Happy Sabbath!

Thank you God for this glorious Sabbath!  Thank you God for purple mountains majesty out my Prayer room window.  Thank you for these beautiful girls, a call and breath in my body.  Happy Sabbath everyone!  I've returned home from my magical journey to Dalton, MA where I was called as the 23 pastor of the First Congregational UCC.  Hooray!  It was overwhelming, exhilerating, and filled with so much love!  I feel like I fell into a Normal Rockwell painting and was completely accepted as a character there, I know, it blows my mind too.  Now, all three of us just want to get to Massachusetts!  We invented a new game yesterday called, shredding!  Turns out we all like to play it.  A lot can be worked out through sending that paper into the shredding machine and watching it get sucked in and mulched up.  Gabrielle particularly likes it, I'm hoping it helps with some of her anxiety and anger towards the changes at hand.  I love the feeling of going through things and sorting them out and most importantly lightening the load.  Abbigail gets very anxious and feels hurt to let go of anything, even junk mail she's collected to play with.  I feel the opposite, let it go, let it go, let it go and it feels GREAT to do so.  Tomorrow, I'm going to a funeral, and I'm interested to see if the emotions will be similar, this letting go, this God is with you even though things can change quickly and unexpectedly.  And, even though most times, unexpectedly feels lousy, this time it feels strong, solid, wonderful, just in time.  Thank you God for endings and beginnings and beginnings and endings.  And, in the midst of it all are the good-byes.  Today there will be swimming, lots of good food and a party at Chuck and Barby's lovely home in Tucson.  Even the ritual of saying good-bye seems healing.  It reminds me of my beloved brother Chuck as he called people to the house while he was dying.  The strength and character it gave him as he held each one of them and said their last words.  How assured he was of God's love and filled with God's peace.  I feel this way: this love, this peace, this light.  Thank you God for Sabbath.