La Cucaracha

I never planned to create a new game with my grandsons, Nick (8) and Justin (5). It just sort of happened. One day I had a folded paper bag and I smacked Nick on the butt with it. He laughed. Then, Justin wanted me to smack him on the butt with it, too. (Let me assure you that it doesn’t hurt at all to be smacked with a brown paper bag.) They loved it.

I started chasing them with the bag and smacking them whenever I got close enough. And for some reason, I thought of swatting cockroaches. “I don’t like cockroaches!” I shouted as I smacked them with the bag. And the game evolved from there.

It mainly consists of me hiding and then chasing after them when they find me, all the while trying to smack them with the folded-up bag and calling them cockroaches. This mostly happens in my apartment, which is in the lower level of the house. I hide in different places each time, around corners, behind furniture, etc. Sometimes I turn the lights off, and they have to find me with a flashlight. Every time I go after them, their eyes radiate excitement as they scramble to get away from me while they scream and laugh. I intermittently add a little singing of “La Cucaracha” to get them going, and I’ve made it a bit creepier by drawing a smiley face on the bag. Often, the bag appears before I do, and they shriek.  They always know the game is winding down when I start to come after them with the bag over my head humming “La Cucaracha.”

I can’t believe how much they love this game. I thought it was a one-time, spontaneous activity, but they would play it 24-7. Every day Justin asks, “Can we play La Cucaracha?” So now it’s become a thing. Ay Caramba!

There’s something unnatural about growing up without grandparents. My grandparents were not a part of my life. Grandparents weren’t a part of my kids’ lives either because they died before the time my daughter and son were old enough to remember much about them.  

When I became a grandparent, I was ecstatic, but really bothered by the geography.  Like so many other distant grandparents, I did as well as I could through video calls on the phone and frequent trips via car, train, plane… But I always ached for more. My secret wish every year, when I blew out my birthday candles, was for something that neither I nor my children ever had. I wanted my grandsons to get to know me well enough that they would remember me when they got older.

I was counting the years, months and days until I could retire and move closer to Nick and Justin. Conversations with my daughter and son-in-law brought us to the place where they were planning to purchase their first home, which would include space for me—someplace with my own kitchen, bath and entrance so that I would have my own life, but be able to spend time with them, too. During the pandemic I became even more desperate to be near them and felt like it was nothing more than an elusive dream.

In August, it actually happened. I moved to NYC, and I’m living the dream. I see Justin and Nick every day. I’m able to help out with getting them to school, staying home with them when they’re sick, serving with the PTA at their school. I pinch myself every morning and am beyond grateful for the opportunity to be a part of their lives.

I don’t know how much time I will be able to spend with them. I would love to  be around long enough to watch them finish school and enter adulthood. Or perhaps I won’t. However it goes, I’m satisfied because they will know me. And they will have memories of me that will become a part of who they are. Like playing La Cucaracha and screaming their little heads off while I call them cockroaches and smack them with a smiley-faced paper bag. It doesn’t get any better than that. 

 

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.

YES!

 I didn’t care who saw me. Today I stood on Myrtle Avenue, threw my fists in the air, shouted, “YES!” and did a little happy dance, all by myself. 

You may know how it feels when you accomplish something you never thought you could ever do, and it took everything you had, but you couldn’t quit because the only way around it was through it. It would have been so easy to give up, but you pressed on and were victorious. It’s in that moment that you know life is good and you’re damn good! YES!

When I was a kid, this seemed to be a normal part of my life. It mostly happened when I was facing something new, and I didn’t think I could do it, like learning to skateboard or ride a bike, when I tied my own shoes or climbed to the tippy top of a tree. I knew in those moments that I could “do anything if I put my mind to it.” (Was anyone else raised to believe this total poppycock about themselves?) 

