Some moments you can see coming, a time hanging out there, at once ominous and inviting like it’s standing outside of time—so deep does its anticipation grab you before you have experienced it.
When I announced my retirement to my church in October of 2022, effective January 15, 2023, it seemed like three months would be a long time. But the closer it got, the more the moment hovered over me, sometimes with a welcoming “Yes, I’m ready,” and sometimes with a “No, not yet.”
My little friend, Katie (as well as a host of adults), felt it. I say, “my little friend.” Katie is no longer a little girl.
When she was a tiny tot, Katie started coming to my “children’s time” in the worship service— when I would share a story with the children. And after my sermon each Sunday, she would give me a note. At first, it was a drawing, a child’s sketch: the cross, the pulpit from which I preached, the Bible, a child’s depiction of things relating to the church. Then as she grew older, Katie would write something I had said from the sermon, like “God loves us,” or “Jesus died for me,” or a Scripture I had quoted. Every Sunday, without fail, she would do that.
I put her first note on my refrigerator, then I started a “Katie file,” so touched was I by her habit of note-sharing. “She takes better notes than the adults,” I would wink to her parents in Katie’s presence. When she missed church, I would tell her the next time she was there, “I missed my note when you were gone.” And she would give me two or three notes that Sunday to make up for however many Sundays she had been absent. Katie took her note-taking seriously.
And then, one Sunday, the notes stopped.
I understood why: Katie was growing up, becoming a teenager. That’s the way it should be. Maybe she became peer conscious, or perhaps she became aware that giving a weekly note to the preacher was a children’s activity, not something a budding young lady does.
“You’re a teenager already, growing up too fast,” I would say, affirming her maturity.
Then I announced my retirement from the church, and my last Sunday came nearer and nearer.
“I’ve got a request,” I told Katie a few weeks before. “Can you write me one last note?”
And I forgot about it.
But Katie didn’t. After my last sermon, she handed me a piece of paper.
“It has been a while since I wrote a note during one of your sermons,” Katie’s note started. “I wanted to stop time and not let this Sunday come. I tear up a lot this Sunday,” she continued. “I do not want you to leave. I will miss you. I love you and your family. Love, Katie.”
Then I was the one who teared up as I re-read her words, “I wanted to stop time and not let this Sunday come.”
My last sermon had been about each one of us being a work of art: the workers change, but the work continues, for we are still in the process, each of us, by God’s grace, being transformed by God.
I wanted to tell Katie we can’t stop time. It moves on, whether we like it or not. But there are those moments we know are coming. They need to pass, even though we want to grab and freeze them.
One of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver, wrote, “I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us.”
Something wonderful touched all of us. The ministry continues, though the ministers change. God keeps working. And our notes can document the process, often in artful ways. By reading them, we can revisit those memories, and time stops.
Later that night—after the sermon, the reception, the hugs, time with my family, and yes, the personal notes from our beloved congregation—I remembered to do one last thing before going to bed.
I tenderly placed Katie’s note on my refrigerator, like it was that first one so many years ago. Then, as Mary Oliver said, I held my breath.
And stopped time.