Flocks

April 3, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Here we are! The beginning of Holy Week. It feels like we have officially moved into Spring. Even the world seems to know it.

I had a board meeting with my deacons yesterday and one of our talking points was about the work of preparation God has been speaking to all of us about especially in light of what some of our sister churches are facing this Spring throughout the United States

Here Spring is coming in gently. I cannot imagine what it is like to pastor this Spring in Rolling RockMS Or Little Rock Arkansas or Nashville TN. My prayers are with those congregations as they face their incredible challenges. I am also praying that God helps us in, this gentler season for us, to prepare for whatever difficulty may lie ahead.

Our own thirteen hours blackout a few weeks ago during the ice storm showed me the need for us to obtain a secondary heat source for The Vicarage.

And the need for emergency packs has also begun to speak to my heart.

All those things aside, I am turning my eyes away from those things today to Sabbath myself (another very important aspect of personal preparation for what lies ahead). So today I am watching the Spring birds. Flocks have come to my feeders.

Grackles

Redwing Blackbirds

Cowbirds.

These Spring birds have returned enmasse.

I have two flocks that visit daily on opposite sides of the property. The morning flock is between twenty and thirty birds and the afternoon flock is between forty and sixty birds. My soul is refreshed as I watch these troops converge on the house as I read the Scriptures and write down thoughts that have been waiting days to meet the page.

HOW ARE YOU PREPARING FOR THE SPRING AND SUMMER SEASON?

TIME TO “CLEAN THE GARAGE”

March 30, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

Yesterday I wrote about decision fatigue. Writing does help me get what’s inside out so I can look at it from a different perspective. As I thought about what I wrote yesterday a few thoughts kept rolling around in my head:

I FEEL OVERWHELMED BECAUSE I AM NOT GIVING MYSELF ENOUGH TIME TO RECUPERATE FROM THE WORK I DO, ESPECIALLY THE EMOTIONAL WORK. I NEED TO GET BETTER AT PRACTICING SABBATH.
I AM ALREADY AUTOMATING LOTS OF MY DECISIONS TO HELP MYSELF, BUT I DO NEED TO GET BETTER AT PRACTICING THE DECISIONS I AUTOMATE.
I THINK A PART OF PRACTICING SABBATH IS TAKING TIME TO STOP AND “CLEAN THE GARAGE”.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

I don’t have a garage, but having an actual garage is not necessary to practice “cleaning the garage”. Cleaning the garage is a term I heard from a men’s lifestyle teacher, Neil Kennedy. Neil teaches that when a man is overwhelmed one of the keys to dealing with the blinding stress that comes with the overwhelm is to assert control over some area of his life. It doesn’t have to be the area or the thing that is causing the overwhelm. Just the act of organizing and controlling some aspect of his environment creates a sense of calm that helps put life back into proper perspective.

I think part of sabbathing for me is going to involve “cleaning the garage”. Doing and completing some task that betters my environment will help me to regain and maintain focus in the midst of the many decisions that lie before me.

It’s Spring.

The snow has gone from the Vicarage (mostly). The blackbirds and robins have returned.

Flocks of grackles and starlings are visiting my feeders once again. The air is filled with birdsong. The world is waking up.

In the midst of the waking world I have a side lawn that needs to be planted, and a giant pile of fieldstone to turn into stone walls and stone planters.

There is a rat warren to cement shut.

And then there is the other side of the house with all the overgrown gardens to prune and beautify. That should leave me enough garage to clean for a while as Spring springs into being.

Of course there is also the option to nap rather than clean.

Maybe I can do a little of both and!

Decision Fatigue

March 29, 2023March 29, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

My daughter says I need a real Sabbath. I do take one… sort of. I come home on Sundays after service and I try not to do anything other than my Monday devotional until Monday night men’s group.

Photo by Anastasiya Lobanovskaya on Pexels.com

Some weeks I do better than others. After last week, when I didn’t get the sermon done until Friday night, I got nervous. Since I already knew what I was preaching for this next Sunday I wrote the sermon on Monday which meant of course…no day off.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

Yesterday I had staff meeting, came home to do bills and to work through my own health insurance options while also working on Grace’s next steps into the world of Medicaid. Then I got a call to attend the bedside of a man preparing for his eternal journey. So I decided to cancel my regularly scheduled evening meetings with other parishioners.

This morning I woke up to two e-mails pushing towards decisions for the health insurance and some changes around the Vicarage. Neither of them were pushy or terribly serious they just started the day on an emphasis of decision making before I had even had my first cup of coffee.

I have been learning in my NOOM app about decision fatigue. I know this is one of my issues. Too many decisions….Noom says one of the ways to deal with decision fatigue is to automate some of your decisions. Move them from the plate of conscious decision to automatic action. Things like: What to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner, The order of activities in the day, what clothes to wear.

