  I just don't know.  And I'm not sure I have a whole lot of control over the moment. 

So I guess the only choice is to let go, as I must let go of them in every other way except the love that I have for them.

We have signed papers to begin accessing a pension.  The house is in escrow.  There are packed boxes in the basement and more things to give away now that we're not showing the house to potential buyers.  One more sermon.  The end is near.