Life Uncluttered

You may be joining us for a little Sabbatical Reading.  We are starting with the book Uncluttered by Courtney Ellis.  There are still a couple copies in the church lobby if you want to pick one up!  Here is the reading schedule!
 
June 15       Chapters 1-6
June 22       Chapters 7-11
June 30       Chapters 12- 14
 
I hope that you will join us.  This book has already been an incredible start to the Sabbatical Journey.  It took a couple crazy weeks of things falling apart to really get going, but then that’s why we take sabbaticals anyway.  Right?
 
For 17 years I have been called to various places in ordained ministry.  It is something I love more than almost anything.  I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.  But that doesn’t mean life is always perfect.  That doesn’t mean work is always perfect.  Far from it probably.  Sabbatical is a time to intentionally stop and reflect.  On life.  On the church.  On calling.  On God.  
 
So here I am a couple weeks into sabbatical, finding rest and retreating. Finally! We will talk more on sabbath and retreat in the book discussion, but I had forgotten, oh how I had forgotten how important retreating is.  It took getting here to remind me of that.  I was reading about the hesitancy to use the word retreat by current Christians.  There is something funny about the word.  A military unit retreats when it can fight no longer.  When they need rest.  When the wounded need to heal.  An army retreats when they withdraw from enemy forces as a result of defeat.  I get it when it is said like that retreat sounds like you have lost.
 
But in all honesty that is exactly what I have done.  I have retreated, and in all honesty I should have done it sooner or more often.  And really it is just that kind of retreat.  It is a retreat from the enemy of time or saying yes of the pressures of being a mom or  a great pastor.  Three days into the seven a see it a little more clearly.  It is me, waiving a white flag saying wait, stop, I retreat. I have lost, at least this battle.  I have said yes one too many times.  I have forgotten to take rest in moments I needed to.  Life has become to crazy, too cluttered.   I need to mend my wounded places.  I need to regroup.  I need to heal.  I need to look at the bigger picture again.  I need a little Sabbath.
 
But the problem is we live in a world or a society that has some how told us the retreating is a sign of defeat or weakness.  It isn’t.  And so it is time to stand up to all the things that get dumped on our plates.  To say wait, I need a minute.  When did we get out of the habit of retreating or taking Sabbath?  What happened?   Here I sit, next to the bay waters rushing in living into retreat.  Stillness.  Quiet.  And I say it has been to long, and not just for me I suspect.
 
I hope you will join me on this Sabbath’s Journey and take a little time to retreat yourself.  To read.  To study Scripture.  To renew.  To mend.  To be healed.
 
Peace
Rev. Heather 


Almost Everything

Do you ever just feel like you have almost everything together?  Almost everything you need to function?  Almost everything to cook dinner tonight for the family?   The second book club book for sabbatical reading is almost everything.  I am excited to take a look on changing the perspective on how we look at ‘almost everything.’  Finding the life and wisdom and good in what we have and what we do and how we are doing. 
 
I mean let’s not be wrong.  I almost never feel like I have all my life together?  There is always something, something at the edge of the plate about to fall off.  And some days, some days it falls right off.  It shatters, or at least the façade of what I have been holding up shatters and goes all over the place.  It is amazing how good a job we do at not telling ourselves that we are good enough, that we have done good enough, that it is all okay.
 
I hope as you read and join with us over this sabbatical time you finds the ways to affirm what you are doing.  Because we are each enough.  We are each good enough.  We are all doing well, even in what we consider our failures.  So come with me, lets find the hope, the joy, the life…in almost everything!
 
Peace,
Rev. Heather


Book CLub

Join me this summer for a little book club.  Although I will be away, you can check back here and see all that is happening!  The first book (which can be ordered through the church office), that we will be reading in the Sabbatical Book Club is Uncluttered.
 
A large part of Sabbatical time for me will be finding the time to take the busyness of life out of life.  I am noticing that we are just always going.  There is always just another place to be, another thing to do.   We find ourselves, as a family and individuals, tired and stressed and overwhelmed.  And why?  Why do we continue to do this to ourselves.  With all the bust that we do our life and house has just become CLUTTERED! 
 
Join me as we read this book in an effort to unclutter all the we have added to life and see what is really important.
 
Peace,
Rev. Heather


A Sabbath’s Refleciton

A Sabbath’s Reflection
April  2019
 
Grant me grace this day
to rest and remember
that there is nothing I have to do,
nothing I have to buy or sell,
nothing I have to produce or consure
in order to become who I already am:
your beloved creation.
          May your overworked creation
          and those who cannot rest today
          come to know the liberation of your sabbath.
                                                    – Sam Hamilton-Poore, Earth Gospel
 
Peace,
Rev. Heather


A Sabbath’s Rest

A Sabbath’s Rest
April 17, 2019
 
In just one month a Sabbatical Journey will begin.  What is sabbath?  Why take a Sabbatical?  What does it mean for us?  I understand these and more questions might be flurrying around you head.   Me too!  What is Sabbatical mean?  Well, to understand Sabbatical we mus first truly understand what Sabbath means.
 
 
We have all too often lost what Sabbath means.  I find myself more Sundays than not in church meetings doing the business of the church at hand.  It is good work, but nonetheless it is work.  And really, when I am not doing meetings I am running around frantically trying to get last minute homework done, birthday parties to go to, grocery shopping, house cleaning, I mean let’s be honest the I wish my list actually had an end.
 
So what is Sabbath?  A lost art of taking rest and finding renewal?  Has it just gone by the wayside to be forgotten forever?  Well here is the start of my journey, to find Sabbath again.  To seek rest.  To worship again.  And to find community, in my family and in you.  I hope you will journey with me.  I hope you will dare to find the moments, hours or days of Sabbath in your own life.  Stop.  Dare to buck the norms of the busy person or parent or whatever it is and be still, come and journey with me.
 
Peace,
Rev. Heather


^