Postscript and Prelude

Six months have gone by since I've started this blog. It was supposed to be simply a journal of my journey across the USA.

In those six months, I have begun serving as rector of Parish of the Messiah, bought a house, met my fiancee's parents, and lost my mother to cancer. Each of those is a story in itself, but for now I invite you to simply read the postings below and enjoy being a passenger on the drive from Seattle to Boston on the backroads of the US and Canada.

But if you're feeling curious, here are some links to learn more about where I am. And if you're feeling generous, please put this links on your own webpage!

www.nightprayer.org. Night Prayer, a sung compline service I am helping plan, along with Daryl Bichel and Amy LeClair.

www.parishofthemessiah.org Parish of the Messiah -- the wonderful Episcopal church in West Newton/Auburndale where I am rector.

And yes, Virginia, there is a blog for everything: http://cyndiemclachlan.blogspot.com/ is the journal we kept during the last week of my mom's life. It was a way to share with her friends and family that precious and painful time of her death, and a way to begin celebrating her life and collecting stories about her.

Without further ado, here is Missa, the journal of a journey in the summer of 05. Drop me a line any time at rector@parishofthemessiah.org.

Foxes have nests, and birds have their dens...

Looks like this is turning into a weekly blog; evidently a quiet hotel somewhere along Rte 20 is more conducive to writting than settled life with all its wonderful business. And what great, complicated, things are going on! The housing search, the upcoming get-together of our two families, the realization that this sermon writing is going to be a weekly event for the

So how's the housing search going, you ask? Great -- and difficult. We've found the perfect house and the perfect location. Unfortunately, not in the same place. We've seen a lot of, well, interesting places in our price range. Here is 'za and Kathe, our amazing buyer broker (www.buyerbrokeragerealty.com) inspecting an old telephone wired into the wall in a great basement rec room complete with wood panelling, linoliumm tiles (probalby with asbestos underneath) and...a bar..

Kathe has directed us to some beautiful homes, and has helped us to understand the real estate process. The great thing about a buyer broker is that she only represents us -- never the seller. So we can talk honestly with her about what we want, what we can afford, and how we want to negotiate this. Of course, the problem with liking older houses is that some of these places are, well, fixer-uppers. Here's a sample foundation in that category:

It helps that 'za and I are both religious fanatics We hand this over to God, trying not to get attatched to houses too strongly. Insha'allah, we'll live where and how God intends for us. Even when we get rusty in our prayer life, we've been remarkably unstressed about home buying. Or perhaps it just seems small beans in relation to the stress about her family and mine. [Hi Mom, hi family! I know you're reading this... :) ]. 'za is already out West to meet them, and I head out Sunday night. Monday we have our big talk, and hopefully Tuesday head up to see Mom and Gary. Prayers are very very welcome, for everybody, from everybody.

One of the least stressful things has been Messiah. Last Sunday, though without bagpipers, was as wonderful for me as the first Sunday. These folks can really pray! It's incredible to be there as presider -- the quiet strength of prayer at Messiah may lead to my rethinking where I stand when I sing the collect for purity and the collect of the day. An arcane detail, perhaps, but there's a real sense of a community communicating with God; as presider, collecting those prayers at the start of the service and offering them up to God, you feel that energy flowing. The modern stance, facing the congregation, doesn't quite match the intention. But the other option, facing with the congregation, also looks like turning one's back on people... The liturgy is a little like a dance at Messiah (though without any liturgical dance!). Our energy ebbs and flows, moves back and forth between pew and pulpit, font and altar, icon and window, many voices and one voice.

As is relationship. Perhaps negotiation is an image for everything this summer -- negotiating a house, negotiating a new relationship with 'za 's family, negotiating a new relationship with a parish, negotiating new geographic distances from friends and family. Negotiation is a nice rorschach test word, as well. Depending on our experiences as children and as adults, negotiation might mean "giving up something important to me" or "defusing something explosive." Today, what I mean by negotiation might be, in its own sesquipadilian fashion, be "creating right-relationship through intentional communication." And if that phrase doesn't give away the fact that I went to EDS, I don't know what does!

