Week Eight: Sabbath on Sunday 17 January

Sabbath this day begins before dawn. I sit with my sermon, eat cheese and drink coffee and pray.

On my way to church, five miles from home, I realize I left the sabbath candles at home. I turn back.

Now I can listen to the morning news on NPR as dawn lightens the road, and news burdens the heart: Haiti and heartbreak.

"Come and fill our hearts with your peace" we sing together.

And we begin to move between the space of grief and the space of Vibrant Rural Sabbatical. This is a sabbath container, I believe, for being present to one another and to God, being present to joy and horror, for the reception of a new grandchild and the aching memory of a son gone. We sit, sing, listen, and pray. And God is here in this little church in the country.

Sabbath lunch: four teen women join me at Camino Real for Mexican food and shy conversation and hard questions.

Sabbath afternoon: birthday celebration with friends in Marcellus who need, I believe, reasons just to be together.

As I drive home the sun is setting. This sabbath has gone from sunrise to sunset. I see two bent snow people looking at the sunset on the Tri-Lakes Road. They have partly melted in the sun, but they still lean on the shaky walking sticks. They aren't going anywhere.

I am going home. Home. At the end of a sabbath day with my community of faith and friends, being home alone in silence and solitude is the sabbath I now crave. This day has been a gift. May it give me the strength to do my part to birth life, vibrancy, in the week ahead.

Week Seven: Sunday, 10 January

On the inside looking out.

Been sick since New Year's Eve. Waves of fever, chills, no appetite, itchy hands and feet, rashy arms and legs. This has not felt vibrant.

Today I look out the window as the sun sets. I have been looking through photos from Cambodia, finally. Ah, yes, I can remember the wonder of wandering through another culture, another world.

I don't get sick like this. Living in our house on County Road 23 out of eyesight of other houses, other people, rural life is isolating. As health returns I anticipate going out into the elements -- and the people -- once more.

Week Six: Memorial: Bryan Shelly

January 3, 2010

Last Sunday ended with a crushing blow. When it was dawn in Michigan the sun was setting in Phnom Penh. We were about to go out to dinner. And we received word of the suicide of Bryan Shelly. The world stopped.

So this Sunday an entire rural community reverberates with love and grief. The memorial for Bryan is at 1 pm in the high school gym. It is full. My whole congregation sits and sings together. We are following the guidance of Bryan’s parents, Mark and Kim, who want “something good to come out of this tragedy.” We hear of the beauty and belovedness of Bryan’s life. The gentleness and courage of his parents. His best friend, Ben, plays music on the piano and shares slides and film to honor his friend’s life.

Dave DeCou, the respected English teacher quotes the poem “No Man is an Island” by John Donne:

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”


There was no loud gong ringing in Marcellus this day. But there was an empty thud that sounded. It was the echo left in the space, the life, that Bryan left behind.

We are all diminished by the death of Bryan Shelly. So young. Talented. Full of promise. At the center of the senior class of seventy students at Marcellus High School. Yet in a hidden way we will never fully know, captured by depression and despair.

How is it that in one week such a tragedy seems to bring the hearts of this little community into full compassion and care? Vibrancy, hearts fully alive with love and grief, every parents fear, every student’s nightmare, is alive in this gym.

It is like Christmas. Are we only capable of being seasonally awake? Or will this great tragedy indeed continue to vibrate into something more? A deeper hope.

Week Five: Sunday near Christmas -- December 27

December 27, 2009

We went to the village where Ming lives. She was the housekeeper for Daniel and Kristin’s friends from Australia. And her niece, GumLee, was ready to ride along with us to go home to visit for the day along with the baby she was caring for and her friend. We drove in our rented car for an hour or so, out of the city and into the dry, dry countryside. We came to the blue gate in front of the blue house on tall posts that was Ming’s.

The vibrancy here spun around Kristin and Ming. Ming shared tears of joy, and sorrow. With her ability to understand Khmer, Kristin received Ming’s worries about her daughter who is ill and living in Viet Nam. She smiled when Ming showed huge baskets of rice, just harvested by Ming alone, since she is a widow. Kristin helped us negotiate where to sit, knowing that my old back would not handle sitting cross legged on the eating platform for a whole meal. Kristin did not need to say much. Her voice quiet, she nodded, smiled, made small moan. And we were connected. Daniel, with grace, took photos and smiled at small children.

