A time,

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            As my second to last semester of Seminary draws to an end, I think of the past three years and all of the changes that have happened in my life. I came to seminary thinking one way, desiring different things then now, feeling differently, and in a much different health state.  I wrote my admissions entry about how I was interested in Eco-Theology, and while I still am my call and its related desires have turned my heart more towards behavioral health. I listen to many of my seminary friends and they all have similar changes they have undergone.

            In class yesterday my friend Chris played “For Every Season” by the Byrds. Based from Ecclesiastes 3:1-9, titled ‘a time for everything’. Almost every funeral I have been to has had this verse ready its sort of like the 23^rd Psalm-death stuff. But I have found more within the past 18 months of my life that this is a poem/scripture that is all about life.  With the season of spring supposedly coming in the Northeast where I live I am preparing my seeds to plant my veggies for the summer, I’m stressing out about finals and trying to figure out what I’m going to do after graduation. But I see that everyone around me has this happen too.

            I am taking CPE this semester at a Psych hospital. As followers of my blog you know that this is something very near and dear to my heart and the place where I meet Jesus in the other every moment. I lead a group called “Morning Centering” where we listen to music, I give a talk, they sometimes talk with me about the message and then we finish with music. I was not at CPE for about a week and the area that I do the group on had completely changed. The dominate personalities of the area where discharged out of the hospital. I had mixed feelings about this, I was excited that they had reached according to the hospital a level of wellness. But I was sad that I did not get to say goodbye to them.

            There absence changed the group dynamic completely, with a woman who was quiet now taking a large leadership role.  One of the first times I was with the group it snowed like crazy and I talked about how snow is the poor mans fertilizer. And how sometimes in the winter when it all looks dead it is merely regenerating, resting, renewing. A message I need to tell myself often and that soon the spring flowers would be blooming, and that they would be beautiful because of all the moisture in the ground.  Thus leaving us to contemplate a time for everything, a season for our lives at this moment, a chapter of the book of life completed. A time that we cannot always see…

Worship from the Floor

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            In late February my niece turned three and I went home to my parents house where she lives with my sister. Being that I was home I went to my home church on Sunday morning. Stevens has a hall instead of a sanctuary where we set up chairs into rows. Addy my niece feels free to run from us to our neighbors who also got to the same church, and to other friendly faces, then to the toys, and back again. This particular Sunday she was running all over the place having a great time and making everyone smile. She was running between my mom and I, who was on the computer running the PowerPoint. About one minuet into the sermon my niece started yelling for Aunt Betty. To calm her I went and sat on the floor with her. We did the ABC puzzle that is her favorite at church. The pastor preached and I still heard the message, but it was in a new way for me to receive. I like to watch the speaker it helps me stay focused on the person and to remember the message. I don’t remember quite what the message was (sorry Gene!) but I remember the feeling of knowing my niece was beloved in this community and I was too, we where perfectly welcomed in worship and to sit on the floor well doing so.

            But a church I was involved in had terribly uncomfortably pews and the kids would kick them and get yelled at or get the dirty look. I was super uncomfortable growing up in a church where you could move. They quickly sent the kids to Sunday school, chasing them away from worship. So I was led to think how often to we chase ‘kids’ or all of the children of God who are a little different and who want AND need to sit on the floor. Having my passion for disability studies, I think first of those ‘least of these’ who are differently abled. But what about people who have been wounded by the church and are trying to believe again. Do we force them into the ‘pews’ of their past that helped contribute to the pain and woundedness? These are questions I don’t have answers to but I wonder what if we all worshiped from the floor.