In seminary we were assigned to read a book called Models of Ministry that provided a variety of different metaphors for what it means to be a local church pastor. Some pastors are prophets. Some evangelists or teachers. Some gravitate to the priestly roles we play. Others to being shepherd leaders or mystical poets.   Each metaphor provides a different lens through which to understand a pastor’s particular place in a community and the roles we play.

Ever since I returned from my sabbatical last spring, I’ve been looking for a new title and job description to help me define and understand my place in this community of faith. I’ve been a counselor and preacher, a youth minister and activist, an administrator and program planner. But who am I called to be now? And the other day I thought, “What if I got to claim for myself the title I have been striving to live into, ‘Sailing Instructor’”?

“Pastor as Sailing Instructor.” In so many ways the metaphor fits exactly what I love about my work and want to share in my ministry. I want to be there “in the boat” as it were with people. I want to join them in their particular seasons of transition, change, struggle, transformation. I want to sit down with them and hear their stories and share the few simple hints I know.

I want to ask them if they can feel the wind and wonder with them from where it is blowing. Encourage them in the process of putting up the sails, preparing the lines, getting ready for a successful launch into the new.   And here, out at sea, I want to hear what direction they are tacking and what it feels like for them to change directions.

I want to show the trust in them that indeed they can take the tiller in one hand and the mainsheet in the other and direct this little boat of their life across the water. I want to point out what it means to hold a course and congratulate them when they do so. And yes, to walk through the rituals of returning to the wharf, and tying up the boat. The beauty of knots, the folding of sails, the gifts of time, attention and care.

A sailing instructor has only a few simple things to teach. A lot to listen to, and a companionship, a being-with to share. Sailing instructors are heirs of the ancient craft of navigating through transitions and change, conscious of the elements of wind, water, wave, gusts, storms, rocks and reefs through which we make this passage of life. And they are always learning.

Last week, I had coffee with one of my sailing instructors, Dick. The day before he watched as one of his students crashed a boat straight into the dock. The student, the boat, were all fine. And Dick, shared all he had learned through the experience.

“I realize now what I would do differently. And that’s all part of the process of learning what it means to be a sailing instructor. I am learning still.”

What if this New Year’s we all got to write ourselves new job descriptions? To play with a new metaphor to define what we are about and what we love doing. A new way to think about the roles we play in our families, relationships, workplaces and communities.

“Sailing Instructor” feels like the title, the placement of myself in this community of faith and at this transition point in my life that gives me a good way to understand how I want to go about my work each day. It reminds me of all that I still have to learn. And points to whom I am aspire to become. If I am so fortunate, I hope to be like one of those old men, like Dick, who taught me to sail. So calm, steady, encouraging, quiet, listening. Helping me see the wind, there, coming up, rising those little rippling waves across the water. Seeing that indeed the wind has shifted and I with it have stayed on course. Reminding me that I not only can do this, I am. Finding my way, and us together, sailing the sea of this unfolding mystery of life.

From what is so small,
so much is revealed,
as here,
in your room
20 by 20,
yes, that must be all it is,
on the ground floor of assisted living
the single room with brown walls
and a kitchenette,
the bookshelf
and family portrait from sometime in the 70’s,
suits and ties, and frilly blouses,
coiffed hair,
Hank, Ruthie and Doris smiling
as you do now remembering,
the Audubon book there
on the little table by the blue
chair where you spend most of your days
the beige phone and the
books of poetry
including that one with the poems
you wrote when the kids were young,
the small porcelain birds on the shelf
you collected all those years,
the picture of the cottage on the lake
where you spent summers
and that plant in the window,
the bright red bloom of it,
whose name you no longer remember,
that revives and reminds you that
you can as well,
and life, yes,
you might as well enjoy it,
never expecting to be 99,
can you imagine?

I remember,
sitting with you
that last day
in the old apartment
packed full of memories,
the home that you and Bob made
those many years,
and now, only a few small things,
that you could take –
some bright porcelain birds,
and a few assorted books,
the plant whose name you now forget.

Death, you tell me,
is a letting go,
what happened that night
when you held
Bob’s hand,
there in the hospital bed,
that last night,
what has it been,
twelve years ago?

I wish
I could gather your spirit,
dole it out in small spoonful’s
to those whose spirits have contracted
into bitterness, regret, and despair
when life became smaller,
came down to just this.

You tell me,
it doesn’t work like that,
you know,
but that it has been a good life
and you realized it,
better yet,
appreciated it,
and are grateful.

