I Can't Fix It

What a glorious day. Good worship this morning. Great sermon by Rachel at the 8:30 and 10:45. Good, good, good conversations with many folks today. Some I made some mistakes in (but the only way to have avoided that was not to have them in the first place).

We had a meeting today that went very well. Marc did a great job in getting our governing council (called Diakonia - rather than the Administrative Board) off to a good start.

There was a lot of energy in the room. And Marc did an excellent job of channeling it in a positive direction. But there was something striking to me...I often say "go where the Holy Spirit is" (how do you tell? -- It's where the energy is...) - but today all the talk was about church growth - and I realized that this was coming out of anxiety. Not an irrational anxiety...but anxiety nonetheless. We all want to solve it and fix it. And me as much as anyone else. But anxiety is not the same as energy - and it is, I'm afraid, the opposite of the Holy Spirit (who surely is always saying to us "fear not"). So - how do we face our anxiety and fear and move on? I don't know. I can beat myself up plenty about that too.

I was talking with a friend about it this evening and he sent me this little youtube video - only 2 minutes and 23 seconds - of Parker Palmer which helped me. And that sent me back to a Mary Oliver poem I read this afternoon. And I'll share it here.

Another Everyday Poem

Every day
I consider
the lilies--
how they are dressed--

and the ravens--
how they are fed--
and how each of these
is a miracle

of Lord-love
and of sorrow--
for the lilies
in their bright dresses

cannot last
but wrinkle fast
and fall,
and the little ravens

in their windy nest
rise up
in such pleasure
at the sight

of fresh meat
that makes their lives sweet--
and what a puzzle it is
that such brevity--

the lavish clothes,
the ruddy food--
makes the world
so full, so good.

After reading this poem I thought some more (and it seemed an appropriate thing to do during Lent) about how it is that we, in the church, seemed to be just as scared about dying as the rest of the world - while we have a story that could set us free from that fear - or at least free from being overwhelmed by it.

And then I realized the extent to which that fear often binds me. I want to fix things and when I can't I beat myself up pretty well about it. But I forget that it's not mine to fix and as Samuel Wells reminds me - I don't write the last act of this story. God does. And thank God for that.

I think the next time I feel that fear coming up and on around me I will stop us for a moment and tell the Emmaus story...and then share a little bread and wine. I've got to keep that stuff closer at hand.

And so should our denomination. I feel like so much of what we are facing as a denomination is our fear of dying - it's why we argue about so much that counts for so little. Such fear is...as Walt Wangerin says -- "a saw-toothed tool of the devil." Amen. Mary Oliver sees the world through resurrected eyes. I'm going to give that a try myself.