By Living Somewhere In Between

February 16, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / Leave a comment

The Shepherd’s Pie is put together and in the oven; So I have a few minutes before the oven timer goes off to write this blog. It’s not multi-tasking really. At least I don’t seem to be able to think about it like that. I can’t concentrate on more than one thing at a time. The casserole is in the oven on a timer and I don’t have to think about it again until the bell goes off. Timers on things is the only way I seem to be able to manage more than one thing at a time and…..am I really?

I was at the laundromat waiting for my laundry to finish drying yesterday. I got lost in the book I was reading and missed the dryer timer. When I looked up the dryer had stopped and when I opened the door the laundry had already started to cool. The series I am in is a good series, but I think more than anything the reason I missed the buzzer on the dryer was because I got so focused on the story I couldn’t maintain even memory that I was doing anything else.

Honestly, it happens all the time if I am not careful. I get lost in a thing I really like and all the other stuff which is not as fun just gets washed away from my thought life.

….And so the bells.

I live my life by the bells…and by constantly returning to the prayer place throughout the day.

There is too much to do to get lost in one thing.

As I was sitting on the porch meditating yesterday afternoon I realized there were six projects sitting there before me. That’s just on the porch!

Maybe that is too many projects.

Sometimes it feels like I am being buried alive in all the projects, and then other times I don’t see it as I have to do all these things, but I get to do all these things.

One thing I have learned is that I have to allow myself to flow into everything I do, from the place of prayer. The more I pray, the more I seem to be able to do. The less I pray the less I seem to be able to do. Prayer has become the space between all the things I do, between: The supper’s I make, the people I visit and pray for, the sermons and devotions I write, the laundry I do, the dogs I walk, the calls I make, the plans I lay.

As long as I go to these places from the place of prayer and return to the place of prayer after I do them, I seem to be able to maintain the rhythm.

When I don’t come from and return to the space of prayer in between all of the things I do they seem to come crashing down pretty quickly.

Photo by Ekaterina Astakhova on Pexels.com

The bells are my reminder to return once again to that Divine Center.

HOW DO YOU KEEP FROM LOSING THOSE THINGS THAT KEEP YOU CENTERED AND SANE?

UNBREAKABLE VOW FEAR

February 10, 2023February 11, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

A year ago I decided it was time to start going to the doctor for regular check ups. Prior to that decision it had been better than a decade since my last visit. My previous physician retired from practice and I never picked a new one.

I made excuses about why I was refusing to go: Too busy, Copay was ridiculous, Too much work to find a new physician, I’m basically healthy and don’t need to go, etc.

But finally I called, got a new physician and went for the physical.

The physical itself was fine, but the NP (nurse practitioner) who conducted the physical set me up for other tests. Among those tests was a colonoscopy.

I set up the colonoscopy twice and failed twice to go.

Today was my second yearly physical and wouldn’t you know my NP brought up my two “FIRST ATTEMPTS AT LEARNING.”

What I have learned from these two attempts is that I am afraid of colonoscopies. I do not know why, but I know I am afraid to the point where I cannot make myself go.

The NP was very kind about it and tried to assure me how simple the procedure is, but even as she was trying to convince me, I could feel my blood pressure rising and my hands getting jittery. She saw it too and so she found me a work around.

I have never experienced fear in this way before. It’s not a sudden shock. It’s not a dread. It really doesn’t even feel like an emotion. It feels like a decision a very firm decision that I never decided. It just exists within me. It’s like I made an unbreakable vow at some point to not have a colonoscopy and now everything in me is working to make sure that it never happens. Weird I know but there you have it.

HAVE YOU EVER EXPERIENCED UNBREAKABLE VOW FEAR?

CROWS IN THE TREES

February 9, 2023February 9, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

My daughter was babysitting the daughters of one of our deacons last week. She brought them over to the Vicarage. After the girls helped us put groceries away one of them wandered up the stairs to the birdwatching landing.

From this perch I can watch over the birdfeeding station on the North side of the Vicarage property. It was full of birds on that particular day.

Another thing I noticed was that the property was surrounded by crows stationed at various points in the tops of the trees.

“Crows are the watchmen of the bird world. “I explained.

“Their presence around the property means that there is a bird of prey somewhere in the area. If that hawk or owl or falcon comes near the crows will sound a warning that will send the other birds into the bushes to hide from the danger and then the crows will gang up on the bird of prey and chase it away.”

