A Tribute at Parting!
Written just for you
By the Q.O.E.
5/22/2022
There is no shortage of negative vibes
Let loose in this tired world,
Misunderstanding and violence…
Works of the devil unfurled.
Yet over it all is a God who cares,
The Creator of all that is:
The Hearer/answerer of our prayers…
A communications’ whizz!
Then out of the mist and the swirl of time,
Comes a whisper that’s not expected:
A call to “abandon your nets and serve”…
And suddenly, you’re elected.
So, into the training and learning you go,
Still arguing with that voice…
“You must be mistaken, Lord,” you cry:
As if there were any choice.
To some, it seems, you have turned away
From family…past…and town:
Whatever life is about to become,
At the moment, it’s upside down.
Meanwhile,
There are two little churches…
Not so very far away…
Needing a shepherd to feed the sheep…
And God’s gonna make their day!
Harpursville and Ouaquaga…
Ouaquaga and Harpursville:
Their lives are about to collide with yours…
Coincidence?
Or, God’s will?
Two little congregations
In churches of wood and stone,
Country folks who are faithful to
Their much-loved spirit homes.
Very determined little flocks,
With challenges – not a few!
And maybe that is the reason God
Sent them a gift called “Sue.”
Not your classic starched-shirt gal…
Pretentious or falsely proper….
But she came fully stocked with love,
And nobody else could top her.
We quickly discovered her funny bone,
Her sassy and snappy wit…
She showed up early…
And lingered long…
In no time,
She was a HIT!!!
Our Native American nature gal,
Who communes with the woods and trees:
We loved to see her leather boots,
And the grass stains on her knees.
She’s a woman whose caring nature
Takes every one of us in…
Whose wisdom and understanding
Manages souls to win.
Our Sue is both student and teacher,
Who constantly trains for her Call.
We witness the work of the Spirit…
We learn as she shares with us all.
We study the Bible beside her…
She counsels her flock in their grief.
And her welcoming brand of inclusion
Can only increase belief.
Companioning every good purpose;
In fun times,
In sacred,
In sad.
Sue’s there to listen or just hold hands,
A witness to good times or bad.
If we’ve shared the best of her journey,
We’ve shared in the dark moments, too:
Her losses and wins…
The tears and the grins…
A gamut of what she’s gone through.
Into the Vale of the Shadow of Death,
Struggling with fear and with doubt…
Surely our God must go with us…
Whether or not we come out.
She’s taught us as much by example,
To tackle the doubter inside us,
Not through wisdom and strength of our own…
But that of the Spirit beside us.
Seventeen years of faithfulness…
Fears...sick beds...and worse…
Weddings and happy moments…
Some…and some not rehearsed.
Suddenly a pandemic hit…
We struggled to stay alive:
Two churches went into the turmoil,
Yet only the one survived.
Harpursville and Ouaquaga…
Ouaquaga and Harpursville:
At terrible cost, so much was lost…
Praise God for those with us still!
Our Pastor did not just wring her hands…
Ingenuity always makes room:
She kept us safely under her wings
On something we know as “Zoom.”
We cherish her path and her purpose…
That hers coincides with our own…
We welcome commitment that comes from within,
And a wisdom that’s hers…alone.
Now…even a Pastor needs romance…
And hers has been put to the test!
Her Dan has a plan to be Susan’s main man,
If she just gets a second to rest.
Wait! This means that she has to leave us!
O, please, God….don’t let this be true:
She’s been right here for the past hundred years…
What on earth are we going to do?
We’ll go on, because that’s what she taught us:
We’ll thrive as our tribute to Sue…
We’ll open our arms and welcome the world,
Exactly as she’d always do.
Next Pastor is bound to be different...
No Pastor is quite like another…
There’ll never be someone exactly like Sue…
Our BFF, sister…our mother.
Along will come someone who’s just what we need,
And who maybe needs us, too:
Arms open wide, we must welcome them in…
That’s what she’d expect us to do.
That doesn’t mean we won’t miss her…
That doesn’t mean we won’t care:
We’ll shed many tears as days roll into years,
We will turn…and still look for her there.
This is the farewell we’ve dreaded,
O, Shepherd so faithful and true;
Your imperfect sheep a long vigil will keep
As we part from a Pastor called “Sue.”
It’s time for a shift in the journey,
As your path diverges from ours…
We may drift far away, yet we’ll find you one day…
In the flowers…the woods…and the stars.