Joy Christi Przestwor
Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville

March 8, 2009

This I Believe

WHAT DOES THIS COMMUNITY MEAN TO ME?

Subtitle: (from my neighbor in coveralls & a piece of straw in the corner of his mouth)

WHY THE DICKENS DO YOU DRIVE ALL THAT WAY EVERY SUNDAY WHEN Y’ALL HAVE A CHURCH RIGHT HERE NEAR YA?

(Play section from Kenny G’s You’re Beautiful) Wetting one’s appetite with a shortened version of music rather than saturating you is a better place to begin sharing with you this morning AND catching one of the critical points of continuity with this community for me HAD TO include music!

Attempting to summarize in a five minute sharing exactly “how beautiful” each of you is to me as I look out from this position is a daunting task. I can assure you I have been musing over exactly how to handle this for quite some time…so I am hopeful this will provide a mirror to reflect back to every one of you exactly what a beloved community you are and continue to be for me. And as Ellen DeGeneres would put it, “back at you”…

My journey with you began with a sermon preached from this very pulpit on October 14, 2007. The irony is that sermon was on connections and how they appear again and again in our lives.

I am an educator. That title has defined my presence on this planet now for over forty years. I LOVE teaching!  That action has always challenged me to become a more alert, alive, and caring human being. Students have a capacity to bring out the best in us IF we are intentional about their development. The sermon on connections and the reason I was invited here, was because a former student of mine was giving it. I had challenged her when she was sixteen to become a leader, to think about what she had to give to others. One of the classes that I remember distinctly from that time was one where one of my colleagues and I team taught about the idea of time. My colleague felt that time was linear; I drew a spiral on the blackboard and explained that I felt it had a circular motion to it. I told the students that from my perspective we tend to advance in a circular motion as we grow, change, and develop. My sharing with you this morning is but another indication to me that that is, in fact, the case.

As I sat in the pew directly across from this podium, listening to my former student, Annette Marquis, our District Executive my eyes filled with tears of pride and enthusiasm. A woman named Grace sat next to me. Grace, who I have not seen since or found in all my greeting and ushering, was most aware of me that October morning. She took time at the end of the service to tell me a little about this community and welcomed me with a special smile and an open heart. I was very impressed with her attentiveness and also have found it ironic that her name was Grace. I also was introduced to Mark and his wife, Linda Blair, and Mary Campbell that October morning. This sanctuary enthralled me, the light, the stone…I felt as I had attended a service as close to the outdoors as is possible within a building. I also felt a very special connection to this place and had no idea why; it just felt right! That “right on” gut feeling that you can only feel—words escape tying it down.

I remember going home that afternoon and telling my partner, Carla, that I thought I had found a church for us to finally attend. Carla and I had been looking for several years for a place to belong and celebrate our own spiritual journeying process with others. Carla had not joined me that Sunday. Although she had wanted to, she was just not feeling strong enough to make the trip in the car. Carla was battling fatigue from her chemo treatments and her body dealing with breast cancer.

The next Sunday came and I decided to come back for that service. Carla had stayed in bed that morning because she had been really tired and hadn’t been able to keep her food down since Friday. That particular Sunday was one where our Coming of Age youth happened to be serving soup and salads. I joked with the two young men who were serving the variety of soups. I also had the pleasure during that shared meal of sitting across from Hans, our, as of a few weeks ago, 89 year old elder who had tons to share with me. On the other side of the table was a young couple with two girls who were in the RE program and they shared how they had come to this community in Asheville as well. On the way out I also was approached by Mary Alm who introduced herself and asked what had brought me here. It was a rich morning! I drove back home after picking up some roses and the latest Melissa Etheridge CD with a special “happy journeying card” to accompany it as a gift for Carla. (remember the reading Mark had me share from Melissa a few Sundays ago—just another connection!)

The following Tuesday evening around ten pm Mark Ward was at St. Joseph Hospital helping me conduct a bedside service for Carla. Mark came after a single phone call was placed and he spent time that evening with me and more importantly with Carla. That evening spoke greatly about this community! Mark asked me if he could spend some private time with Carla since he had felt her hands and knew she was a special healer. I was being supported by this community after only having been in this place twice! I believe a connection was made for me to this community by Spirit and that I had been given the opportunity to be a part of a community of believers that truly ACT ON their principles of interdependence. I said good bye to my twenty year partner that next morning at 5:38am. She never made it back to our home. She never opened the new Melissa Etheridge CD on the mantel in our living room that was written in celebration of Melissa’s battle with breast cancer. However, her life was celebrated with our community in Bakersville, NC. Mark came to that community and participated and helped me conduct the memorial service for her. You all, as my neighbor in his coveralls noted, are part and parcel of my weekly involvement. How could I NOT BE a part of this congregation?

This is not the end of this story…the connections continued. The Sunday between Carla’s death and the memorial service I came to this community to celebrate and just bathe in its spirit. Now, I had cried all the way into church that morning—missing Carla beside me—remembering the midnight run to the hospital with our dog that Monday evening prior to her death. Do you remember that Sunday?  It was the Sunday where David Novak shared a wonderful story in celebration of Halloween. The story shared was how a little boy saw those who had died come back to life, that each person left a special sign of their presence for him to recognize within him. Now you tell me if that story could be connected to Carla...I certainly thought so! Here is why it was so significant to me. Another key piece of connecting information is I have on my finger a ring Carla gave  me early in our twenty year relationship—a story telling ring. She said I had a wonderful way of weaving stories into my teaching. I laughed out loud during that service and KNEW Carla was with me in this place through this community’s own story-teller. I dubbed that Sunday, my “Lady of the Ring” service and even asked Mark exactly HOW he had “planned that one”??

Since that Sunday LOTS of further connections have been forged and grown. I can easily call a substantial number of you by name. I have been able to greet you on Sundays, assist you with finding information, serve food to people from our entire district, and wash dishes after our gathering at Diana Wortham Theatre. Some of you have come to my home and enjoyed the wonders of my 33 acres paradise. I have been invited to share dinner, lunch, and coffee and the conversations that accompanied those occasions with several of you. I have had the wonderful honor of being a part of General Assembly and representing you. You have invited me to share my teaching, ministry, and group facilitator skills. Today as we concentrate on sharing our common life, on listening to each other as we continue our journey together I can say I have been TRULY blessed by and with this community.

I draw your attention this day to the boot that hangs to the right of my head behind me on our sanctuary hanging representing this wonderful mountain region in which we live. I know each of our journeys is unique. We each put on a different style and size of a boot as we move through our connections and our own spiritual journey. Each of us, as our stewardship committee is sharing with and reminding us this month, brings something special to this community. We move through our spiritual passage alongside one another. We support, encourage, laugh, play, cry, stumble, get back up and keep trucking as beautiful, caring presences in this community. Today, I ask you to imagine a boot on this mural for each one of us. I ask you to see the beauty that exists on each side of you, breathing, living, and caring. I ask you to recognize the beauty in this community that we so intentionally provide for each other. I thank each of you for being as beautiful as you are!  I thank you for loving me as I am, allowing me to share with you my gifts, and ask you to continue to challenge me to keep my boots on and not stuck in the mud. To allow me to keep journeying alongside you through the hills and valleys. To carry one another as we discover and learn through our common life.

May this Sunday reinforce our connectedness as we walk our talk and celebrate the beautiful process of becoming a caring, intentional community. May I also have opportunity after opportunity to connect with each of you as my journey continues for what I hope to be a very long time!

Namaste