Tuesday, April 27, 2010

What We Leave Behind

New ACT's last face-to-face meeting was held the Saturday after Easter (April 10th). Recognizing this ending, Holly Nye (New ACT member and Conference Minister of the Troy Conference) led us in a service of worship centered around the story of Joshua and the People crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land (Joshua 3 & 4).

In that story, God cuts the flow of the Jordan River to allow Joshua and the People to cross on dry land. As the People make their crossing, God instructs a representative from each of the 12 Tribes of Israel to pick up a stone from the dry river bed and carry it with them to the other side. Once safely there, these representatives were to assemble a memorial out of these stones to mark the occasion of the Crossing.

"When your children ask you, 'What are these stones to you?' you'll say, 'The flow of the Jordan was stopped in front of the Chest of the Covenant of God as it crossed the Jordan - stopped in its tracks. These stones are a permanent memorial for the People of Israel.'" (Joshua 4;4-7, MSG)

This story really captured my imagination. Like the People crossing over into a new land, you and I are about to enter this new relationship called the "Upper New York Conference." But it wasn't the "moving forward" part that really spoke to me; it was the "leaving behind" bit. As I took hold of my stone, I pondered what I was leaving behind in order to cross over.

Truthfully, up until a few months ago, I'd not spent a lot of time thinking about what was ending, having lived so intimately and intensely with the work of planning the beginning of a new conference. Serving as the convener of a four conference team (New ACT), I'd not wanted to sound or appear partisan for my own particular conference. Members of New ACT early on adopted the practice of identifying themselves, not by conference affiliation, but by town or city. I think practices like this did help us live into something new.

But its also very true there's nothing inappropriate about naming, feeling, and grieving what we are leaving behind in order to move into the new. In fact, its essential. In order to begin something, we must come to terms with what's ending.

For me at this moment, the reality of what's ending as we move into the new conference is pretty concrete. I'm packing up my office at the church where I've been serving these past 7 years, getting ready to move to the offices of the new conference July 1. I'm excited about being the new conference Director of Connectional Ministries, but I'm grieving the relationships and work I will leave behind here in Lansing, New York.

What about you? Are you experiencing a sense of loss, even as you look forward to the future? I'd love to have you leave a comment on this blog as a "memorial stone" naming what you might be leaving behind.

1 comment:

  1. Natalie Sleeth wrote in the new and beloved "Hymn of Promise"-
    In our end is our beginning -
    I was born in Fulton, "grew-up" in Liverpool, lived in Ithaca for 10 years of my young adult life. Home is now Honesdale, PA. Soon home will be Lake Placid. As I think of June 19 and July 1 what comes to my mind and heart is four Annual Conferences closing the chapter on their life and history - and two of those Conferences bifurcating and relating to three entirely different Episcopal Areas. That's a load of leaving behind. Still, Sister Sleeth's hymn sings on: From the past will come the future, what it holds, a mystery - unrevealed until it's season, something God alone can see.
    SHALOM IMMANUEL

    ReplyDelete