The Best Cookies

A couple of days ago as I was driving around the town trying to locate the town hall I went down Cottage Street and found this bakery; "The Flour Girls Baking Company." I thought the name was adorable so i figured sometime I would check it out. I finally had a chance to stop in on Wednesday on my way to a meeting. I figured buying cookies for the meeting was a good enough reason to stop in and check out the place. I am so glad I did. I met Jill the owner and had a wonderful chat. I bought some molasses cookies and chocolate chip cookies that were out of this world. My dad always said that chocolate chip cookies with a glass of milk was a complete food group. With these chocolate chip cookies that is definitely the case. Crunchy, not overly full of chips, very filling. And the molasses cookies were moist, chewy. A glass of cider and a molasses cookie would be a perfect snack. I asked Jill if she could make a dessert for my dinner party Saturday night and she is not only going to make something chocolate; she is going to deliver it to the house. Now that is a bakery worth checking out.

The Personality of Water

The water in the cove fascinates me. I never knew that water could be so many different colors. It changes from day to day. One morning it was smooth as glass all pink and gray. The day of the storm; it reflected the fury. All gray, rough with white caps. Today on a quiet, cold winter day. It has a bright blue color reflecting the bright sky. There are rough spots, but over near the shore are these quiet spots where the water remains calm.

Every morning when I get up, the first thing I do is check the cove. I check the color the water and then sit with God in prayer. I never thought of water as a living thing, but it really seems to have a changing personality.

Marion, MA

The Marion cove is horseshoe shaped and I live just about on the tip of one end of the horse shoe. I can see across the cove to the other side easily. (No I can't see Russia) I drove up the road on the other end of the horse shoe and the houses out there are huge, ocean front properties and a private golf course. This side of the cove seems much more down to earth.

Behind me is a conseration area called the Aucoot Outlets leading out to Aucoot Cove. Much of this land was donated to the town and is being preserved in it s natural state. It is different living on the water with all the boatyards and the marinas. To get my residency sticker I have to go see the harbormaster. I guess as long as I don't have to prove I can swim I will be okay.

Ashes to Ashes

Since I have been cleaning out my wood stove and becoming intimately aquainted with ashes I have been contemplating ashes. Last Year on Ash Wednesday I was struggline through my CPE rotation and this is what I wrote.


When I first heard that the hospital had a formal service to distribute ashes with the help of the chaplaincy staff, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. "Ashes???? We don’t do ashes.” I wasn’t sure that I could relate to the significance of the ashes and my mind kept asking the question “why.” I was hoping this wasn’t going to be a time when my Free Church beliefs were going to prevent me from digging deeper into this experience. Was I going to shut down to the experience and kind of slough it off or could I learn something from this Ash Wednesday? I took the view that okay this was a "them" thing and I was "me" and would be part of this "business", but keep my spiritual distance.

I offered to do the chapel service that day while the rest of the chaplains went to lobby to help out with the noontime distribution of ashes. I knew I could plan and lead a worship service. It's comfortable and familiar and maybe I wouldn't be called on to administer ashes. I agreed to help out with the five o’clock distribution of ashes, figuring it was the least I could do and also figuring that there wouldn't be many people at the later service. And least was the word my mind used. Somehow in my mind this whole ash business was “icky.”

We went to the blessing of the ashes with the Eucharist ministers first thing in the morning. It seemed a bit bizarre to me that this pile of ashes could mean something, as if it was some kind of magic potion or a pile of magic beans. I was dubious and nervous, not one to feel nimble and sure footed when I encounter something that is a very different religious tradition. How do I stay true to my beliefs but also minister to the people? As I looked at my envelope I sighed inwardly, “Well, these ashes for some reason that was beyond me were important to some Christians.” I worked hard to keep that free church part of me from either bursting out laughing at the odd sight of an envelope full of ashes or displaying an attitude of some kind of “whatever!” I wrote the words for annointing carefully on my envelope so if I was called upon, I could do a good job of distributing the ashes without attitude. It wasn’t that there was any outward sign of this entire struggle. It was all internal.

After a short morning on the floor, where, much to my relief people seemed content to wait for the Eucharist ministers to administer the ashes. I headed for the chapel service at noon feeling that I had found some kind of safety zone from Ash Wednesday. As I was preparing for the service, people came looking for ashes and I directed them to the hospital lobby. Five nurses showed up and seemed dismayed to find out that they had to go all the way to the lobby since they were short on time and needed to get back to the floor. When I mentioned tentatively that I had ashes and could distribute them, I was startled that they said yes and the fact that I was a Baptist minister didn't seem important. My last door out of the situation had just closed. As I did my first anointing of ashes and said the words on my envelope the women seemed very content. After they left, I couldn’t help but think, “that’s it?”

