Moving

Moving is a horrendous event. This one has been especially difficult for me. Not only did we have to move from an apartment on the 2nd and 3rd floors of a house where the van could not get close to the house, it was a move back to my family home from which I have been separated for almost 40 years. It has been a move from a cold climate to a warm one.

It has been a journey back into my youth with the energy of a 65 year old with arthritic limbs and cataract clouded eyes. It has been a journey from an Episcopal Church on the verge of the Emergent Age to a TEC of 35 years ago when women clergy were an oddity and suspect and LGBT clergy a sign of Satan and decadence. It has been a journey from working in a loving congregation of Lutherans to being a visitor in my own denomination. It has been a journey from a diocese that is dying to a diocese that is excited about being resurrected. It has been a journey from a diocese where no Episcopal cleric could afford to be seen with me to a diocese where they can’t wait to meet us.

Physically it has been a move from cloudy and overcast to one in which the sunlight is harmful and glaring. J. has found the warmth (over a 100 at times this week) such a balm that she has spent hours sitting under the pecan tree in the back yard soaking out the permafrost that she had in her bones. I, on the other hand, miss the cool NY mornings and spend my day in the A/C.

Today is devoted in trying to get the kitchen in some sort of order. Since I am chief cook, I am the one who must figure out where things are supposed to go. Neither of us have good organizational skills. I have a tendency to glaze over when I have to make order out of chaos. Chaos I can live with—order is nice but I don’t really know how to achieve it. Now is when I need my stolid German Lutherans! Ah, the grass is always greener…..

My brother is coming to help with some electrical things around the house. It is so nice to be able to have family to consult with. I have not had that most of my life. I was a mere 28 year old when I left here to follow God’s call. I have never had family members to call upon to do things with except when I came to visit. It is a new venture in this stage of life call retirement. I know that being close to family again after almost 40 years is going to have me delving in to family history again. I have put genealogy on hold as a ‘retirement perk’, something I didn’t have time to do while I was in the active ministry. That will be fun.

Moving is still a horrible chore but the possibility for change is so much greater. The real question is will my past here let me change? Will my life here in my home allow me to be the person that has been changed by all the events of my life in other places? Will those who knew me before allow me to be the person who has come to know people and places and ways of doing and being that are alien here?

Meanwhile, back at the kitchen…