I also think my daughter is right. I have to be much more intentional about building in a decision free day…a real sabbath. And I think I need to build some actual decision making/ planning time into my schedule. It is there I am just not using the planning time to its proper advantage.

HERE’S A QUESTION. WHAT ARE SOME TRICKS YOU USE TO INTENTIONALLY PLAN YOUR LIFE?

TO RELEASE THE OWL

March 27, 2023March 27, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 4 Comments

About two months ago Amanda rescued an owl from an unkindness of ravens that was trying to kill it (an unkindness is a group of ravens that gather around here. They often group to attack birds of prey).

Animal control came and collected the poor creature which was in shock and had a broken wing.

Yesterday just before church Amanda got the call that the bird was healed and ready to be released back into the wild. We were asked if we wanted to observe the release so at 4:30 in the afternoon we were at the church to watch the event.

The little fellow looked a little nervous, but with a bit of encouragement he was able to leave the box and go back to his home.

WHO NEEDS THE RADIO?

March 23, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

I love to listen to music of all kinds. My car is equipped with a radio, a CD player, Bluetooth for Apple Car play, and Sirius XM capability. I use none of it.

I listen to the radio maybe .5% of the time I am driving. Even on long drives, like any drive up to Claremont I seldom listen to music on the radio.

Driving is my thinking time.

Driving is additional talking to God time.

The Good Lord is doing so much just now. My life is so full of His moving in new and wonderful ways I find myself needing every spare minute to put into context what He is doing.

I keep hearing Him say, “You must see what I am doing.”

Seeing what He is doing takes time and lots of deep consideration. Who needs a radio? The music of the spheres is constantly playing in my head.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU ARTE DRIVING?

HOSPICE FOR GRACE

March 18, 2023March 18, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 2 Comments

The week has been eventful as far as it concerns elder care. The snow storm was a huge challenge for mother. She hasn’t quite recovered her sleep schedule yet or her best grace. This morning she told my son that when he comes to live here she is going to make him live in tent on the side of the house and she will make sure he had an outhouse to use.

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Yesterday I got a call from Sullivan County Health Care, where my ward Grace lives. Her appetite has been very poor for some time, but since the storm she has eaten almost nothing and she is drinking very little as well.

It is now to the point where hospice has been suggested. This next turn of the wheel has finally come.

I got the call from the visiting nurses out of White River Junction last night, and set up the appointment to sign paperwork for 9:30 this morning.

I am so thankful for the support network I have to help with mother. Amanda is away at a family life conference in Shrewsbury MA today, so my daughter Melanie came to sit with mom for the four hours I would be gone this morning.

I was driving the road along the Ashuelot River by 8 A.M. By 9:30 I was pulling into the driveway at Sullivan County Health Care.

The nursing home is under major reconstruction. The new stucture is going to be absolutely beautiful.

As I walked through the hallways, filled with temporary storage containers for the current construction work my heart felt such sadness. Grace will probably not be here to see the finished work on her current home.

During this visit, though, there were lots of wins to celebrate. I got to introduce the hospice nurse, Jen, to Grace personally and we both had a nice visit with Grace before Jen and I had to step aside to sign paperwork. Grace was having a good morning. She has lost quite a bit of weight now, but she was in good spirits, and pain free.

One of the things I am most glad about is that Grace will now have a weekly visit with a chaplain. She has really missed the in person spiritual direction and Scripture reading. I will also have a weekly check in from the chaplain to let me know how things are going on the spiritual- emotional front.

HAVE YOU OR A LOVED ONE EVER BEEN UNDER A CHAPLAIN’S CARE?

LIVING “CALLED”

March 12, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

This morning, at breakfast, I was talking with Mom about Amanda’s upcoming ordination. She will be ordained the Rev. Amanda Lillie in May.

At that point she will hold the most advanced credential in our church. I held my first level of credential for nearly 25 years without advancing and now that I have entered the second level of credential I have to hold that for two years before I can be ordained myself.

My mother asked why it took me so long to move forward and my only real answer was a lack of ambition. Always I have been more about the call than the credential. I have ministered and gone where I felt the Lord wanted me to go and very seldom have I thought about my qualification. Honestly, the level of my credential has seldom factored into the call.

I now pursue ordination in order to walk in obedience before my presbytery. It is an act of submission. Amanda feels the same. The call is the thing. The credential feels like an affirmation of that call in the eyes of men, but the call is the thing I must walk out before God.

Just now that call is getting very exciting as we prepare the church to walk in a deeper manifestation of the love of Jesus than ever before.

