I light the chalice today to honor the courage for making necessary changes in our lives. In life transitions, we move from one dwelling space to another. It is as if there is a portal we know we must cross and that we must dwell now in a different place. Sometimes these passages are forced upon us; other times we must choose a crossing out of need to accommodate new priorities and to live amid a different set of values.

Most of you received from Judith the past week the announcement that she will retire from doing ministry next August. This is a chosen passage based upon a deeply considered and, I think, an exceedingly wise judgment and weiging of priorities and values.

Judith's husband, David, has been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, a progressive disease that can be delayed but not cured. Judith knows this disease only too well, it has afflicted her family in the past. She knows its erratic and unpredictable course and the extent to which it shortens life expectancy. Accordingly, she has chosen to close her successful career to spend full time with David. They will travel and companion one another, delighting in the full-time marriage that an active career in ministry necessarily precludes. I honor and respect this as a very appropriate decision - a very wise reordering of priorities, a ver sensitive reconsidering of what is of the greater value.

Inescapably, this means a transition as well for this congregation. It is not a chosen one and it is a sad one, for we lose a beloved minister - and there will be grieving. But after 15 years, Judith leaves a strong, confident, healthy congregation that can readily master the transitional steps that lie ahead.

I light the chalice to honor bold life choices we sometimes must make, to honor wise value shifts we sometimes must pursue, to honor courageous decisions that point us to relationships that are the most precious in life.