As the evening palette descends,
I rise,
heart full,
into a brilliant bloom
of beckoning light.

Peter Ilgenfritz
December 21, 2014

Alright, maybe it’s an excuse.  

Maybe, if I’d been better organized, more on top of things, I could have got it done.  But sometimes, I don’t want to be so organized – or can’t. But for whatever reason, excuses or not, last Thursday instead of standing here at my computer desk, writing this blog, I was sitting in traffic. Almost two hours back from the airport where I’d been a nice friend and dropped my friend off early this morning.

But instead of a smooth half-hour drive back to the start of my day, a flashing warning light, “Three lanes closed ahead”.

Sirens.  Police cars speeding down the HOV lane.  The ambulance ahead of me flips on its flashing lights.

The announcer on the radio says traffic is at a standstill, (yes, that is true from where I am sitting) and advises drivers to find alternate routes.  A nice idea, and yes, I just passed the exit I should have taken.

When I’m sitting in traffic I sometimes flip on the radio to one of my favorite stations that plays the same “Top 40” pop and hip hop songs over and over and, once again, over again. Over time, they become like familiar friends.   I learn enough of the lyrics to make up the rest.  I find myself clapping and singing loudly, swaying to the beat – much to the amusement, I am sure, of the drivers who pass me. If it was my father, in that car next to me, he’d remind me that even when I am stuck in traffic I should always keep both hands on the wheel. (I do Dad – mostly.)

On these stations, they periodically interrupt the same endless round of songs with quirky statistics. Things like, “5 of the biggest turn-offs on a first date” or questions like, “What do we do today 400% more now than we did 20 years ago?”  (Translation: if we did it for one hour back then, what do we do for four hours now?)

The answer?  What I was doing: sitting stuck in traffic.

Seattle has the eighth worst traffic in the country.  In fact, one of our early urban planners noted that one of the biggest challenges we would face was getting around here, given the tumultuous terrain of lakes, hills, inlets, streams and ravines.

Our city planners, however, seemed to think that if only we designed the city on a grid and made the streets sound like the streets of Chicago that run smooth and straight for hundreds of miles – maybe we wouldn’t realize that it doesn’t happen so easily that way out here.  Instead, try to go east to west just about anywhere in this city and you will find yourself cutting over and around a terrain of obstructions.

The consequence?

Sitting stuck in traffic.

And…

my blog doesn’t get done….

or I am late for the meeting…

or I can’t…

and I didn’t…

Sure, I like to outsmart being stuck. Try to think, jump, pole vault, dream, push and pontificate my way around all the traffic jams in my life.

But, you know, none of it gets me there any faster than if I just gave into the reality of being right here, and stuck. And sat, right here, and looked out the window.

And along the way I do better when I sing my way through instead of stress my way through. Turn off the news, turn on the songs.

Turn off the songs, and listen to what otherwise I can so often push through – the tumultuous terrain of feeling and frustration, joy and jubilation, grief and pain, decisions and deliberations that are my life.

When else do I have a chance to stop and listen if not now?

Yes, I do better when I let myself be in the uncomfortable realization that there really is no way around it but through it.

No way around the grief, but through the pain.

No way around the slow path of healing, but getting up each day and walking the path.

No way to the right answer but listening for call.

Yes, going through it, gets me to it.

Now, far past my plans, the schedule that I’d set, planned and organized for my day, last Thursday, I gave up. Stopped at a quirky little stand to have a cup of coffee on a little stool under an awning in the rain.   I stopped, I breathed. I waited. I listened. Laughed when I thought of myself arriving as I might have done the other way – arriving 10 minutes earlier and full of frustration. My colleagues and the people in my day wishing that I still might have stayed out there stuck on the road!

Better, yes, this slow way.

Happy Advent.

Happy getting through it on the way to it. I’ve heard it said the journey’s worth it.

On my drive back to church this evening, the news on the radio was full of despair. Deaths of unarmed African American men.  Other Grand Jury decisions like this one highlighted below.

Many faith traditions, including my own in the Christian Church, call us all to be “light”. Lights of hope. Lights for justice and peace. Light held amidst the despair. Oftentimes I don’t know how to be such a light in challenging times. Wondering, pondering, what is helpful, what is not. Listening for the new way that might open to true transformative change. The kind of change that needs to begin in me.

It reminds me all the more in seasons like this how much I depend on a community I can pray with, listen with, share my truth with, struggle with together. Communities that can help me discern a way. How grateful I am for church and community leaders who speak to us in challenging, clear ways.  Who help me pay attention, listen, discern and respond.

