This Day At the Vicarage 9-8-20

/ joseph elon lillie / 4 Comments

I often write with music playing softly in the background. Somehow the rhythm and the sound help me to focus on what it is I need to say. It is like the sound draws the words out of me.

Maybe that has something to do with my years as a worship pastor. I remember one of my mentors teaching me that in order to lead worship effectively, I needed to be able to move beyond the place where I played music into the place where the music played me.

Yesterday I wrote to an Epic Celtic Album on Youtube. Tonight I am playing the Easters. Somehow their music fills me with hope and just a touch of melancholy. Those things might not seem to go together. Maybe they don’t. Maybe they are polar opposites like the yellow and purple on a color wheel.

Color Wheel Primer | HGTV

Maybe that tension is what I am looking for when I write or when I sing or when I do art. Maybe it is what I need. Maybe it is what is required for me to move into my muse. The muse would be God ,so I guess that makes sense. The tension….the inner conflict somehow drives me to seek the Lord and in that seeking I find my creative spark. And that creative spark is the pathway to the music playing me instead of me playing the music or in this case it is the pathway to the space where the Writer reveals to me my story rather than me striving to make it up.

There’s a whole book in there somewhere. The tension is rising within me and that means the story is about to arrive.

Now I am really looking forward to tomorrow dear friends.

Pastor J

This Day At the Vicarage 9-7-20

/ joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Yesterday I was back at my usual job for a Sunday morning, as on-line pastor. I am really enjoying this new work. My job starts at about 9:15 A.M. I open my computer and start “inviting people to church”. Mostly that just involves a check in on Facebook Messenger.

Mad At Computer Png - Guy Working On A Computer , Free Transparent Clipart - ClipartKey

I sign onto the church livestream when it comes on, and then from my little perch in the church cafe I begin to engage with people attending the on-line service: I comment as the sermon goes along; I “like” and comment on what other people are saying; Sometimes I move to a private message format so I can go a little deeper with people who are popping up on my feed or sometimes even just in my head.

Who I don’t see walking through the church door in the morning or on-line is just as important as who does come to our service in physical form or through the internet. When someone is missing for a bit I use service time to try and find them virtually. Yesterday I missed several people so I sent messages to them during service.

Yesterday I also used the time to launch a remote fellowship campaign with our artist’s group. In two weeks time we will be starting an artist version of chopped.

Chopped | Food Network

One of our artists is donating boxes full of art supplies and so we will make up boxes for all the participating artists and each artist will have a month to create a work of art using all the implements in the box. At the end of the month we will do on-line reveals for the whole artistic community.

Church is definitely different now. People of God are having to find new and creative ways to connect around the Word of God, fellowship and prayer. I don’t know when or if it will go back to what it used to be. Honestly, I am having fun facing these new challenges. I am not sure I want it to go back.

Well, I have blathered on long enough. It is time to sign off for the night.

I am looking forward to tomorrow Dear Friends.

Pastor J

This Day At the Vicarage 9-5-20

/ joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

Brenda returned from her mini break away at Lake Winnepesaukee last night just as Amanda and I were heading out to have coffee at the home of parishioniers.

Here are some photos Brenda took while away…

She had a good time. While she got settled back in to the Vicarage,Amanda and I had a great time at the home of Ray and Deb Parker who made a wonderful cobbler to go with our coffee. We have been going over and spending time with this couple every few weeks. It is part of how the church has to adapt in these days.

We cannot rely on seeing or being able to converse with folks in church any longer. So, visiting in small groups while social distancing seems to be the new way of doing church life.

This week I visited with a number of people over coffee and prayer.

This is an old photo but I visited with these friends Stev and Pastor Donna Slocum early in the week
Our friend Norma
Our friends Ray and Deb

Living by the slow, constant , intentional schedule God has given me is becoming more and more of a routine ,and as it does my life becomes quieter and quieter, even in those moments where the activity is swirling around me.

The one thing I have noticed is that while the work is not as taxing, it is nothing like a normal schedule. The rest of my family works during the day and then sits down to relax in the evening. My day starts when I get up and ends when I go to bed. There are times of rest, times of relationship, times for work, times for exercise and times for fun built throughout it, but the times keep moving now. My life has become monastic. I live by the bells now (on my phone): Exercise, reading, writing, housework, family time, study, and prayer all move in synchronicity according to the bells. When the bells on my phone ring I am on to the next thing in order.

I suppose for most people this would be problematic. I am finding it a problem solver, even if it means I do not necessarily fit in with the rest of the world’s ebb and flow as well anymore.

Well it is time to move on to supper time chores everyone.

I look forward to tomorrow Dear Friends

Pastor J

This Day At the Vicarage 9-2-20

/ joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

It rained this morning. I left the laundry out last night. Go me!

Laundry on line in rain Stock Photo: 4551198 - Alamy

Oh well. Little foxes may try to spoil the vine, but I am not letting a few wet tee shirts ruin my victory over my schedule.

Back in January, God told me I was walking through a brand new door into a place I had never been before. He told me that I would be “entering” in January, February and March. He said I would be “Settling in” in April, May and June. He told me I would “begin accomplishing” in July August and September. Then He said I would “Be finishing” in October, November and December.

