The last ten days

Well, let's see. My last post of substance was Feb 27th - so it's been ten days! I can't even remember what happened on some of those days. But here are the main events of these past ten days;
    1) My 86th birthday on Saturday
    2) Church in Guilford Sunday morning
    3) A meeting of the congregation after church to discuss Lise's announced retirement and the
           process for finding a new pastor.
    4) Another meeting at the Guilford church later on Sunday featuring two members of the
           Abenaki tribe, talking about the Native American heritage in Windham County.
    5) Dummerston Town meeting on Tuesday
    6) Ash Wednesday  service on Wednesday
    7) Windham-Union Association meeting Thursday morning
    8) Dummerston Church Choir rehearsal on Friday evening.
    9) Two Tarheels basketball games - one on Saturday and one on Tuesday.

    Mixed in around all of that were first of all a lot of attention to the wood stove to help get the house warmed up (it was COLD when we arrived home and has remained cold ever since - I'm sick of cold weather!), three trips to the pool (Ahh ... the hot tub!!), some shopping errands, some lazy mornings reading in bed (we can get the bedroom cozy with the electric baseboard heat), listening to the Cohen testimony (mostly on the radio), and at least three trips to the Putney Library to transform paper files into .pdf files using their scanner (which works essentially like the one in Alpine, WY where I "digitized" a box of files while we were there in January-Feb.). One thing we have NOT done - our Christmas tree is still up! Just no time yet to take off the decorations and take it down.

    I had a lovely birthday party, with John and Cynthia and Katie and Savanna here at the house. Ellen prepared a delicious supper, and made a marvelous carrot cake for my birthday cake (we sent some home with K&S but I've had several pieces since - YUM!!). Katie&Savanna gave me two fountain pens for my birthday - Savanna is a fountain pen aficionado. She herself has a large collection and she also reviews them for fountain pen magazines! So she gets sent free ones to review. I also love fountain pens, I only have a couple of them, and I am thrilled to get them. John and Cynthia gave me a CD of Celtic chants from the Hebrides islands - very unique music which reminded me very much of songs I've heard Emmy Miller sing which come out of Appalachia. I think there is a direct connection there. So I got some really cool gifts!

Ready for my birthday supper

Happy Birthday to me!!

Cynthia and Katie eye the cake!

    Sunday was a full day! We sang in the choir at the morning service - Andy Davis directing - and then attended the meeting afterward. Lise had just announced her plan to retire in 2020 by letter a few days earlier. This is huge. She has been pastor at Guilford since 2000. She also wants the church to adopt a new process for transition to a new pastor, called, informally, the "overlap" model, in contrast with the "interim" model. Under the more traditional "interim" model, the pastor sets a date for retirement, and the church finds an interim pastor who takes over the Sunday after the old pastor leaves. The old pastor basically "disappears" - gets out of the way - and the interim pastor leads the church for a year or two while a search committee goes through a process of reviewing candidates for a "settled" pastor - one who presumably will stay for several years. The interim pastor assists in the process, especially by helping the congregation to clarify its goals and mission as a church and clearly communicate to candidates what they are looking for in a new pastor.

    That is essentially what happened when Shirley and I retired back in 1997. Allyson Platt took over as the interim the Sunday following our last Sunday, Shirley and I "disappeared" by taking a trip south, and Allyson led the church for a year while the search committee looked for a settled pastor. Allyson was very well-liked, and many, if not most, would have been happy for her to stay on as the settled pastor. But under the "interim" model that is not allowed, because it unfairly skews the search process. Then two things happened: Shirley died unexpectedly six months after we left, which plunged the church into grief. And the church committee presented a candidate for the settled pastor position who turned out to be a not a good fit for the church. This led to a difficult year, that pastor voluntarily left, and there was another year or more of no consistent pastoral leadership before Lise finally settled into that role. This seems to have "soured" the church - at least many members -  on the "interim" model. Other churches, it seems, have also had similarly negative experiences with the "interim" model. So the "overlap" model has emerged. It has been around for a few years (and is promoted in a book titled Elephant in the Boardroom). Under this process, the retiring pastor announces her retirement with a good length of lead time, the church gears up and goes through the search process before that retirement date, there is no "interim" pastor, and the candidate who is presented to the congregation as the "settled pastor" is identified before the old pastor has left and actually arrives at least a week or even longer before the old pastor actually departs - thus the "overlap" of the two pastors for a while, and the new pastor gets a good sense of what he or she is taking on, so to speak. The churches who have done this feel it provides for a smoother transition and no loss of "momentum." It is recommended only for churches where there are not divisive issues lurking beneath the surface, which seems to be the case here. However, it is a fairly new idea and there are not a lot of actual examples of it out there in the world. So there is a bit of the unknown about it. I am intrigued by it but also see potential problems with it. We shall see! It was a lively meeting and quite a few people spoke on their feelings about it - there seems to be a strong preference for it at the moment.