Such moments of triumph have been rare for me as an adult. It happened when I defended my dissertation, and I left the room while my committee conferred before calling me back and announcing, “Congratulations, Doctor Kraft.” How did I survive running that never-ending gauntlet? How did I persevere when every step of the way I was ready to throw in the towel? Because I was amazing, that’s how! YES! 

This week I was determined to take care of all my DMV stuff. First, I needed to get a NY driver’s license. I was advised to go to Long Island for this, which is what I did. The whole way there I kept having flashbacks of the time I waited for hours at the DMV in North Carolina only to be told I didn’t have the correct paperwork. This time I brought a stack of papers with me. I was prepared for any possibility. Of course, then I had too many papers to sort through when the time came, but the woman who helped me was a gem. Still, the drive was long and included a number of scary moments and jams along the way. It took up most of my day. 

I spent the balance of the day on the phone getting New York car insurance, which became effective today. So, I was determined that this is the day when I would have NY plates on my car. 

This time I opted to stay in the city, and I can only say that for this out-of-stater, it was the most harrowing experience I’ve had behind the wheel of a car since I drove down a mountain alone at night during a blizzard. (Am I really going to get used to this?) I left at 9:30 am for a 10:15 appointment. My phone told me it took 25 minutes to get there. I arrived at 11:00. (90 minutes to drive 8 miles. Isn’t that less than 10 mph?) And my GPS was worthless. I realized this while I was sitting in a complete gridlock. Suddenly my phone was taking me to a highway, not an address, the Van Wyck Expressway, which I was on at the time—multiple lanes going each way and feeder roads beside them… all at a complete standstill. No matter what I did, my GPS wasn’t going to get me there. I actually had to stop and ask for directions. (Can’t remember the last time I’ve resorted to that. A tip of the hat to the parking lot attendant at the New York Times who helped me.) I still don’t know how I got there. Well, after waiting for an hour, they finally called my number and I had all the necessary paperwork, so I left with plates in hand. 

Next, I found a garage in the neighborhood to do my inspection. This is when the story turns from terrible to terrific for me. I love the garage owner and have decided this is the one I’ll be going to in the future.  After leaving the car off, I walked home and made a stop at a place that’s already become a favorite for me. Every day they make homemade honey ginger tea that tingles my tongue in the best possible way. About an hour later, when I returned for my car, it had NY plates and the inspection sticker in my window. 

The next step was mailing my old plates back to Maryland. It turns out the Glendale post office was just around the corner, so my garage guy said I could leave my car parked at his place while I walked the plates over. This was the first time for me at this little post office. I prepared myself to wait in yet another line and discovered I was the only customer in there! I mailed the plates, made my exit, and that’s where it happened. I stepped onto the sidewalk, threw my hands in the air and… “YES!” I am becoming a bad-ass New Yorker.

Update on my new life

I’ve been in my new home for just about a month now, working my way through many layers of adjustment. After 25 years of living solo, suddenly I’m living with four other people. School started after Labor Day and we’re figuring out a routine for getting the boys to and from school, sharing meals a few times a week, and throwing in an occasional adventure.

I expected that adapting to life in NY would be challenging, and it is certainly that. People who have spent their entire life in the City have no idea just how different things are here. In many respects, it feels like I’m living in a different country. For one thing, in Queens, I never know if the person I meet on the street speaks English. I’m also learning whole new ways of dealing with trash, thinking through how much space I have in my home before I buy items at the grocery, and pretty much obsessing over parking spaces and the hours when they’re available. (I’ve seen more than one car towed in my neighborhood.)

Driving is always an adventure. Dodging cars double and triple parked, people skateboarding in the street, remembering not to turn right on red, and quickly turning left on a green light before the oncoming traffic gets started—all of this is new to me. Overall, New York drivers seem to be cooperative and understand the give-and-take of navigating the narrow, car-lined streets. They are especially helpful when they immediately alert  me at the exact moment a traffic light changes from red to green, in the off chance I might be driving while blind. Fortunately, I can get to a lot of stuff on foot. Just a couple of blocks and I find pert near everything I need plus lots of cool places to explore. 

