Maybe I Will See The Day...After All

Hey...

Can I share something with you?  

Over the course of the day--today--I have felt an overwhelming surge of love and hope for our beloved progressive and liberal church.  I don't just mean my own, little tiny church in suburban Boston...but all of them.  Those of you who know me know this state of being isn't in my nature for long, so bear with me...we are on untraveled ground...

I was talking to my intern, Tara Humphries this morning over Zoom.  She--rightly--is not permitted by her seminary in Connecticut to travel to her internship site but she has been a wonder and support to us at the church nonetheless. 

We were discussing how her time with us has changed... 
...Oh how it has...

Like good church folks, we gave some thought to the division of the psalms into ones of Orientation, Disorientation, and Re-Oientation (a conversation made easier by having the same Hebrew Scripture professor...albeit 20 years apart) and about how the first part of the year was the first and now we are in the second.  We also talked about the third phase, still unseen for the most part, when we reorient to the new world and sing songs of thanksgiving again, not for a return to the old ways, but the approach of the blessed and good new ways, informed by the old but honed through tragedy, fear, chaos and despair to suit the new just, peaceful, and healthy world we seek to build.

That image kept with me today as I picked my way around the eerie emptiness of my almost 200 year-old church building.  It stuck with me as I stood before my computer for email after email and meeting after meeting with my back turned to the chaos of my living room that circumstance has morphed into a recording studio, virtual pulpit, and classroom for me as well as an office for an 8th grader and a college Freshman. 

And as the day went on...

As I "talked" to my staff and congregants and colleagues planning whatever we think might work for Easter and for future church programming... 

As we figured out how to be safe and together and how to do normal things in the "new normal"...

​...I realized how lucky I am...

In spite of all the darkness around us...

I am fortunate at least in this one way...

I have realized that the church--the liberal and mainline church--will survive this time and emerge changed and reoriented.  It will grow. 

The new thing is happening now, ​you see, and we are finally off our asses. 

​We are doing it!  We. Are. Ready.  I can see it...and I never ever really thought I would...

Lets be clear.  I never thought I would still be active in the professional ministry when the new thing appeared.  I have done my best for mentees and anyone else who I thought might be the ones to see it.  The old ways aren't working. We know that.  I thought I knew, though, that it wasn't for me to see what came next...except maybe in a pew, supporting my pastor in retirement. 

It was my lot--I thought--to pave the way, wading through dubious advice and programming promoted by men (almost all men, right?) too old for the skinny jeans and tight T-shirts they sported; people who wouldn't last a day as the leaders of my church. I knew my place temperamentally and generationally.  I would hold the door open for others to walk through.

"John the Baptizer I am.  Be ready.....all will be well in time..."

...but...

Will you look at us now?  I see you my friends.  When I get "home" from my virtual worship service and get a chance to breathe, I check in on you.  Lots of shaky cams and bad lighting and sound that cuts in and out? Can't get the hang of visiting your people over the darkened tube of...well...what we used to call "the tube"? Yeah, me too.   It is overwhelming. 

Guess what, though?  Seth Meyers and Jon Oliver?  Their sound stinks too these days but they are still heard aren't they?  When I see you on the screen I do not feel the need or urge to mock or laugh.  I see you being strong and getting it done.  I love, love, love what I see!

Don't be self-conscious. What I see are clergy and lay people putting it all out there for each other.  DIY-ing with the best.  Use that iPad or cell phone or whatever. Screw with your background or not. Duct tape that sheet or camera or poster to the wall.  It is beautiful.  You are inspiring. You--we--are getting it done with love, grace, and authenticity.  I couldn't be more proud to be a church person today.  I couldn't be more proud to be part of this great profession...

Do we have hard times ahead?  Yeah we do.  Are there reasons to be sad and lonely and frustrated?  Yes...yes...yes.  There is death and illness all around. We are struggling to be there when we cannot actually be physically there.  It hurts, we are frustrated.  Everyone is and with good reason. 

Compounding this are failures of leadership that abound in government and elsewhere, including the church.  Don't think I have forgotten the grand-standers jeopardizing their flocks by opening their buildings instead of learning something new!  I live in the same disoriented and disorienting world you do.

Yeah, I see this hard time we are in.  I am afraid, too.  Still...I didn't think I would see the new church and now I see just a little bit and that makes me so so happy.  I want to see more. Take the party where you can, right?  That is Palm Sunday.  That is Easter, too.

Tara took this picture of our coffee hour on Sunday and sent it to me.  Each of those faces are of people I love.  Some are recent faces, but many I have known for years.  The other pictures are from among our congregation, figuring it out, taking chances on this new world even in the current chaos.  Colleagues (and future colleagues) you are doing great.  Church leaders, you are too.  

Let's stick together and see this new day.  As hard as the journey may be right now...deliverance will come. 

Then Palms of Victory, I declare.