MINDFUL EATING AMERICAN

March 10, 2023March 10, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 3 Comments

One of my goals this year is to lose eighty pounds. I joined NOOM and so far I am down about 22 pounds depending on the day.

I am also trying to get rid of joint pain in my knees and hips. I think a large part of the pain is due, not just to my weight, but to what I am eating.

I am a big sweet eater and like most Americans I love my processed sugars.

As I said the other day I am on a lenten fast called the Daniel Fast, which is basically a vegetarian fast. I fasted like this in January and it went very well. This time I am having a hard time staying away from the processed sugar.

My latest NOOM lessons have been on the subject of mindful eating. It involves paying attention to what I am putting in my mouth. One of the suggestions is to increase mindfulness is to actually sit down to table to eat rather than eating on the go.

I have to admit this is a great challenge for me. I have years of ingrained on the go eating. I seldom sit at table to eat almost always choosing the grab and go method, the watch TV and eat method or the multitasking eating method.

But I do realize that the idea of slowing down to be intentional about eating is not only healthy but it is one of my three mandates of living from God, “SLOW, CONSTANT AND INTENTIONAL”.

I am going to try shifting this eating habit. I’ll let you know how it goes.

DO YOU EAT MINDFULLY? WHAT HELPS YOU TO DO IT?

PLANNING BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS

March 9, 2023March 9, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 4 Comments

My professor for Sermon Preparation in bible college was a big proponent of planning ahead. He felt that as pastors part of our responsibility to our congregations was to take a month at the beginning of every year to plan out our sermons for the entire year. He went so far in his ministry as to instruct his secretary to clear his January schedule of all non emergency meetings. He sequestered himself in his study and spent that month actually writing out every sermon he was planning to preach through the following Christmas from outline to three point essay format.

In my 32 years of ministry I have never gone that far. I modified his ideas to better fit the rhythm of my ministry. As a youth pastor I would sit with my team each year and plan out the year in group meetings, leadership trainings and youth events. Then I would use that calendar to plan out my teachings for the year by subject and how long I would give myself to teach the series I was planning. Then I would write the sermons weekly or a few weeks at a time. Sometimes I would get a whole series written just before I launched into it. This gave me a strong structure to work from while at the same time offering me flexibility required of youth ministry.

I am finding that planning the course of the church as lead pastor uses pretty much the same principles I learned in youth ministry. For me, planning is one of the main uses of sabbatical. Last August(2022), I planned out my direction for the year (through Christmas 2023).

I suppose some think the structure would lend itself to limiting the move of the Holy Spirit (it’s actually a criticism I have heard). I find it is actually the opposite. I spent a month praying about the plan. I trusted that God had the ability to tell me in advance what He was planning to do. I also held the plan lightly enough that I was prepared to shelve it if God chose to do something different.

We are currently in the middle of a series called, “Jesus Doing Life”. It was originally meant to take us through Easter and then we were going to launch directly into a walk through The Revelation.

God has changed up plans a little. The last three weeks have been divinely interrupted. Twice I have preached extemporaneously and the third service I gave the pulpit to a staff member to share thoughts that came as the result of her trip to a conference in North Carolina. These three services affirmed some things the leadership team has been looking at and we have decided to finish up with “Jesus Doing Life” and then to launch directly into a study on healing offenses entitled, The Bait of Satan.

This decision means the study in Revelation will carry us well into 2024. The plan stands but it is adapting. It is a part of ministry I like to call planning by the seat of my pants.

LENTEN CENTERING PRAYER AT NIGHT

March 8, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 7 Comments

I have returned to fasting for the lenten season in preparation for a deeper work of ministry coming after Easter. I have to admit it is not going well. I find myself struggling with my appetite and failing to control it, especially at night after times of ministry.

I have learned over years of practicing the discipline of fasting that the struggle with appetite is perhaps the most important thing in the fast. Not giving up in the midst of momentary failure is almost as powerful in the work of fasting as fasting perfectly. There is so much to learn about oneself in the midst of failure. The failures and the reasons for those failures reveal to me what God is working on inside of my heart. Fasting shines a light on the shadowy places of our hearts, and the centering prayer that must always accompany fasting shows us where the shadows are extending from into our lives.

In this season, I am practicing seven times of daily prayer with varying degrees of success. The night time prayer sessions of Compline, Matins and Lauds are the most difficult for me to practice. Again the night time is revealed as my time of spiritual difficulty and weakness and I am seeking God to help me discover why that is so and how to send spiritual balance into that part of my life.

DO YOU HAVE A TIME OF THE WEEK OR OF THE DAY WHEN YOU FEEL SPIRITUALLY WEAK?

Notes From the Vicarage

A minister's family living in a micro forest garden

inspiration