Helluva month

So on the Friday before Christmas, my agency's administrative offices were destroyed by fire.  The circumstances are, to put it kindly, suspect.  Within a month my aunt passed away and I drove to NC to preach her funeral, a task that was much more physically and emotionally draining than I could have imagined.  I returned late on a Saturday night only to find that I couldn't get out of pulpit duty the next day because another preacher was sick, so I had pulpit duty on Sunday followed by a counseling session. I came back into the office to discover a flood from burst pipes.

In all this time, I'm discovering things about people, things too disturbing to discuss in a public forum.  It's just good to know who has your back versus who has a knife aimed at your back.  And I'm eternally grateful that I come from a family that always has each other's back.  I'm thinking it might be a good idea for me to take a long weekend in the South once a quarter or so.  It's refreshing, and the change of pace does me good.

I say it's been a helluva month because it's pretty clear to me that the battle I'm in is not a carnal one, but a spiritual one.  I happen to believe we're on the verge of some empowering, transformative activities in the South Bronx, and I think satan has an investment in keeping that neighborhood and its people under a yoke.  When I saw some of the things that have happened in the last month, I was discouraged, dismayed, and disgusted.  It was then I realized that the enemy was using my emotions to get at me:  when I'm upset, I don't want to function.  The negativity combined with the feelings associated with my aunt's death had me off balance for a minute.

How surprised and grateful was I then, to find that like any preacher, I would preach my way through my storm?  It's an awesome task to find a word of comfort or encouragement for those who mourn; it's even more daunting when they are close relatives, and the difficulty factor grows exponentially when your own spirit is in despair.  Yet, that's where I found myself.  At first, I couldn't understand why Pastor Williams was so intent on handling everything except the eulogy, or why she asked me if I was "straight."  (Although I wear my emotions on my sleeve, I think they're invisible or something.) I told her that God is Able, and we left that alone.  It was only after I was in the pulpit, as the preaching moment grew near, that I found myself doubting my ability to actually deliver the eulogy I'd written.  After all, who was I to speak a word to these people who'd known me through all my colossal life failures, and who knew all my not-so-secrets?  By the time I was trying to make notes on the eulogy, my hand was shaking way worse than someone with Parkinson's; I literally was unable to write notes on the page.

Not sure how, but I did stand up to the pulpit. That's about all I remember; God took over after then, and the next thing I knew I was going back and forth in the pulpit area shouting and carrying on (I'm not a whooping preacher; I'm a teacher).  The fact that my cousin ran up into the pulpit to hug me, and the pastor high-fived me lead me to believe that I preached some truth with some conviction.  My cousin had expressly asked me not to talk long, so I timed my eulogy at 22 minutes.  After the service, she told me I could have gone on longer.  That was pretty cool.

And after that, there was this lingering peace.  I talked about renewal, preaching from the 2 Cor text that starts with Paul talking about how we are outwardly wasting away but inwardly being renewed day by day, and ended with the part that says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  It's a weird text, but was totally appropriate for my Aunt who succumbed to Alzheimer's.  There was an invitation as well; while I didn't open the doors to the church, I did mention all our past and present family members by name, and called for us to join an Eternal Family Reunion.  I like to think that it got us past being afraid of sickness and death and to focus on living the best life we can, with God's help.

I know that we're planning a family reunion for May, since we are now the senior generation of our family.  We're committed to being a family and being together.  This is really cool for me, since this is on my mother's side of the family and the Perry side is doing the same thing.  So despite all the drama that goes on at work, there is a peace and stability of family, sort of like that Jesus Peace that Passes All Understanding.  It's been a helluva month, yes, but I've got my Peace and I've got my Joy and I've got a Praise on the Inside, a Praise down in my soul, a Glory Hallelujah that cannot be controlled, yes I STILL have a Praise inside of me!

There will likely be more hellish times ahead.  When I was told about the flood, I just nodded and went on with my whatever I was doing. There comes a time when the external stimuli no longer stimulate -- yeah, you can try to push my buttons, but I get to choose how I respond.  And quite frankly, God's benevolence to me far outweighs these light and momentary troubles.  (When I've really grown spiritually, I'll have that sort of attitude behind the wheel, as well).

So yes, it's been a helluva month, but I've been visited by a heavenly presence Who lets me know that I'm being purged and pruned and prepared for the better days ahead. Helluva month? Yeah.  But my focus is on a heavenly eternity which far, far, far outweighs the measly little helluva month.

The Pastors' Conference

So from the 14^th through the 17^th, I was in ATL at a Pastor’s Conference. I have to admit that my expectations weren’t particularly high; it seems we do a lot of meeting, eating, and greeting, but not a whole lot of teaching and even less intentional reflection, transformation, or growth.  But I’m trying to be a good CME preacher and, since it looks like our Israel trip isn’t going to jump off, I was committed to attending as many meetings as possible.

So I went.  And I’m SO glad I did!  First of all, I got to spend time with my fellow CME Preacher cousins:  Phyllis (Perry) Rhone-Cameron and Delores Perry.  I’d always heard about them, and briefly met them at the Unity Summit, but had never had the privilege of hanging out with them.  It was WONDERFUL!  Not only did I learn that the CME tradition has indeed flowed on the Perry side of the family (I always thought only my maternal side was CME), but we also got to meet with our cousin Julianne, who married the son of one of our CME Bishops.  So I went from thinking I was the only Perry who is CME to having daily communion with three other Perrys, who are CME, two of whom are CME preachers.  Yeah, that was great!!!