I have known unkindnesses to bring down owls. We actually had an owl at the church a while back whose wing was broken by such a gathering. My daughter had to chase the crows away from the owl and call animal rescue to come and get the poor thing.

The event reminded me a bit of a passage from Isaiah 62

I have posted watchmen on your walls, Jerusalem;
    they will never be silent day or night.
You who call on the Lord,
    give yourselves no rest,
⁷and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem
    and makes her the praise of the earth.

⁸The Lord has sworn by his right hand
    and by his mighty arm:
“Never again will I give your grain
    as food for your enemies,
and never again will foreigners drink the new wine
    for which you have toiled;
⁹but those who harvest it will eat it
    and praise the Lord,
and those who gather the grapes will drink it
    in the courts of my sanctuary.”

¹⁰Pass through, pass through the gates!
Prepare the way for the people.
Build up, build up the highway!
Remove the stones.
Raise a banner for the nations.

¹¹The Lord has made proclamation
    to the ends of the earth:
“Say to Daughter Zion,
    ‘See, your Savior comes!
See, his reward is with him,
    and his recompense accompanies him.’”
¹²They will be called the Holy People,
    the Redeemed of the Lord;
and you will be called Sought After,
    the City No Longer Deserted.

We who know Jesus in this age are the crows in the trees. We are to be the watchmen revealing the way and guarding the way to the Father.

We are the ones called to this generation to love, pray and protect the hearts of this generation from the actual wiles and wings of the devil.

BUT UNLIKE A FLOCK OF CROWS OUR GATHERINGS ARE TO BE CALLED KINDNESSES NOT UNKINDNESSES!

HOW SHALL WE RESPOND, I WONDER, AS THE OWLS GATHER?

GETTING READY

February 6, 2023February 6, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Back in August I took the first sabbatical of my ministerial life. During that time I asked the congregation to pray and ask God to give us “words” that would direct our future as a congregation. One of the most common “words” the congregation shared from that time was “Prepare!” “Get Ready!”

We have known for the last couple of years that we were heading into something or some form of ministry we have never experienced before; So getting ready,… preparing just makes sense.

I feel like I am being challenged in this area of being prepared, being ready. In some ways I feel like the 21 days of fasting and prayer, we just went through, was the beginning of a new level of preparation…a level I feel like I have been failing to obtain since the fast ended.

From prayer time to meal planning I feel like I have a lot of ground to cover to be prepared for what is to come. There is a piece of me that does not want to embrace this next level of change. I find myself storm eating sweets I should be easing up on sugar and watching television when I should be praying. In the midst of the wasted time and return of water retention,I am trying to be gentle with myself and celebrate every small victory as I move forward…. Even though there have been failures this week, there have also been successes. Even small forward movement is forward movement.

Change will come. I need to realize and celebrate the changes I have already made and keep moving forward to the change that is yet to come. I do wish it was a faster process.

DO YOU EVER GET IMPATIENT WITH YOUR OWN SPEED OF CHANGE?

FIFTY BELOW AND THE RETURN OF KOOL AID

February 4, 2023February 4, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 6 Comments

I received a note from the post office the other day that a package was waiting for me.

I was pretty sure I knew what it was but I had no opportunity to stop and get it. It has been a week spent on the phone with different agencies trying to get information for my friend Grace’s Medicaid application.

Yesterday I had a pretty full morning writing and cleaning and gathering forms.

At noon I went with a parishioner to do a hospital visit about an hour away, after which we went grocery shopping. My friend picked me up some dry gas for our cars as a gift while I bought food for the weekend.

Even as we were driving home from Leominster MA, the wind was picking up and the temperature was beginning to drop as the arctic wind storm predicted for Massachusetts began.

By the time I got back to the Vicarage, the wind was whistling through the downspouts of our gutters like the trumpets of the second coming.The temps last night fell to -45 or -50 Fahrenheit with the windchill factor, but we managed to seal ourselves in pretty well and turn the heat up to keep ourselves warm.

I heard from my daughter, Melanie, this morning. Her living room got down to 52 degrees last night and the outside security doors of her building both got blown open during the night, one of them blowing right off the apartment building. We lost a few branches here at The Vicarage, but nothing quite as serious as that.

We are staying inside today, reading, writing, practicing sermons for tomorrow, eating and just generally staying warm.

