Quinn is leaving

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  • #843444
    Leeny
    Participant

    He’s taking a position in north Philadelphia. I don’t know what he’ll be doing. We found out about this in a letter that arrived on Saturday (Jan. 30), and he announced it after service the following day. His last day will be February 28.

    So abrupt. Only a month. Have to begin detaching from the pastor-parishoner relationship. Resignation and retirement are very different. When RFP retired, he gave us five months notice; we had four months to get used to the idea, and the last month to accomplish the detachment.

    Last Sunday, I apologized to him for every hostile thing I ever said or wrote to him, for all the times the symptoms of my illness made things difficult for him, and for all the times I made his job or life harder than they had to be. He thanked me for challenging him and getting him to look at things from perspectives he had not considered before. He told me to “keep the next guy or gal on their toes”; then he hugged me.

    This isn’t really surprising. When he leaves, Quinn will have been with us for a little more than five and a half years. According to his resume, which we were given when he came, the longest he ever stayed anywhere was seven years and five years is his average length of stay.

    As I said, it was just so abrupt. When I read the letter, I felt like I’d been shot through the heart. (Fortunately I was on the phone with a friend when I read it.) After that, I just felt stunned, numb. I don’t know what I feel now.

    Had the last healing service tonight over which he will preside. Didn’t get to talk to him because I was telling another friend about my cats. Had them added to the prayers for healing.

    Four more Sundays, and he’s gone. I was not ready for this.

    #843445
    Buttons
    Moderator

    I can heard in your voice you were prepared for this so I can understand your feeling shocked … he sounds like a very good pastor I hope over these next few weeks you’ll be able to adjust to the idea of a new pastor.. ((hugs))

    #843461
    Leeny
    Participant

    Last night I looked at the TDK threads that have “Quinn” as a tag. Obviously, I didn’t tag all that were relevant. How, I wonder, did I go from “Sinking the Bismarck, 2011” in July to receiving a comforting hug from him on Christmas Day of that same year (a Sunday) after H carelessly swallowed the wrong pills again ? Was it his mother’s illness and impending death? His dog’s comorbid illnesses added to that? I wish I had recorded everything.

    #843468
    Jeankit
    Participant

    ((Leeny)) hugs for you as you adjust to your new Pastor.
    Best of luck to Quinn.

    #843480
    JerseyJoan
    Moderator

    I’ve heard much about Quinn over the years. Sounds like the way you’ve challenged him is important to him, as important as he is to you.
    Wishing you the best as you adjust to a new pastor, and best wishes to Quinn.

    #843487
    bumblebee
    Participant

    Awwww…. that is very sad news and heartbreaking for you. I know as I have been there a few times and it is never easy….. He sounds like he is a wonderful pastor and man! Glad he was there for you when you needed him. HUGS

    #843602
    Leeny
    Participant

    When Quinn first came, I was having problems with my medication. Now when he is leaving, I’m having problems with my medication again. I had to leave the sanctuary yesterday and go to a corner of the fellowship hall to call my therapist. I only went back in to receive Communion, then left again. I asked Quinn please not to remember me this way. He reminded me of what he had said the week before. He will remember me as someone who challenged him, as someone who made him think, and, as regards my own medical issues, as a woman who never gave up. He said he was going to start crying in a few minutes; I told him I’d spent the last hour crying.
    Quinn blesses things a lot. That’s a characteristic of the denomination, but Quinn does it a lot more often than RFP did. He includes the congregation in the blessing process; we’re supposed to raise our hands toward whatever is being blessed. Before I left the sanctuary yesterday, we were supposed to help bless the new Confirmation class and the adults who will serve as their mentors. Now, because of my neuropathy, I don’t raise my left arm–I can, but it hurts a lot. So, I bless things with just my right hand. It occurred to me on more than one occasion that my right-armed blessing looked uncomfortably similar to a Nazi salute. When Quinn hugged me at the end of our conversation, I told him I’d try to make my blessing gesture look less like a Nazi salute. He burst out laughing and said he’d never thought of that. If we bless anything else, I’m going to let my hand drop down when I extend my arm. A lowered hand was never part of any variation of the Nazi salute.

