Today in the Mission Yearbook - A retired PC(USA) minister lives into the call to let go

A new episode of ‘Everyday God-talk’ features pastor and theologian Cynthia Jarvis

June 7, 2023

The Rev. Cynthia Jarvis (Photo courtesy of The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill)

“The way I’ve always done ministry is that I love my people,” said the Rev. Cynthia Jarvis, a retired pastor in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), in a recent episode of “Everyday God-talk.” Jarvis spoke to the Rev. Dr. So Jung Kim, associate for Theology in the Office of Theology and Worship, in three 10-minute conversations organized around the themes of how Jarvis’ soul, heart and mind are responding to the call to retire.

Video URL: https://youtu.be/oPcSmkHnajc

 “The new season of Everyday God-talk shares the stories of those who are resting and growing — pastors and teachers in between calls, on sabbatical and retired,” said Kim. Her interviews with Jarvis revolved around the spiritual lessons of learning to let go and reimagining one’s relationships and discipleship when one is no longer the pastor of a community.

Jarvis’s 45 years in ministry included meaningful relationships with students at the College of Wooster and McCormick Theological Seminary and with congregants at Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, New Jersey and The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia. The last two pastorates lasted 15 and 23 years. After a career marked by long pastorates, Jarvis noted that letting go of relationships has been the hardest thing about transitions throughout her ministry, but especially in retirement.

“I was in their homes,” reminisced Jarvis as she painted a picture of the intimacy a minister gives up when a call is dissolved. “Think of all the occasions over the years where you are invited into people’s homes during the times when they are the most vulnerable.”

The purpose of the “Everyday God-talk” videos are to encourage theological reflection in our daily lives, and so Jarvis translated what ministry meant for her in terms of her theology. “For me, relationships are what ministry is all about. The relationship with God then brings us into relationship with others, so I knew it was going to be hard (to retire),” said Jarvis.

Jarvis spoke candidly about the gifts and challenges of being a single woman in ministry. She also shared how the pandemic and retirement pushed her to embrace new rituals of self-care. Her retirement coincided with the start of the pandemic, forcing her to learn to physically let go of her congregation and to inhabit her life of faith in new ways. In 2020, she left Philadelphia for an extended stay at her summer house in Maine during quarantine.

Video URL: https://youtu.be/edgVterVkao

 “I worked 24/7 when I was in ministry and never took a day off (except in June when I went to my house in Maine),” said Jarvis. “When I retired, I’d never inhabited my home, so I took time to nest. … Walking with my dog in Maine was good because I had done no exercise when I was in ministry.” Jarvis also embraced cooking “feasts for one,” as she described them. “I went back to cooking. I researched recipes, took pictures and put it on Facebook. All of that I would not have done had it not been for the pandemic.”

Jarvis noted that the isolation of quarantining in Maine forced her to put aside the thinking and doing muscles of the faith that she’d developed as a minister and to cultivate a contemplative side. “I’m not a contemplative type,” she said as she described how the quietude of single, pandemic life required her to look for God in the sunrise and the moonrise on the water. The relationships with others she’d come to expect through God began to come through the reliable rhythms of nature.

Video URL: https://youtu.be/bieumuQMy-g

 Now that she is three years into retirement, Jarvis shared examples of how she has reimagined her life in ministry as a person in the pew. She is now a cheerleader for other ministers, an advocate for social justice ministries and a woman fully inhabiting her home and her intimate relationships.

Jarvis closed her final reflections by quoting poet Mary Oliver: “To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal, to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it, and when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.”

Beth Waltemath, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Simon Doong, Mission Associate, Presbyterian Peacemaking Program, Presbyterian Mission Agency
Leo Dorsey, Web Developer/Designer, Communications Ministry, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Gathering God, remind us of your abundance. Move us to be people willing to share what you have given us rather than people who hoard it as if it were something never to be replenished — for your gifts never run out. In the name of our Lord Jesus, the abundant one. Amen.

Today in the Mission Yearbook - Stop stifling and start learning from unexpected sources

The Rev. Dr. Dee Cooper is an ‘Everyday God-Talk’ guest

November 22, 2022

Video URL: https://vimeo.com/732553800

The Rev. Dr. Dee Cooper

When is the last time you talked to a bird, a fish or a plant, expecting to be taught about God?

This was one of the questions the Rev. Dr. Dee Cooper explored with host So Jung Kim in a recent edition of “Everyday God-Talk,” a production of the Office of Theology and Worship in the Presbyterian Mission Agency.

Cooper, who was installed as lead presbyter for Denver Presbytery on Aug. 13,  is also a psychotherapist and Big Leap Coach who also runs an animal adventure business. The business, Adventures for the Wild at Heart, allows people to embrace their own wild nature through playful and healing animal encounters.

Cooper uses Job 12:7–9 to ground her business. She points out God didn’t invite Job to talk with his friends, who were espousing doctrinal positions about why his great suffering and despair might be occurring. Instead, the book of Job advises, “Ask the animals, and they will teach you …”.

“To me, it’s such a great reversal of what Scripture does,” Cooper said. “How we’ve seen our relationship to the creatures as being over them, even exploiting them. But here we’re invited into learning from them and acknowledging their understanding of our Creator.”

One of the things Cooper recently discovered about herself is that she loves to wander in nature and discover things. She walks each morning with her golden retriever Winnie. Her intention is to see something she hasn’t seen before. When it happens, she’s delighted.

As part of her spiritual discipline, she takes a picture of what she sees, reflecting on what the image tells her about God — and the dynamic of being in nature and being open to receiving it.

Cooper believes our emotions, and not just our minds, are vital in responding to the grace and love of the gospel, which is revealed through Scripture and nature.

“Throughout Scripture, Jesus expresses every single emotion. There weren’t any ‘negative’ emotions,” she said. Therapeutically, “when we stifle emotions or try to control them, they come out sideways. They don’t go away, or they embed themselves in our bodies, and we start having health issues.”

Cooper did facilitation work with employees at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, where remotely piloted aircraft systems — unmanned drones — fly missions across the globe. She discovered that people were getting into their cars and driving about 45 minutes into the desert, engaging in war, and then driving home and not talking to anyone.

“That is a fragmentation that produces PTSD,” she said. “It’s where a person isn’t able to connect and feel and be with themselves. Unraveling that mentality is key. If a person can identify what they’re feeling and express it, the potential of PTSD is reduced in like minutes.”

One of Cooper’s favorite books is Stuart Brown’s Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul. In the book, Brown looks at play as something humans love to do because they receive energy, lose track of time — and even get to practice their improv skills.

For additional insights on giving attention and awareness to those aspects of ourselves that we sometimes neglect, listen to the three parts of Kim’s conversation with Cooper — Her Soul, Her Body of Christ and Her Heart.

For previous “Everyday God-Talk” conversations with Presbyterian leaders, subscribe to Theology and Worship’s YouTube page here.

 Paul Seebeck, Communications Strategist, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us join in prayer for:

PC(USA) Agencies’ Staff
Melanie Komp, Operations Manager, Compliance Services, Presbyterian Foundation
Luciano Kovacs, Coordinator, Middle East, Europe & Central Asia Office, Presbyterian Mission Agency

Let us pray

Most gracious God, we seek your presence whenever and wherever we gather together in Christ’s name. We know you watch over us and lead us. Continue to bless us as we look for ways to share our ministry with brothers and sisters near and far. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.