Meanwhile, time to start looking at the readings for the next two Sundays. I have a sermon to give in 5 days, after all, and some hymns to pick out with Bic!

Keep Watch

Just back from visiting a friend from Church of the Good Shepherd, Wilga, who is in intensive care. On the way out of the house to the hospital, I stopped to check in with our downstairs neighbor, Donna -- there had been another incident with our next-door neighbor, a very affable and very alcoholic man, which concerned access to their apartment. I told Donna I was on the way to the hospital, and she said how cool it was that part of my job was to visit people. I wish I'd asked her what she meant; I agree, but I didn't expect her excitement about it.

Hospitals are amazing places, sacred, hushed, liminal. Like churches, they are places of healing and intensity, care, stress, and earnest prayer. They are alot like churches in other ways too: it's hard to find parking, impossible to know where to go after you get through the entrance, there are strange smells and noises, and an unlikely collection, cross-section of people.

Parish of the Messiah (when did it move from being Church of the Messiah to Parish of the Messiah? There must be a story, stories, there) is much more fun to visit than the hospital. What a joy this Sunday was! And not only because there were bagpipers at the end for the procession out, from the Sutherland Pipe Band, a group which pratices weekly at Messiah... It was a joyful Sunday all around, from Paul and David's terrible puns to Bic's prelude, Bev and Daryl and Katie and Pat and Steve humoring me before the service, and Iza getting to meet folks...oh, I'm going to get in trouble because I'm losing names faster than I'm learning them. Apoligies to Michael and John and Meg and everyone else whose names I've forgotten. Suffice to say, the service went beautifully, folks were more than kind, I felt like we were able to genuinely pray together, I didn't fall off the platform or set my alb on fire or lose my sermon or knock the chalice all over the fair linen or just plain pass out from nervousness.

At coffee hour, I got to meet a whole crew of folks -- long-time members, first-time visitors, folks that were returning and thinking about coming back. It was wonderful -- somehow I'm even more excited about next Sunday, to experience being still there, actually the rector. Which reminds me, I better start looking at next week's readings :)

'za and I are planning for her family's arrival in Seattle. We've also a gift to celebrate, the preparation of a painting of the field where she accepted my proposal. The piece is by Christa Malay; this is her watercolor sketch. We need to decide if we want summer (which on Lopez means golden fields and green leaves) or fall (which in Lopez means green fields and golden leaves). Either way, it is a place that makes us both grin like fools...

T minus 19 hours

Saturday morning, wrestling still with the rich fare of biblical texts. Sometimes it is easier to preach from a sparse or difficult passage. It's the ones that are so clearly already complete in themselves that as preach I feel almost as if I'm trespassing; certainly guilty of guilding the lilly. Abundance! God's love, God's boundless generosity! The hope and abundance of Messiah, springing forth from God's love... It's all right there already in the text. It is as challenging as describing something beautiful you've seen, or describing a perfect meal. I suppose, to answer my own anxiety, that in this case we will all be sharing the same perfect meal, we are already seeing that beautiful sight.

So a break from reading my notes and half-starts and mining the words from the great hymns that Bic has selected. 'za and I are sitting in the Brugger's Bagel's near Messiah; it is the nearest coffee shop with WiFi we could find. And we are definitely in New England -- not an espresso drink to be seen. Earlier this week, we walked into a Dunkin' Donuts and 'za ordered a latte. The woman asked, "How do you like it?" 'za and I first thought "Don't know. Haven't got to drink it yet." Then I thought something along the lines of "half-caff skinny double tall." Turns out she wanted to know if 'za wanted whipped cream (!), flavoring, possibly sprinkles. Ah, such coffee snobs we've turned into.

We also got to walk around the neighborhood, starting with admiring the flowers planted around the church. It's a quiet residential neighborhood -- no one is at home on a sunny Saturday, and I wonder where I will be able to go to meet neighbors, strike up conversations, and get a latte. We strolled a bit through Lasell College as well; there's a history there I need to learn -- we've held services there a few times, though not for decades. 70% of undergrads at Lasell live on campus, which is something to put down in that idea book.

Part of the reason I have an idea book is so that I can write things down and leave them alone for a while. There is a whole, vibrant community at Messiah, and we need to get to know each other -- and to keep doing faithfully the work already before us.

Speaking of which, I better get back to that sermon.

Goin' to the chapel

Goodness, days behind in the blog! I am back from the most beautiful wedding in Maine, a three+ day event full of joy and prayer and food and wine and good, good company. Calvin, a very close friend from seminary -- I assisted at his baptism during our first year at EDS (a rare event, yes, the baptism of a seminarian). Anyway, Calvin celebrated his covenant with Dan, a kind and clever pediatrician whom he met in New York. At the center of the three days of feasting and dancing was a perfect evening liturgy, with prayers taken from EOW, Scottish BCP, and the New Zealand BCP, as well as liturgy that they wrote. Everything flowed together gracefully, everything made sense. There was an interesting arc to the wedding as well: It began with a mystery-laden chant from Hildegard of Bingen-- instead of starting the wedding with a triumphal march, we were invited by the music into the holiness of the event. The triumphal celebratory music built up to the end, a brave and sensible approach. Here is 'za and I with the happy couple:


It was a joy to be one of Calvin's groomsmen, and a blessing to be part of a community outpouring its love. Calvin's former parish in Maine was there, even folks who had a few years ago been deeply hesitant about welcoming an out, gay priest. For 'za and I it was a hopeful celebration for our own upcoming marriage; there were also prayers and hymns we plan on cribbing for our own wedding service out in Lopez.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch , the apartment is feeling settled and the movers have finally arrived!! Turns out the original driver quit; someone finally showed up with our stuff today. It was all carried up into Public Storage, most (but not all) of it undamaged. There's a lot to sort out, especially the cost -- the per diem we're owed for the delay, insurance claims on the damage to two peices of furniture, the cost-savings of having a one-site delivery... all good news for Messiah, which generously offered to pay for moving costs (a standard practice, to be sure, but generous nonetheless).

Today I got to meet Bic in person, the fantastically talented organist at Messiah. Bic is also organist for SSJE, and I got to hear him play during the Tuesday eucharist at the monastary. I hope I am able to attend that service regularly; it is a holy place, and a gift to participate as part of the congregation. This sunday, though, at long last the chance to worship with Messiah! I am so looking forward -- strange to have accepted this call but still not had the chance to pray in person with the whole community. It is a congregation with a strong reputation for prayer; a fantastic gift of the Spirit that will serve us all well.

It is a congregation with many gifts, in fact. Sunday's readings lend themselves well to celebrating those gifts -- guess I better get that sermon written tomorrow!

Mountain Climbing

The most dangerous part of mountain climbing is not the climbing up, but the descent. During the descent the ice is looser, the snow softer, and, most critcally, the climbers are tired. The last two days have been a reminder of that truth; the nearly 100-degree weather, of course, not helping :) I've had a buzz of chaos around me: the keys, the missing moving van (who will show up, they assure me, on the 29th), and various little things such as leaving my purchases behind at the hardware store. Then today, while on the phone with Steve Hines, the pickup in front of me lost control -- because he was reaching for his cell phone. He swerved across the highway, hit the concrete wall, bounced back across the highway and into the other wall. I pulled over in front of him and called 911. The truck was totaled, but inspite of that (and inspite of the 2x4s that went through the back of his cab window), he crawled out the passenger window and was just fine. I helped him to walk away from the car (something was dripping on the ground -- my B-movie instincts thought "Gasoline!", though it was probably windshield wiper fluid). An ambulance that was driving by pulled over within seconds of the accident, followed by the fire department and police. I drove off after talking with the police, but still shaken even now by the rembered images of the accident. Prayers tonight for Joe and for a swift recovery.

Given the heat and chaos, then, I am so thankful that some time was built in between my arrival to Massachusetts and when I begin serving at Messiah. I need to rediscover that center in me, so that I can be present to the prayers and stories and music and community. I'm impatient to start, but so glad to be unpacking and sleeping...

