06 June 08 - 04:25
Post Conference Hangover
Okay, that doesn't mean what you think it means. But it's descriptive all the same. I went to the Maritime Conference of the United Church of Canada last weekend, and I'm not sure I've recovered yet. Four glorious, sleep deprived days of living in university residence, eating cafeteria food, attending up to ten hours of sessions in a day, and unwinding until the early hours at the, ahem, "library," and then getting up the next morning and doing it all again!
I am one of the world's great extraverts, so I really love Conference. This year was no exception. Since I'd just moved back into Maritime Conference after twenty years away, I really am just getting to know people and learning how they do things differently on the east coast. One thing that's different is the number of people I ran into who knew me as a little girl, or were at my church after I left but heard all about me, or grew up with my mother. Turns out that one of the other ministers in Halifax grew up less than five miles away from where my father was born. My father-in-law was a delegate, and my mother-in-law returned to me a pair of my son's pajamas on the floor of Conference. This just hasn't happened to me at any other Conference I've been to before. The Maritimes are my tribe, and I was never so aware of it as when I was making connections at Conference.
For me, the presentations are less important than the quality of the connections I make while I'm there. I've said for years that I wish the organizers realized that the most important part of Conference is the coffee breaks, and this Conference doesn't even have any. I mentioned that to someone at my table group, and she said, "Well they tried that one year, but they couldn't get people to come back from their breaks." I rest my case. We need the sense of connection with other people struggling with the same issues in their particular church more than we need to know about the budget for 2008/2009.
For me the best part was the music. A band called The Message was releasing their first CD, and I snapped one up. I'm trying to figure out how to get them to come to our church. Also, I usually try to arrange to sing in the choir, any year there is one, and at Maritime Conference the choir is led by a dynamo of a woman called Jennie Wood. She's remarkable simply by the fact that she's a twenty-something in a sea of grey hair. I'm told that in other years, when she was directing a particularly energetic piece, there was some concern that she'd launch herself right off the podium as she directed, and that enthusiasm is beyond refreshing. But the very best part is that as she left the first event I saw her at, she put on a United Federation of Planets jacket.
I was in love.
For those of you who aren't nerds like me, the United Federation of Planets was the organization for which Captain Kirk and Captain Picard commanded their starships Enterprise in the series Star Trek. And you also have to know that the reason I married my husband was because I fell in love with Star Trek when I was fourteen years old, and my future husband was the only other person I knew at my church who was a Star Trek fan. Those two things are important. A church goer who dreams of flying to the stars. My husband was the only other such person I'd met in the United Church. Until I met Jennie.
I offered to bring her home in my suitcase, but the minister she works for needs her too, so until we invent teleportation devices, I don't think there's any way to get Jennie to play regularly at Fairview... 
One of the choir pieces we did really spoke to me. The music is simple and I can't credit the author because Jennie didn't say their name. But the words go like this:
All thirsty souls and suffering, who yearn for the waters of freedom,
Everything you've ever needed lives inside of you.
That last line in particular speaks to this recovering perfectionist, who always carries within her a suspicion that she isn't good enough the way she is. Everything I need is already living inside of me. I am enough. I have resources I don't even know I have, planted alive in me by the Living God. It makes my eyes leak just thinking about it. And when the message is brought to me by someone so alive with the creativity and faith that I know beats within me, I can believe it in a way that I sometimes can't when I'm back home and up to my keister in alligators. (You know how that goes, when you're up to your keister in alligators, it's difficult to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp.)
This week has been difficult, because I've been so tired, and I've had a lot on my plate. Maybe you noticed that part, since it's been a little while since I've blogged. But I will keep this sacred hope alive within me, everything I've ever needed lives inside of me. Thanks, Jennie.
Blessings, Heather.
two comments
Heather, you are such a refreshingly creative writer! I love reading your blogs…helps me to get to know you better, especially when I see you so seldom during the ‘cottage months’!
Your ‘Conference ’ experience sounds wonderful I especially love the quotation, ‘everything I’ve ever needed lives inside me’...how awesome is our God!
Keep up your wonderful spirit! You’re doing a vibrant job!
Keep being you!
Margie
marg langley () - 12 06 08 - 02:45
Hi Heather: I am so happy to meet another person who loves attending Maritime Conference as much as I do – or did. During the 15 years that I lived in Amherst, I attended Conference either as a Presbytery Delegate or just as an interested individual. I loved the feeling, the music, the Spirit, the new-working. It was always fun to meet friends from past lives and make new friends for the present time. I am happy that you felt at home during Maritime Conference. So many clergy when they move into our Conference from other Conferences find the meeting of Maritime Conference just too “folksy”.
I know how hard you are working. Are you taking time to look after Heather?
Brenda - 15 06 08 - 02:43
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