We are called to be Light. And as we approach the second week of Advent, may the lights of Hope and Peace shine especially bright in our lives, our country, our broken communities this very night. May we be part of sharing, being, bearing the Light that shines out on this dark night, the light that the darkness cannot overcome.

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war and hate,
And a nova lighting the sky to warn
That time runs out and the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome,
Honor and truth were trampled by scorn.
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet Earth,
And by greed and pride the sky is torn –
Yet love still takes the risk of birth.

Madeleine L’Engle

UCC leaders condemn New York grand jury decision, call for examination of judicial system

UCC leaders condemn New York grand jury decision, call for examination of judicial system

December 4, 2014

A Staten Island grand jury has decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute a white New York police officer whose chokehold on an unarmed black man led to the man’s death, a ruling issued Wednesday, Dec. 4, that drew widespread condemnation and sparked a wave of protests.

The group deliberated for less than a day before deciding not to press charges against the officer, Daniel Pantaleo, 29, in the death of the man, Eric Garner, 43.

In a joint statement, the United Church of Christ National Officers and the Conference Minister of the New York Conference of the UCC express outrage over the grand jury decision and call for a national examination of our judicial system and other institutions “spiritually perverted by racism.” Here is the text of that statement.

It is an inexplicable travesty that the same words used to express our dismay and anger over last week’s Ferguson verdict are now applicable, verbatim, in New York.

We affirm the anger and grief of all people of good conscience who are committed to justice and peace. We stand in solidarity with all African Americans who continue to live in fear of the ignorant, innate, institutional racism that threatens the lives of young black men, women and children every day. These are our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers, our precious children — our family in Christ.

We pray for nonviolent demonstration and official response to the outrage that is now being experienced and conveyed. Violence is not the path to justice — it is the root of all injustice. Silence in the face of injustice is not an option. We therefore cry out with a loud voice for justice in our land plagued with racism.

We are in agreement with Mayor de Blasio’s statement: “Anyone who believes in the values of this country should feel called to action right now.” As leaders of the United Church of Christ in New York and throughout the nation, we stand in solidarity with those bearing witness through prayer, protest, and vigil. We call for a national examination of our judicial system and other institutions spiritually perverted by racism.

Even under clouds of despair, we affirm the relentless hope that is ours as a people of faith. May this hope empower us to speak boldly and loudly to shed light on the systematic racism that daily threatens our Beloved Community.

We cannot move forward faithfully until there is honest reform to systems that institutionalize and legitimize racist practices.

The Rev. David Gaewski
New York UCC Conference Minister

The Rev. Geoffrey Black
UCC General Minister and President

The Rev. Linda Jaramillo
UCC Executive Minister for Justice and Witness Ministries

The Rev. J. Bennett Guess
UCC Executive Minister for Local Church Ministries

The Rev. James Moos
UCC Executive Minister for Wider Church Ministries

9:00, Monday morning.  I’d just thought through my schedule for the day ahead, when my cell phone rang.

I didn’t understand.  It was Vicky, Sandy’s niece… Bob had died unexpectedly…last night…a heart attack.  They wanted to let me know….

Who?…My mind running through my roller deck of all the Bob’s I knew.

“Yes, of course, of course…but, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch all this.  Who died?”

“Bob.  Bob Scandrett…..”

No…. No….

“Yes, I’m here…I’ll be right over.”

On my drive to Bob and Sandy’s house I do what pastors do – or at least this pastor does to comfort himself, and contained my grief by composing the words I wanted to say at Bob’s memorial service.

But all the details – all the specifics of his life, all of our conversations and connections these past 20 years faded to memory.  I couldn’t’ remember anything.  All I could remember, all I knew, was “Bob was my friend.”

We’d met 20 years ago when Bob was serving as the Music Director here at University Congregational United Church of Christ.  He’d recently retired from a distinguished career in music, teaching and conducting in colleges and choirs in Bellingham and Seattle.  He’d been at University Church for the past 5 years when I arrived in 1994.  Choir members who’d been singing with Bob for years, had followed him here to our church Chancel Choir in order to continue to sing with him.  Bob had that kind of gift.

Bob would serve another 13 years here at our church before he retired.  He and Sandy led something like 5 overseas choir trips, and together they helped knit together a close choir community. Bob and I worked together closely and got to know each other well, especially during the last years here, when I became the staff liaison to our worship and music ministries.

Over the years, Bob taught me a lot of things they never teach you – or at least didn’t teach me – in seminary.

