BECOMING. Not finished. Not perfect. On the journey, like each of us, showered constantly by God’s grace.
I remember sitting at the Log Church in White Swan, WA almost a decade ago now. On a training retreat, I found myself face to face…again…with the fact that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who journal and those who do not journal. Uneasily waiting for the dreaded journaling time to be over, I began reflecting on how far I had come as a person, as a child of God, as a follower of Jesus Christ. That’s when it hit me like a lightning-bolt: it’s not how far you’ve come, it’s how far you are willing to go. On that day, in the awkward flow of life, I began a long process of letting go…of walking in the dark…of trusting God with everything.
What does that look like on a daily basis? It looks like being a pastor in the United Church of Christ. It looks like a small white-steepled church in rural Charlotte, VT. It looks like snow and thick wool sweaters for 6 months of the year and a bright red Vespa the other 6. It looks like being a husband and a father. It looks like shelves filled with recorders and recorder music. And it looks different every single day.
Through it all, it is my prayer that the way my life looks will, in flashes and glimpses at least, say a little about who God is. I pray my life looks: like healing rather than wounding, like peace and justice rather than violence and oppression; like invitation rather than requirement; like love rather than anything less. Not being…but becoming…with God’s help, and Christ’s example, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Because You May 