For the third time in 20 years the old meeting house in Lincolnville Center hosted an ordination. A gorgeous fall day beckoned, but the pull to witness the ordination of Teresa Lynn – TJ – Mack as a minister in the United Church of Christ was greater for the more than 150 people who endured the 200-year-old building’s notoriously uncomfortable pews with good grace.

There was pomp – a parade of United Church of Christ clergy in their robes and stoles – a few quiet tears for the missing parishioners who’d witnessed the beginning of TJ’s journey, music galore, and even a little silliness thanks to the inclusion of children in the ceremony. The audience included, in addition to most of Lincolnville’s UCC congregation, TJ’s many friends and family, fellow seminary students, and a good contingent from her new church, Union Congregational Church of Hancock.

Earlier in the day, at the regular worship service, TJ spoke fondly to the congregation that had nurtured her along the way, starting in the spring of 2010 when she heard the call to ministry during her morning commute to work at E.L. Spear Hardware in Rockland. Quoting Lily Tomlin’s bag lady character –“if you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.”

She continued: “I was called by God while driving to work over the course of a three week period in May of 2010. It began with me talking, asking questions, ranting and raving. I never expected God to answer, but answers came at me; enveloped me in a cloud of compassionate love that simply held me. And then God waited. Almost like a game of Hide and Seek, with God indicating whether my thoughts were “warmer” or “colder,” whether I was honing in on or straying away from where God was nudging me to go.  God’s presence held me as I talked; listened; argued; denied; refused; and finally accepted this new course for my life.”

So, to the surprise of everyone who knew her, she applied that year to Bangor Theological Seminary to pursue a Master of Divinity degree. After the unexpected closing of BTS in 2013 TJ had to find alternate ways to finish her degree, including online courses, a couple of semesters commuting to Andover Newton Theological Seminary in Massachusetts, a course at Boston University as well as independent study.

The meeting house, now home of United Christian Church, has seen two centuries of this town’s history, events that sometimes mirror the wider world, but more often the joys and sorrows of we who live here. The box pews, each with its own little door and wooden turn button, were originally sold to local families by Joshua Lamb who built the church in 1820; several pew deeds are archived at the Lincolnville Historical Society.

The original denomination was Free Will Baptist, a departure from the Calvinist/Congregational religion that early New Englanders had organized their towns around. Basically, Free Will Baptists believed that anyone could speak to God; the Calvinists insisted a learned minister must go between God and parishioner. By law every Massachusetts town had to have such a church and minister. The wilder settlements of Maine weren’t having any of that, hence the Free Will’s belief in direct communication with God.

The building has served as much as a town meeting house as a church over the years, with speakers and celebrations throughout the 19th century. The country’s 1876 Centennial was celebrated there, as was the town’s 1902 Centennial. When Lincolnville’s Socialist Party was active, about 1912 to 1916, Socialist speakers drew crowds there.

And when World War I ended in 1918, the church was decorated with red, white, and blue bunting for the 1919 Memorial Day ceremonies. Our Bicentennial celebration in June 2002 included a play about early settlement; by count, nearly 500 people filled the building that evening.

All night vigils were held during the run-up to the Iraq war. When the Marriage Equality Act, passed by popular vote in November 2012, TJ and her partner of 27 years, Pat Shannon, were married there on Jan. 1, 2013, the day the new law was enacted.

The heart of United Christian Church, the heart of any church, is its congregation, the people who fill the pews every Sunday, the summer people who come when they’re here and often support it financially throughout the year, and the ones who only come occasionally, as well as the Easter Morning/Christmas Eve church-goers. Those are joyous occasions as we regular congregants greet so many of our neighbors and friends, folks perhaps with other religious affiliations or no affiliation at all.

Church is the place community members, whether regulars or not, turn to when a loved one dies. Lincolnville’s UCC has seen many funerals over the years, some where seemingly every one in town has come to small, quiet gatherings of mourners.

The musicians TJ and Pat chose for the ceremony included TJ’s co-worker and Celtic harpist, Alex Bigney; their grandson Caleb Edwards on violin and keyboard, a boy incidentally who played his first violin for a church service when he was 9; Connie Parker and Peter Saladino on organ and keyboard respectively; a quintet of TJ’s BTS classmates singing “Here I am Lord”, soloist Robin Tarantino, and flutist Mary Schulein directing the Wing and a Prayer Choir from the rear balcony.