Oh yes! I did get to stop at the post office before the storm started in earnest. The package was, as I anticipated, my sister’s Christmas present returned by customs from The Netherlands. Apparently Kool Aid is now a safety issue, or maybe it was the instant coffee.

THE SKINNY ON THE JOURNEY

February 3, 2023February 3, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

For the last year I have been dealing with a leg injury I got by getting up from my desk at the church. That may sound ridiculous, but I got up from my desk chair and turned too fast pulling my hip out of joint and straining the muscles and ligaments all the way down to my ankle.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Pexels.com

Throughout the year I have gone between feeling pretty good and barely being able to walk. There have been many days where I have needed my cane to get around. Just before Thanksgiving I reinjured myself while walking down the stairs at The Vicarage. after Thanksgiving my knee swelled up and stayed swelled pretty much through the New Year.

I have known since the first injury that my ballooning weight is part of the problem. It just took me a year to really admit it consciously and to begin doing something about it.

The first step to addressing the problem was getting batteries for my scale. It may seem a silly thing to you, but by not buying batteries I was able to keep the weight issue from becoming real. As long as I didn’t see my weight in numbers it wasn’t a thing….you get the picture.

As my coach, Paul, says, “WHEN THE PAIN OF CHANGE IS LESS THAN THE PAIN OF STAYING THE SAME, YOU’LL CHANGE.”

The pain in my legs finally got to the point where I bought batteries for the scale.

290 pounds it read.

I started trying to “diet” just after Thanksgiving. I lost and regained the same five pounds twice before Christmas and then decided to join NOOM. It’s an ap on my phone. It has: daily motivational reading, daily weight tracking, a step counter, and a place to log calories and water intake. It also has a coaching feature and on line accountability.

I have now lost my first twenty pounds.The swelling in my knee is almost gone and the joint pain has been almost non existent during the fast, even after I slipped on ice and repulled the muscles in my weak leg.

It has ups and downs, but I am learning to manage expectations of perfection. Somehow that expectation management is bringing me greater success than just expecting perfection from myself. Last night I ate a whole bag of gumdrops, but you know that’s Ok. I just got back on the oatmeal wagon this morning.

DO YOU STRUGGLE WITH PERFECTIONISM?

LIFE INSURANCE, BOUNCING BACK TO PRAYER

February 1, 2023February 1, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Last night was a tough night. The dogs did not sleep well at all. Mercedes the 13 year old has had a very sensitive stomach the last two nights. We were up at three A.M. and then again at four thirty A.M. I collapsed back into sleep and then ended up oversleeping.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I got up an hour before my phone appointment with the Department of Health and Human Services out of Concord NH. I have been gathering documents for Grace’s Medicaid application for the last several weeks. The meeting went pretty well. Most of the documents have been obtained.

One of the documents I have been having trouble with is Grace’s life insurance policy. I have a hard copy of the policy but what I really needed was something called a value letter. The problem is that the Insurance company had not approved my Guardianship papers, so no one at the company was allowed to talk to me.

But today was the day! My paperwork was finally approved and downloaded!

In the two hour call I had with the life insurance company what I discovered is that Grace actually has two life insurance policies. I have only been paying for one. The other has been in a state of self payment since 2021. The company is using the cash value of the policy to pay off the recurring bills lowering the cash value a little every month.In order to begin paying on this bill again I have to get the policy reinstated. All that said, I got a lot done today. The value letters are on their way. New beneficiary forms are on their way, and the reinstatement form is on its way.

I still have other forms to fill out but the work for this day is done. The three hours I invested in paperwork today knocked me out of prayer for the morning. So tonight I went off to the prayer room for an hour of centering prayer before I have to lead our church prayer meeting at 7 tonight.

I am feeling much refreshed now and ready for the next steps of my day.

WHAT DO YOU DO TO REFRESH YOURSELF WHEN YOU ARE WORN OUT?

Pictures on the Road to Grace

January 31, 2023January 31, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

My calling (job) is an interesting combination of joys and sorrows.

The joy of: welcoming new born babes to the church in the arms of their mothers and fathers, baptizing new converts to the faith, welcoming those who have decided to join membership, celebrating the victory of healing with people who have overcome life challenging illness, the planning and execution of weekly celebration services, prayer services and small group Bible studies, mixes with the sorrow of walking with families struggling with domestic violence, or divorce, walking the long road to life’s end, comforting families of those who have passed on into eternity, and helping families struggle through the sorrow of wayward children.

