Wonderings--October 18

I started writing this blog as covid-19 gripped our world. As I watched and listened to leaders and news outlets comment on the pandemic-that-was-to-come I felt something in my heart twinge. . . It sounded like everyone was enjoying the suffering and casting out of despair and pain. Don't we know the phrase, 'everyone loves a tragedy.'

At that time, it sounded like only bad news was being sown. I heard more and more leaders in the church speak hopelessly and faithlessly and I worried. . . and I wondered. How can I help, Father? 

So I started writing. 

As a pastor wiring is what I do often. I sit and I write. I jot down thoughts in notebooks and post on social media. I write in the margins of books that empower my soul and capture my imagination. So in the beginning steps of the pandemic, when I worried the most and was anxious, I wrote. 

I thought, "If I could just offer a tiny word of hope to the church that God has called me to serve then maybe I can help; maybe we will be okay." Was this naive, maybe, but it was what I felt called to do.

I offered words of spirituality and contemplation. I reminded myself that, as my doctoral teacher would say, 'the most powerful word in the Bible is "with." ' This act of writing became my practice; my source of contemplation and reflection. It helped my spirit grow and breath again.  

Yet as you realize by reading this, I haven't written in quite some time--and there are many reasons for that. Death has come into our family again. The slow and painful process of saying 'good-bye' has been with Jennifer and I and her family. 

I stopped writing because my children needed help in their own ways. So I listened and I tried to 'be with' them. 

I stopped writing because I was too busy. 

Now it has been almost three weeks since I wrote. Three weeks since I put my faith into practice and thought about how God is 'with' us. And you know, that break has not been healthy for my spirit. 

While not practicing the one little thing that God asked me to do, I stopped practicing my faith in my own way and my spirit became dry. I got tired. I became complacent and my attention was drawn away from my faith practices and toward practicality. Now practicality is necessary at times, but I wonder if I, if we, sacrifice faith for practicality? I wonder if as we stop doing what God asks us to do, I wonder how we might dry out as Christians? 

And so, today, I write. . . I wonder what God is asking you to begin again? 

Blessings