Friendship

What do you get when you take nine girls who haven't seen each other for two years, put them in Nashville on the same weekend, and throw in pizza, cookie dough, and "Just Dance" on the Wii?

One spectacular weekend, that's what.

I was super excited when this plan was created.  Being recently relocated to Nashville, I'm not used to being within driving distance of my college girlfriends.  Living in Dallas makes it difficult to see friends from Kentucky with any kind of regularity, though a few brave ones did make the trek to the Lone Star State.  But living in Tennessee?  WAY easier to get together.  And so this weekend I found myself hanging out with eight of my best college friends, many of whom I hadn't seen since we graduated a couple years ago.

Given this fact, the main attraction of the weekend was the people, not the activities, which was a good thing since it rained on us for most of the day on Saturday.  We didn't really do too much on a grand scale - we went to get barbecue for lunch, wandered around downtown Nashville before the rain drove us back to the parking garage, explored the fancy garden-esque lobby of the Opryland hotel, and held a good old-fashioned "Seventh Grade Night" at my apartment, listening to 90s music while gorging ourselves on Garden Salsa Sun Chips and homemade pizza, playing dance video games, and passing around a tube of cookie dough while watching a cheesy chick-flick.  Basically, we had an elaborate slumber party.

Sitting in my apartment, munching on pizza and watching my friends jump around in their Wii-inspired dance moves, I was struck with what a great gift friendship is.  This was only the third time I'd ever had people over to my new apartment, and to see it full of so much laughter and so many smiles was just amazing.  Despite being a new resident to the city, I've rarely felt lonely in Murfreesboro (my job lends itself to social interaction), but it's still unusual for me to spend a night reveling in such strong friendships.  Not that we've been the best at staying in touch - like most groups of college friends, our lives have gone in separate directions and to be honest, it's rare that we talk on a regular basis.  That is why it was so remarkable to me that we could all pick up right where we left off, laughing and chatting like always, even after years apart.

After everyone left today (following a Chipotle lunch, of course), I went back to my apartment and crashed. Staying up until 2am when you have to work at 8am is not the smartest of ideas, but I wasn't about to let a silly thing like going-to-bed-at-a-reasonable-hour take up any time that could be spent with my friends.  Needless to say, within an hour of returning home after lunch, I was asleep on the couch, and slept for a good three and a half hours.  When I woke up, it felt like the whole weekend was a dream - a good dream, but something that didn't really happen.  The only lingering signs of last night's party were the air mattress in my living room, the brownie crumbs on the floor, and the tortilla chip bags filling my trash can.  Everything was back to normal, except that (to quote John Wesley like a good seminary grad) "my heart was strangely warmed."

So today I'm thankful for friendship.  I'm thankful that God created humans to be in relationship with one another, and that those relationships can be sustained even after two years apart.  So to Amy, Laura, Genny, Laurie, Sydney, Lauren, Whitney, and Erin, all I can say is - come back soon.

A New Arrival

One of my church members had a baby today.

I'm all kinds of excited about this.

You would think that I wouldn't be all that excited, given that I've only known the family for about a month.  Although they're lovely people and I'm looking forward to getting to know them more, I obviously don't have very strong ties to them yet.  Except, of course, the fact that I work in ministry to their family.  Ministry kind of makes you have strong ties to everyone right off the bat.  Well, that, and having brunch at MiMi's Cafe with the mom a week before baby "A" made her grand debut today.  Omelettes and good conversation are both good for bonding.

I was thinking about the family on the way into work today, knowing that the baby was expected any day now and wondering how they were doing.  It was a difficult pregnancy, and everyone (family and church family alike) was a bit on edge with anticipation, hoping and praying that everything would be okay.  Still, when the office phone rang this afternoon, I didn't expect any sort of grand news - while people do tend to call their church in major life events, they also tend to call the church for all kinds of random nonsense.  At my last job someone called the wanting to know how much the pastor had paid some Filipino folk dancers to perform at a church event four years previously because they wanted to book those dancers for an upcoming birthday party in Boston.  Seriously.  Nowadays, I don't even answer the phone too much since my church has a secretary who receives all the incoming calls.  But I can never ignore a ringing phone, so when the secretary went to lunch today and the phone rang, I answered.

Of course, this phone call was the good kind, letting the staff know that the family had gone to the hospital and was expecting the baby to be born today.

In a way, I felt kind of honored to take the call.  For a good 20 minutes or so, I was the only person on staff who knew that the baby was coming, as most everyone else was out of the office.  This was odd, I thought - it seemed strange that I should be the person to receive this news as the newest staff person.  But, I thought, I'm also the children's pastor, so who better to take the call announcing the pending arrival of the newest church member?

Almost as soon as this thought crossed my mind, I started to feel the opposite emotion to pride - humility.

So many people were waiting on this baby.  The entire staff, much less the entire congregation, was waiting to hear the news.  And somehow, by an odd streak of timing, I was among the first people to know.

Even more humbling was the dawning awareness that I am going to be this child's pastor.


Somewhere across town, there is a person who has been alive for less than 12 hours, and she is mine.  Not in the same way as she belongs to her parents, or to her family, but in a unique way, she belongs to me.  When I speak up in staff meetings, it will be on her behalf.  When I'm recruiting volunteers, it will be so someone can watch over her and lead her.  When I design new ministries, it will be so that she has a sense of belonging and identity both in Christ and in the church.  And, as time goes by, she will grow along with my ministry, with her age standing as a testament to how many years I've dedicated to leading the children of the church into their unique faith journeys.


And so a few minutes ago, when I saw her photo on Facebook and knew that she was here, I remembered why I am doing what I am doing.  I had a stronger sense of my call to ministry and my role as a children's pastor than ever before.


So welcome to the world, baby "A."  I'm so glad that you are here.