If you live long enough, some of the places that have been important to you, those buildings that have helped shape you, are remodeled, changed in ways you don’t approve of, or are even destroyed. Several years ago now I arrived in my hometown to not only be impressed by the new high school and athletic stadium that had been built but to also see that the high school I and my parents had attended had been leveled…knocked to the ground…and only an empty hill stood where so many of my formative days had been spent. When I visit these days I always have to go to where the high school once stood. I look at the still empty hillside and try to remember the red brick building, the stairs where I waited for friends and the doors to the auditorium where I exited on my way from graduation to an entrance into what I believed would be an exciting, adventurous future. The halls and classrooms that sowed that desire for my dreams, some of which have been fulfilled, only exist now in a shadowy memory. The walls that housed the seeds of the dreams of so many, first loves, questions, challenges, discoveries, are no more.

As humans we create structures for all our endeavors. Houses. Schools. Libraries. Churches. Stadiums. Shops. The dwellings in which we find shelter from the weather, where we settle in to be with other people, where we find sanctuary and safety, where we move from those who once lived in caves to those who take command of their environment and put down roots reflect that we were here, alive. The buildings we have known in our lives help us tell our story and the story of those with whom we have made and lived our lives.

The power of buildings moved front and center for me this week. The seminary where I received my education has sold its buildings, including its beautiful chapel, and will be moving to a new home in what is hoped to be a more central, convenient location for its future. This past week I attended a service of gratitude for how the structure served and nurtured so many. I thought back to the idealistic and wide-eyed way I entered that building for the first time. My questions were large and deep and it was a place that welcomed them and me, allowing me to live into a future I was still imagining, discovering. The classrooms and hallways were hotbeds of theological conversation and intellectual insight. And the chapel, built after I had graduated, became a place of artistic beauty and experimenting creatively with how worship can be expressed. And it has the most amazing acoustics!

But like all buildings and the people that inhabit them change comes to live in the midst of what had once been familiar and secure. That change necessitates remodeling, renovating or even pulling up stakes and moving. This service of gratitude allowed those present to say thank you to the people and the Spirit that gave birth to the walls and floors and the dreams and hopes that had found a home there. And it allowed for saying it is time to embrace the change that is woven with both loss and possibility as the building is handed over to another school with younger people and their own dreams with which to bathe the space.

As I sat in this beautiful chapel, listening to the music, hearing words well chosen and well spoken, I noticed that outside the window workers were already lifting tiles for a new roof, making the place safe and warm for the next tenants. I smiled at the metaphor of preparation even as we were doing the leave taking. It is probably always this way but perhaps not always so visible.

 Naomi Shihab Nye writes in her poem “Trying to Name What Doesn’t Change”:

Roselva says the only thing that doesn’t change
is train tracks. She’s sure of it.
The train changes, or the weeds that grow up spidery
by the side, but not the tracks.
and it doesn’t curve, doesn’t break, doesn’t grow.

Change in our lives and in the buildings that house our lives is inevitable though most often painful. And yet most of us would not choose to live lives like train tracks…no curves, no breaks, no growth. And we would not choose that for the people we love or the dwellings that house us.

My childhood home went on the real estate market a few months ago. The walls within which I grew and was launched will hopefully soon be a nest for a new family. Change…curves…breaking…growth…comes to us all. Within the walls of my first home new dreams will be formed and hopes will be given wing. It is called life and it is always moving, changing, remodeling, reforming into a future that is unsure and, hopefully, blessed.

It may be difficult to remember but the first several days of October were particularly gloomy. Skies were gray. The Sun was far from us most of the hours of most of the days. Many people, myself included, were starting to fray at the edges from such a quick dive into dreariness with the fresh scent of summer still hanging on to our skin, our psyches, our spirits. In my particular situation I was also still walking around with the experience of several weeks under a brilliant Mediterranean sky so the weather seemed very harsh to me. Too many clouds. Too soon. Too winter-like for the what can be a glorious autumn month.

Trying not to let the gray-cast skies get me down, I headed for a long walk along the Mississippi River…always a healing activity for me. Clothed in hat and coat more suited for late November, I kicked the fallen leaves and watched more of their kind dance to their final resting place on sidewalk and boulevard. As my eyes wandered up I was astonished to see that, while the sky, the very day was incredibly dreary, the trees were shining forth amazing color into the bland background. Noticing the brilliant yellows, the bright oranges and the just-appearing reds, I felt my own spirit lift in the presence of such hues. I began to reflect on all the ways Creation can dazzle us, can draw us out of the doldrums if we keep our gaze sharp and ready to be surprised.

I thought of all the times I am pulled down by not only the gray skies but also by words that lack color, that are life-deadening. There is enough of that these days to keep us in a constant state of funk. And I have found that it is often the gifts of Creation that wakes me up. Wakes me up to possibility. Wakes me up to beauty. Wakes me up to all I am offered without any effort on my part. Wakes me up to what is real and lasting and enduring. 

The painter and bold interpreter of the landscape that held her, Georgia O’Keefe, once said: “I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say in any other way – things that I had no words for.” The gift of color can be such a spirit-lifter which is what happened for me as I began to take in the palette of trees defying the backdrop of those early October days. By the time I found my car once again, I was in a different place than when I started that early morning walk. I had been awakened to yellow, gold, orange, red, hot pink and my breath was deeper and my face reflected light and a rosier outlook on the day and the world.

On Sunday we turned our clocks back and now the darkness of November seems to have descended. I heard yesterday that November is the ‘darkest’ month. I don’t know about that but this week promises to be pretty dreary, rainy, with even threats of the ‘s’ word. My antidote? Pull out the most colorful clothes you own…a brilliant scarf, a bright sweater, those crazy red pants you keep pushing to the bottom of the drawer and wear them proudly. Paint…color…bring flowers into the house…eat salads and soups full of colorful vegetables. Spend time looking at the nearly impossible shades of an apple. Allow the color to carry you through the dismal days, the times when words are too thick or harsh. Bask in the beauty of color. It may be just what is needed for the dreariness of both sky and spirit.

I will admit it. I am a first born daughter who wants everyone to like her and hates the idea of feeling angry for any reason. Keeping the peace at all costs has been a constant in my life. Raising my voice or confronting conflict makes me dizzy with fear and I avoid it like the plague. This has been a pattern in my personal and professional life and it has likely led to both good and bad situations in both. The health of this commitment to peacekeeping, of often denying anger can lead, as we all know, to harmful and sometimes disastrous consequences. This denial of emotion has been fed by a culture that doesn’t like the display of anger…particularly by women and girls…and by a faith tradition that can, at times, encourage us to stuff feelings and words of anger for all kinds of reasons. We often forget the many times the Psalms reflect anger directed at all kinds of people and specifically toward God.

So this past week as I reflected on the tragedy and violence at the Tree of Life Synagogue and  in a Kroger store in Kentucky, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with what could only called be anger. Of course, this emotion was mixed with so many other feelings…devastation, sorrow, astonishment, weariness as the ‘not again’ thoughts washed over me. But what mostly colored everything else was anger. Anger at the lives lost. Anger at the senselessness. Anger at the bigotry, the ignorance, the seemingly ever present ability to have guns meant to do nothing but kill, kill lots of people quickly. Anger at what feels like an inability for intelligent, rational people to do anything to change this tragic drama in which we find ourselves over and over. Anger. Anger. Anger.

When I need to wrestle with something I often go for a walk and so I took this feeling and put my feet to it. And what came out of that walk was a prayer, and I do believe it was a prayer, whose message was: “Bless this anger.” As someone who has been a part of a community that believes in the power of blessing, I have come to see this act as the recognition and honoring of the Sacred within and between what is being blessed and the one who blesses. It is what has me inconspicuously raising my hand toward those animals that have met an untimely death on the road or toward children stepping onto the bus in the morning. It is a way to remind myself that I am connected, connected to all that has been created through no effort on my part and that we are sharing in this journey of life together, in all its beauty and terror.

What might it mean to bless this anger? Since I am not an expert in this emotion, I am still living into this. But later in the day, I came across this Franciscan Blessing that helped bring language to my wrestling:

May God bless you with a restless discomfort
  about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
  so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.
May God bless you with holy anger
  so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace  among all people.
May God bless you with the gift of tears
  to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or
  the loss of all they cherish,
  so that you may reach your hand to comfort the, and
  transform their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness
  to believe that you really can make a difference in this world,
  so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim
  cannot be done.

These days call for blessing upon blessing. Blessing all that connects us. Blessing what divides us. Blessing what makes our hearts sing and what causes it to break. Blessing our hopes and our deep disappointments. Blessing those we love and those we may never understand. Blessing our tears and our foolishness. Blessing our discomfort. And blessing our anger, making it somehow holy enough to propel us toward acts of justice, compassion and love.

May Grace dance through all these blessings bringing us to a place we can only imagine. For the healing of our hearts. For the healing of our lives. And for the healing of our world.