Jibran, our cat, has his own approach to avoiding the chaos and fatigue of transition: in a new environment, he hides under the bed for a few days! That is in fact what Jibran is doing right now, hiding under the futon. I went and picked him up last night. He had been living with Michael, a bass player who rented the upstairs floor in my cousin's house. Michael wasn't home when I came to pick Jibran up, but his girlfriend was there. He was whisked off into his cage, and as we got ready to leave, she began crying. Which says something about Jibran's ability to charm his way into people's hearts. Iza had been afraid that if Jibran stayed with someone while I was travelling, they wouldn't give him back. She was nearly right!

It's hardly all chaos and missing moving vans, though. Some wonderful highlights to the last two days, including meeting with Paul West and getting the keys to the church -- and seeing my name listed on the sign outside, The Rev. Devin McLachlan. It was even spelled right :) The church is as beautiful as I remember, a space built to help folks pray, without distractions or clutter. There are ideas and projects and brainstorms that rush to me when I walk through the grounds. I'm going to get a notebook and keep track of them on paper -- better to write them down and let them mature, than to blurt out every idea and sound as if I threaten to turn the parish upside-down! But I am excited, and I am looking forward to the work to come.

Keys to the Kingdom

Cambridge, MA; mile 3,674



Home at last, thank God almighty, home at last. And the last day more complicated than the first. The running theme the last two days has been house keys: our landlord is in Amsterdam, and our housekeys have been left with one of the other folks living in our building. Of course, he was out of town yesterday (Friday), when I finally got around to warning him of my arrival. The conclusion to the saga was discovering this afternoon that my front door key didn't fit the lock! So at quarter to midnight I'm finally at home, having spent all day locked out. Better than the poor apocryphal fellow in Denmark who went out for a beer his first day in a new apartment and has forgotten where he lives.

Inbetween this off-key adventure, though, was a lot of wonder.A beautiful drive through upstate New York, especially the Adirondacks. Stunning, rolling mountains and lakes and farmland and small roads. An evangelical carpenter who made a walking stick for Mom and talked about how he was looking forward to seeing, in heaven, what kind of carpentry Jesus did. And about the cell churches he was founding. The mad but compasionate look in his eyes, someone working hard to follow where the Holy Spirit was leading.

Getting totally lost just north of Albany -- the last time I was in Albany, I got kicked off a Greyhound bus, so I already had no fondness for the city. 2 1/2 hours wandering small county lanes, thanks to my desire to find a 'short cut' through scenic farmland around the city; then, after taking a construction detour I decided -- heck with detouring back north, I'm sure I can figure out another way to connect with the highway I want... A frustratign experience but one that will probably end up in a sermon at Messiah at some point. A strange example of grace and humility (or rather, the lack thereof).

So it was almost 5 o'clock by the time I saw Jason, with still no word about getting house keys. It was a great gift of time, though. We got to hang out, arrainge storage (another story there -- the moving van broke down, and they don't know when it will arrive in Massachusetts. Heard horrible stories about moving vans catching fire or drivers quiting...). And then spent the rest of the day and evening haying in Shirley, MA. Wish I had pictures for you of the hours we spent, catching hay bales as they came flying out of the bailer, a pitching machine sending 40 pound bales flying out from the back of the bailer into the hay rick, where we stood catching (!) the bales and stacking them up. Great fun ('til the alternator on the tractor broke), hard sweaty work in the setting sun and summer heat, relieved by gin & tonics, green curry, and hydrocortisone (hay leaves incredible welts, especially when youa re foolish enough to work in short sleaves...)


A farmer in NY State, but the same system of bailing as the one Jason and I took part in...

Then this morning, a drive down the rest of Route 2 into Cambridge's Central Square, blasting the last movements from Swan Lake. Arrived safely at our summer sublet. We're subletting the top floor and attic/loft of a townhouse on a quiet private lane just off of bustling, diverse, happening Central Square. Coffee Houses, organic grocery stores, and a strange combination of social service agencies, marxist book store, and the Gap. There are two other units -- a man in the basement, whose twin brother and his wife live in the ground and second floor with their 2 year old, Sophie, and their 7-week-old daughter who is yet to be named.... It's a beautiful building and a decent furnished sublet. There are flaws, of course -- exposed drywall, a fridge that needs serious cleaning, and the joy of living in the top floors on a day when tempratures approached 100. So today I bought a fan, a water pitcher, a mop and sponges. By the time Iza arrives, the place will be clean. At the moment it is as clean as I would make it for myself, but not as clean as I would have it for someone else. And there is a telling statement!

