She was my camp counselor buddy, my partner in youth and family ministry at three different churches and so much more. We had just celebrated 25 years of marriage.
On August 17th I had started training a group of campus pastors in Boston. It was after lunch when a retreat center staff person brought a note asking me to call my Mother-In-Law. I turned my cell phone on to see recorded 20 missed calls from my son. Something was wrong!
I was to learn that my wife was found dead in her bed….......……….......………....................
I had talked to her the night before. She was at a meeting fighting to keep music alive and healthy in our school district. A prolapsed mitral valve in the heart would be attributed as the cause.
The next weeks and months… lots of tears, lots of sorrow, lots of adjustments – there still is. But early on I determined not to “be stuck.” I started walking, rollerblading, biking and then running. I went hiking, sailing, to concerts and to trips to see special friends.
“Not being stuck” had seemed the right language. Yet, challenged by Mike Yaconenelli’s, Messy Spirituality, I find these words (p. 93) “Getting stuck could be the best thing that happened to us, because it forces us to stop. It halts the momentum of our lives. We have no choice but to notice what is around us.”
I have had to stop. I have had to change. No choice but to change. I have had to find new ways, and submit to “stuckness.” I have had to stop and let go. Being stuck really has meant slowing down, turning off the TV, observing my world, letting others take care of me, and bit by bit start moving, often in very new ways as I have to, get to, am forced to, have the opportunity to rebuild, reshape, and sprint unhurriedly forward, or maybe forward is not the correct word, maybe just willing to be, just being in the present.
During a class at Augsburg College two students led the session on Wellness. As I sketched out my own diagram of my wellness, (in the form of a gingerbread person – you will have to take the training to understand) I found myself staring at the most balanced picture of myself I had seen for a long time.
Maybe while I thought I was smugly moving ahead, I was really allowing a number of people to support me, ask me the shaping questions, being my mirrors. Thank you to the Chuck’s, Tom’s, Heidi’s, A.K.’s, Andrea’s, Barbara’s, Dave’s, Dick’s, Marilyn’s and all the rest who dare to stay with me – all the Peer Ministers in my life. The Wellness session works! It is the session that invites people to stick with, walk beside, support and encourage change.
More work ahead – yes, I know. But, maybe this time allowing for stuckness times, some intentional, I hope not always forced by the tragic.
“Let’s listen for the quiet,” Pastor Rod used to say at the end of the children’s sermons before the prayer. What great words. Time to stop… time to listen… time to be… time to allow some stuckness as we wait for the resurrection this Easter.
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