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This week our friend Bruce contacted us to say his dear wife of thirty plus years had died suddenly the day before.  He didn’t give many details and when I offered our phone numbers to call us, he said he was just too broken right now. 

              The next night I got a call from a former member of the church I came from to accept the Montana pastorate.  He was calling from the hospital with seven blockages in his heart and awaiting surgery the next morning.  In such moments, it can seem like death is stalking you.

              The next day I got a text from a hospice chaplain that one of our church members who has long been in nursing home care was “imminent,” death expected within hours.  When I went to the nursing home, the woman had died not long before I arrived. 

              Somehow these events combined have weighed on me.  I came across the phrase in a poem “the obesity of grief.”  How descriptive of the heaviness, the immensity of loss. 

              Whenever I think of death or the inherent grief,  I think of the poet John O’Donohue, who spoke so eloquently and wisely about those experiences.  I share with you “For Death,” which he penned:

For Death

By John O’Donohue

“From the moment you were born,
your death has walked beside you.
Though it seldom shows its face,
you still feel its empty touch
when fear invades your life,
or what you love is lost
or inner damage is incurred…

Yet when destiny draws you
into these spaces of poverty,
and your heart stays generous
until some door opens into the light,
you are quietly befriending your death;
so that you will have no need to fear
when your time comes to turn and leave,

that the silent presence of your death
would call your life to attention,
wake you up to how scarce your time is
and to the urgency to become free
and equal to the call of your destiny.

That you would gather yourself
and decide carefully
how you now can live
the life you would love
to look back on
from your deathbed.”

May we indeed be called to attention, gather ourselves and decide carefully how we can live in this present moment.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  I once attended a workshop where we were instructed to imagine ourselves at 80. (Amazing how that doesn’t feel so very far away now. At the time I was 36).  We were to consider receiving some message, some wisdom, from our 80 year-old selves.  I remember the message I understood, both startling and comforting, was “Thank you for doing the things you needed to do so that I can look back on my life now with a sense of satisfaction and gratitude.”  I did and I can.

We had a lovely spring day…..and then winter returned with a vengeance.  Snow fell all night and most of the day. Easter plans began to fall apart.  A dinner engagement I had really looked forward to got postponed.  How, when things can look so promising, can they dissolve in a matter of hours?

I wonder if things falling apart, disappointments, even catastrophes, serve to remind us there is much we do not control.  And I ponder whether that illusion of control contributes to a lack of empathy in our society.   If I am master of my fate, captain of my ship, why are you floundering?  Just take the wheel! Make something of yourself! 

There is an ad for an insurance company that puts my teeth on edge every time I see it.  The woman, her long blond tresses in bouncy curls, her makeup perfectly applied, her build slender and her clothes stylish, who is advertising her father’s company for whom she works, says: “You can be anything you want to be.”   She probably really believes that because she has had advantages that she almost certainly assumes are available to everyone. 

I have a heart murmur that wasn’t discovered until I was in junior high.  Because other kids could run and play seemingly endlessly, I spent years thinking I was “defective.”  I would tire long before they did.  My confidence was impacted in myriad ways because I considered myself “less than” others.   And that obstacle pales in comparison to children growing up in poverty, dysfunctional homes, abuse; others who have crippling physical or mental limitations.  There are children who grow up to overcome their circumstances, but they are the exception rather than the rule.  Their chances of living up to their potential, of “being anything they want to be,” are slim at best.

If you have had a “sprinter” experience lately—you were going along just fine and encountered obstacles you didn’t expect and weren’t prepared for—be reminded that the one reliable control we have is of our attitude.   “I find that it is not our circumstances but the spirit in which we meet them that constitutes our comfort,” is a quote I have often relied on.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.  OR alternatively:  God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change; courage to change the people I can; and the wisdom to know that person is ME!

When I was much younger rain was an inconvenience.  The day of ninth grade graduation, all dressed up and wearing high heels, my girlfriends and I got soaked as we ran to the local burger place after we got out from school.  I resented being drenched!  My hair was a mess.  My new dress soggy. 

In high school, our youth group planned a trip to an amusement park, which was cancelled two weekends in a row.  The third weekend we finally just went despite the rain.  I’d like to say I took these weather events in stride.  But in my youth, rain seemed like the enemy.

Years later, my friend Mary would say: “It’s only weather.”  I remember being startled.  Indeed, it was merely nature taking its course.  Over time, I grew fond of rain.  I grew even more so after my father came to live with us.  He loved rain.  He often asked me at night as he was settled into bed, “Is it rain I hear?”  I finally put a sound machine in his room and put it on the rain mode for him.