There were so many times when I had looked forward to retirement and wondered if I’d ever even want to step inside a church again. I. Was. Done. But after taking a couple months off from anything having to do with Church, settling into life in New York, I found myself yearning for the community I have experienced through the Church. The past couple of weeks I’ve preached at a church not far from where I live. Every congregation has its own personality, and I’m getting to know theirs. They are warm and gracious to this foreigner. Occasionally, I have trouble understanding them, as they’re all died-in-the-wool New Yorkers and they speak the part. But they also struggle to decipher my Buckeye accent, and it’s all received in good humor. This week I had the occasion to meet some colleagues at a meeting with the bishop. They were so welcoming and kind that it was easy for me to feel a part of my new synod. I didn’t realize how much I needed that sense of connection to the church. I'm surprised, but it's good to know.

I wake up every morning to the sound of feet running across the floor above me. My son-in-law wonders if they should add some insulation so it’s not so loud for me. Maybe someday, but not yet. It’s still a sound that fills me with gratitude. Along with hearing all about how their day in school was, and watching them play at the park, and those times when they appear in my space just to say “Hi, Nana”, and give me a hug. Often over the past few years, especially during the pandemic, I have longed to be with them so much that I feared it would never really happen. Now I sometimes wonder if I’m just dreaming it. And then I hear the feet running across the floor above me, and I smile.

I think I'm going to survive this move, but I say this with a bit of reservation. Next week I expect to encounter my biggest challenge so far... the DMV. Please pray for me.

 

The restlessness of nestlessness

My grandma moved so often that my mom used to tell me every time grandma needed to clean her house, she just bought a new one. Once when my uncle showed up to mow her yard, as he did every week, a stranger emerged from the house to inform him that grandma didn’t live there anymore. Oy.

My mom was nothing like my grandma. By the time I arrived on the scene in 1952, my family was living at 435 Edwards Avenue and that’s where Mom remained until she was carried out of the house in 1981 on the day of her death.

I’m a lot more like my mom than my grandma. If I had my way, I would have lived in the same house my whole life. You wouldn’t know it, though, by the number of times I’ve moved as an adult. Since I finished seminary, I’ve moved 11 times. (5 of them were in Charlotte alone.) I hate everything about moving, from scrounging around for cardboard packing boxes to emptying and breaking down those same boxes for recycling after they’ve been unpacked…and everything in between. I hate it! And yet, here I go again. One of the things getting me through this move is that I’m assuming this is the last time. Please, God, let this be my final move!

I am a nester to the Nth degree. Separating me from my nest is like throwing me overboard in the middle of the ocean without a life vest. I know that sounds overly dramatic, but it's how it feels to be me. 

People assume I’m into traveling now that I’m retired. For those who have the means, travel and retirement seem to go hand in hand. But whenever I travel, as soon as I leave, it feels like I’m holding my breath until I can get back home again. That’s a sure sign that traveling is not my thing. I know it’s something a lot of people love, but I’m not one of them. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy adventure because my curiosity about people and places I’ve never experienced is boundless. But I don’t like living out of a suitcase, I don’t like sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, and I don’t like being away from my cat, Guido.

I’m a few days away from my big move to Queens, New York. Although it’s not someplace I ever thought I’d live in retirement, not even the allure of snowless winters can compete with living near my grandsons. And I've decided that considering my aversion to travel and need to nest, coupled with my longing for adventure, New York City may be the perfect place for someone like me. There is so much to see and do that I can explore new places every day and still spend the night in my own home.

The attachment I have to my home in Maryland is pulling at me, and I know the melancholy will remain until I’ve built my new nest. Feeling unsettled is so... unsettling! I’m looking forward to the day when the furniture is arranged, boxes are unpacked, the internet is connected, pictures are hung, and I’m in my recliner watching T.V. with Guido on my lap. Then I will again be me.

