Riding into Boston on Tuesday, it suddenly occurred to me that it was a significant anniversary. As the city’s tall buildings came into view from the Southeast Expressway, I realized it had been precisely forty years since I’d started my first full-time job ever - in Boston, on June 3, 1968. Since most of these buildings hadn’t even existed in 1968 - outside downtown, the Boston skyline had boasted only two skyscrapers back then - I’m not sure why they should have sparked this memory, but they did.

June 3, ‘68 was a Monday. I had arrived in town two days before from Ann Arbor, Michigan - a new college grad with a B.A. in philosophy. It was a beautiful day as I recall, with the flowering trees in the Public Garden in full bloom. I walked down the hill from my tiny Myrtle Street apartment to begin work at the Beacon Street headquarters of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, where I would serve as secretary to two staff members: the director of U.S. programs, and the coordinator of conscientious objector placement. Eventually that job would kindle my feminist consciousness, but right then I was simply happy to have finished school and to have found work.

June 4 was the day of the California primaries. After work, I went over to Cambridge to visit my sister Betsy, who had a spiffy new apartment in Central Square. We had dinner - eggplant parmigiana, spaghetti, and a small bottle of Mateus rose, if memory serves me - and then watched TV as the primary results came in. It was pretty late when we learned of Bobby Kennedy’s victory; I remember listening to his victory speech and then falling asleep on the couch. I woke up the next morning to Betsy’s voice, announcing that Bobby had been shot. Looking back, it’s as though I’d gone to sleep in one kind of world - a world full of hope - and woken up in an entirely different one.

Interesting that 40 years later, I should be back in Cambridge for a few days. And even more interesting that this sad anniversary should coincide with Barack Obama’s clinching the Democratic nomination for president. When Obama gave the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic convention, I was taken aback: “Wow - this is who should be running for president!” And now, incredibly, he’s the nominee.

With RFK’s assassination, a kind of magic seemed to go out of the political process. Now - although I’m no longer inclined to view presidential candidates as saviors - it seems to have come back in. Rationally or not, a bit of hope that I’d lost forty years ago has been rekindled.

On Tuesday I came to Boston, taking a bus up from the Cape to South Station, and from there the Red Line to Harvard Square. From there it was only a short walk to the SSJE Monastery along the Charles, where I had booked a few days’ retreat. I’m ensconced in the guest house on the third floor, where it’s high enough both to afford a good view of the river, and also to provide a bit of distance from the cars whooshing along Memorial Drive.

It’s good to be back at the monastery, worshiping with the brothers. It’s been startling for me to realize that, in some ways at least, I still feel more at home there than I ever did at CHS. No doubt much of that is due to what’s been called “the Grubb theory of oscillation,” a term introduced to me at an Alban Institute workshop some years ago. According to this theory, human beings have needs both for work and for rest, for productivity and for nurturance, and that they need to oscillate between the two. For clergy, it can be summarized in the question “who ministers to the minister?”

When I worshipped at CHS, it was part of our work, and there was a strong emphasis on learning to “do it right.” At the monastery, in contrast, I’m there to be fed, and mistakes are easily forgiven, if they’re noticed at all. At CHS I always felt somewhat hyper-vigilant during the offices, while at SSJE I can let myself sink into them, and feel the love of God sink into me.

This is a good reminder to myself: It will be important, once I’m back working in the parish, to find another place like the monastery. I’ll need a place where I can worship without having it be my work, where I can be fed so that I can feed others - indeed, where I can be a layperson. Cambridge will be too far away for me to worship at SSJE on a regular basis, but I’m sure another place will present itself, just as it always has.

A woman younger than I, who for a few years has been struggling to discern her call to religious life, told me once that she had a hard time with the thought of losing her freedom. That probably would have been one of my issues a couple of decades ago, but I’m discovering that my perspective has shifted.

Theoretically, I have a lot of “freedom” while I’m on this three-month vacation. I can go where I please, or not go anywhere. I can do as I please, or do nothing at all. I get to choose what books I read, and what movies I watch. I can choose when I get up, and when I go to bed - and in fact I’m grateful for this temporary respite from the alarm clock. But am I more “free” than I was in community? I don’t think so.

