From church to pilgrimage and back to church again . . .
Jan at achurchforstarvingartists always poses challenging questions. This time it’s about friendship among pastors, and among pastors and parishoners. A conundrum in all circumstances, and one that I think about a lot as an interim pastor whose retired predecessor and spouse live a block away from the church and are maintaining their church friendships, even as parishoners from my previous congregation seek out mine. What say you, experienced colleagues?
For many of us, this is a time of adventure. Rosalind is with a group of writers invited to tour Jordan, “the other holy land,” and her Facebook page is filled with images of the Episcopalian contingent, vast skies, ancient buildings, and orange Jordanian cats. As her daughter studies the whys of pilgrimage here at home, she writes and photographs the wherefores, one sampling of which is here.
Michelle of Quantum Theology has also been adventuring, making a return trip to contemplative sites in Japan with a group of college students whom she and another professor teach in a multi-disciplinary, multi-faith course. Here they are, reading and experiencing the Poetics of Space.
Rosa, writing in Las Puertas de Par en Par, been traversing Florida in her continuing journey to parent her now-adult daughter. In Another Kind of Parenting, she reminds those of us who are mothers that our call is not always to the go-to-college-move-out-get-a-job kind of parenting, but to something that requires us to reach deep and scatter wide, for our beloved children and for those of others as well.
And finally, in a more general kind of suggestion, I want to be sure that you know that the Questing Parson is back! and posting regularly, after several months of silence. I often think of him as one of my mentors in ministry, and am very glad that he has returned. Here, he reflects upon what it means to be a member of a church. (Hint: It might not be what you think.)
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(Image: Michelle Francl, in Japan, calls this one “Hermitage Envy.”)
Rev. Robin Craig is a PC(USA) pastor serving an ELCA congregation in Bay Village, Ohio. She is also a spiritual director, a contributor to There’s a Woman in the Pulpit, and a blogger at http://www.maryrobincraig.com.
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