    The afternoon session with the Abenaki folks was  fascinating - much of it had to do with evidences of ancient indigenous settlements at the juncture of the West River and the Connecticut River, in Brattleboro, in particular some possible petroglyphs made by indigenous people which were flooded when the Connecticut River was dammed at Vernon and  are now under water but have been seen by divers, one of whom was at the meeting and had photos. I was largely unaware of this.

The presenters at the Abenaki history session

    Town meeting is always great. Such a heart-warming example of democracy in action. Much time was spent debating expenditures which were paltry in size - a few thousand dollars - less than 1% of the total budget - but with high symbolic significance: e.g., the preservation of farmland, the presence of a public library in town, etc. I spoke a couple of times. The votes went as I hoped they would. We got to hear from our representatives in the state legislature who are all very principled and articulate and accessible. There was a good lunch, served on reusable trays (last year I helped get them off of plastic plates, cups and table service). The one problem --- all the offices we voted for by paper ballot were unopposed. In a sense the voting was meaningless - there were no contests. More people need to run for office. The school budget was passed  even though we are in the midst of a probable merger of our school with another being forced by the state board of education because of declining student enrollments statewide (Dummerston school enrollment has actually been flat for several years). This is being challenged by our town and others in court, but later this year our school may cease to exist as an independent town school, and our school board may be merged into a larger, regional board. This may have been our last Town School Meeting where we gather to vote on the school budget and other issues relating to the school.

Nader Hashim, legislator, addresses town meeting. Mike Mrowicki and Sen. Jeanette White are behind at left.

    This comes as other shocking developments have been announced - the college where I was on the faculty from 1982 to 1994, Southern Vermont College in Bennington, VT, announced this week it is closing this spring. And we heard the rumor that Hampshire College in Hadley, MA, one of the five colleges in the Amherst area (and the alma mater of Ken Burns) is closing. This really is shocking and sad. Something is happening in higher education which is alarming. More on that in later posts on this blog.

    The Ash Wednesday service was wonderfully somber. Again, there was a small choir, and we sang I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger which is hauntingly beautiful. My meeting with the Windham-Union Association Executive Committee was in Bellows Falls and it was a good meeting in the sense that I think I helped shape some decisions in a good way. I am sort of an eminence gris  on that committee. Our new treasurer is a woman whom I first knew as a girl when I was pastor in Dummerston in the 1950s. This was her first meeting, and she made a point to testify to how much I meant to her. That was gratifying.

Kurt Shaffter and Scott Couper at the WUA Meeting

    Wednesday night I stayed home so I could call choir members, I found that very few could come to a Thursday rehearsal so I had to call around and change it to Friday. Ellen brought me home after the Ash Wednesday service (which was early- at 5p.m.)  and then went back to town for the movies, Free Solo, about the  man who scaled El Capitan, in Yosemite,  without ropes - an astounding feat. It got the Oscar for best documentary.

    Last night I worked on getting music ready for the Dummerston Choir. Our anthem is set to a 12th Cent. Japanese tune, IMAYO, which I love. It too is very somber in a dramatic way which appeals to me. Sunday is, of course, the first Sunday in Lent. We also set our clocks ahead! Choir rehearsal is tonight.

    Saturday is the final game in the TarHeels regular season - they again play Duke, this time on the 'Heels' home court. They beat Duke on the Duke court two weeks ago - an upset - and Duke will be looking for a revenge win. But the "Heels will have home court advantage. The key issue is whether Zion Williamson will be able to play. Duke may be saving him for the NCAA tournament later this month. We are going to Clif and Eliza Bergh's place for supper and game. There is also a 90th birthday party  Sat. afternoon at the Grange for Suzanna Woodcock, whom I have known for over 40 years, going back to early Guilford days. There is always so much!