To me, freedom is no longer about the absence of restraints. Rather, it’s about pursuing our true calling, to be what we were created to be. One of my divinity school professors, Sharon Parks, used to talk about following our own deepest “I must.” And of course there’s that wonderful phrase in one of the Anglican collects, addressing God as the One “whose service is perfect freedom.”

I do think I was called for a time to be in community - and then I was called out again. In both cases, there was freedom - certainly not perfect freedom, but what I needed at the time.

What I have this summer isn’t freedom, so much as it is a chance to regroup. It’s been a while since I read William Bridges’ Transitions, but I would guess he would say I’m in the “neutral zone” right now. I’m catching up on rest, and especially on alone time (something in short supply in the religious life - a paradox, since so many introverts are drawn to it). The neutral zone is a good and even necessary place for me to be right now - and in that sense it is freeing - but I don’t expect to be any less free in August, when I start back to work, than I am now.

It was a long drive to the Cape, with stops along the way, but I arrived at my father’s house at quarter past eleven, a week ago Monday. Since then, I’ve been settling in - unpacking, finding stores, getting a new driver’s license, that sort of thing.

Most important for this blog, I’ve discovered that the very nice local library has free WiFi. Dad’s dial-up is serviceable for e-mail, but too agonizingly slow for much else. So here I sit, in a nice perch on the library’s mezzanine, at a corner table with a pleasant view. Thus far, it’s been available each time I’ve come; we’ll see how it holds up during the summer months when the Cape is a bit more crowded. For now, it feels like the perfect place to sit and reflect on what it means to re-enter what some people (not I, though) have called “the real world.”

The last two months have been something of a whirlwind, what with leaving the Community, entering the ministerial search process, and traveling.

I left Melrose at the beginning of May, visited the City Sisters for a few days, and then went out west for a week. Visited some old, good friends in Albuquerque, and then helped the congregation I had served in Salt Lake City celebrate its 25th anniversary. The trip was wonderful, and the Salt Lake celebration was a great way to mark my re-entry into parish ministry.

I’ve spent the last week visiting my sister Mary in the Poconos. Today I drive to my father’s house on Cape Cod, which will be home base until early August. I have an interim ministry position lined up for fall, which I’m very excited about! It will be great to be back in the parish again - after a good summer’s rest.

I do intend to keep this blog going - eventually under a different heading, no doubt. But I’ll have time to sort that out over the summer - once I find myself a good WiFi connection!

This blog has been quiet for a while, mainly because I didn’t feel free until recently to “go public” with the turn my discernment has taken. Now that it has crystallized into a decision, and I’ve told the Community about it, I’m free to share.

Someone has defined discernment as “turning down the volume on some voices so that you can hear others.” Our Lenten quiet time proved very deep here. A few weeks into it, a voice within me started coming to the fore, and it seemed to be pointing me back toward parish ministry. One Saturday morning in late February, for example, my first thought upon waking was, “You know, my REAL passion is congregations.” I noted it with interest, but at that point it was only one thought among many.

Over the ensuing weeks, though, the voice became clearer and more insistent. It seemed confirmed by some vivid dreams, such as missing a bus full of women clergy and being very agitated about it. I came to realize how deeply I missed preaching, and congregational life in general. Thoughts like these had come up before, but somehow this time they seemed to carry a different weight - more authority and less emotion.

In March I spoke at length with my spiritual director, and found myself very much at peace with the idea that it was time to move on. Nevertheless, I decided to sit with it through Lent, and not make any irrevocable decisions until after Easter Sunday. We had a wonderful Holy Week and Easter here - I’ll write about it later - but somehow I knew that they would be my last with the community.

Tuesday morning, I met with my mentor, Sr. Catherine Grace, and told her of my decision. She was very supportive, and not entirely surprised. Our thoughts at this point, subject to the community council’s approval, are that I will stay here through April, visit the city sisters in early May, and then take my leave of the community. I have a trip planned to the southwest during the first part of May, and then expect to be back in Massachusetts the middle of that month.

