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?

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?

Flags, Crags and Bluebirds

January 27, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

The power came back in at the church yesterday around 3 P.M. So today the staff was back in doing staff things. Carrie was meeting with a couple of her Doing Life Together Leaders, Pastor Amanda was preparing for Kids Church and youth group and then this afternoon she headed out for a meeting with another youth leader and one of the youth. Natalia was finishing up formatting the announcement slides and sermon slides, David was vacuuming the sanctuary and I…..well I was climbing the ladder putting back the international flag display.

Our missions secretary Wendy was in to help and then she was going to make contact with a new US missionary who works with the foster/adoption field. Our staff generally tries to have lunch with a missionary once a month. We haven’t had anyone in since October because of the holidays and…fasting.

After finishing with the flags I put up a few new pictures in my office and then went home to work on the paperwork for the Medicaid meeting I have next Wednesday for a lady from our church. I am a bit nervous about it because she has already been rejected once and the application is quite complicated. I parked on the street as I got home. I am trying to avoid my driveway as much as possible. The sidewalk plow and the lack of truly frozen ground has made it….well….craggy.

All the torn up tar is encased in blocks of ice in the bankings along the street; So I have been going around chopping up ice chunks and throwing the gravel bits in the center of them back into my driveway.

In the midst of battling with the mundane, the stressful and the aggravating, four of these little fellas showed up at my birdfeeder the other day. I’ve never had bluebirds at my feeder and it seems a bit early for them, but there they were. I have to say when I am feeling a little overwhelmed a bluebird or two is a great stress reliever.

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THE MUNDANE, THE STRESSFUL AND THE OVERWHELMING COMPOUND IN YOUR LIFE?

CANCELLING THE FLAGS

January 26, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

The back wall of our church was decorated with the flags of every nation where the church supports a missionary, until our sanctuary renovation earlier this year. We took the flags down and we have just never gotten them back up. Today was supposed to be the day we returned them to their posts. But we walked into the church this morning to the sound of two warning alarms:One from our fire system, and the other from the sump pump off of the fellowship hall. We soon discovered that the church was completely without power. A branch in the night took down some lines and the whole highway was out.

So without lights in the sanctuary or enough light from the windows to safely use the ladder we cancelled the flag project and rescheduled it for tomorrow.

The day itself has felt very discombobulated. I got up a little later than usual and threw off my morning schedule. All day long I have been dealing with a distracted mind. I am constantly having to call myself back to focus. I am leaving jobs half done all around me.

Maybe I will just go back to bed for a bit and start over after lunch. I do have some jobs to do that I really need to concentrate for!

Still Life Broken and Repaired

January 20, 2023January 20, 2023 / joseph elon lillie / 1 Comment

The season has changed again. We are right back to winter overnight. This is one of the warmest winters I remember. I have only worn a coat one or two days this year. Maybe it’s just my thick northern blood, but something is changing. All season we have been going back and forth between freeze and melt. Today the ground is covered with snow. Tomorrow we could be back to the mud. It’s a change.

I am currently taking part as a reader in a book launch for a friend. Poet and story teller Tracy Rittmueller has written a book of poetry entitled, Still Life, Broken and Repaired. The book is about life changes, especially those changes between life partners as aging happens. The effects of dementia on relationships is a key theme in her poetry. Right now this book is speaking to me about the plethora of changes I am walking through with my own Mom and with my life long friend Grace.

In her poem, “Healing Is a Never Ending Departure”, Tracy writes

“Life calls us
to our never ending story.
All is still well.
Take heart, dear heart.
Release, that you may heal.”

Excerpt From: Tracy Rittmueller. “Still Life, Broken and Repaired.” Apple Books.

Right now life is requiring a constant releasing. My mom’s life, Grace’s life are like this winter. Some days you get warm sunshine and all is well. Other days are filled with mud and confusion. And then there are the days where the cold chill of the future just sort of sweeps over you. Each day requires a releasing of what was and an acceptance of what is now. My world is busy and grand in its smallness. On that note I leave you with these thoughts from Tracy’s poem, “In A Cove In The Yorks, Maine, I Dare To Hope Again.”

“And so I sit here for hours intent to hear the healing
beginning of another pilgrimage, any conscious progress
to inspire our next, necessary transformation.”

Excerpt From: Tracy Rittmueller. “Still Life, Broken and Repaired final.” Apple Books.

I am embracing the change whatever it may be. I know God has us in the midst of it.

If you would like to read more of Tracy’s work you can find it at TracyRitmueller.com

Notes From the Vicarage

A minister's family living in a micro forest garden

ministry life