Observations on life by Marie Noelle DuquetteJune 2013Take Off Your Shoes

Monthly Archives: June 2013
- Yourself
  
  Posted at 10:24 am by Marie Noelle Duquette, on June 17, 2013
  “The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You cannot get there by bus, only by hard work, risking and by not quite knowing what you are doing. What you will discover will be wonderful: What you discover will be Yourself.” — Alan Alda
  
  This quote is on a plaque I received as a gift from my friend Lori Comly, when I got my Bachelor’s in Journalism in 1988. It has hung in every place I’ve ever lived and is one of my guiding principles in life. It reminds me: that it is normal — good even — to feel like I don’t quite know what I’m doing.
  
  It reminds me — that hard work is necessary to have a break-through and that a break-through is necessary to get a result.
  
  It reminds me — that others occupy this space known as The Creative even when we can’t see them on the bench next to us.
  
  Yesterday was my first Sunday at my new call, Grace at the beach. I prepared in my usual manner which means that I got to the end result in a most public way.
  
  There were a few glitches: my microphone kept falling off my ear. It was distracting. My new congregation was good-natured about it and helped me recover when I got lost.
  
  It was trickier than usual for me to get comfortable in this new place. Everything was different. Bigger. More spread-out. I’ll need to find my focal point in order to help bring forth new life here.
  
  The Mussler family spent nearly the entire weekend tearing apart and painting my new office. It is soothing now, the colors of the ocean. I was humbled by their tenacity and commitment; on Sunday morning, the two children-painters were my acolytes, lighting the candles and giving me communion.
  
  The Creative, I have learned is not just a place, it is a place in which the entire ground is a moving sidewalk. What is becoming continuously unfolds.
  
  The Good News is that it seems like there are quite a few people here who understand that and who are willing to meet me in this wilderness where everything is new, where the paint is fresh, and the ticking of the clock sounds like the ocean hitting the shore.
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- ELCA Presiding Bishop’s message includes a Shout-Out to Malaysia
  
  Posted at 6:58 am by Marie Noelle Duquette, on June 11, 2013
  I am proud and grateful, to be a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The enclosed BLOG was brought to my attention from friends The Revs. Eric and Wendolyn Trozzo, serving with their two young sons as missionaries in Malaysia. I offer it to you today as a shout-out to them. You may be far from home, but are most certainly not alone!
  
  Flung Forth Anew
  
  Recently, each synod in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA – having 65 synods) watched this video at their annual Assembly. So many people have excitedly told me about the stories of the Church in Malaysia being shared in the video. If you wonder what the ELCA is doing to “Change and Save Lives” in the USA and beyond, watch this video.
  
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- Laps
  
  Posted at 4:06 pm by Marie Noelle Duquette, on June 10, 2013
  Joy’s first swim (Photo credit: mr brown)
  
  I’d never describe myself as an athlete, but the one place I come close to being athletic is in a pool. In college, I often swam a mile on my lunch hour. That of course sounds all Glory Days now, but it’s good for me to remember what I could do when…
  
  I find myself living in Florida, giddy with joy at the prospect of having two pools in my backyard — one with waves, one with a maintenance man — and upon my first visit find I can now swim all of 6 laps before I have to rest to catch my breath. Ouch.
  
  I know, I know…long journeys/single steps, gotta start somewhere and a bunch of other clichés, but still.
  
  Six laps? As I laid in the sun for a solid twenty minutes before doing 6 more (and calling it a day) I amused myself thinking that the vision we have of ourselves in our minds is never quite accurate now, is it?
  
  Sometimes, the way we picture our self is exceptionally BETTER than the real deal. Sometimes, sadly, we envision ourselves as much worse than is accurate.
  
  Martin Luther called either of these self-perceptions a form of sin. One linked to the sin of pride; the other to the sin of excess – both taken to an extreme. Too much pride and we picture ourselves still Olympic swimmers 30 years later; too much humility and we think we need a noodle just to climb in the pool. Either way, whether we get stuck in Glory Days or hang out in the valley of fear, the visions can cause us to live lives less full than the ones to which the Holy Spirit beckons.
  
  It’s odd to think of these inaccurate visions of ourselves as sin; frankly I don’t ponder this often. But it’s also useful, because when you define sin as less than God’s best for our lives, you begin to see how this system of transformation works. The antidote to self-images that are limiting is community: real community. The kind of community made up of good friends and family and neighbors who will laugh with us when we tell the truth: 6 laps. That was the starting point. I called my friend Pam with this humbling revelation. Pam who I met in my last call who is surely part of my circle now forever. The circle of faith knows no limits — not even those of distance.
  
