Dearly Beloved,
I am sorry that I am sending this out a day late. Yesterday, as I marked the 9th anniversary of my wedding, I gathered with a small group of colleagues and my dearest friends for a ritual of release. We read scripture and poetry, we cried and laughed, we invoked God's forgiving grace and love and the newness of the Spirit, and I took off my wedding ring and asked God to be with me in this season of letting go.
In the midst of major life transitions: retirement, moving (even if it's just moving house), having our children grow up and move out, losing a pet, the end of a friendship or romantic relationship or simply the end of a cherished living situation, losing a job, changing jobs, sending our children (grand children / great grandchildren) off to school. All of these things bring with them some mix of celebration and sorrow, grief and relief, joy and consternation, fear and hope.
We live in a society that has, in many ways, moved away from ritualizing these passages in our lives. Sure, we shower expectant parents; baptize, christen or dedicate babies; celebrate weddings; honor confirmation; celebrate graduations, weddings and retirements; and hold funerals or celebrations for people's lives. But the transitions in our lives number far more than these, and so often we forget the power of blessing, invocation, and ritual: of acknowledging the endings that accompany all beginnings, and lifting each other up through such change.
As I reflect on the gift of this ritual of release in my own life, I can't help but wonder: what transitions are you experiencing? What changes? In health, location, relationship, role? How might we as your congregation or me as your pastor bear witness to ends and beginnings, to death and resurrection happening at this very moment in your life? How can we as a community normalize rituals around divorce, retirement, losing a job, becoming an empty nester, changing careers, moving, bidding goodbye to a beloved pet or indeed many more? I'd love to explore this question with you in the days and weeks to come. After all, when we are accompanied through these passages, when others bear witness to the complicated, messy fullness of our journeys, we know in a new way that we do indeed belong, that we are indeed beloved.
And I'm humbled and overwhelmed by the love and generosity of each of you, of our congregation in the midst of this major life transition of mine. I'm so very grateful!
May we continue to find ways to manifest, share and bear witness to
"the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God."*
With love and gratitude,
Thandiwe
*Lyrics from Sunday's centering song Reckless Love.
