Remembering 2013

Years help us mark the passage of time, but all years are not equal. I don’t remember anything particularly meaningful happening to me in, say, 1993 or 2009. Those years are not memorable years in my life. Other years will always be significant to me: years in which I moved (’92, ’95, ’01, ’05, ’08, ’12), and years of graduation (’01, ’05, ’08). I’ll never forget that I married Lisa in 2008, that my grandfathers died in 2002 and 2012, or that in 1996 the Steelers lost the Super Bowl for the first time in team history.

As 2013 comes to an end, I will remember this year as significant for two reasons:

1.      2013 is the year I fell back in love with running.

In January, Lisa began training for the Pittsburgh Marathon. To support her in this endeavor, I agreed to run a 6.5 mile leg of the Marathon Relay. Although I ran cross country in middle school and high school, and ran for fun in college, I had not run on a regular basis in 8 years. The last couple of years, I tried and quickly succumbed to injury. So, I began my training with much fear and trepidation.

Oh my goodness, I forgot how much I love running. It doesn’t matter what time, it doesn’t matter where, running is glorious. I feel so free, so relaxed, so much at peace when I run. Yet, it is more than just stress relief and fitness. Running also offers challenges worthy of my competitive nature – can I go faster, further, up steeper hills? Can I push myself to the limit?

When the year began, I thought I would push myself through the relay leg of the marathon and then call it quits. But by that time, I had become so enamored with running that, like Forrest Gump, I just kept running…

In 2013 I think I ran more miles than any single year in my life. I ran more races than any year since 2000. In all, I ran one 5K, three 10Ks, one 5 miler, and my first half marathon ever. And I am still running, already dreaming up challenges and setting goals for myself in 2014.

2.      2013 will always be the year the ignominy ended.

I am a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Win or lose, they have always been my team. And for 20 straight years, they had a losing record, the longest in the history of U.S. professional sports (an ignominious streak, indeed). Yet I still cheered. I still wore my Pirates hat to temples of evil empires: Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Yankee Stadium. I don’t care that your team is better; I’m a Pirates fan. From 2009 to present I have been a season ticket holder with the Pirates. I love this team, but for 2 decades they didn’t love me back.

That all changed this year, as they became the darlings of Major League Baseball, winning 94 games and advancing to the divisional round of the playoffs with promising young stars, veterans who returned to form, and a ballpark that was rocking and rolling like I’ve never seen it before. I’ll always remember the 9 game winning streak in June, taking 4 of 5 from the Cardinals at the end of July, Gerrit Cole’s 1-0 win in September that got things back on track, and of course, I’ll always remember “Cueeeeeeee-to… Cueeeeeeee-to… Cueeeeeeee-to…”

            So, on the last day of 2013, I engage in the holy practice of reflection. 2013 challenged me, uplifted me, and brought me peace and joy that I never saw coming. In 2014, new challenges and new celebrations will surely come that I cannot anticipate. So I prepare myself to meet them with grace and joy, as we once again leave one year behind and strive towards a new one.

The Feast of the Visitation

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately making visits to our congregation’s Members to Remember. That’s what we call our shut-ins, because not all of them are actually “shut in,” and it’s also not a label by which people want to be defined. Every year around Christmas and Easter, we pastors at Chippewa UMC make every effort to share the sacrament of Holy Communion with all of our Members to Remember.

In this busy season of Advent, these visits have not been easy to fit into my schedule. However, instead of being a nuisance, they have actually become something I anticipate with joy. The purpose of the visits is to make sure everyone remains connected to the body of Christ, no matter what their situation. If something limits their ability to participate fully in the life of the church, then we bring the church to them with this sacrament. Communion is a visible sign of God’s grace extended to us, and once the bread and cup is made sacred, Christ becomes truly present with those who gather together.

So, in the ministry of visitation, my role is to communicate remembrance. We remember what God has done, is doing, and has yet to do in Jesus Christ. We also remember that even though their activity in the church is now limited, they are still meaningful participants in the body of Christ, and without them that body is incomplete.

But the secret of pastoral ministry is that the Members to Remember are not the only ones who need these visits. I need to remember as well. These people help me remember that there is more to the church than what we see on Sunday morning, or even in the packed sanctuaries of Christmas Eve.

The holiday season is filled with joy and “Christmas cheer.” But sometimes all the bright, shiny celebrations cause us to forget the people living in the shadows. In the glow of Christmas, our Members to Remember are in danger of being the “Members We Forgot.” But because of this ministry practice, I have kept them at the forefront of my mind. And I can think of no better way to celebrate the coming of Emmanuel, which means “God with us,” than to spend time with Members to Remember.

Advent's Comfortable Pace

Recently, I went running on a Sunday afternoon. For most of this year, I have been in training for one race or another, and in training, every run has a purpose. Distance, pace, time, and route are all planned for a training run, so I can prepare for an upcoming race. But this particular Sunday run was not a training run. I simply had a few hours to spare on a beautiful fall day, so I laced up my running shoes and headed out.

Even as a I started, I didn't know how far I would go. I intentionally left my watch at home, so I wouldn't be tempted to track my time. This was a run for the love of running, and my only goal was to settle in at a "comfortable pace" and run until I felt like stopping.

Every runner knows what a comfortable pace is. It's slower than race pace, and you're not pushing too hard, but you're not dragging your feet either. You aren't breathing so heavily that you can't carry on a conversation, but you are still tired at the end of the run. And one person's comfortable pace is not the same as another person's. A comfortable pace is not measured by a stopwatch; it is felt in the rhythm of one foot in front of another, over and over again.

I've been thinking about pace a lot as we enter Advent, the season of waiting. In the first cold days in December, at the beginning of the Christian year, we are called to wait. Advent is not the time to celebrate, nor to busy ourselves with Christian service, as it is with other seasons. Advent is the time to wait for the coming of the Christ child.

The season of waiting is a season meant to be lived at a "comfortable pace." Yet how many of us take off sprinting the moment Thanksgiving ends, constantly accomplishing "merry" tasks until we are out of breath? And others of us drag our feet, thinking that if we stay behind the pack, no one will notice that we'd rather this whole thing be over with so we can get on to other things.

Somewhere in between is the comfortable pace, which again is felt, not measured. The blessing of the comfortable pace is that sometimes we get lost in thought and lose track of time. We are going slow enough to notice the things we pass along the way and to reflect upon their meaning in our lives. Yet we are not standing still. We are constantly moving further along the trail from where we started to where we have yet to be.

Finally, we arrive at the end of our run, welcoming God-with-us on Christmas Day. The journey was long and tiring, but we are also glad that we chose to make the journey in the first place. I'm glad I went running that Sunday afternoon, and because I found my comfortable pace I was able to go further than I had planned. Sometimes, we only make it because we find the comfortable pace between sprinting and dragging our feet.

This Advent season, I hope we will all find the comfortable pace that allows us to converse with neighbors on this journey, and reflect on what we see together as we move closer each day to the joy of Christmas.