  We laughed. I regrouped, hung up, and got back in the pool. Ended with a total of 12 laps. In a pool in my backyard. Left happily refreshed and tired for having gotten in the water.
  
  As I write this story for you now, I hear in my mind a favorite hymn which is based on Isaiah 55: Oh all who thirst, let them come to the water…and all who have nothing let them come to the Lord. Without money, without price, how will you spend your life…come to the Lord…
  
  And so I begin my third call, washed by the water; bringing the Good News beachside.
  
  Thank you, Jesus.
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- Chair
  
  Posted at 4:49 pm by Marie Noelle Duquette, on June 7, 2013
  I live in Florida now. Indialantic, Florida…beachside as the locals call it. Almost one month ago exactly, Sr. Michelle, my new colleague flew to Ohio and helped me drive a U-Haul to my new apartment. I followed all the online guides to figure out which size U-Haul I would need, and still ended up with one that was too small by two sizes. Of course we didn’t know it was too small until we had it packed so tightly we could not have added so much as a Ping-Pong ball. Then, we looked at all the things that didn’t fit and knew.
  
  And I also knew we weren’t unloading it to go get a bigger truck!
  
  Lots of things didn’t get to Florida, the most important of which included my chairs. My beach chairs! My really NICE hardly-used beach chairs that the Johnsen’s gave me.
  
  Still, I figured I could find new chairs in Florida.
  
  After unloading the U-Haul, I flew back to Ohio and helped move my oldest son Adam from college into his new apartment in Dayton. His new apartment is on the second floor and for that move we had a truck that was too big for the job. Too big by at least two sizes. One of the items he moved was The Nest. The Nest is an oversized beige corduroy chair we got at a garage sale when I was pregnant with Adam. It was functional, but never attractive. Now, 24 years later it is even less so. I tried to pitch that chair several times, but Adam always rescued it.
  
  In my apartment here now, I have one good chair: a burgundy recliner given to me by one of my new parishioners. She called it the Healing Chair because her brother had bought it for her 18 years ago when she was battling a serious illness that was baffling her doctors. She spent days into months in that chair enduring tests and tubes and trauma until finally, health claimed victory over her illness and the chair became a memory of a time she was ready to forget.
  
  Last night, Chase and Ashley and I were walking on the beach that is just blocks from my new home. The waves were choppy and the wind was cool as we walked along through the remnants of our first Tropical Storm, Andrea. The sky in the West was red, and we watched lightning light up the horizon over the ocean. At regular intervals on the beach, there was a bright red lifeguard chair, empty.
  
  I wanted to climb the stand and sit in the lifeguard chair, but I resisted out of respect for those who have the credentials to actually do that job. But looking at these high places where lifeguards keep watch reminded me of he significance of chairs. We rarely consider their value, and yet they are deeply meaningful tools in our pilgrimage here on earth. We have our own chairs at the table. We eat quietly at tables with empty chairs. We have chairs in which we rock our babies to sleep and those to which we retreat from life. Indeed, when we receive a call with life changing news, the caller often begins by asking, “are you sitting down?”
  
  Tomorrow morning, I’m getting another chair. This one too is a gift from a parishioner who no longer needs it. It is a lovely light tan, leather recliner.
  
  I’ve always wanted a leather recliner. How perfect that now, as I begin these years of living in this ocean paradise, that I would receive one as a gift. After months of planning for this move and saying painful goodbyes. Of weeding out my possessions and preparing to begin anew. Of packing and unpacking until I was too tired to sleep, I will have my own chair waiting for me at the end of every day.
  
  A leather recliner inviting me to put up my feet and rest.
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Take Off Your Shoes

Monthly Archives: June 2013

Yourself

Posted at 10:24 am by Marie Noelle Duquette, on June 17, 2013

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ELCA Presiding Bishop’s message includes a Shout-Out to Malaysia

Posted at 6:58 am by Marie Noelle Duquette, on June 11, 2013

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Laps

Posted at 4:06 pm by Marie Noelle Duquette, on June 10, 2013

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Chair

Posted at 4:49 pm by Marie Noelle Duquette, on June 7, 2013

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