Someone recently asked what the biggest adjustment will be for me upon retirement. Without missing a beat, I responded, “After 34 years? No longer having a parking space on Nassau Street with my name on it!”
While this perk will be sorely missed, it is not in any way “the biggest adjustment” to my retirement. That will be a combination of routines, sights, smiles, feelings, and of course – sounds. From our corporate worship on Sunday mornings to our intimate staff devotions each Tuesday… to rehearsals with children and youth… to the way your eyes and voices greet mine when I turn to invite you — the First Choir — to join your voices and hearts with mine and those of the choristers… those sensations are forever a part of me and will sustain me in ways I can’t begin to know. I am richly blessed.
Which leads me to some words of thanks…
- To my colleagues on the staff – present and past – who have so richly blessed these years: your wisdom, your spiritual gifts, especially in combination with each other, are signs of God’s hand in our work together. This has been true for decades and will be for decades to come.
- To the congregation – past and present – for the myriad parts you have played in my own faith journey. You have shown that programs and participation in worship are not only anchors of faith formation, but that they build outreach, more nearly reflecting God’s claim on our lives in this time and place.
- To my beloved choristers and their families for making the choice to participate in music ministry and for your efforts to do that with regularity, diligence, and joy.
- To the Session, in particular the Worship and Arts Committee, for support, guidance, and willingness to dream with me about what our congregation, with its hearts and minds and resources and voices, might do both in our building and beyond our walls.
- To the organizers of the retirement event last month. How did you ever pull that off? I truly hadn’t a clue! Thank you, Dave Davis, Janet Giles, Pam Kelsey, Maureen Llort, Theresa Price, Noel Werner, and Lauren Yeh.
- For the gifts presented on that unforgettable evening: musical, monetary, framed, boxed, and penned. I shall never have words adequately to thank you all. I’m still floating with gratitude.
And I am grateful that, as an unordained staff member, I can continue to worship with our congregation, for it has been my family’s church home for 34 years, with marriages, an adoption ceremony, and baptisms of our children and grandchildren. I will visit around a bit, having the freedom now to do that, but my heart will always be at 61 Nassau Street on Sunday mornings… and if ever I am not there, I will hear you singing, “Going and coming, end and beginning, always beside us, firmly in your hand, Lord.”
Faithfully,
Sue Ellen