Tuesday, April 3, 2018


AN AIRBORNE RECOVERY MONDAY


 The Monday after Easter Sunday is referred to by some of us as “Clergy/Staff Recovery Day.” It’s been six and a half weeks since Ash Wednesday which began a long season of spiritual intensity plodding through Lent, rising to a crescendo during Holy Week, and culminating in a rousing climax on Resurrection Day. This Monday is the day for pastors and worship leaders to pause, reflect, and catch their breath. The season of Lent/Easter this year has been for me like no other. Recovery Monday has become a pivotal moment. 

On Ash Wednesday my sermon was, as usual, about letting go. Not just about giving something up, or taking something on, but simply about letting go. But even letting go is only half of the story. What are you letting go of, and what are you laying hold of? Letting go of something always leaves a void unless and until it is replaced by something else. Now on Recovery Monday I thought to myself, now that Lent is over, what is being released, and what is being embraced?

 This year the answer to that question was easy. On Ash Wednesday I was carrying a secret that I could not yet reveal. The day before, I had received a call from the cabinet about accepting another appointment. Neither I nor the congregation I served had asked for a change in appointment, so this unexpected development was something I was just beginning to process as I began to lead the flock into Lent and all the way to Easter.

On Recovery Monday, I was talking on the phone with one of our worship leaders and she remarked that she was happy we had such a meaningful Holy Week since it was my last Holy Week here. “Your last Holy Week here.” Those words caught in my mind. Even through we are itinerant pastors, there is still a grieving process for us to go through as we prepare to leave behind memories and relationships and prepare to make new ones. 

Henri Nouwen loved the circus. At one time he took his father to see a trapeze troupe known as the Flying Rodleighs, and he became deeply enthralled with them. He went to see them several times, and finally he introduced himself to them. They allowed him to attend their practice sessions, invited him to dinner, and he actually became kind of a “groupie” and friend of the Rodleighs. Nouwen describes one of this conversations with them in a talk he once gave on death and dying:  
        
One day, I was sitting with Rodleigh, the leader of the troupe, in his caravan, talking about flying. He said, "As a flyer, I must have complete trust in my catcher. The public might think that I am the great star of the trapeze, but the real star is Joe, my catcher. He has to be there for me with split-second precision and grab me out of the air as I come to him in the long jump."

            "How does it work?" I asked.

"The secret," Rodleigh said, "is that the flyer does nothing and the catcher does everything. When I fly to Joe, I have simply to stretch out my arms and hands and wait for him to catch me and pull me safely over the apron behind the catchbar."

"You do nothing!" I said, surprised.

"Nothing," Rodleigh repeated. "The worst thing the flyer can do is to try to catch the catcher. I am not supposed to catch Joe. It's Joe's task to catch me. If I grabbed Joe's wrists, I might break them, or he might break mine, and that would be the end for both of us. A flyer must fly, and a catcher must catch, and the flyer must trust, with outstretched arms, that his catcher will be there for him."[1]

While Henri Nouwen was using this as a metaphor for letting go of this earthly life and reaching out to be “caught” by God in the life to come, it can also be applied to many of our transitions in life. For those of us who are moving, we are being called to let go from holding onto our status quo, and “trust the catcher” to be there for us in the next place of service! We don’t have to catch the catcher (God) – the Catcher will be there to catch us!





[1] From Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Dying and Caring by Henri Nouwen

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