I recognize since we moved to Montana, that I miss rain.  Average rainfall in Tennessee is 51.6 inches; in Montana it is 15.2.   Last week there was a dark sky and a clap of thunder and I felt a sense of anticipation, but it was mostly for naught.  I think in part I am concerned about wildfires this summer. 

In 2007, I received a call from Terry while I was in Maryland at a summer “residency” for a distance learning program I was in.  Tennessee was in a drought at that time and there was a wildfire on the other side of the mountain from where we lived.  It was headed over the mountain and he had been told by officials to be prepared to evacuate.  Terry wanted to know what I thought I was important to take if it came to that.  Thankfully, it didn’t. The memory also has stayed with me from last summer, seeing fires blazing below, as we flew in for my candidate weekend with the church.

“It’s only weather,” is a good admonition when we are simply complaining because it doesn’t suit us at the moment.  When Mother Nature turns violent, destructive and deadly, we best remember to pay heed. 

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus: Sadly, there are many fewer things I can recycle here in Montana.  But one thing I am doing to reduce my use of plastic is to use “Earth Breeze” laundry sheets.  What is one thing you might do to “pay heed” to climate change and its effects?

During this season of Lent, the Lutheran pastor and I have alternated offering services on Wednesday nights.  One week we have soup supper at our church and she leads.  The following week we have supper at her church and I lead.  Each week has had a different theme paired with a scripture.  This week my passage was from Philippians 4:8-9: ⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ⁹ Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

But the topic this scripture was linked to was justice and peace in the midst of violence.  I pondered how in the world I would relate those two things, especially after weeks now of watching as Ukraine suffers unimaginable destruction, unfathomable loss.  But then I began to think of the videos I had seen of various Ukrainian musicians playing their instruments in the midst of bombed out buildings, their surroundings littered with the carnage of war.  I recalled an image of a group gathered in a shelter in prayer.  There was one video of refugees dancing when they reached a country that welcomed them with food and toys for the children.  The most touching one was of a Ukrainian child, who had reached another country, drawing flowers on the sidewalk with chalk.  She said “This is how I calm myself.” She was eight. 

I spoke that night of how “thinking on these things,” the lovely things, the admirable acts, enables us to respond to the ugliness, the greed, the hate and all that grows out of it in this world, with a spirit that seeks to uplift.  Mr. Rogers said to “look for the helpers.”  When we do, we are often inspired to “join the helpers…..be the helpers.”  May it be so.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:

Olha Rukavishnikova. Violinist. Fighter.

1 day ago

Friends! Thanks to everyone for the kind words and support! From the first day of the vile attack of Russian Nazis on my country, I have been in the ranks of the Territorial Defense of Ukraine. Ordinary Ukrainians are fighting in our unit, not professional ones – managers, drivers, musicians, teachers. Although it’s not easy for us, since there is a lot missing in the squad, we believe that good will always triumph over evil, and we put all our strength into it! Glory to Ukraine!

In my first job out of grad school, I had a colleague Mark.  Mark was married to June and I became friends with them both.  At a point where I had a roommate moving out, they suggested that their friend Phyllis needed a roommate while she finished her final semester of law school.  Phyllis and I met and agreed to share my apartment for the duration of her schooling. 

I really liked Phyllis and for a time, even after she graduated, moved back to her Colorado roots and married her longtime boyfriend Tom, we kept touch.   Mark and June had moved away and it seems like the last contact I’d had with Phyllis, she told me Mark and June had divorced.  Over time I lost contact with these friends I had so enjoyed.

In this day and age of social media and multiple ways to track down lost connections, I had an impulse last week to do a search for Phyllis on FB.  What popped up was her familiar face and a promotion for her book, Quantum Lite Simplified: How to Calm the Chaos .  If anything, I might have expected she was serving as a judge somewhere.  The book and its intriguing title were a surprise

Of course, I had to get the book, a very credible and readable effort, which flows so naturally it seems effortless.  Phyllis begins “with a brief history and explanation of how I got into quantum.  Parts 1-3 give you an understanding of energy, systems and chaos theory from a quantum perspective.”  The last half, parts 3-5, “offers a way to ‘be’ in chaos without ‘being in chaos’.”

Her book reveals much of her own evolution from lawyer to author.  I thought of other friends whose lives developed in such different directions from their starting point.  My friend Mary, for example, was a psychologist, later a Physicians Assistant, and now a creator of beautiful quilts and a teacher of quilt-making.  My life is testament as well, as I now pastor after years as a therapist.  And I really don’t think I’m finished.  I have wondered if there is another book lurking somewhere in my brain and heart.  It is now five years since Dream In Progress was published.  It was so much work but so much pleasure. 

My father was a newspaper printer from the time he apprenticed at 17 to the time he retired at 70.  He told me that, coming up in the depression, he was encouraged that whenever he got a job, he should always hang onto it.  And he did.  He shared with me once when I was a teen,  that he had in mind a story that he really thought about writing.  Years later I reminded him of that and told him if he would tell it to me, I would write it.  He said, with some resignation, that he didn’t remember it. 