I naively thought this was all about my book. I think I may have alluded to that fact here on “Notes From the Vicarage”. I realize now it was bigger than that. It was about a radical change coming to my life. The first quarter was revealing the scope of that change. The second quarter saw me accepting and settling into that change. God used the pandemic to create my new life-rhythm, but by June I realized I had accepted the change and I was determined not to go back to the old rhythm of life, even if the rest of the world did. These last few months I have been learning how to become accomplished in the new rhythm of slow, constant, intentionality (the words aren’t new to me but the practice has taken on a much deeper meaning).

I have kept a schedule for years. I have modified it into my own secret shorthand.Here is what I have done this week. As I look at these tick marks and numbers I am realizing a huge difference in what I am accomplishing.Here is what my schedule looked like in January when I was just beginning.

You might not see much of a difference, but as I have been working with this schedule over these months I see a marked change in how I am utilizing my time. Just look at the first number on my agenda (that is the physical activity goal). Back in January I was lucky if I was doing thirty minutes of physical activity a day and that included walking the dogs. Today I am generally hitting the goal and going over my physical activity number.

Part of that success has to do with me being home more. As Mom’s need for me here at home grows, I am finding that I am actually gaining control of my schedule even as I become more housebound. I am not yet what I shall be, but I am surely more than I was.

Well I have blathered on long enough….

I am looking forward to tomorrow Dear Friends…

Pastor J

This Day At the Vicarage 8-31-20

/ joseph elon lillie / 9 Comments

Yesterday I preached at Cornerstone Church in WInchendon, A message called “A Message For the Moment.” After church one of our parishioniers came over to the Vicarage to look at the dormers atop the house to see if he might be able to fix them for me before winter. The meeting took all of 15 minutes making me right on time to fix lunch for Mom.

After lunch the sabbath slump hit me. It came as it always does, a sudden rush of weariness that left me able to do almost nothing but lay on the couch sliding in and out of sleep. At three I walked the dogs and then took a short ride with Amanda around the area to see sites. We stopped by the mountain to take a few pics.

When we got back I had just enough energy to make supper before my body crashed once again. The rest of the night was spent watching TV on the couch. I rested. I practiced sabbath.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I have long had a love/hate relationship with this discipline called sabbath. I think I have struggled with it because of what sabbathing requires of me….because of what resting requires of me. Most of the people around me approach the Sabbath and the act of sabbathing as a day off, a day to have fun. They get to their day off. They go to the beach. They rake the lawn. They have friends over for a barbecue. They go and visit gramma. They go to Maine for the afternoon…..Meanwhile I crawl into bed and sleep for twelve hours. A really active sabbath for me is to lay on the couch and watch TV for eight hours after my nap, like I did yesterday.

Now there is a piece of me that is good with this. That piece of me knows I need this if I am to function the rest of the week like a normal human being. But there is a piece of me that really struggles to be like all the people around me. I want to be the guy who gets out of church and drives to Lynn to have lunch with my daughter and her family. I want to be like my sister who got done with her responsibilities at church yesterday and then drove to her friend’s house forty five minutes away and then painted canvas until after dark.

Here’s the thing. I can do all those things on Sunday. I can push off the Sabbath slump for a bit as long as I am prepared to slump on Monday. I cannot escape it. If I schedule myself so busy that I can’t Sabbath one day a week, I become this crabby Zombie monster who cannot function in any form of godliness. I revert to my old sinful self.

History of Zombies - HISTORY

I watch other people and think how weak I am because I can’t seem to do what everyone else does. Then I think maybe their not really doing it either. Maybe they really are just better at hiding their sinful zombie monster selves than I am.

Let me ask you dear friends….HOW DOES REST LOOK IN YOUR LIFE? WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON’T REST THE RIGHT WAY?

I am looking forward to tomorrow dear friends!

Pastor J

This Day At the Vicarage 8-29-20

/ joseph elon lillie / 10 Comments

I awoke this morning with one of those leg cramps that make you scream yourself awake. You know the kind I mean, the kind where you are mindful enough to know that if you could just get to your feet the pain would stop, the kind which is so painful you cannot move out of the position you have contorted into.

What are Muscle Cramps and How Can They be Treated Naturally

After a minute of deep breathing through the worst of the pain, I swung my feet off the bed. I realized the day was dark and rainy, a reminder from God that I was in my current situation probably because I had let myself get dehydrated yesterday.

I pushed myself off of the bed. I thought back to yesterday and remembered that the Lord had changed up my sermon for Sunday on me. I was working in Psalm 84. Then, in my afternoon devotion the Lord had pushed me into Isaiah 8:11-20. When one sermon supplants another the sensation can be sort of like an emotional earthquake, especially when the supplanting comes on Friday afternoon. My new sermon prep got as far as reading the new verses to my sister after an evening ride around the area. Then I settled into an evening of wrestling internally with what I was to make out of the new passage given me. I went to bed with no more idea of what I was going to preach than when I first got the new verses in the afternoon.

This morning, as I paced about my bedroom trying to get my right calf muscle to release, the brain fog of sleep dissipated and I began to realize God had downloaded all the points of my new sermon while I was sleeping.

HAS ANYTHING LIKE THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?

MIND BLOWN - Imgur

Well you know I hobbled to my computer, and set the new outline down. I sent it off to my technical director so he could create the powerpoint. Then I heard the Lord say. “I have given you rain. Allow it to pace you. Allow it to slow you down to the place of prayer you need to be ready.”

So I have slowed down. I have hydrated. I have stretched. Most importantly, I have prayed and now I can say.

I am excited to see what tomorrow brings dear friends.

Pastor J