Opened to me the gifts of music in our denomination’s new hymnal – “You Have Come Down to the Lakeshore”, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand”, “Awake! Awake, and Greet the New Morn”.  Bob showed me that indeed there was more to sing than “O God Our Help in Ages Past”, week after week, as I might have otherwise chosen.

Taught me about how liturgy works.  The ebb and flow of liturgy and how a worship service at its best flows like a grand piece of music – gathering, swelling, falling, rising, descending, leading us forth.

Taught me about words and texts and their importance.  About how music at its best brings texts to life.

Yes, I learned a lot from Bob over the years.  But more than anything, Bob taught me about living with transitions and change.  The possibility of change and the grief that is change.  The potential and mystery of change.

During the 18 years of his ministry here, our worship life, grew and changed.  Bob was a classical musician and most at home in the grand forms of the best of Western music.  The world of violins and violas, organs and chamber orchestras.  His choirs performed all those great works by German and other composers with long names I didn’t know how to spell.  And it was with Bob that our styles of Sunday morning music began to expand beyond “traditional” church music.  I will always remember that Easter Sunday, when the processional didn’t begin with the traditional trumpet’s call but with a roll on a drum set and an electric guitar wailing the opening refrain of “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.”  Bob taught me that indeed you can teach an “old dog” new tricks.  And sometimes, I felt much more like the “old dog” who had a lot to learn about the possibility of change from Bob.

I walked with Bob through the time of his retirement.   A season that taught me about the grief that is change in a way that I’d never fully appreciated.  It was a challenging time and how could it not be?  For how do you put down a beloved profession and all the connections that have come with it, a career in music that has been your lifeblood since you were a teenager playing the organ each Sunday morning?

How does a choir let go of a beloved music director that has sung you through some of major transitions in your life and the lives of your friends?  Opened through his particular gifts and skills a connection to the mystery and possibility of music that you never experienced before? These impossibly difficult transitions that do not come easily.

But the putting down of one way of life, over time, led to the picking up of another.  In his mid-80’s now, Bob returned to his original love of the piano and in hour upon hour of practice, reached a new level of proficiency.  He went out on the “performance circle” again – playing piano duets with a former student in retirement homes throughout the city.  Bob showed me that through the challenge that is change and transition, a new way of life can indeed open – a way to continue to use, perfect, and share his gifts.

And a surprising gift of this new season in Bob and Sandy’s life was the gift of friendship.   Over the past 7 years since Bob and Sandy left University Church, we’d stayed in touch.  Staying in touch became an opening to making new connections.  Bob’s and my relationship grew from that particular relationship of colleagues into a treasured friendship.

Bob and Sandy and I shared many meals together over the past years.    We’d found something in our connection that was a gift to us all.  We’d had lunch together a few weeks ago and I was to have lunch with them both this coming Friday.  I had a “book report” I needed to share with Bob about the young adult novel, The Golden Compass which he had so enjoyed – and couldn’t believe I’d never heard of.

Sandy always prepared a beautiful lunch.  We all talked together a while, sipping sparkling cider.  And then Sandy often left to visit a friend or take a walk, and made a space for Bob and I to talk some more.  We found together an ease of talking about things that are important.  A trusted space to ask questions, and to listen.  To talk together through the changes and transitions of life, the beauty, challenge and mystery of it all.  To talk of that final transition which we all must walk – our own deaths.  The wonder of what it means, and the mystery of where we all go.  What makes life worth living in the here and now.

I don’t know much about music, and I still don’t.  So many things that Bob knew that I knew but little about.  But I am grateful beyond words that I do know something more about the possibilities of friendship from what I have shared with Bob.  The surprise and gift and grace of a friend 37 years my senior.   The gift of a friend to sit at table with time after time over a simple and beautiful lunch, a plate of fruit, a cookie, and cup of sparkling cider.  To share the gift of conversation and care.

Bob died in the fullness of life.  Yes, practicing and perfecting challenging pieces of music.  Yes, reading, thinking, out mowing the lawn in fact, just the day before he died.  Yes, lived and died in the fullness of life. And yes, at almost 89 years old, his birthday in just a few weeks.

I told Bob on many a visit that if I have the privilege of getting to be an “old man” myself someday, I’d hope to be like him – engaged so deeply in the ongoing work and wonder, growth and possibility that is change and transition.  That is life.