    #843605
    katzenjammer
    Participant

    Hi Leeny,
    What you are going through with your pastor leaving must be heartbreaking. I don’t know you beyond this site but am wondering if you can keep in touch with Quinn, I am not sure what is appropriate in your religion. Can your therapist help you through this? Your church community members? These are just some thoughts and please don’t get the idea that I have a trouble-free life. I, and in my opinion no one, can know exactly what you are going through. I am only hoping that these suggestions can be of some help. If not, just disregard them. I do mean well. KJ

    #843607
    JerseyJoan
    Moderator

    Hope you get your medication problems solved soon. (((Leeny)))

    #843637
    Leeny
    Participant

    Thanks, Joan.

    KJ, in my denomination, former pastors are not supposed to have contact with their previous congregations. They’re just supposed to leave and turn things over to the bishop, who’s in charge of leading the congregation in the process of calling a new pastor.

    That’s the official way it’s supposed to be. My retired former pastor (RFP) has to continue living here because he and his wife have two custodial grandchildren. Their inability to move has something to do with the children’s health insurance. Although they worship at a church that’s an hour’s drive away (which I think stinks ; they’re a hardship case and an exception should be made for them), but RFP and his wife do come to funerals when a church member dies. A member who went to seminary is being ordained here on Saturday, and they may come to that, too, but they aren’t allowed to worship there regularly. Quinn, however, is moving to the other end of the country, so when he goes, he’s gone.

    We had a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper tonight, and Quinn was very kind to me. I wasn’t feeling well because of the medication change, so I sat at a table alone. Quinn came over and said there was a chair at his table for me. Starting to cry, I told him that it was for the people’s own good that I didn’t sit with them. So Quinn came and sat with me. He even won some cupcakes in a cake walk and gave them to me.

    Mrs. Quinn is visiting her family in the next state this week. When she comes back, I’m going to ask her to go to lunch with me as my guest. She and I and two other women used to do that, and I want to do it one more time with her.

    #843641
    JerseyJoan
    Moderator

    That’s very nice to offer lunch with Mrs. Quinn. I hope you have a lovely time!

    #843773
    Leeny
    Participant

    I just sent her an e-mail inviting her, Joan. With all the busyness that surrounds getting ready to move, I hope she can come. I haven’t spent any time with her in ages, so I hope we can get together. It’s only 2 weeks now.

    I found out what Quinn is going to be doing. He’s going to be a pastor in a church that offers services in English, German, and Chinese. He will be “preaching in English and German, but not at the same time,” he said.

    If Mrs. Quinn can come to lunch, I’m going to ask her if she can wear the “not your average cat lady” T-shirt that I gave her for Christmas. There are three things that I wish could have happened but didn’t:
    1. I never met the Quinns’ cats.
    2. I’ve never seen Quinn in the T-shirt I gave him for Christmas: black, with “The Sermonator” in large white letters.
    3. I never heard Quinn sing “Stille Nacht.”

    A mutual friend said I should invite myself over to their house so these things can happen, but you don’t just invite yourself to someone’s house, particularly when they’re going to be moving in two weeks.

    #843901
    JerseyJoan
    Moderator

    @Leeny – have you heard back from Mrs. Quinn?

    #843926
    Leeny
    Participant

    I have, Joan. On Tuesday, she, Quinn, and I are having lunch at a local Thai restaurant. Both of them will be wearing their Christmas T-shirts. We will be meeting at the restaurant so, possibly, I may be able to persuade Quinn to sing “Stille Nacht” to just his wife and me in the privacy of their car. Then only meeting the cats will have been left undone.

    I’m giving them a parting gift of a resurrection crucifix (the corpus is the risen Christ, no longer nailed to the cross, dressed in his robes, with no crown of thorns). I’m also writing each of them a letter telling each what she/he has meant to me during their time here. I wanted to vet something with Mrs. Quinn before I put it in Quinn’s letter; I left on her cell phone, which was not on at the time, a message for her to call me. My therapist, however, thinks it would be okay to include it. During an ED stay after impulsively taking some pills because I was mad at H (this was while we were still married), I caught Quinn looking at me with such grief and pain in his eyes that it permanently cured me of that kind of behavior–the picture was worth the thousand words. The problem is that there was a suicide in his family and I don’t want to hurt him with painful memories or unpleasant associations.

    He may not even realize he did this, Joan, but it had such a profound effect on my life, I want him to know about it.

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