 

Can the ELCA really change?

I’m enough of a church nerd that I’ve been watching the Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA on YouTube. I'm also following comments on Twitter because I’m especially interested in seeing how people a generation or two younger perceive what’s happening. For example, I have long been a fan of Roberts’ Rules of Order for large group gatherings like these. And I enjoy those moments when the proceedings go off the rails and the parliamentarian is called upon to rescue the group from the weeds. But yesterday I read this tweet: “what’s going to happen when there are no more boomers and nobody knows roberts rules of order?” A sacred cow of our denomination was under attack! Are these rules so confusing and restrictive that they keep people from participating, particularly those who are already being marginalized? Rather than allowing everyone a place at the table, is Roberts a barrier to keep some people in and others out? Yes! I can clearly see the truth in these questions. Why had it eluded me before?

The whole issue of inclusive language continues to be a huge indicator of division among God’s people. This tweet and others like it keep popping up: “It’s petty but, it’s an immediate no if you cannot expand your greeting to add ‘siblings’ when you address a room full of beloveds.” It’s another lesson for us Baby Boomers. There are a whole lot of people in our world today who will not hear another word we say if we begin what we say by excluding them. It’s as simple as that.

I suspect millennials may think they’re the first ones to deal with these struggles over inclusive language. As a pastor who attended seminary in the 70s, I can assure them that they are not. Of course, back then, the issue was using language that included women. The favorite communion hymn for my seminary community was “Sons of God”, and we sang it every week. I remember one day in particular sobbing through chapel when all the hymns, the liturgy, and the sermon used exclusively male language for God and people in general. The hymn “O Brother Man, Hold to Thy Heart Thy Brother” was the one that pushed me over the edge and I had to leave. Contrary to any of the verbiage we used at worship, there were women in attendance that day. Yes, most of worshippers were men, so much so that we women couldn’t hear our own voices when we sang, but we were there. I already felt out-of-place, like I was trying to break into a club where I wasn’t welcome, and this didn’t help. What hurt the most was that the men didn’t seem to notice. Why did we have to tell them, again and again, that we needed to be included?

Back in the 70s, when people referred to a pastor as “he or she” or addressed the congregation as “brothers and sisters” it went a long way. But what once was considered inclusive has now become exclusive. And, once again, it’s the people who are feeling excluded who are put into the position of reminding us repeatedly that “brothers and sisters” is leaving a whole lot of people out. I can understand why they resent it.

During my lifetime, I had the privilege of being in attendance at Churchwide Assemblies that made consequential decisions for the life of the church. As a member of the ALC, I voted to merge with two other church bodies to become the ELCA, and then I was present at the constituting convention in Columbus. I also had the honor of voting to remove barriers with ecumenical partners. And I was present for the big decisions in 2009 around fully including gay folks in the life of the church.

I’m sensing something different about this year, though. For all those decisions, we knew what our goal was, and we made it happen. And now, I’m not sure the voting members know exactly what they want to happen. The majority clearly know they don’t want things to continue as they are. They want the church to change to meet the needs of the world today, not the world as it was 35 years ago. There is a lot of tension between preserving the institution and authentically living out the gospel in a way that is just, inclusive, and compassionate. The desire is for a radical shift in understanding who we are as a church. Of course, an undertaking like this requires a smaller group of people to do the work before bringing it back to a Churchwide Assembly. And this seems to be what's freaking people out. Can we trust this process to really bring us to a new place? Perhaps the good news is that it's all up for grabs so the Spirit has space to create something new. 

In many ways, it’s a terrifying time for our Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Only God knows what will become of us. But I’m ever hopeful. This Baby Boomer has seen a lot of changes in my lifetime. And now I watch and wait with those who have come after me. I feel a strong kinship with them, perhaps because of their passionate quest to cut through the bullshit. I pray they don’t give up the struggle and that I can support them along the way as they teach us all new ways of being church.