By the time I arrived at Bob and Sandy’s door on Monday morning, I’d stopped composing my one sentence eulogy in my head.  Able to arrive to comfort, and grieve the gift of the life of a treasured friend.  To sit on the couch, with Sandy, and weep.

Sometime soon, we will all gather.   So many particular connections, stories, history, relationships that a grand choir of singers have shared with Bob and Sandy.  Together, we will be ministered to by the music Bob selected for such a time, Faure’s Requiem.  Seems such a fitting tribute to a man who has led so many in song through so many passages in life.  And yes, shown this particular pastor, something more of the possibility, grief, potential and mystery that is change.  Gifted me with the amazing grace of walking the road with one I have been blessed to call  not only my former colleague, but my treasured friend.

I’ve been struggling all day with what to say and how to say it.

Not wanting to say nothing for that silence speaks louder than anything. But the Ferguson grand jury decision yesterday has left me speechless. Speechless in grieving.  Speechless in the not knowing of how to say some words that can add some different words, some helpful words, in  the helpless spin of fear, anger, blame, rage… and yet more violence.  In the hopelessness of “Will anything ever change?”

I was in my Tuesday morning painting class when we heard the crowd from Garfield High School marching down University Ave.  A floppy white banner, “Ferguson” leading the way.  Young kids with hands high in the air, chanting words we couldn’t understand, as we stood in the windows watching.

The police escort, blue lights flashing, clearing the road.

It was all here.  The protesters.  The police.  All of it, the whole drama, passing outside the window.

On the way down the stairs to empty out my bottle of water, brown and muddy red, I said to the middle-age African American man going down the stairs with me, “It’s terrible about the decision today.”

“Yah it is”, he said, “and I’m not surprised.”

“Yes, that’s the worst isn’t it?  Not being surprised”, I replied.

“It will bring out all the crazies”, he went on,  “the anarchists and people who want to protest anything, throw things at everything.”

“Yes, it will”, I responded.

“And yes, we will move on and forget soon enough…”, but I didn’t say that.

But something in me can’t.

Can’t just move on, say nothing.  There is something here in this decision that sticks.  Sticks me right back in the place of grief, of feeling it all.

At a workshop on “Undoing Racism” last week, we were told that the place we need to begin, the place where we can begin to do some work that might really matter – is in feeling the grief.

Maybe it’s because I had lunch with a former cop who is a good man and shares many stories of the good and courageous women and men with whom he has served.

Maybe it’s because I had dinner Tuesday night with my friend who is a woman of color and who puts down her spoon half way through the meal and asks me if my having her as a friend affects how I think about the Ferguson verdict.

Of course it does.  Of course it all does.  All of my connections and interconnections do.

And in the midst of all the personal and media spin of fear, hurt, rage, and outrage I come back to that most difficult place to stand –  in the in-between of hearing the stories, holding the grief.  Before more words, silence and grief.

Today, I read this piece below by Safiya Jafari Simmons and it puts me in that place right there in the middle of it all and the complexity of it all that time after time feels like the place I am personally called to stand – as a witness.

Her words help me find my way to the words I can share today.  To the place of standing there speechless in the middle of the pain, and paying homage to it.  Thank you Safiya.

Peter Ilgenfritz

November 26, 2014

Why I Feel Torn About the Ferguson Verdict

By Safiya Jafari Simmons

updated 2:12 PM EST, Tue November 25, 2014

Editor’s note: Safiya Jafari Simmons is CEO and chief strategist of SJS Consulting, a Washington public relations consulting firm. She is communications director for the Congressional Black Caucus, the Center for Policing Equity and other clientele. She has been a press secretary to U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Maryland. She lives in Washington with her husband, a police officer, and their three children. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) — I dreaded the Ferguson grand jury response for weeks. Not simply because I knew it was likely to lead to more heartache and unrest for the black community — my community — but because it would most certainly dredge up deep internal conflict for me.

I’m raising a black boy to be a black man. So the grand jury’s decision seems to double down on a pattern in this country of killing black boys without care or consequences.

But I’m raising my black son with my black husband, who also happens to be a police officer in Washington. And being the wife of an officer means I can’t support either camp fully — neither the outraged black community nor the justice system sworn to protect us.

When my husband first donned his uniform nearly 10 years ago, I told him clearly and directly: “You do whatever you must to come home to me.” Nearly a decade and three children later, he’s heeded that order, navigating the dangers that only populate my nightmares — just to make sure he comes home.

The irony isn’t lost on me. I know what the research says. I know that this country often denies agency to African-American boys, and that they’re often seen as a threat just by virtue of their skin color.

