Rev. Sophia preaching, with Carole Katz, Charlyn Bethell, Debi King, Marilyn Boenau, and Guy Urban.
Telling the story of our lives is often how we make meaning of them. Let’s consider why storytelling offers this, and why it is, at this moment in time, it’s crucial. Debi King will also offer us her story in her Journey of Faith! A beautiful thing is happening here at FPW–the sanctuary is full of new and old friends, and the spirit of love and care is in the air. Come to church and soak some of it up–we all need this right now, don’t we? See you on Sunday Dear Ones
Our reading this morning comes from neurologist and poet, Dr. Parker Towle, who wrote this poem after hearing a chaplain tell the story at a talk he attended.
Hooking Rugs and Ice-Fishing, Parker Towle
He volunteered with a dying patient expecting to go through the five stages of grief at the first meeting. Instead she talked about hooking rugs: the needle, the thread, the cloth, the rhythmic movement of the hands.
He tried other matters in conversation –she talked of hooking rugs.
On the next visit she spoke of the intricacies and hardships of ice-fishing that her husband had enjoyed before his death.
Week after week, hooking rugs and ice-fishing.
Angered, he said to friends, “I can’t go on with this interminable hooking rugs and ice-fishing.”
One day as they sat in the hospital cafeteria, she going on, he bored and vexed with hooking rugs and ice-fishing, the room went silent, the air turned a luminous shade of green, hooking rugs and ice fishing stopped. She leaned over and said, “I could not have done this without you,” then on again with hooking rugs and ice-fishing.
Soon after she died.
At the funeral relatives said to him, “Thank you, all she ever spoke about was you.”
Reverend Sophia Lyons
Rev. Sophia is committed to radical welcome and spreading the good news that is our bold Unitarian Universalist faith. Some of her areas of interest include interfaith partnerships, addictions ministry, spiritual direction, and working towards collective liberation for all. Rev. Sophia aspires to live her life and fulfill her ministry guided by spiritual seeking, big love, and the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism.