Disability was not a destination. At least, not for me. Not now. It was respite, a temporary pit stop, a time to refresh, renew, refocus, to build back strength. Cynthia and I bought a house on the west side of town, and with the assistance of members of the Palmyra church, fire department, and family, we made the move. It was quite a sight to see my son’s backyard jungle gym on the back of Buddy’s tow truck, making the turn at the four corners. It nearly swiped the stop light.

We settled in. Made a nest. With no pressure, I was free to meet with my care team, get Christian on and off the bus to his pre-K special education program at Roosevelt Children’s Center, and to get Nicholas off to middle school each morning and welcome him home every afternoon. In between moving from Labor and Delivery nursing jobs, Cynthia worked a short time as a school nurse at Roosevelt, where she could take a more active role in Christian’s early childhood education. I’d answer a few ambulance and fire calls, but I began to slowly back away.

I didn’t need to add to the pile of traumatic stress. Over time, the pile needed to shrink.

Respite was found and tapped beside the CSX mainline. Each night, I’d park on the north side of Division Street, far enough away from the village to hear the crickets chirping in the summer, or snow gently falling in the winter. When squinting the ears, one could hear the distant horn and churning of diesel engines, nearly imperceptible at first, yet faintly present, taking time to build like an approaching storm. Watch; try not to blink, less the signal light, suspended by the rusted iron gantry, glow to life, granting engineer and conductor safe passage. In the quiet, I’d watch and wait.

Listening. Patient, actively listening for the still, small voice of God calling my name.

Got a call from one of the Bishop’s district superintendents (who would one day be elected Bishop himself) offering to take me out to lunch. The lunch was nice. His expense account picked up the tab. We didn’t talk about anything profound. He was truly caring about my life, call, health, and progress towards wellness. We parted with a smile and a handshake. Nothing more; nothing less.

Soon thereafter, a call came from the Rochester district superintendent, asking me if I wanted to cover the final three months of the year for a colleague who was out on medical leave. “I heard you were doing much better,” she said to me.

“Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you for the vote of confidence. I feel great.” I paused, thinking about who served in what churches where.

“It’s about a forty-five minute drive. It would be full time. The appointment would only be to fill in until the end of June. You’d be great.”

“I’ll take it!” I felt a wave of relief. God did have a place for me. I had a shot to reestablish my call to pastoral ministry. Within a week the Staff Parish Relations Committee (SPRC) met with the district superintendent and me and the announcement of the Bishop’s appointment was made official. Welcome to Honeoye Falls United Methodist Church.

I found a hurting church. I was on the mend. Together, we made a great team. God began to do great things with us. The family fell right in and we had a new church home. Over the course of those three months my confidence returned. It felt great being a servant, shepherd pastor. Nothing to encumber me, weigh me down, or bring distractions. Just kind, loving people who were just as eager to love me back.

Three days a week I’d spend time in my new church office, staying late for the occasional meeting, working from my laptop and cell phone, both marvels of technology that greatly assisted the work of pastoral ministry, constant companions for the later thirty years of ministry.

One Sunday I made a point of Jesus fishing for men (and women), using my fly fishing rod to whip a tapered line above the heads of the congregation. Toddlers and gray haired old ladies alike loved it. The visual demonstration served to weld into memory the value and importance of fishing for people to bring them into a relationship with Jesus.

The Memorial Day committee made it a point to include me in the Memorial Day parade and service at the cemetery. Prayers were said, the band played, a senior sang our beloved anthem. Prayers were spoken aloud with humble thanksgiving into a portable public address system. With three cracks, seven members of the local Legion fired in tribute to Americans loved and lost during time of war. Less we forget the pain of war, the message was crystal clear, let us always be cautious and reflective before the violence card is unleashed in reckless abandoned.  

“If only I could stay here, serving these lovely people,” I thought to myself.

But, it was not to be.

An aborted attempt was made to drop us into a city parish, one who didn’t like the changing neighborhood and rip tide of crime that was assaulting the region. The city school district was beset with waste and corruption, suffocating under a blanket of poverty. Health care and higher education took up the mantle of a shrinking middle class, even as Kodak, Busch and Lomb, and Xerox were fading away. The gap between the haves and the have nots was widening each year, and in the crevasse left between, crime and poverty filled the vacuum. As we left the meeting of a dying church longing for the energy of yesteryear, Cynthia and I were both in tears.

The district superintendent wasn’t naive. She saw clearly the parish killing dynamics at work. Thankfully, it wasn’t me. God’s grace allowed me to dodge a bullet.

Patience. Wait for the call. Have confidence. God has not let us down in the past. Something was bound to happen the Spirit was primed to move.

___

No pool today.

It isn’t as if I don’t have the time. I just don’t have the energy. It feels familiar like last year’s virus, or like prior fluctuations in blood chemistry, regular adjustments being necessary to keep me from nutritional Armageddon. Having the stomach removed and internal plumbing reconfigured will do that to a guy.

Time to call the doctor.

Growing up in the great depression, mom and dad would only call a doctor if death was imminent. By that time, what’s the point? at least that was my thought in middle age. Now that retirement has come and I’m riding the wave of Medicare, I can’t help but wonder.

Just when is it time to call the doctor?

Perhaps tests and scans fail to reveal the source of malaise? What then? I’m not a fraud, but what would the doctor think? Spend all that money, only to have it result in a shrug of the shoulders and the insincere assurance that “we’ll keep an eye out for any changes?”

The thought of crawling through the water with arms that hang heavy keeps me home with my head in a book. Friday will come, and with it, new medical expenses. With the new Medicare Advantage plan, at least the membership at the pool will be free.