But in moments such as this, it’s the denial of agency to law enforcement officers that angers me.

All cops aren’t bad. All cops aren’t racist. Many cops have spouses and children. They have loved ones and friends and pets. They leave all this every day to place themselves in harm’s way for people they never meet.

They love their communities. They want the law of the land to work as it’s supposed to. They don’t like to see children hurt, people taken advantage of. They are people doing a job that few are brave enough to take on.

So when I heard St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCullough describe how Michael Brown allegedly lunged at Officer Darren Wilson in his police car, I knew it was likely that my husband could have responded the same way: shoot to disable the threat. Do what he must to make it home to us at night.

This is part of my reality. It’s how I process these incidents now.

But it was also my reality when, as we sped home to relieve our sitter one night, my husband and I were pulled over by a police officer on a dark, wooded parkway in Virginia. And I watched my husband, an officer for nearly 10 years, immediately turn off the car, turn on all the interior lights, place the keys on the dashboard and put his hands on the steering wheel.

He turned to me, calmly and coolly, and said, “Get our insurance card out. Don’t make any sudden moves, and leave your hands on your lap.”

I froze. I teared up, and fear welled up as a lump in my throat. Because that night, before he was an officer, my husband was a black man. Like Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant.

These conflicting parts of my reality are why the South Carolina state trooper shooting earlier this year isn’t, to me, a black-and-white case of excessive force used by white law enforcement on an unarmed black teenager. And it’s why I’ve not waded into the debate waters on Michael Brown either.

Because I need my husband and his colleagues to make it home. Every night.

So I can’t “like” many of the stirring posts I scroll through on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. I can’t post my own rants of outrage at the failings of our justice system, nor can I post any statement that might be interpreted as in support of the Ferguson officer. Not because I can’t connect to them or feel them on some level, but because it’s complicated.

And complicated in a way that no one seems to respect or acknowledge or care to understand.

“Complicated” is the place where I can actually begin to see.

Beyond my quick rushes to hateful words – or no words.

To putting into some larger holding all this sorrow.  All this longing.  All this fear.  All this prayer.

In returning and rest you shall be saved…

                                              (Isaiah 30:15)

 26 days after the race, my sister sent me the article on “Post-Marathon Recovery”.

For the past 26 days that was exactly what I was “supposed” to be doing – recovering. A day for every mile I’d run.

But when someone asked me the week before my race about my “recovery plan”, I asked , “What’s that?” The little running chart that I’d been using to track my training for the past six months ended on October 12: “Marathon: 26.2 miles”. That was it. Over. Done.

Recovery? I hadn’t “recovered” after the half marathon I ran last March. Instead, in my post-race runner’s high, I’d called my sister and invited her to run a marathon with me in the fall.  My running and training continued.

No, “returning and rest” have not been my way of “salvation”. Instead, I’ve been more into the way of “striving and labor” that clears the forest.  Working hard, going on, keeping on.

A wise friend told me years ago that every journey can be divided into thirds: the planning, preparation and anticipation for the journey, the journey itself, and the return home.

It’s been that last part, the return, that I’ve struggled with.

It’s exciting to prepare. To follow the little running chart that led me week after week into running further than I’d ever run before.

Exciting to pack the suitcase, get on the plane, all nerves and excitement.

Exciting to run a race like did – so enjoying every minute of it. So amazed at the miracle that I was actually running the race.

Finishing.  Celebrating.  Picture taking.  The huge, delicious lunch.  Sharing the stories.  The plane ride home….

And now what?

Put the suitcase on the bed. Fill the laundry basket. Do the laundry.

Tell the stories over and over and over again to everyone who will listen. Be glad that there are one or two people who really want to hear more than the 2 minute sound-bites but who really want to hear the whole long and glorious story.

And grieve.

No one told me about this.

After the stories got worn out of me. After I’d done the laundry. After I at took off the “Chicago Marathon 2014 tee shirt”, stopped carrying the heavy finisher’s medal around with me everywhere, and hung it over the knob to my bedroom door.

Now what?

I missed the little running chart that told me what to do each day.

I missed the hard work, the labor of preparation.

I missed the purposefulness of preparing for something that had been so beyond anything I thought I could ever do.

I missed the conversations with my sister about getting ready for the race.

I wanted to stay on the journey – in that wondrous time of preparation and doing – and I can’t.

I tried running a few days after the race – just 3 miles. 3 miles?!  That’s nothing after the preparation for running a marathon and yet after 2 and a half miles, my whole body cried out for me to stop, to rest.

