Can You Hear God Laughing?

As I looked forward to my eventual retirement through the years, I emphatically said, repeatedly, that when I’m done, I’m done. No interims for me. I wanted to find a local congregation and worship in the pews like everyone else, or if it I darn well pleased, sleep in on a Sunday morning. After 43+ years in the parish, I had earned that! And, quite frankly, after the past few years, I was so exhausted that I didn’t think I had it in me to do much more.

During my last year, I was keenly aware that everything I did was for the last time. The last time I would look into the candlelit faces of the people in my congregation as we sang “Silent Night.” The last time I would pour baptismal water onto a forehead. The last time I would announce, “Christ is risen!” and the congregation would shout back, “He is risen indeed!” Everything I did was with a sense of relief mingled with melancholy.

I gave away all my books, enough to fill a barge. I passed on vestments, artwork, preaching props, and all kinds of other things that I was certain I would never use again, and a younger pastor might find helpful. I was leaving it all behind, and passing it on, and it felt good. There had been so many times in my past when I came close to walking away from parish ministry, but for some reason, God wouldn’t let me go. And now, it was finally time to move on.

And then, before I even retired, Mother Gladys, an Assistant to the Bishop of my new synod contacted me about serving as an interim pastor. To say I was less than receptive is an understatement. But I’ve lived long enough to know that I can never slam the door on the Holy Spirit without spending time in discernment. So we decided to have another conversation once I was closer to retirement.

I learned that I’m an anomaly in the Metro New York Synod. When pastors retire, they normally move away from the city; they don’t move into the city. I also learned that the synod is in dire need of interim pastors these days. And as much as I kept telling myself, “That’s not my problem. I did my time,” the love part of my love/hate relationship with the Church was tugging at my heart. I told Mother Gladys, “Well, it would have to be very, very part time, and it would have to be very, very close to where I live.” Did I really just say that? I couldn’t believe those words were coming from my mouth.

She ran a couple possibilities past me. One involved a greater time commitment and considerable driving. Nope. And then the other was a small congregation that would be closer to where I imagined I’d end up living. Gretchen and Jon were still looking at houses at the time, but they soon landed on the place where we’re now living, in Glendale (Queens). The congregation in question was a mile from our house. And they only needed someone to preach on Sundays, meet with the Council, and provide coverage during emergencies.

It was difficult for me to say yes to this. When I initially met with the Council, they were as reticent about the whole arrangement as I was, although for different reasons. Like so many other congregations right now, their numbers shrank during the pandemic, and they really couldn’t continue going in that direction. So they were approaching the possibility with caution. I was something of a gamble to them. (They had no clue about my own misgivings.)

We decided to give it a try, and after a month, I agreed to serve with them for 12 months. Now I’m struggling a bit to understand how I can help them move forward, given the limited time I am with them. (I’ve never been one to leave well enough alone.) So, we’re figuring it out together.

And here’s the big surprise in all of this, for me. The more time I spend with the people of Trinity-St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Maspeth, the more I’m enjoying it. It’s been a long time since I was part of a small congregation, and I am remembering how much I love small congregations. The caring within community is a beautiful thing to be a part of. And Trinity-St. Andrew’s does it so well. In such a short period of time, they have already captured this pastor’s heart.

So here I am, once again doing something I swore I’d never do. And I can hear God laughing.

My greatest fear living in NYC

Before I moved to New York, I tried to imagine all the fears I would be forced to face: riding the subway alone, getting lost, rats… But I never suspected what has come to scare me the most. Parallel parking.

When I was 16, my driver’s training instructor taught me how to pass the test to get my license. I practiced parking between poles, and he had little tricks about where I would see the poles in my windows. It was fool proof. The test wasn’t a problem. But like other times in my life when I studied for the sole purpose of passing a test, once I got my license, I never used what I learned again. For one thing, it only worked in the car I learned in, which was also the car I used for my test at the DMV. This was not a car I ever drove after that.

For more than fifty years I managed to avoid parallel parking. There was always plenty of room on the street, or there were parking lots. But with my move to Queens, those days are gone. So here I am, living in constant fear of being forced to squeeze into a tight space between two cars.

One night last week, I had to go to Home Depot. The good news was that they have a parking lot. The bad news, that it was dark and misty out, which is always a challenge for my aging eyes. (I actually only have vision out of one eye so have no depth perception, even in daylight hours.) When I came home, I pulled into our driveway to drop off my purchases and then move my car to the street. (It’s a shared driveway and so narrow that I can only pull in as far as the driveway between the houses actually begins to drop things off.)

We live up the block from a fitness center, which gets so busy at night that there’s absolutely nowhere to park. I drove around a bit and found a space that looked like a definite maybe. When I pulled in, I turned too far and no amount of going back and forth was going to get me into the space. Meanwhile, three cars were waiting to go around me. With sweat dripping down my face and heart racing, I panicked and vacated the spot. Then I found another one, not too far up the street, and it looked a little bigger. This time I went up over the curb, and again, cars were waiting to go around me, and I gave up. I drove around the block and found nothing doable for me with my limited skills—that is, nothing either at least the length of two of my cars or on the end of the block. So, I drove around another block, and another one after that. Finally, I found a place about a quarter of a mile away. As I emerged from the car, tears of frustration were streaming down my face. I felt completely defeated.

Gretchen and Jon had helped me unload and couldn't figure out why it was taking me so long to park my car. Then they saw how frazzled I was when I walked in the front door. "Why didn’t you call us so we could park the car for you?" they asked. Well, I thought of that, but I didn’t have my phone with me because… I was just going to park my car! And although they might have rescued me that night, that didn’t really solve my problem. Could I be any more pathetic? How was I ever going to survive in NYC if I couldn’t park my damn car?!

The next morning, I woke up determined to conquer my problem. For several hours I watched YouTube videos about parallel parking. I took notes and quickly noticed that every single video offered different advice. It seems that there is no easy step-by-step method for parallel parking the way I learned it in driver’s training as a kid. It all depends on the size of your car, the size of the other cars, the height of the driver, so many variables… Ugh.

I keep working on it and trust that by practicing through trial-and-error and enduring repeated humiliation, eventually I'll get there. Right now, my theme song is, “If I can park it here, I'll park it anywhere. It’s up to you, New York, New York!” I’m hoping I’ll be able to stop singing it in time for Christmas Carols.