For a long time I’ve been intrigued by the possibilities of doing interim ministry with congregations, and this seems an ideal time to pursue that option. I’m in the midst now of writing essays for my on-line ministerial record, and hope to know by early to mid-summer where I’ll be in September.

I have no regrets whatsoever about my decision to come to community. The last year and a half has been a great experience, and has taught me many things. The work the sisters are doing here at Melrose is brilliant, in my opinion, and I hope to stay in touch after I leave.

Similarly, in no way do I feel that I have “failed” in leaving the religious life. Rather, the discernment process has “succeeded” for me, helping me to come to deeper clarity about my vocation, and to discover that my original call to ministry still seems to be alive and well.

I’ll keep you posted as things develop.

So! What happens once we’ve collected all that sap? Yesterday I had my first opportunity to see the process all the way through, so let me tell you about it.

Sap is quite perishable, so it’s important to get to work quickly. After harvest, we carry the buckets to the makeshift sugar house on our porch, and pour them through a filter to strain out any debris. From there it goes either into the evaporator, or, if there’s overflow, into a storage barrel. The evaporator is a rectangular, stainless steel tank, approximately four feet long, with a spigot near the bottom. It’s heated from underneath by two propane burners.

Once the sap comes to a boil, it gives off a lovely wall of steam. As it condenses, we add more from the overflow barrels. It’s crucial to monitor the level of liquid, lest we have hard candy in the bottom of the pan. This means that if we start the evaporator late in the day, someone is going to be getting up in the middle of the night to check it.

At some point, after many hours, the concentrated sap is deemed ready to come inside for finishing. We mobilize a bucket brigade (or rather, a soup pot brigade!) to transfer the liquid (which is first put through another set of filters) from porch to kitchen. The stainless steel pots are emptied into the finishing pan, a square, stainless steel pan large enough to cover four burners on the stove. We fire up the burners, and the second evaporation begins. By now, the sap has started to take on the color of syrup.

We monitor the level once in a while, skimming the surface with a small piece of wire screen, and adding any overflow sap to the pan as room becomes available. After a few hours, the liquid lets us know that it’s time to watch more carefully. The signal is a layer of small bubbles on the surface, which tends to start in one corner of the finishing pan, then spread to the other three corners. When we see these, we know that we shouldn’t stray far from the stove.

Gradually the layer of small bubbles spreads. We keep skimming, watching for the moment when they completely cover the surface of the pan. When the surface is entirely covered, the bubbles start to rise dramatically. That’s the signal to count slowly to five, and turn the burners off. The syrup is done!

One person fills the pint jugs, sitting on a small stool by the stove, and pouring from the spigot at the bottom of the finishing pan. Another quickly presses a plastic cap down on each, ensuring a good seal, and lines the finished jugs up to cool. Eventually, we will put tags on the jugs, proclaiming that the syrup contains nothing but “sap, fire, and love.”

Sap, fire, and love, yes - and maybe a bit of patience, as well. All in all, I must say, it’s a deeply satisfying endeavor.

My plan for this gray Wednesday (February 27) had been to go upstairs and work on my sermon for Sunday week.  All that changed, however, when Bill came in with an announcement: The sap is running!  That meant it was time to drop everything else, grab some bright orange buckets, and head for the trees.

In fact, the sap was not only running - it was, in some places, overflowing the collection buckets. Down at “the lines,” where plastic tubing is used to link a stand of trees together, Bill said it was flowing like water from a faucet.

Our property has about 300 maples altogether; we’re tapping 95 of them right now. Some trees are quite close to the house, so several of us went on foot, taking a bucket for each hand. Bill, meanwhile, loaded his pickup with twenty buckets or so, and headed down the hill.

It’s a simple thing, harvesting sap from trees. Each maple has one or two taps driven into it, from which hang galvanized aluminum buckets. You gently slide the lid off the bucket, lift the bucket off the tap, and empty the sap into your collecting bucket. Then you replace everything, thank the tree for its gift, and go to the next tree.

