On Nehemiah and the New Year

I’ve been pondering this blog for a while. While I’ve always aspired to be more regular in my writing here (and never managed to actually do so), the past year has been particularly challenging. After getting through 2013, a year we lost both my father and grandfather, I ached for 2014 to be calmer. But that was not to be.

2014 started as the year I would likely receive a new appointment. After 4 ½ years at Calvary UMC in Frederick as associate pastor, I had asked for a move. Leaving the people at Calvary was incredibly sad for me and our family, but five years as an associate is a long time, well, for all but the most sainted among us. We received word I would become pastor at Arden UMC outside of Martinsburg. We were excited, but also knew the process to settle into a new congregation is challenging.

But perhaps more than anything else, 2014 was a difficult year because of my brother Dan’s suicide. I still reflect on this. I probably always will. Today, as I drove away from a meeting of the Board of Ordained Ministry and thought ahead to next week and the Full Member Exam, I remembered Dan a year ago at that very exam. I remember how excited he was going into it. And I remember the painful wait as I knew his results but couldn’t tell him. And I remember talking to him that day, the day he found out. I remember so much. But I don’t know where it all went wrong. Where it all came off the rails.

At any rate, I haven’t wanted to just write this blog about Dan. Sometimes Dan (his life, his experience as a pastor, his suicide, and how much I’ve realized I didn’t know) is all I want to talk and write about. Other times, I don’t want to think about it at all. I want it to have never happened, and since I cannot turn back time, the next best thing seems to be to set it aside for a time. To not think about it. To find a way to carve out at least part of life that doesn’t bring constant opportunities to remember and think, “What if…?”

I’ve also wanted to find a new path into scripture this year. I have tried various daily devotionals. I have a four year old and a one year old. I need fast and easy tools to do just about anything. I envy my colleagues whose devotional and prayer life reaches the heights I think befit a pastor. Many days, though, I’m just trying to figure out how to stay on top of work tasks, reach out to the people who need care, deal with the challenges of the day, not (in light of all that) be impatient when my four year old wants to play dress up before bed, or my one year old just wants to be held when she gets home from daycare, even though I also really just want to share my day with my husband and get his reminder that it’s all going to work out somehow. That God isn’t done with us all, and our chaos and mess yet.

Tonight, as I pulled out a t-shirt to try to exchange the pressures of the day for the evening, I reached for the t-shirt I got when I travelled to New Orleans with a team from Jefferson UMC, my first appointment. On it is a quote from Nehemiah, “Come let us rebuild…”

That’s where I’m at. So…I’m going to hang out with Nehemiah for a while. I’m not going to promise to post daily. But I’m going to sit with Nehemiah s 2015 starts, and I promise to share thoughts here. I hope that if you haven’t decided how you’re going to delve into scripture this year, you’ll find what works for you as well—whether reading through the Bible, one book, a daily devotional. As I’ve learned, there’s simply too much going on to NOT take the time. And let’s be honest, you have to make the time—it won’t fall into your lap.

Here’s the beginning of Nehemiah:

1 The words of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, while I was in Susa the capital, 2 one of my brothers, Hanani, came with certain men from Judah; and I asked them about the Jews that survived, those who had escaped the captivity, and about Jerusalem. 3 They replied, “The survivors there in the province who escaped captivity are in great trouble and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been destroyed by fire.”

So here, we see, things are off to a bad start. Nehemiah is in Susa (so, in exile). He starts in a place that isn’t home. And yet, it’s the only home he’s ever known.  He’s got some sense of that home, because he has interest in Judah, and the Jews left behind there. So we know he hasn’t become to completely wrapped into the exile that he’s stopped caring. That’s a start. He’s in the wrong place, but has some sense there’s something different, maybe better (or worse).

Their report?

Not good: “The survivors there in the province who escaped captivity are in great trouble and shame; the wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates have been destroyed by fire.”

What’s left is in ruins. Years have passed, and it’s all still in ruins.

Here’s the thing that stand out to me about this – partly because I know how the story ends – the story starts with the truth. With, “Look, here’s the thing…”

 No whitewashing. No avoiding. No “Well, there’s a lot of good that can be said…” Honesty about the brokenness. There’s an immense power in that. Healing and hope must be built upon honesty and seeing things as they really are. I can tell you one of the most destructive things to a life, church, family or community is an unwillingness to be honest with each other, or to be honest about what is broken.

So we start here. With the truth. The dirty, nasty, unpleasant truth. This is where God needs us to be. It is a hard place to be. We would like to hear gentler things. Things we can hear and stay where we are. But that’s not what Nehemiah’s story is. It is not a story of staying put. And thank God for that! But it has to start with honesty, clarity, and the courage to tell the truth.

Not a bad place for any of us to start 2015.