Thankfully, there is more freedom now to pursue multiple avenues over the course of a lifetime.  May we have the courage of those like Phyllis, and avoid the regrets like those of my dear father, who surely had a worthy tale to tell.

 May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  “Life is about accepting the challenges along the way, choosing to keep moving forward, and savoring the journey.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

One of our guides on our recent trip to Yellowstone National Park told us that the geothermal features can shift and move over time.  She said that when they became problematic to a road,  the original response was to pave over them.  Eventually, they began to re-route the road or change planned construction, instead of attempting to “tame” the hot spring or geyser.  As she put it, “Geology is boss.”

I wonder how long it took them to come to that conclusion.  How often do we attempt to “solve” problems by administering the same “solutions” without the desired outcome?  As Albert Schweitzer is often quoted as saying, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

Mindless repetition whether paving over Mother Nature’s marvelous works to “maintain” the road or repeating the same behavior in our own lives that has proven itself unworkable, is like the hamster running on a wheel, expending lots of energy but getting nowhere. 

This topic is especially relevant to me and to all those in churches and other organizations that thrived in the 50s and 60s.  One problem lies in that these attempted solutions were formerly standard operating procedure which worked well in previous years.  So we turn to what we know, what has felt comfortable and are puzzled when it doesn’t work.   

 How does one stay vital in a culture that over time has shifted so dramatically?   “Work smarter, not harder” comes to mind.  Pay attention to what excites you, gets your blood pumping, a vision of your desired goal.  Then figure out the steps to reach it and evaluate as you go.

I was once part of a visioning process in a church that was seeking to revitalize itself, to develop new ways to relate in a meaningful way to the community.  We did a visualization exercise with the goal to imagine our church in the future.  One person said he saw the church dark and shuttered.  I was aghast.  I had seen in my image a group of children playing in the yard adjacent to fellowship hall being called in to supper where they joined their families, which seemed a bit farfetched in a church with no children.  Six or eight months later, however, we began to work with what was then called Interfaith Hospitality Network, where churches rotate opening their spaces to homeless families a week at a time.   The first night we served the network I was awestruck as I watched the children come in from playing outside to join their parents for the evening meal, just as I had envisioned it.

 There may always be naysayers to a vision and perhaps they have valid points to consider.  But it serves any organization to have enthusiastic people and leaders who can help focus that energy to pursue and carry out a vision. 

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  Do One Thing Different by Bill O’Hanlon, describes a process of change making one small alteration at a time, another suggestion.  One change builds on another.

Backing my car out of the garage one day this week, I thought of how automatically I perform the actions it takes to drive, all the necessary steps embedded in my brain.

          However, I recall after my mother died, I went through a period where I could not recall how to operate the clothes dryer.  The appliance was suddenly mysterious, inscrutable, the result of the trauma of that loss. 

          Last week, I watched a program on Trauma on Our Bodies and Brains presented by clinical psychologist Dr. Betsey Stone.  She talked about the impact of months and months of the stress of various aspects of covid—uncertainty, restrictions, isolation, illness, death—on the brain.  In a time of fear, she said, our “lizard” brain (the amygdala) “hijacks” the blood supply from our “rational” brain (the prefrontal cortex).  We are actually receiving a reduced blood supply to the part of our brain that thinks rationally.  Because of this, we are less able to think clearly, to make sensible decisions, to evaluate danger, to regulate our emotions.  Dr. Stone attributes increased violence and lack of impulse control, such as that frequently demonstrated on airplane travel in recent months, to be due in part to this decreased blood supply. 

          The ongoing stress of living in this time of pandemic highlights a need for greater attention to caring for our bodies and our brains.  As Sid Garza-Hillman has said, “Caring for the mind is as important and crucial as caring for the body.  In fact, one can not be healthy without the other.”   (from Approaching the Natural:  a Health Manifesto)

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  How to deal with stress and build resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Increase your sense of control by keeping a consistent daily routine when possible — ideally one that is similar to your schedule before the pandemic.
⁃ Try to get adequate sleep.
⁃ Make time to eat healthy meals.
⁃ Take breaks during your shift to rest, stretch, or check in with supportive colleagues, coworkers, friends and family. (from CDC website). 

I would add to drink plenty of water.  I have read that under stress the body produces a thick, paste-like blood, making adequate circulation more difficult. 

January 23 I was “installed” as pastor at Columbus Community Congregational Church.  It had been joked that it was going to be my “coronation.”  I responded in kind that I would “polish my tiara.”  My friend and colleague Meg was the speaker.  She carried the joke forward. Saying she was sure that I was too humble to actually bring a tiara, she pulled from a bag a lovely cowboy hat.  She proceeded to place it on my head, identifying it as my “Montana Tiara.”