But what was also great was the conference.  In addition to family, I got the chance to meet a few people face to face whom I’d previously only met on Facebook.  It’s always neat to meet cyber friends face to face.

On the first day, I had the opportunity to have a wonderful conversation with Rev. Dykes, a young man who will undoubtedly rise to the office of the Episcopacy one day.  It’s been my pleasure to have watched him since he was passing ordination tests but unable to be ordained because he didn’t meet the age requirement;  now in his mid-twenties, he’s comfortable in his role as Pastor and pursuing his education.  He’s also quite proud of ITC, so he took me to the campus and showed me around.  We got to drive past a house in which The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King once lived, and we got to walk all over ITC’s campus.  He introduced me to Dr. Randall C. Bailey. Dr. Bailey has an amazingly brilliant mind, and reminds me of the need for continued balance in our educational and pastoral pursuits.  But the mental gymnastics were stimulating, and a wonderful prelude to a conference that would provide more of the same.

As I said, I didn’t expect much from the Conference.  My bad.  IT. WAS. AWESOME!!!  There was great fellowship, great preaching, praise, and worship, and GREAT TEACHING!!  Bible Study was by Rev. Dr. Judy Fentress-Williams, an OT prof at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria.  She and Dr. Joy Moore of Fuller (formerly of DUDS) were outstanding teachers, each teaching for two days, and each combining cutting-edge scholarship, insightful interpretation, and transformative models for action, change and growth in today’s church.  If the two days had been just to hear those two women’s four lectures, it would have been worthwhile. Fentress, for example, started the first day with a study of the Shema, and wrapped up the second day by explaining the concept of remix and building upon that a new model for the concept of “church.”  Joy (comes in the morning) Moore talked about Executing Justice, and did a very compelling comparison of the society described in “The Hunger Games” to our modern society.  She was great at shocking us to re-examine staid, comfortable ways of looking at things.  But there was more, including a very interesting lecture from the Missions prof at ITC, (Dr. Marsha Snulligan Haney), as well as preaching by the Reverend William D. Watley.

There was a Women in Ministry luncheon where the keynote speaker was a male who told us it was time for there to be women in ministry.  There was a room full of women ministers from across the CME Zion, and no opportunity for them to interact or network in any way.  We paid $15.00 for less variety than (and apparently some of the leftover items from)  the previous day's $13.95 buffet, and were met with two additional requests for money.  Fortunately the women at my table engaged in dialogue among ourselves.  I was particularly humbled that Rev. Boyd, a current student at Phillips, chose to discuss ideas for doctoral research with me. She actually sought me out to have the convo! I got to tell her about Macarius and the Desert Fathers, and about my thoughts about Tertullian and the influence of his African heritage on our present day (eurocentricized) understanding of the Trinity. It was a good convo, it did my heart good to be able to have such a conversation with a CME woman seminarian, and it made me happy that she valued my opinion enough to seek me out and ask for it.

So that was all awesome, and while I didn’t get a Club Floor upgrade, I did get comped with access to the Club Lounge, so I didn’t have to pay for breakfast, water, soda, or evening snacks.  I think I only ate in the hotel restaurant once, and the rest of the time we went out. I also got comped with in-room internet access, which meant I could work in private.. All that makes a tremendous difference.  (Of course, the hotel didn’t manage to give me a final accounting or bill, so we’ll see how it all comes out…).  I think this is the first time I’ve ever stayed in a hotel and the bill hasn’t been under my door on the last morning.  Oh, well.  I'm gonna leave that one alone. 

So it was a wonderful trip.  I didn’t realize until afterwards how much I needed the trip, the fellowship, and the healing it brought.  On the way back home, I started watching that atrocity they call a movie, “Django Unchained.”  I’m sorry, I don’t like Westerns, have never learned to appreciate Tarantino’s “talent,” and by 20 minutes in I had seen so many exploding heads and heard so much contrived swearing that I can’t see myself ever managing to finish it.  I’m SO glad I downloaded a reviewer’s copy; had I paid money to see it on the big screen, I’d probably be pissed.  Maybe I’ll try to watch it again, but I don’t think so.  I bring it up because I was looking at the way the shackles seemed to have eaten into the flesh of some of the enslaved people.  I couldn’t help but think that it’s the same way with the issues that shackle us in life. They start out as little irritations, and if we don’t become unshackled or unfettered, the irritations become more and more pronounced.  If allowed to persist, they can create wounds.  If the wounds are left untreated, they can fester, grow, and eventually destroy us. I’d been walking around wounded for a long time, and a lot of healing came at this conference.  I’m going to have to learn to take things a bit more slowly and to be as intentional about my alone time as I am about my gym time, but some healing has begun.  That’s really cool, especially since I didn’t even realize I was wounded.

Perhaps I didn’t realize I was wounded because of the environment I allow around me.  As we were landing in NY we hit quite a few air bumps, and  I realized that I actually like a bit of turbulence when I’m in an airplane.  It makes the ride more interesting, it forces me to stay completely in the moment, and it reinforces the fact that we are helpless and completely reliant on God.

… and then I realized that growth (and maybe more healing) will come when I can regard turbulence in life the same way.  Turbulence is something you go through – and while crashes do happen occasionally, the norm is that, even though you go through the turbulence, it is temporary, and you pass through it with the knowledge that you are protected and with the expectation that you’ll come out safely on the other side and continue on to your destination.

And last night, that’s exactly what happened.  I wrote those words, and the plane landed.  Yes, I decided to take supershuttle instead of a taxi, so it took a while to get home, and yes, the driver was a crazy New York driver, but my peace is upon me, and my healing has begun.