Running had been my prayer, my meditation, my way through my worry, my fear, my sadness these past months.   My way into release and joy and strength.  What to do now when I can’t “move” these feelings through me?

Terry calls it “PPD”: “Post-play depression.” He’s an actor and a few weeks ago the play he had been starring in, finished it’s run.

The more positive and/or intense the play, the harder the reentry is likely to be.  This is partly because a play has a built-in community, often a fairly intimate and intense one, and when the play ends the community is lost as well.  So there’s nothing “wrong,” except that I’m out of a job, have no project to lose myself in, and I’ve lost my community as well.  That’s all.

“That’s all” sounds like a lot to me.

Talking with Terry reminds me of so many conversations I’ve had with parishioners after surgery. So ready to get out, get going and instead, no, this last part of the journey – this time of “returning and rest” – the recovery. That slow, slow work. And yes, often the grief that accompanies it – the isolation, and loss of connections, the recognition now, of all that you have gone through and the recognition of the preciousness, the fragility of your own life.

“Recovery” for Terry “involves the normal things to pull out of a funk . . .

Moving my body is good, preferably outdoors and preferably in the sunlight.  Getting out of the house is good; getting out of the house to see friends is better. Reconnecting with my family.  Making music. If I don’t feel like I quite have the energy, then it’s probably a good thing for me to do. TV doesn’t help. Getting lost in a good novel does. Going out to a movie is ok . . . probably more because it’s out of the house than because it’s a movie. Finding a new project is best of all . . .

Evette and Bob have run many marathons. 25 for Evette. 40 for Bob. They too have learned what helps recovery… a hot tub or jacuzzi, getting a massage, drinking lots of water, eating fruit, soup, bread, swimming. Evette tells me,

Laughing is also really neat and so one time I watched funny movies.  That worked wonders because laughing raises endorphins.  I like being with people who are laughing.  Casual walking also feels good.  Breathing normally again is great.

Ruth, coming through an intense season of deep sorrow and joy in her family’s life (its’ funny and so true how joy can be so exhausting as well), is recovering in tears and in gratitude. In noticing the gifts of what is here: “I have tea and play music with friends when I can.  I send daily “Thoughts” to a group of over 50 friends via email which keeps me reading and listening for the best I can find to share.  I read a lot, meet with a group of friends every Thursday night for prayer and sharing…”

And keeping at it. “I am grateful that through persistence and determination I can play my violin even though when I started again in June, I was like a beginner.  I couldn’t make my hands do the right things and I had a lot of pain after playing for a short time. But I wasn’t ready to give up.”

What I hear from Terry, Evette, Bob and Ruth is kindness. Being kind to your body, your spirit and soul after the events in life that have taken a lot from you.

I want to learn about being kinder to this body of myself.

I’ve learned that I should talk to more people like Terry, Ruth, Evette and Bob and ask for advice.

Erin, who also ran a marathon last month, like me, didn’t really think about an “after marathon” recovery plan because she was so focused on just getting through the marathon itself.

For the first week or so after the race I just wanted to rest and NOT HAVE to get myself up and out on a run. That said, I am now bumming that I don’t have that push. I have ran twice since the race (over a month ago). And occasionally I find myself saying “now what?” I know there are many other challenges and things to fight for. I guess it is up to me to determine that next challenge?

That day, when I saw the finish line coming into view, I started to cry. So much struggle. So much hard work. Such preparation and discipline. Such keeping on keeping on when I wanted to give up. It was about the preparation for this race. It was everything about my life these past years. And amidst the tears I felt before me, somewhere out there, beyond the finishing line, an opening into the new.

I know what it is to fall back into how I have been. To fall back into more pushing and striving. And yes, there is a place and time in life for that.

But it’s now, post-race, that I am learning to discover something else on the other side of the finish line.

Where all the laboring leads. Where I can open into the healing, recovery, kindness.  Step out into a deeper awareness, appreciation, care and joy moment by moment. Out into breath, being, sun, air – where I am going today.  To allow myself to fall into the hands of a catching, kindly grace.

Today is Election Day and of all the candidates and initiatives on the Washington State       Ballot one issue stands out for me this year.  If passed, Initiative Measure 594 “would apply currently used criminal and public safety background checks by licensed dealers to all firearm sales and transfers…”

Washington is the only state this election cycle with a state-wide initiative on what critics call “gun control” and proponents, “gun violence prevention”.   It’s been seventeen years since Washington tried to pass anything to do with guns.  That attempt failed.

Initiative 594 stands out for me because of the rash of school shootings this year – about one every three weeks.  The latest, two weeks ago, in the community of Marysville, north of Seattle.

And it stands out, because of Jeff.   I’ve never seen Jeff as particularly active on political issues.  In fact, when I asked him about political involvement he told me about doorbelling for George McGovern.

Jeff’s a CPA, and was our church treasurer for more than a decade.  I’m used to hearing from him about our financial bottom line and questions on who to follow up with on pledge calls.  Now my in-box gets filled with emails he sends about rallies and marches and reminders to announce and sign this and that related to guns and Initiative 594.

It’s true that the issue of gun violence hasn’t caught fire in our congregation like other commitments our congregation has and is passionate about.  Jeff is kind of a one man band on the issue of guns around here.

I imagine many of us are supportive of the initiative, but to take on gun violence seems hopeless and impossible to change.  Better to concentrate on what might actually be possible.  I mean, who really thinks we can have a serious national conversation on gun violence when we don’t seem to be able to talk about much of anything?

But Jeff has been stepping into the impossible for many years.  At 17, he hiked the Appalachian Trail alone, and held the record for years as the youngest solo end-to-end hiker.

He went on to become the twelfth person to climb the hundred highest peaks in Washington State, and has gone with his wife, Virginia, trekking three times in Nepal.

Several years ago we went skiing together.  I told him I was a true intermediate skier.  But I also knew that if I was going skiing with Jeff, I wouldn’t be skiing my favorite blue dot trails on the mountain, but skiing the black diamond and double black diamond trails. I skied down cliffs that day I could never have imagined skiing and wouldn’t have, had it not been for Jeff.

“Why do you push the edges, Jeff?  What draws you to what others would seem as impossible?” I asked him the other day.

“I love the physical exertion.  Going where I haven’t gone before.”  Traits that serve a political activist well.

And when it comes to his advocacy for gun violence prevention, two specific reasons.  “I do it for Kellen.  And now Kellen and Bailey, my two grandchildren, three and one.”

“I don’t want this to be a story about me”, Jeff says.  “It’s not about me.  It is about the fact that we can have a different future.”

“If it’s about anyone it’s about people like Tom Wales, Cheryl Stumbo, Gabby Giffords – people who have personally suffered from gun violence.”

And grandkids like Kellen and Bailey who inspire him to become a political activist and do something he hasn’t done before.

No, this story is not about you, Jeff.  The piles of information you send and leave on my desk about gun violence is sobering and helpful information.  But finally, I have to say, it’s your commitment to step into and work for what others would think impossible, that inspires me.  Gives me hope that change might actually be possible and inspires me to work for it.

“You know, going uphill is easier for me.  Going down hurts my knees”, he confesses.

Thanks Jeff for being an up-hill hiker.   I’m not sure how long it’s going to take, or if we’ll ever get there.  But it sure feels good to know there’s someone blazing the trail for the possibility of change.

Do you not know that in a race
all the runners compete,
but only one receives the prize?
So run that you may obtain it.
(1 Corinthians 9:24)

We were
as little children
again
giddy
that day
before the race
giggling
laughing
delighting
the wonder
and terror
of “How can we be!”
to “Yes we are!”

doing it
seeing it through
making it here
the possibility
that we too
might become more
once again
than the small spaces
confinements
fears
we have made of our lives
from what we have known
to all that might be
such birthing
releasing
dying to
letting go
it does not come easily
demands much
costs much
as mile after mile
month after month
we have tracked the chart
telling us what to do

showing us what it takes
we have become believers
early morning runs
long hot
Sunday afternoons
stretching
each week
mile after mile
beyond
what we had ever done

and on the day of the race
sun and warmth rising
consistent
clear
steady
strong
we run
mile
after mile
free
so free
keep on
forward
ever
forward

mile
after mile
doing what we
doubted
not collapsing
not falling in
but rising
beyond
fear
regret
the terror
of change
upright and tall
to all it has taken
to bring us here
past pain
self-doubt
through “I cannot do this”
to “We are doing this!”

forward
forward
ever forward
and on
this possibility
this opening
sticky with sweat
the washing of tears
the years
the faces
the encouragement
and cheering crowds
the discipline and grace
to where all begins
and begins again
this discovery
this opening
these tears
this joy

such happiness
such utter joy
here in this place
beyond the limit
of all we dreamed
to where we become
as little children
again
dancing
in giddiness
in all that is possible

Peter Ilgenfritz
October 16, 2014