The most amusing aspect of this for me, however, was how my attitude evolved about this event.  Initially, I thought “ho-hum, a necessary formality.”  But then I took more initiative in planning for the ceremony.  I asked Meg to speak.  I asked that the formalities be kept simple.  I decided to read a poem and sing a solo in response to my installation.  The day turned out to be a lovely celebration.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Those who attended seemed to really appreciate the upbeat atmosphere of the ceremony. 

What difference might it make if we approached matters in another way?  Tasks that might otherwise  seem to be boring or drudgery or overwhelming, instead might become a challenge, an opportunity to take initiative to alter the situation. 

An extreme example is currently in the news of Lily Ebert, the 98 year-old Auschwitz survivor who wrote Lily’s Promise: How I Survived Auschwitz and Found the Will To Survive.  Much like Victor Frankl, who survived concentration camp  imagining himself as a professor teaching at a university, she made it her intention to live to tell her story. 

I don’t expect to ever experience anything as traumatic as those situations.  But I do know I sometimes I have an attitude that makes even ordinary tasks more difficult than they need to be.  And I know life can challenge us in ways we never expect.  My Montana Tiara serves to remind me that I choose my attitude and the approach I take in situations that present themselves to me. 

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus:  My Montana Tiara!

              This week my Aunt “Pinkie” died, just short of her 97^th birthday. I have no aunts or uncles left now.  Her five children are surely now experiencing that sense of being “orphaned.”

              Her given name was actually Betty.  In the way that names sometimes run in families, I had another “Aunt Bettie,” my mother was named Betty and my sister-in-law Elizabeth is known as Betty.  But Pinkie was more often known by her nickname due to her red hair. 

              My favorite memory of her occurred when I was about four or five years old.  My parents and I had gone to visit. Unlike my parents’ small home where my bed was located in my parents’ bedroom, I discovered at my aunt’s and uncle’s home, I was put to bed in a big bedroom by myself.  Even now, I can remember feeling scared and alone.  I began, first softly, then more loudly, to call out for my parents.  It seemed like my aunt suddenly appeared and recognized how distressed I was.  I don’t remember where I ended up, only that she was so understanding and immediately corrected the situation.

              My aunts and uncles were mostly peripheral during my growing up years.  I saw them mostly at family reunions whenever they occurred.  But somehow they provided a comfortable backdrop of caring relatives who always seemed happy to see me, predictably proclaiming how much I’d grown.  I can recall thinking, “Of course I’ve grown.  What did they expect?” 

              As one and then another has died, I am aware of how valuable even that limited amount of contact was. When I became an aunt at 17, I so valued my new role. I, too, am on the periphery of my nephews’ lives.  Yet one of my proudest moments was a few years ago when the oldest posted tribute to me on Face Book. 

              The slender threads of connection can be more meaningful than we know,  so much more solid than we recognize.

               May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

              Hope’s Café Bonus:  I discovered if you google aunt that you will discover there is a national aunts and uncles day. (Who knew?):”National Aunts and Uncles Day is observed every July 26. Our aunts and uncles are unique parts of our family; they can be like a second set of parents, or great friends you happen to be related to.”

When I was a child, I was entranced by the notion of pioneer times.  I thought I would have liked the adventure of being a pioneer.  There are a lot of reasons I recognize now that I would not have adapted well to that kind of experience.  Being cut-off from easy communication would have been my downfall.  No phones!  No email! No Facebook!  No internet!  Now some people would say, that would suit them fine.  Certainly, the plethora of modern communication does become burdensome and unplugging periodically seems to serve our health.  And yet….

I think of a long-lost friend who tracked me down through an old phone number she got through my high school alumni association.  I recall a phone call I received once as I was just about to walk out of the office at the church I was pastoring in Florida, the caller having somehow gleaned from the internet that I was there.  She had been a client of my husband Terry when she was a teenager and just wanted to convey how well her adult life was going and to thank him.  And last week I discovered someone had left a message on my blog, yet another former client in search of Terry.  These kinds of connections strike me almost like wizardry.

People have applauded us for uprooting ourselves at this stage in our lives to move to Montana, trekking like modern day pioneers to a place where we had no established connections.  And, indeed, this was an adventurous thing to do, when staying put would have been the more reasonable course to take.  But I honestly don’t know how well we would be able to live with this choice were it not for zoom.  This morning we will zoom with a group back home, and again this evening with another group of home folks.  These are weekly rituals.  This is not to say we aren’t making new friends.  But the former ties sustain us.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” of Hope’s Café for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

Hope’s Café Bonus: Connection:  The energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.— Brene Brown