So simple, and yet so astonishing. As I watch the sap flow, without noise and apparently without struggle, a deep hush settles over and around me. The sap runs clear and sweet - there’s nothing quite like a fresh, cold, cup of it - and the trees give so generously. How many times a day, especially in winter when the branches are bare, do I pass by stands of trees, heedless of the life flowing within?

For some reason, this thought brings to mind some favorite words of Howard Thurman, who tells us that “hope is the growing edge”:

“Look well to the growing edge. All around us worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit…Look well to the growing edge!”

Each month, weather and calendar permitting, our convent hosts a Full Moon Fireside and invites any and all to come. During the warm months we gather down at the fire pit; in the winter we meet in our great room, around a roaring fire in the fireplace. We generally drum together for the first half hour, then have some kind of guided meditation, followed by conversation on a pre-selected topic.

This past Wednesday night was the first Fireside we’ve been able to have in a while. The November and December full moons had come too close to Thanksgiving and Christmas for us to try and host an event; in January, most of us were away. We won’t be able to have one in March, either, for Moon will be full on Good Friday.

This month, happily, several things came together to make it an auspicious night for a Fireside. For one thing, the sap in our maple trees is running now, and the steam of the boiling liquid was rising steadily from the evaporator on our front porch. Another factor was knowing that a total lunar eclipse would be starting just about the time the fireside was scheduled to end.

For days, the forecast had been for partly cloudy skies. We were praying that the clouds would part long enough for us at least to get a glimpse of Moon going into eclipse. At dusk, we were hopeful; looking out the kitchen window it seemed - could it be? - as though the sky were clear.

Our drumming began at 6:30, as usual. Sometime after seven, we forewent our usual meditation to show a portion of “The Future of Food,” which we’d been wanting to share with people for some time. This is a very powerful film about the industrialization of our food supply, dealing especially with the issues raised by genetically modified food.

Around 8:30, we looked east to a crystal clear sky and Moon, still rising. Some fifteen minutes later, we saw Earth’s shadow make the first small dent in the luminous disc. Bundling up, we went outside for a better view, watching transfixed as the stars got brighter, and as the shadow continued its slow progression, coloring the moonlight a strange and beautiful rust red. What struck us especially, in addition to the color, was that Moon in eclipse seemed less a disc, and more what it really is - a full, round sphere. This was particularly evident when we looked through a pair of binoculars.

It was a frigid night, so from time to time we took refuge, either indoors by the fire, or in the steamy makeshift sugar house. At some point, Sr. Helena Marie went into the kitchen and brought mugs for everyone, inviting us to dip them into the boiling sap. That put the seal on what was already a magical evening.

In my life I’ve had wonderful eclipse experiences, both solar and lunar. But never have I stood on a porch with friends, a mug of sweet sap warming my hands, watching a silver-yellow disc becoming a rust red orb. Truly a night to remember.

When Sr. CB and I returned from Trinity Institute in January, the first news we heard was that Buzz had disappeared. He had gone out late one afternoon, as was his wont, but hadn’t returned at his usual time to demand supper. Those left on the farm looked for him everywhere, for several days, but found no signs of him alive or dead.

For a while, we held out hope that he’d been trapped in someone’s garage or barn, but four weeks later he still hasn’t shown up. We may yet be joyfully surprised, but we suspect that Buzz Lightyear, the Great Vole Hunter, has himself become prey - perhaps to coyotes, or maybe a great horned owl. It’s the kind of thing one learns to expect with cats who insist on going outdoors, as Buzz did. But of course we’re still sad.

I had a very soft spot in my heart for Buzz, who despite his strong feral streak was extremely affectionate. He also looked a lot like Theo, the black cat I gave up when I came to community. He liked to sleep in the Novitiate, on the third floor, curled up on someone’s bed. When I saw him like that, it always gave me the feeling that all was well.

Sr. Catherine Grace has written a great blog about Buzz. I’ll just share some photos. Here he is in some characteristic postures: (1) wanting to come in (not long afterward, of course, he’d be wanting to go out again), (2) in watchful alertness, and (3) sniffing the plants to see if there’s anything he wants to eat.

So long, Buzz, old buddy. I’ll be missing you!