The whole job is an honor and a challenge. The whole job requires the grace of God to manifest with each joy and each sorrow.

One of the joy/ sorrows I am walking through right now is with the oldest member of our congregation, Grace. Grace has been with us literally from the beginning of the church, from the very first service when there was no church building only a church living room. Grace is also a biblical widow. She has no family aside from an elderly sister living in assisted living over 12 hours away. Our church is her family.

Grace was also not prepared at all for end of life. So when she could no longer care for herself the state stepped in and placed her an hour and a half from us. I have now taken Grace on as my legal ward, but I have been unable to move her from the care center where she has been placed. At this point I am not sure I would want to put her through the trauma of moving again. So I call her several times a week. Yesterday I made the drive up to see her.

I start out on Rte. 12 from Winchendon MA up through Fitzwilliam, Troy and Keene NH. I pick up Rte 10 and follow the Ashuelot River through Gilsum and up into Marlowe. Driving past the Christmas Inn at Marlowe….

I travel by the wind mills in Lempster

I turn at the United Church across from the Lempster town library.

up into Unity,

until I see the skyline at Sullivan County Health Care. It’s a long way from my current home, but my family on both my mother and father’s side has been traipsing this same territory for more than two hundred years. Most of my original ancestors came through Newport NH on their journey from England. One of my relatives actually was born in Goshen only minutes from Lempster and preached in South Acworth only a few miles in the other direction from Lempster. Driving this road feels a little like walking through history to a deeper sense of home.

Since the last time I visited Grace she has had to move to a new unit within the care center so that she could receive the appropriate care for her weakening physical condition. The new unit, Stearns III, is a very beautiful ward with lots of plants and bright decorations. When I arrived Grace was just finishing up a music program and then an aid took us to the “Tower Room” where we could visit privately. Grace thought she had made this quilt. She went to some length to explain the neatness of the stitching and how it had been a group project. I didn’t let her think otherwise.

The view from the room was beautiful and cheery.

Grace is facing many challenges ahead with her health, but being able to walk this season with her as she prepares for her own journey into eternity is such a great privilege. I don’t know how much my visits are making a difference in Grace’s life. I truly hope they are a blessing to her. This one thing I know, they are deepening my faith and my own story greatly

HAVE YOU EVER WALKED WITH SOMEONE THROUGH GREAT DIFFICULTY? HOW DID IT CHANGE YOU?

THE LAKE POTTERY CALL

January 30, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 5 Comments

Many of you know that my mother lives with me and my daughter, Amanda, at The Vicarage. We are her primary caregivers as she walks this phase of her life’s journey through dementia.

Mom often says to us, “Don’t get old. It ain’t for sissys.” That and “I should just be dead.”

Last week we thought we were entering a whole new phase. Mom was becoming increasingly hard to wake up and even harder to keep awake. She pretty much stopped eating and complained of just feeling like “crap”. She used stronger language, but you get the idea.

At first I thought it was residual effects from her bout with COVID.

The issue I had with that first thought is that Mom had no symptoms of COVID even though she tested positive. As I was praying for her one night I heard in my spirit, “Her medications.”

Photo by Maksim Goncharenok on Pexels.com

Just before mom got COVID, the doctor had doubled one of the meds she takes for dementia, in hopes that it would help a growing anxiety. It turns out the new dosage was too high and so we have weaned her back and Mom has woken up. Yesterday she was awake for most of the day and even ate two whole meals and a piece of another.

While I was in church yesterday I got a text from my cousin saying that my Aunt Gloria, my mother’s oldest sister, had passed away.

My mother is now the oldest surviving child. Just she and her sister Carol are left out of eight children.

One of the things I have learned about caregiving is that it is not a solo endeavor. It takes a village to do this. While Amanda and I carry the weight of the caregiving, our extended family all helps in different ways. My daughter Melanie comes to help us out when Amanda and I both have to be away for an extended time. We have also had volunteer help from the church come and sit with Mom during times of need. We have hired a longtime friend of the family to come and sit with Mom during church services. And my sister is Mom’s telephone buddy. Brenda calls Mom twice a week at least from The Netherlands and will talk for an hour or better each time.

Yesterday as I was considering whether or not to tell Mom about her sister I called Brenda to get her advice.

