My sister came up to visit this past week. It is the first time we have had any significant amount of time to be with each other in years.

Holidays don’t count. Holidays are good, but there is always so much going on and so many other people around, that you rarely get the chance to have the long conversations. and the deeper conversations that come with days together. For her, it was the first time to see me in the new world I have lived in since moving to Vermont 16 1/2 years ago, to see me in the context of the people and places that define my life.

It is funny, as we age, how we choose to change. How we see things…. differently. I see it in myself, and I see it in her. Having her here had me looking atnot just the changes in her, but also the changes in myself that have come since moving to Vermont.

I have become less bold, but more persistent. I have taken up new arts and hobbies. My reading habits have changed. I eat less. Socialize less. I am more willing to fail. My politics, long ago skewing Republican, have done a 180 as I have seen more closely how people struggle and where they struggle. I have moved from more religious to more spiritual – an ironic change I still can’t figure out as I have moved into ministry over the past decade and a few.

I used to thrive in Chaos. Many years ago my boss gave me a book: Thriving on Chaos by Tom Peters (A great book that deserves a revival). “You could have written this.” he told me. But a divorce that blew my world up in more ways that I ever could have imagined, have made me a seeker of peace. Both because I crave it for myself, and because I have seen all the good that can happen in peace that does not happen in chaos.

That peace was once defined by avoidance in the early days. As I have become more sure of my footing, I avoid less. At times, not often but at times, I dive right into the fray. Some of the ministries my two churches take part in have their detractors. Loving LGBTQ+ folks and feeding the hungry at your church building is for some, political whereas for me, they are simple matters of loving God’s people. This stance has put me in situations were peace was not possible and I have learned to stand firm, where once I would have wilted.

Nearly twenty years have taught me how to paint. Taught me I can do most anything, so I need to choose wisely. It has taught me how desperately I want to matter, to make a difference in other’s lives. It does not have to be a lot of people’s lives, but it does have to be a few where I can look back and said “I did good work there.”.

I am way less judgmental. The more of people’s stories I hear, the more I reflect on my own life, the more I realize people make choices and do things based on a crazy quilt patchwork of experiences, wounds and hurts that most of us do not experience, much less see. None of us are in a place to judge. As is almost always the case, the bible was right: Leave the judging to God. just keep to our job, and love.

I am more comfortable with not knowing than I once was. Still curious, I also know there are things I will never know. Things beyond me. And I am OK with that. I live more in the moment than I ever thought possible.

But my guess is most of that did not show so much to my sister as she visited. She saw my health, my habits, my relationship with my wife, my eating habits (not so great), and, I hope, a comfortableness with life.

But the truth is, I see things differently. The painting, one I did a decade ago, was originally titled “Flames of the Martyrs”. But time has passed. That title no longer feels appropriate. I look at it and see a story of survival in the midst of a world trying to crush and control who we are and what we are. I would have never seen that a decade or so ago.

I used to think that old people were settled. That they were what they were. That the last decades of life were a story of solidity. And while that was frustrating sometimes, it was also admirable. That they had found themselves and settled into themselves.

I no longer think that. Life, and the way we see, and the ongoing stories of our lives have us changing, constantly changing. And spending time with my sister, seeing the changes I got to see in her, thinking of the changes in me, was a good thing.

She’s back to Richmond. I am back to my routine. I have a sermon to write. Work around the house to do. My guess is that we will both spend time this week making sense of what we saw and experienced with each other this past week. But the most important thing is something that has not changed. I love and like my sisters, and a week together did nothing to change that.

We are blessed.

Tom

PS: I still have not figured out what to rename the painting, but I will.