Such hospitality! Though our Phnom Penh driver seemed a bit apologetic of the plastic chairs we were offered, and was quick to try to brush them off, my sense was of being treated as a honored guests. Ming managed the several generations of women and girls who were going in and out of her kitchen as they brought beautiful platter after platter – of beef and vegetables, fish soup, rice, white with black speckled dragon fruit and deep orange papaya. We were the central event in the life of this village of women and children, and though I could not speak a word, showing off babies, being given the tour of each woman’s home, and watching a special dish being prepared were all known rituals for rural visiting. The vibrant faces glow from the photos and in the memory of my heart.

Week Four: Fourth Sunday of Advent

December 20, 2009

Rural vibrancy’s soulmate/shadow must be urban vibrancy. There is a whole urban universe below this third floor balcony where my son, Daniel, and his wife, Kristin, live in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. On my first full day here, I am intrigued by the household across the way. Noon is a siesta kind of hour here – so after watching the morning practices – washing and hanging out clothes, eating on the porch, watering plants by tossing water from a bowl over all the leaves, brushing hair, sweeping – now I look out at noon and see no humans at all for a quiet stretch. There are also no vendors on the street after a constant stream beginning at dawn. There have been every kind of cart, identified by its own unique squeaker or recorded message. They pick up recycling, sell roasted eggs or whole coconuts, vegetables or bread.

But then the HELLO cart comes down the street for a ten minute mini-party below. I have to ask Daniel what white material is being scooped by the gloved hands of the vendor (hidden by the umbrella). It is clearly a small child magnet. Snow cone I think we would call it.

This little mid-street community, shelter by HELLO, seems a vibrant seed and vine of this neighborhood – as lovely as the purple orchid that hangs blooming from the balcony below me.

I take my siesta this Sunday to read, photograph, pray – to delight in this new place with its sights and sounds. And I write this to you.

Week Three: Third Sunday of Advent: Rural Reunions

It was 5:30 pm on Thursday evening. The White Pigeon Library was having its annual Christmas Open House. The tree was decorated and three young ladies wearing white chef’s coats circulated trays of oven warm tiny quiches and chocolate delights.

A young man played “My soul is filled with joy” on a quiet keyboard. A raffle fundraiser was under way. About thirty people or so dipped into cheese balls and pineapple tidbits, sat, talked and listened and browsed books.

It had been a reflective rural day for me. I spent all morning in my nightgown sitting by the wood stove at home and working on my sermon for Sunday. I made a few phone calls, to the church treasurer and chair and a ministry mentee.

Then I drove 10 miles south to Goshen to meet with Kathy (yes, she is also the church treasurer) and Lorna for lunch at the new delicatessen kitty corner from the Electric Brew on Main Street. Following a leisurely lunch of salmon chowder, Kathy and I brainstormed at the Brew about January worship on the theme of Sabbath.

From Goshen I drove 21 miles to White Pigeon, Michigan for the open house. An hour later I would drive 16 miles home. Why?

Well, as it turned out, eleven of those thirty people at the White Pigeon Library Christmas Open House were members of my far flung rural congregation, Florence Church of the Brethren Mennonite.

The musicians were Ben Nofsinger (keyboard) followed by the Bair Lane Christmas Band of Luke Nofsinger and Solomon Fenton Miller (guitar and mandolin). They had driven down from Marcellus, 21 miles away. Not only that, but Marcellus had received eight inches of snow the night before and the snow was still coming down when the musicians, along with Ben and Luke’s father, Gary, set out.

And how did they get invited to play? One of the librarian’s is Judy Broadworth, also a member of Florence. It was her “Just for Girls” club that was hosting this event and serving the tantalizing tidbits.

Soon after I arrived came another carload from Marcellus: mothers of musicians, Christine Nofsinger and Kathy Fenton-Miller, and Luke’s one year old son, Micah.