You may think there is only one right decision . Of course I should tell my mother her sister died. But that revelation could spark hours of cyclical dialogue spiraling down into an increasing depression. The struggle is real.

As I was talking with Brenda it was decided we should tell her, but first Brenda and she would have a conversation to try and center her a bit before I brought the hard news. She and Brenda bantered for about forty five minutes. It was nice to see mom awake enough to actually use her sharp wit. Then my phone gave the “Low Battery” signal. It often happens when they talk. They go on so long the computer or the phone just run out of juice. But Mom never remembers what the signal means and always comes out with some panicked question about what she did.

This time, though, Mom did not have her glasses on and exclaimed “Wait a minute, I am getting a message from Lake Pottery. I wonder what they want.”

We all got a good laugh out of that one. A few hours after the call I sat down with Mom and shared the news about her sister. She had a lot of questions. She was sad. But aside from some deep nostalgia about her family she doesn’t seem to be able to hold the information about Aunt Gloria, or maybe she just cannot express what is in her heart.

I GUES THE REAL POINT IS THAT THE DECISION AND EVEN THE PROCESS OF TELLING MY MOTHER BAD NEWS WAS NOT SOMETHING I DID ALONE. IT TOOK COOPERATION.

I think in this season of life I am slowly learning the importance of teamwork and interdependence. I have a feeling that I will need to understand this much better before this season of my life is done.

WHAT ISSUE IN YOUR LIFE HAS TAUGHT YOU THE VALUE OF TEAMWORK?

Coaching and Grace

January 28, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Last night I attended the last corporate prayer meeting of our 21 Days of Fasting and Prayer, hosted at The Worship Room. I am so thankful for all the hard work the staff of The Worship Room did to bring our church together for this season. Some very deep things were shifted in my heart.

Last night I heard the Lord say, “Your new rhythm is set and begins.”

Photo by ANTONI SHKRABA production on Pexels.com

I can really feel this new rhythm today as I walk through the motions and meetings of the day. Something has indeed shifted. I am feeling slow, constant and intentional which is not new, but it feels like I’ve gone deeper in the slowing, in the constancy and in the seeking for intentionality.

This morning our church hosted a leadership training on the subject of coaching.

About thirty of us gathered to open the discussion around “coaching the person not the problem”. Our goal is to complete this course in 6 months (meeting once a month). We finished 6 pages of 147 and got our text books, but the conversation was so rich as we began to grapple with the idea of changing out methods of Christian work and what that looks like for us as we move onto the next step of our church mission which is : WHILE DONG LIFE TOGETHER, WE WILL REACH THE LOST BY SENDING THE FOUND. WE WILL DISCOVER OUR GIFTS AND CHANGE THE WORLD.

If today was any indication there is much to grapple with. And that grappling is a wonderful and painful process.

God has been talking to us for three years about ‘THE NEW WINE SKIN”. It’s a biblical reference to a spiritual change in a person’s life that causes them to approach life from a different perspective using different methods. It’s not that the thing believed changes, at all. It is the way the thing believed is approached, that changes.

As a long time Christian I realize one of the tendencies I struggle with is becoming dogmatic about my methods. I have realized I begin thinking, the way I do faith is as sacred as the faith itself. When that is allowed to go on for too long traditions become as, or more important than the relationship I have with my Living God.

One thing I know about God is He does not like it when things that are not Him take precedence over Him. He tends to shake those things up, and for those of us caught in the shaking it can be very disconcerting.

After training I went home to do the other work I had scheduled. One bit of that work was to call my friend Grace. She is going through a host of changes that are far more difficult than the changes I am walking through with my “NEW WINE SKIN”. Over the course of the last month she has lost the ability to walk, and to even get herself in and out of bed. She has had to change units in the nursing home as her medical condition is now more severe. She also recognizes that her level of confusion has increased.

Today as we spoke on the phone she said, “I am not really concerned about my legs. It’s the confusion that is hard to deal with. But I am trying hard not to fuss about it.”

Grace is trying to practice living one day at a time. It’s a good lesson for me as I face the challenge of my “NEW WINESKIN”. I am realizing that taking the time I need to figure out each step of this change is necessary. I don’t need to have it all figured out today. I just have to take it one day at a time.

HOW DO YOU MAKE THE PROCESS OF CHANGE EASIER TO HANDLE?

Notes From the Vicarage

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