The afternoon was filled with memories for those of us who’ve long been UCC members. When we sang “How Great Thou Art” I’m sure I wasn’t the only one hearing Keryn Laite’s deep voice resonating through the sanctuary, singing those same words even in the weeks just before he died.

The procession of clergy brought to mind Susan Stonestreet’s ordination as she, a recent BTS graduate herself, became Reverend Stonestreet in 1999 and went on to take a tiny congregation of a couple of dozen (on a good Sunday) stalwarts and turn it into a vibrant, living, working church over the next two decades.

I remembered the story Pat and TJ told of coming to the Strawberry Festival some 17 years ago when they’d just moved to Maine from Wisconsin. The couple had been looking for a church to call home, and after Pastor Susan gave them the tour – the box pews, the horseshoe balcony lined with more pews, the high pulpit and the tiny, secret staircase those ministers of old used to access it, the ancient, wavy glass panes, the 19th century graffiti of sailing ships and copulating farm animals (!) – and told them that this was a welcoming place, well, as Pat tells it, they got in their car to leave that day and high-fived each other. They’d found their new church home.

The other ordination, that of Lincolnville’s Mair Honan who found her calling to ministry while on a three-month walk from Calais to Kittery, sent her on her mission to start Grace Street Ministry for Portland’s homeless people.

At TJ’s ordination this past Sunday the cloud of witnesses were all around. Put me in Lily Tomlin’s bag lady category, but I swear I’ve heard them on the times I’ve sat all alone in the church. They’re talking, murmuring really, from every corner – Bessie Dean whose father Herbert Heal installed the tin ceiling far overhead; Bernice Calderwood who played the organ there for years; Edgar Allen who loved singing “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”; Freddie Gray whose intricate veneer pictures hang on the wall; Ruth Thurlow, quiet clerk for the church who recorded attendance every single Sunday; Margaretta Thurlow, descendent of Joshua Lamb and backbone of the church.

And all the older, further-back souls, in their stiff collars and corsets, dresses that swept the floor, work-worn hands and backs. They were there too.

My husband, Wally was there yesterday too, a sometimes reluctant church-goer, but he usually came and was never sorry when he did, candy man to the old ladies (where’s my peppermint now that I’m one?), my partner, covertly holding hands in our cozy pew.

The real-life man who joined me yesterday (and the roof didn’t fall in) quietly sang along with the Gloria and Doxology, stirred by the “Ode to Joy”, remembering his own Sundays with a beloved partner.

Not for the first time I was grateful for the little Kleenex packs in every pew.

Finally, the visiting clergy who exhorted, examined, and acclaimed that Teresa Lynn Mack was now Reverend Mack gathered around the new, kneeling minister and all were invited to come up for the laying on of hands, the final assertion that she was worthy.

Meanwhile, the children, who’d spent the service in the balcony under the watchful eyes of their parents, rained bubbles down on us all. A great day.

School

See the calendar sidebar for this week’s school events.

Library

The Lincolnville Roadside Cleanup will be the first weekend in October (just eleven days away!) on Friday October 4^th, 9 a.m.- 3 p.m. and Saturday the 5^th, 9 a.m.-noon.  As in the past, volunteers should come to the library parking area to get supplies and road assignments.  Watch for more details and reminders on the Lincolnville Bulletin Board or contact the Library.

Librarian Elizabeth Eudy says: “We are hoping to secure the help of one or two 2-person teams with a pickup truck to pick up the filled bags from the roadsides in the afternoons and deliver their loads to the transfer station in Rockport to be weighed and unloaded.  Please call the library and leave a message (or email) if you would be interested in volunteering yourself, a truck and a buddy for either or both afternoons. And, hopefully, it won’t be raining (again)!”

Dolls Anyone?

A group of local doll makers, specifically a knitting group that seems to be morphing into dolls, is planning to have a doll day at the Community Building on Saturday, March 14. Contact me ragrugs@midcoast.comif you have dolls to exhibit, whether you made them or not, or doll-making supplies to sell, or can put me in touch with other doll enthusiasts from other towns. We’re planning to have demonstrations of doll-making techniques, and we’ll especially welcome young doll owners with their dolls. Thanks!