Are you counting? The last two Florencians to arrive, to make the total eleven, were Jan and Jerry Warstler who had driven 12 miles from Sturgis to join the party. As recent retirees and well know community volunteers in Sturgis, they support Judy in her work as an artist and teacher in the Open Door Gallery. And in turn they have called upon volunteers from Florence to help with dry wall and mudding in the gallery renovation a few years back. Here they are to connect with Judy, delighted to see all of us.

Rural vibrancy looks like this. We go the distance to make connections.

We love our kids. We support them in the arts, in sports, in discovering Christmas with Micah and the next generation. We thrill in seeing them share their gifts with the world.

We love each other. We support our links to our local communities. Chris, who is the librarian in Marcellus could be seen later in the evening comparing notes with Judy about library programming. I had no idea of Judy’s program that connected young teen girls with women working in a variety of professions. In a county with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the state, this is brilliant! I also learned that Micah’s mom, Daniela Zehr, was the invited guest for the next meeting of “Just for Girls” with the title, “So you think you can dance…” Daniela is a sexy salsa dancer who also happens to be at Goshen College training to be a nurse. Awesome model for girls to meet!

We love food.

We love parties and celebrations to keep our spirits bright as we go home in the deep dark to our warm, quiet rural homes on county roads and small town lanes.

So, does this warrant all this driving, all this gas, all this time? Heck, at this very moment the U.N. Climate Change meeting it taking place in Copenhagen.

Hmmm…in God’s economy I am not sure, but I think perhaps the answer is YES. I just know that as I was leaving the White Pigeon Library Sol and Luke were playing “What child is this” and an older White Pigeon couple was having the most delightful evening of their week. I know that when Florence friends come to worship this Sunday we will feel a different kind of joy and connection and understanding of each other, of our gifts and passions, of our scattered rural communities and our hopes for them.

I know that this gathering on a cold and bitterly windy night feeds my soul and sparks love and service. It is good.

Observations:

Marcellus to White Pigeon 21 miles

Sturgis to White Pigeon 12 miles

Goshen, IN to White Pigeon 21 miles

White Pigeon to home 16 miles

Florence Church to White Pigeon 6 miles

Week Two: Second Sunday of Advent: County Road 23

So much depends upon

a white blazed Morgan
blanketed in verde
beside the blue pelota.

......by Nina

[Apologies to William Carlos Williams...]

So much depends upon

a red wheel barrow

glazed with rainwater
beside the white chickens.

WHAT depends? Seeing.

On my "block" of County Road 23 in Bristol, Indiana, north of US 20 until the T at County Road 14, I am determined to SEE, to be awake to where I am.

I have lived here in rural Elkhart County for seven and a half years. But I have felt "geographically challenged." I am an urban person, growing up on the north edge of Philadelphia, living later for four years in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and for nearly twenty five years in south central Elkhart, Indiana. It was my husband Donald's dream to "live on some land," not mine. So in some ways I have resisted making this home. It is time.

Observations:

My block is 1.8 miles long. There are 30 houses on my road. Two are huge, looking to me like mansions. One of these we used to call "The Hopeless House." It has been under construction for about five years and no one has lived there yet. Some houses are manufactured homes. Many are like ours, "in between." But ours is the only A frame.

There are two large stables and horse pastures on the east side of the road. There is one very large wetland on the west side and several smaller wetland areas both near the road and back into the woods. They can be seen now that the leaves are down. There are woods, small ponds. There is a corn field on the south end and a herd of cattle in a pasture on the north end.

Our home on four acres of grass, a small pond and woods is adjacent to 100 acres of Nature Conservancy. It is unmarked and basically unknown beyond the folks who live right by it.

So now, as I drive or walk up and down County Road 23, will there be any evidence of "vibrancy?"

As I drove home from church on Sunday with my eyes open I immediately saw a large bird perched in the first tree by the edge of the road to my right. I slowed and stopped. An owl? It's head did not look big enough. It stared at me and I at it. I carefully grabbed for my camera and as I turned it took to flight. Ah! The red tail! The red tailed hawk. It flew south toward my home.

And then, half a mile down, I see the vibrant Morgan blanketed in verde.

I smile.