Being locked out wasn't too bad -- I hung out on the for-sale couches in the hardware store and talked with Mom. Then off to Rick and Terry McCall (Rick was my liturgy prof. and was the interim at Messiah for 9 months), where we sat outside and had an excellent salmon dinner. By the time dinner was done, Donna (who lives downstairs) had called and left a key for me under a flowerpot.

So now I'm home. The driving, if not the journey, is complete. I still have to scrub and unpack, begin learning more about Messiah (hooray!), welcome Iza to Mass., head to Maine for a wedding, write a sermon for that first Sunday, plan the conversation with my future in-laws... oh so many things. Good news for prayer because this is more than I can handle, which is usually the most effective incentive to stop, close my eyes, and remember that God is God.

No promises, given the above list, but I will try keep posting to this blog as I continue the rest of this journey, becoming rector at a parish which by all reports is wonderful, full of joy and music and healing and prayer and meditation... Let me know if you're still reading! Drop me a line at revmcdev@yahoo.com


There was even a blimp over Cambridge in celebration of my arrival!

Almost Home

Watertown, NY; mile 3,239


everyone misspells my name...

So much to pray for tonight; thanksgiving for being so close to home, and for being safe so far (which, as in Pilgrim's Progress, is a safety sometimes inspite of my actions -- trying to take a picture while driving on a high bridge, for instance), but also for the folks staying in this Travelodge hotel in Watertown. This was the last free room in the hotel, adn the other hotels are equally booked. Turns out Watertown is home to Fort Drum, which in turn is home to the Army's 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). Originally founded as a skiing unit, they're now serving in northern Iraq and in Afghanistan. The hotels are full of parents, children, spouses, friends and sibilings of soldiers...Praying also in response to the news from 'za that her parents will probably be coming to the US during the last week of July. And praying for Tom Shepherd, long time parishoner at Messiah, whose memorial service will be on Saturday.

Another beautiful drive today, across most of Ontario past Lake Nipissing and then along the Ottowa River that separates Ontario from Quebec. I turned south just before Ottowa (every Canadian with whom I spoke would follow mention of Ottowa by the phrase "our capitol city," as if to remind Americans that Canada is a sovereign nation). The countryside abruptly shifted from craggy rocks (did you know that Ontario, Upper Peninsual Michigan and Wisconsin are all mining country? There are gold and copper mines in Wisconsin, iron along Lake Superior and huge nickle reserves in Ottowa...) to bucolic pastures, cows lazing along the Mississippi River. Yes, the Mississippi River, but not the one Huck Finn and Jim rafted down. This Mississippi is barely 30 miles long, though beautiful. As the Be Good Tanyas declare, the littlest birds sing the prettiest songs.



Besides the Canadian Mississippi, there were a several other memorable sights today. North of Watertown, NY, someone has erected three 20' high black metal crows, standing life-like, if outsized, in a field along the highway. And then there was the Logos Cafe, shaped like Noah's Ark:



While I didn't eat there (after all, there was only one of me, and I thought perhaps the ark might demand a pair), I did get another great road food experience. If Minnesota has the Hot Meatloaf, then eastern Canada has poutine, an incredible, heart-stopping (literally) concotion of french fries, cheese curds, and gravy. Sometimes sausage or hamburger or mushrooms are mixed in as well. It is delicous, dark, heavy. There is even, for those of you who have Real Audio, an Ode to Poutine, with such memorable lines as "I saw the best stomachs of my generation destroyed by poutine...dragging themselves through the fast-food streets at dawn, looking for a fix." This region is also home to another North American invention, Thousand Island dressing, named after the beautiful islands along the St. Laurence River:



Tomorrow, an early morning drive through the Adirondacks, lunch in Petersham MA with Jason (my brother) and home by the late afternoon -- provided I remember to call the guy who my landlord gave the housekeys to!