—

We had not even lived in our newly purchased house for two years when we sold it for a loss. It was okay, the new parish had a parsonage, and it was only twenty minutes away.

Walworth and West Walworth: Zion were the answer to our prayers. We were much closer to Rochester than Roosevelt Children’s Center, so Cynthia resumed her Labor and Delivery nursing career at a large city hospital. She also enrolled, thanks to the generosity of her aunt, in a Master’s degree program at the University of Rochester to become a licensed, certified midwife, a mid-level practitioner of women and babies health care. Her call to the ministry of nursing was expanding and growing, opening new doors of possibilities. She was positioned to make a difference in the lives of many new mothers and families, many from the poorest neighborhoods. Nicholas was enrolled in the Wayne Central middle school and Christian continued in his early childhood education at Roosevelt.

Walworth, with the parsonage right next door, was the former Episcopal Methodist Church on the east side of town. West Walworth: Zion was the former Evangelical United Brethren Church on the, you guessed it, west side of town.

Zion had settled immigrant German families into lowland muck farms when America was fresh and new. Services were led in German until the first decade of the twentieth century.

Walworth people saw themselves as the sophisticated, educated members of town, an upper-middle class affluent suburb. West Walworth people reminded me they rode to school on an underpowered school bus during the great depression. East side; white collar. West side; blue collar. It was a town with two church cultures.

I followed a wonderful pastor and family who had served the people of this two-point parish for fourteen years. She did a great job. There was no way I could fill her shoes, so I tried not to.

As in prior parishes, I was blessed with two wonderful lay leaders. Jacque, in Walworth, drove a 1970’s era Lincoln, is a bra burning plank holder in the ERA, was a special education teacher for the Sisters of Mercy, and would, one day, retire from teaching and go the route of serving as a licensed local pastor. She knew where all the bodies were buried and was eager to fill me in on the details if it could further my ministry and the church.

Sharon, in West Walworth: Zion, was a recognized leader in church and community. She was the number two person at the local chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, well connected in the United Way and Lifespan, and was a killer euchre player. Loyal, with no exceptions, Sharon would fight and die for the rights and wellbeing of others.

Now, that’s what is called amazing grace.

—

It was good to only move a short distance to start serving a new appointment. Neighboring school districts. Same funeral directors. Same hospitals to make calls. Same ecumenical clergy breakfast group. Familiar back roads. The CSX mainline was never far away, the distant crossing horn fading to silence on hot summer nights.

September rolled around. School sales abounded. Life in the parish began to tick up with the start of Sunday school. Worship was planned through New Years around a table that included Jacque, Sharon, and pianist and organ player. The Sunday evening praise band thought it was beneath them to plan. It smothered the Spirit, so they claimed. Perhaps it was the inability to sing on key. I don’t know; just thinking out loud.

Tuesday was crisp and clear. I rode my Yamaha to breakfast at the Yellow Mills Diner with my clergy buddies. As I zipped up my leather jacket to leave I overheard a stranger speaking with the cashier something about an airplane crash in New York.

CNN was leading with the headline of breaking news, showing a live shot of a burning, bellowing World Trade Center building making its last gasp. Reporters with head down and hand covering an ear, each brought a unique perspective to unfolding events.

From the left of the live frame flew another airliner, straight into the other twin tower, banked at a cruel angel, slicing through space and time, shrapnel flying, rolling fire like napalm. Horrifying. Instant death. It was an American trauma, sucking in all to the live broadcasts. Pentagon. Shanksville, PA. Combat air patrol circling above American cities.

“Uncle Todd? What are you calling me for?” my niece asked as soon as she picked up my call. “No time for questions. If you’re in Manhattan, get out now!” “But I’m at an audition for a Broadway play. I can’t leave.” “Run. Please run.” My brother, watching events unfolding in my living, room hung his head and prayed.

News slowly came in. Her uncle David, who taught at Columbia, and suffered from advancing Parkinson’s was last heard from near ground zero. He got out, made every human effort to get away, swept up in the dust covered frantic crowd of New Yorkers fleeing for their lives. He made it. Aunt Esther’s call was a huge relief.

Like most congregations across the land, people were devastated. Many had personal connections with the 9/11 attacks. Others were stranded in airports when airliners were grounded. Nearly everyone wondered: what was the next shoe to drop? And, where would it land?

Is this an act of God? Good? Bad? Evil? Whom should I believe? Whom should I fear. I felt in my bones the need to gather.

That evening we did just that. We came together, two churches as one. We prayed and sang, mourned and cried, recognized there are many more unanswerable questions than there were answers. It felt to me at the time that this would be the moment in history where society would begin a return to roots of faith, anchored deep in family and culture.

There was a surge in worship attendance, for a time. But that time was surprisingly short. In place of reflection, prayer, and discernment the cultural landscape and airwaves were quickly filled with talking heads and war-mongering commentators calling for revenge and  retribution. Instead of a message of love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, the message of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth was demanded by an angry electorate.

Thinking back, what could have the Church done differently leading up to 9/11 and in the days thereafter? So much of the effort in the 1980’s and -90’s was building and deploying programs for church growth, despite the fact that overall worship attendance continued to plummet like a rock.

Something new. Something shinny. Sign up for this program. Sign up for that. Get on board, or get left behind.

Then, boom. One bookend began with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war. The other was defined by 9/11. In between was a peace dividend that never was, a nation dividing into rigid, non-compromising  ideologies, and a new definition for “sexual relations.” The world as we knew it came to an end.

Observing the bookends in one’s life is helpful for uncovering meaning, understanding, comprehension. “Ah, yes,” I say to myself. “Now I see.”

It’s time for a pipe.