Longing for Spring

Ah, nothing like getting up early on a Monday morning to get a little exercise in and then off to Jury Duty! Of course I had my cell phone with me and my father's pocket knife I always carry so I had to hike back home and put them away, then back to court to "hurry up and wait."

There was an upside to this however. I was able to read a good bit of a new book that is saying things I have felt for sometime about the Methodist Church and where it's future lies. It's entitled "Longing for Spring: A New Vision for Wesleyan Community" by Elaine A. Heath and Scott T. Kisker. It seems to be speaking to a new reformation of the church as a synthesis of monasticism and a rapprochement of Wesleyan thought and structure. Hugely exciting so far, very well done. Well, I could quibble a bit about a short section on Benedictine history, being a bit of a Benedictine, but nothing that would affect the premise of the book was in question.

It seems to me that we have got to start a discussion at the highest levels of the church about the post-modern church in a cyber age and stop spinning our wheels over institutional maintenance. The emergent church is here and is not going away, and we can either dig in our heels and resist this new reformation or we can open a dialogue that will lead to a new Methodism built more on smaller communities of believers and not on buildings and structures as we now know it. A more fluid church to replace a static one. One where Evangelism is not so much viewed as "getting them in to maintain the institution" as it is inclusion in a community of spiritual formation. We will not survive as we now are, plain and simple.

I finally was called to the jury pool from which twelve were to be selected to hear a drug case. The young woman, the defendant, had very much a "deer in the headlights" look. She kept looking at us, looking from face to face. Finally it struck me why I found her gaze so compelling...in it was a complete absence of hope, a cry only for help. I wondered what had brought her to this place in her journey? There was mention of children, but not of a husband or father. She had been found with a couple of prescription drugs that were not her own. What was she seeking in those small orange containers? What ghosts or demons was she trying to shut out? Or was it maybe just a world, a community, with neither time nor inclination to become involved with her dysfunctional existence? And isn't that exactly where the church should enter in? I know her sad face and sallow complexion will haunt me for quite a while.

And maybe that's one of the biggest arguments for a new church, one that cuts its ties with maintenance and opens itself to the winds of the spirit and to a Christ-community approach to ministry. A church where worship is what we do all the time and only occasionally as community. We are too tied to Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and organs and ornate structures and God is out in the streets caressing the young man or woman with AIDS, soothing the baby born crack addicted, and sharing ever new teaching stories with his followers. And what of the lady in the docket? God has time for her and loves her just as she is, can we not follow his lead? Redemption and salvation for her begin with a loving encounter with Christ as mediated through his followers. The church must be a functioning tool, not an idol.

Well, more later...by the way, the prosecutor consented to my presence on the jury, but the woman's attorney did not. I guess he noticed me staring in her direction. Come to think of it, I wonder what he, and she, saw in my face? I fear it may not have been my Savior. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it was...may God make that so. Amen for now.

Trust...

An image came to me in Morning Prayer today. For sometime now I have been struggling to trust God completely and the image was of Christ in the Garden on the eve of his Crucifixion came to me in a blinding moment of realization. I saw in that moment how complete his trust was, how he as he prayed "Not my will..." abandoning his humanity in perfect trust of Our Lord. He knew what was to come, his flesh cried out for another way, but it was in perfect trust alone that he endured the next day and all that it brought. Perhaps by the time I come to the close of my life, I will have learned to trust the Father as He did. Amen.

Struggling for a Vision...

My wife Pat and I have been for a time now in a period in which we are struggling to discern where God is leading us for the rest of our lives. After thirty five years we find ourselves wondering how we should bring our full time ministry to a close over the next few years, and what lies beyond for us? Certainly, given the financial climate, not the retirement we had once envisioned; so if not that, what?

I ran across a prayer for discernment written by the deeply spiritual Trappist monk, Thomas Merton today and it spoke so powerfully to me, I thought it should be shared with other seekers and struggling ones...

Prayer for Discernment

O Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me,
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
And that fact that I think
I am following Your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe
That the desire to please You
Does in fact please You.
And I hope I have that desire
In all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything
Apart from that desire to please You.
And I know that if I do this
You will lead me by the right road,
Though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust You always
Though I may seem to be lost
And in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
For You are ever with me,
And You will never leave me
To make my journey alone.

Source: Thomas Merton, Pax Christi, Benet Press, Erie, PA.

Helped me on my way today, hope it does the same for you dear reader...

Ever Heard a Squirrel Cuss?

Well, I finally heard something that I never would have imagined ever hearing…ever heard a squirrel cuss? It happened like this, bright an early Tuesday morning, I mean early…like 6:30, I’m up by then but I didn’t think much of anybody else was…, I saw a set of truck tail lights going up the driveway behind the house. John Bailey, chairman of our Trustees, had called me the night before to tell me he was sending a crew over to trim the immense old Hackberry tree next to the parsonage, but I thought this was pushing it a little, I mean it was pitch black dark.
Anyway, the taillights I had seen belonged to a truck pulling a wood chipper and behind it was another truck with a “bucket” to lift a fellow up to the height necessary to trim the limbs. By sunup they had each positioned ready to go, had discussed the job front, back, and sideways; and dispatched cups of coffee from McDonalds.
First to go as the sun crested Taylor’s Ridge were the low hanging branches that dragged against the side of the house and along the roof. Next were those that over hung the house and could be a danger in icy weather. Then a few dead ones for good measure and in two hours or so they packed up their stuff and went on down the road. Said they had three more jobs that day. Took all those chipped up limbs with them. Oh well, I’m only half way through the pile of chippings from the next door neighbor’s pine trees.
Now, back to my friend the squirrel. It’s Wednesday morning and I’m sitting on the bench at the back of the yard and suddenly there is a commotion in the pecan tree. I don’t know what offense was given or taken, but two grey squirrels evidently had had a falling out and one took off lickity-split down the tree and across the parsonage roof with the other in hot pursuit. About half way length wise across the roof the lead squirrel turned his head around while he kept running. Couldn’t tell if he was taunting his opponent or just gauging how far he was ahead, but he fit the edge of the roof and with perfect form arched into a jump for that limb he had jumped to all his life…only it wasn’t there anymore. So he sailed through the air, amazing really, he almost made it to the tree trunk! But he missed and landed with a loud “plop” in the dirt at the foot of the tree. He lay there a moment, dazed and confused, and then he jumped to his paws and let out with the awful-est stream of squirrel speech you ever heard. I’ll believe to my dying day he was calling down fire and brimstone on all of us that moved his branch. A good laugh early usually means a good day.
Oh yeah…the moral? Watch where you leap, your limb may not be there anymore!