Sometimes a Next Life

 April 1, 2025

Beloved:
          Sunday’s storm took out our church sign, bless its heart, after 33 years of faithful service.  I remember watching the masons set the stones on either side of it, more than half my life ago.  Sometimes it seems like my life has changed more in the last two years than in all the thirty-three years prior.  Maybe because those changes were expected while the more recent were a surprise.
          Change is measured in gains and losses, naturally, and the losses are by no means small.  Strangely, they come upon me sharpest when I’m driving, nowhere in particular ~ to church, the store, the library.  I tend the grief as best I can and then it folds back into its hiding place when I kill the engine.  The gains are the surprising bit.  I could never have predicted a 

world who never met me waiting to receive me with such gentle kindness.  So as my Birdygirl and I loop the blocks of this little neighborhood, I give thanks for the soft landing it has been.  We have friends here, folks who gather to share joys and sorrow, meals and conversation.  I have been welcomed and taken in, checked on and looked after in all the best way neighbors do.  I found a home I did not expect to find and I am grateful for it every day.
          The church sign’s next life might be as somebody’s firewood, or compost into mulch.  In the meantime we will come up with something new, maybe something that lasts until I’m 94!  While it stands we’ll face what storms come, and be ever-so-grateful for all the ordinary days in between.  I pray this Lenten season finds you in reflection of the goodness and the grief with which we all contend, and grateful for the faith that makes us able. 
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~ peace & prayers,
pastor annette

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