A couple of families came by looking for ashes and I administered ashes to them also this time not mentioning that I was a Baptist minister. I realized I wasn’t a Baptist Minister in this setting. I was a chaplain. I conducted the chapel service to a full house of about twelve people. I mulled over my thoughts all afternoon and kept wondering the significance of the ashes to these people. I knew the tradition, but still couldn’t connect in a deep way.

I arrived for the five o’clock service and was amazed to see people pacing around waiting for the ashes to arrive. One woman seemed particularly anxious. When I asked if she was in a hurry, she nodded yes and was very relieved when I told her I could administer the ashes. The look on her face and the thank you she gave me as she turned to leave began to open things up a bit for me. I saw another woman standing off by herself waiting for the ashes, I went up and spoke to her and found that she was the wife of a patient in the hospital. She told me how her husband wanted to be cremated and that she did not want him to be cremated. As I stood there listening to her story, holding the envelope of ashes it struck me as ironic that she should be struggling with her husband returning to ashes yet anxious to receive ashes. It is one of those moments to ponder. There were about fifty people for the service and the priest, the chaplain and I helped with the service. I did a couple of the prayers and distributed ashes to a line of people, saying the words, making the sign of the cross on countless foreheads. I began to realize that I didn’t matter. It was the ashes that were important to these believers, not who administered them.

After the service I went up to the ICU unit to finish distribute ashes on the wards. When I stopped at the nurses’ station, three nurses wanted ashes, right there. Again it wasn’t the place or the person – it was the ashes. As I went from room to room distributing ashes to patients and families there was such relief when they got their ashes. One elderly woman was barely awake, but when she got her ashes I could see the peace creep across her face. People seemed grateful and relieved to receive their ashes. I stopped in the waiting area and offered ashes to families waiting out there. It was then that I became a chaplain. It was then that I understood that I wasn’t the important one, All these months of training had been to help me improve my pastoral skills but the ultimate goal was the patients’ spiritual support, walking with them, even when I didn’t know the words or understand the why. It was the pastoral presence that had made a difference to these people.

The Saga of the Wood Stove

I decided this afternoon to check out the woodstove that sits at the end of my livingroom. This is fourth place in a row, I have lived that had either a wood stove or a fireplace, but the first time that I have even attempted to use one. I looked inside and it was packed full of newspapers. My first thought - let's burn this stuff. After scrounging around for matches, and lighting the papers, they wouldn't stay lit. I figured out I was probably shutting off the air supply everytime I shut the door on the wood stove. So after checking out the vents in the front and finding that there was so much ash and paper packed in the stove, that it wouldn't draw air, I decided I should probably clean it out. So with my bucket of water beside me, I took some of the newspaper and ash out and then the paper that was left began to burn. Probably not the smartest move, but I did make one heck of a mess with the 1/2 burnt newspapers and ash mixed with water. The stove did get a bit warm, not enough to make any appreciable heat, but enough to make me want to beat my chest and say, "Woman good. Woman make fire!" Tomorrow's agenda: clean out the rest of the wood stove; find some real wood and make a real fire and see how it really goes.

Intro to Life in a Small Town

Friday started out very interesting with a call from the Plymouth County Sheriff's office informationg me that a robbery had taken place. Gave me a full description of the alleged criminal. Not sure if that was comforting or not.

I took my first trip to downtown Marion on Friday to try and find the post office. Downtown consists of these quaint small streets with no parking. All the buildings are right on the sidewalk with little or no front yard. I did locate the town lot and pulled in there. Something tells me though, that come summer this may be a place to avoid. I walked over to the post office to mail some packages only to find that the post office closed. I asked a woman standing there getting mail from her PO box what was the story and she told me that the post office closes daily from 11:00 am til noon! As I left the post office I noticed people out walking around; greeting one another in front of the historical society beside the post office. there is a definite small town atmosphere.

Since the post office was closed, I decided to stop in a check out the Marion General Store. It is actually a small grocery store. Very handy since the next nearest grocery store is all the way to Wareham. 7 or 8 miles. They have the butcher's counter; a selection of produce, household items and fresh bakery products. Plus a small selection of beer, wine and liquor. I met Jack. After I mentioned that I had just moved to town, he readily introduced himself and shook my hand. My goal is to get well enough known so that people will call out my name on sight.

This past week I moved to Marion, Massachusetts. It is my first pastoral position at a church and my first time living in a beach community. Home is 1/2 block from the beach and I am enjoying the experience of viewing the cove from my kitchen window each morning. This blog will be my on-line reflections of life on the Cove meaning life in a small community; life as a small church pastor and life in my small bungalow near the beach.