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Message from Mary Miller

Disorientation and grace

By Mary Miller

Along Lake Superior, stretching north from Duluth to the Canadian border, the Superior Hiking Trail traverses 205 miles of woods and rivers. My husband Gerry and I had purchased our trail guide for this late-summer vacation. We’d studied the pocket-sized maps. Each morning, we set out from our lakeshore lodging to hike a different section of this footpath.

But the directional signs along the way were not always clear. We scrambled over tree roots to the top of Pincushion Mountain, grateful for the orienting view of Lake Superior. We eagerly looked for the blue Superior Hiking Trail emblems hammered high on occasional birch trees, assuring us that we hadn’t veered off the path. Day by day, we kept planting our feet on this North Shore terrain. And as we got our bearings, we felt at home in this new place and alive with discovery.

All life long, we move from disorientation to reorientation. And grace comes to us in such unexpected ways.

At St. Paul, these days of newness are exhilarating — and sometimes disorienting. A sense of humor helps. In the church office, I make a quick left turn into what my brain says is the copier room, and come face to face with… nothing. In the lovely new sanctuary, every one of us is searching out a new seat. You may try a front-center pew one Sunday, a place in the north-most quadrant the next.

[ I’m even a little disoriented as I write this “Page 2” piece for the Journey. How did I get here anyway? This isn’t my page. It’s regularly farmed out to pastors and other staff, while I camp comfortably in the words and photos of the remaining pages. ]

At a particularly disorienting staff meeting last week, I tapped my dull #2 pencil. The pencil sharpener was nowhere to be found. Our conversation bounced all over this unfamiliar and lovely new territory, puzzling through details of offering plates and communion stations, pew pencils and processional doors. Later — oh woe is me — I couldn’t locate my name on the new wall of office mailboxes.

I got to thinking about times of disorientation in my life. The day I moved my orange shag rug into a concrete dorm room at Iowa State University. The year this city girl moved to a farm as a married woman — and later moved off the farm, newly-divorced. The moment I held my firstborn child in my arms. The morning I climbed into the family station wagon and drove to St. Paul for the first day of my new job. All disorienting. And each opened me up to creative and exhilarating new experiences that have shaped who I am.

On the afternoon of that disorienting staff meeting, my identity temporarily swallowed up in a mass of new mailboxes, I drove north to Lost Nation (an apt destination). In this small rural town, I sat on a porch and reconnected with a friend. It was — in the midst of this disorientation — what Barbara Brown Taylor calls “divine spaciousness.” Lush hanging ferns and pink impatiens made this into a sheltered outdoor room. We watched a hummingbird drink deeply from hosta blossoms. A tractor pulling a grain wagon rumbled down the street. The east breeze caught a melodic wind chime. And here in gentle words and genuine care, I was startled by the orienting nature of friendship. In this glimpse of God’s grace, I regained my bearings.

Like the autumn breeze and friendship on that rural porch, the Spirit of God is surely having its startling and creative way with our community of faith. You can almost feel the Spirit rustling the hymnal pages in our new sanctuary. In the tender love of community, we find our way to new patterns — and new pews. Just imagine the surprises of grace that lie on our path.

Mary Miller,

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