Calling Hours in Wyoming

It's a rainy day, and I'm reflective, and not being very productive, so I'll write a bit.

Most of you reading probably know Rock and I, and know that last year at the end of August, I left my position at the First Presbyterian Church of Wyoming, and the two of us moved to Dansville and enterred into this new call to provide a gap year/foundation year/interim year to young adults.

Rock and I have lately been talking about how this year or two of planning and preparing offers time to experience for ourselves what we hope to offer not only to the young adults who live with us for a year, but also to the board and supporters of Lagom Landing.

It's challenging to live differently in this 24-7, fast-paced, technologically driven world of ours. How do we live faithfully pursuing what gives us life?

The land and the quiet, the birds and the trees have already served as such a gift for us.

But some encounters over the weekend also remind me of other places that offer me life, and of remarkable people who model good living.

Wyoming, NY is a unique place. It carries a sense of the old ways with it, even though it is not immune to the problems facing so many rural U.S. communities. I loved being able to nurture relationships with the grocery store owners who've run the store for over fifty years. A lot goes on in that store's back room. Delicious Apple Sausage (and now blueberry, apple-pumpkin, elderberry, chorizo, italian and even pineapple varieties too) is shot into casings. Inventory is unloaded, usually by volunteers who offer their labor with love. Cans are recycled. Signs and equipment are stored. Coffee, a great piece of toast, and friendly conversation and hospitality are freely offered to anyone needing company. Even though the store has not been able to keep up with competition from larger stores in nearby towns, and now barely ekes out an existence by selling that specialty sausage and other fresh meat, some dairy products, and beer and cigarettes, it continues (as it has for who knows how many years) to serve as the communication center of the village. Anything shared there can and will travel within minutes to all corners of the community.

Those who are no longer able to do what they used to do sometimes wander to this back room for conversation, for connection. A good friend who died last Wednesday hung out there a lot in the last year as he recovered from a bad hip injury, as well as cancer treatments.

On Friday, Rock and I attended his calling hours, which, following a long-standing family tradition, were held in his daughter and son-in-law's home. Calling hours in a family's home are completely different from calling hours in a funeral home. Friends and family cleaned out gardens, scrubbed the house clean, and rearranged the furniture so there would be a good channel for people to flow through. People lined up from the front door all the way back to the sidewalk, and filed into a dining room and family room where the person who died shared countless meals, played poker and euchre, opened presents, held babies, and argued and debated year after year. Offering condolences to family in the place where they spent time with the deceased feels miles different than doing so in a sterile commercial funeral home.

At the end of the family room, our friend was laid out in a simple pine coffin with rough rope handles, which was (as per his strict, and quite vocal request) constructed lovingly by his son in law.

Around the corner, in the kitchen, friends gently asked mourners if they would like a cup of coffee or some water. The table was spread with the best-baked goods in three counties, juicy bite-sized fruit, and hot dishes of comfort food made by friends and family and even local businesses that cherished our friend and reached out to his family.

All this reflects a deep-seeded theme of our friend's life—pure joy in the simple things of family, hard work with one's hands, and the pleasure of friendship. A trust in the old values and in keeping things simple.

As I sat eating home-made mac&cheese on the sun porch at those calling hours on Friday, I distinctly felt the spirit of Christ shining throughout the home filled with everyone our friend loved and laughed with. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote that
“Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.” (sic)

I saw Christ in the face of our friend, and also how Christ's love has filtered down to his family and friends through 77 years of loving investment.

It made me want to live well.

It added enjoyment to my running a half-marathon a day later. To seeing "Love, Janis" performed at Rochester's Downstairs Cabaret Theatre and reflecting on the passion flowing through Janis Joplin's veins.

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" (those weren't Janis' words, but Kris Kristofferson, but they sure have irony as I reflect on her life).

We all have freedom to choose life or choose death, and our choices certainly accumulate.

It's been a major transition for me to leave full time work, and to still feel like I'm contributing to the world. It's also tough not to waste the day on the internet, catching up with friends, sortof, but, more accurately, procrastinating.

Running, as well as weekly attendance at the Mercy Prayer Center for 30 weeks of learning from St. Ignatius Prayer Exercises, have been two touchstones centering me throughout this transition. I'm grateful for the gift of prayer in my life, and for running over quiet roads as they've blossomed into springtime.

Finally, I'm grateful for the gift of having lived six years in a community filled with many who aspire to fill their days with that which brings them life.

Thank you, Wyoming.