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As I write, it is Shrove Tuesday--the very eve of the season of Lent. (And, yes, we are having pancakes in our household this evening.) By the time some of you are reading this though, we will have already had our Ash Wednesday service with Community UCC. For some of you, the ashes will have faded from your foreheads, and we have already started those forty days (plus Sundays) that make up this liturgical time.I have always been a little perplexed by Lent. It wasn't really noted, as much as I can recall, as I was growing up. I never felt the call to "give something up" as many of my friends at school did (well, the Roman Catholic ones during that era) and only later in life considered the possibility of taking something on as a spiritual discipline. (During my mid-20s, I decided my Lenten discipline would be to attend my church's worship every week. From that memory, I guess one could surmise I wasn't a regular attender at the time!)In my perplexity about Lent, I've always kept it at a distance. What little I knew about Lent indicated that it was a time of self-deprivation and seemed even to verge on self-deprecation. I decided that I was self-deprecating enough that I didn't need any church telling me to do it more. And though I've never actually suffered through deprivation, there have been times when it's felt like I could see it from where I was.When I can calm myself down enough however and consider the coming weeks simply as an opportunity for me to get closer to God, I can begin to embrace Lent. Later in this newsletter, you'll find an article which refers to Lent as a journey, a common metaphor these days. Indeed, I know I am always on a journey in my faith. Lent is a chance to ease myself, even if it's an almost imperceptible shift, ever nearer to the One Who First-Of-All Created; and in that movement I might gain the tiniest sliver of understanding of all that God can be and is.Lent is not all that long, when you think about it; only 12% of a year. In that brief space of time, there is an opening of a window of opportunity, that allows the cool, fresh breezes of our ever-evolving faith to blow in. Breathe deeply...and take the first steps of Lent 2009.
Photo used by permission of the photographer and can be found on Flickr
At the first of our congregational conversations on Sunday, during the "dreams and visions" section, I repeated the question "is growth a dream of ours?" a few times. I felt a little silly asking it; maybe those of you who were there felt a little silly answering it. It is sort of a "duh" question.If you're like me, you might want to scream in response, "of course we want to grow!" After all, isn't that what church is all about? Aren't we supposed to grow and add numbers to our membership lists and need to add more and more chairs on Sunday mornings for the worshippers flocking to our doors? Don't we want to be bigger so we can do more things; so we can reach out more; so we can be known on the Peninsula? Growth? Duh! Yes!But then...but then...I remember the words which I have quoted here before from Micah that inform us that God wants us to "do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God." (Micah 6:8) There's not much about church growth in there. And Jesus' admonition that you are to love God "with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" and "love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37 & 39) doesn't seem to me to be about pulling them into worship so we can be winners in the numbers game.It is assuredly a tightrope balancing act that we are living as a congregation. On the one hand, there is the reality of being small and all that entails: a seemingly constant struggle to make sure there is enough money to pay bills and an apparent flagging of energy among some very busy people. On the other though, it seems if we focus our energy into growth alone, we won't be able to continue doing the good work that we have discerned that we are called to do and have done so far in our decade-plus lifespan. Chalice came into being, as I understand it, because a group of wounded people gathered together to do this church and religion thing differently than had been done in the past...inclusively...openly...caringly...lovingly...spiritually. God cared for our congregation then and I have no doubts that God will care for us into the future, no matter what our numbers are.Yes, let us dream and vision of a day when our attendance and membership have increased and we are able to show that God's love and grace are for all people. But let us remember while doing that dreaming that our call as a church is not growth but justice, kindness, and love. Pace e Bene,Gerry
I recently got a new camera. My old one died (in the middle of a Chalice worship service, of all times) and I had been without a camera for several months. It felt strange, I realized, not to be able to take pictures, something I have been doing since I was young.
The other day, Allen & I were showing a friend around from New York City who was out here for a meeting. We took her up to the Marin Headlands where the views in all directions are quite spectacular. She and I were both happily snapping away and comparing pictures on the little screens of our digital cameras. (Allen hadn't brought his camera, poor boy!)
At one point, as she was admiring a shot I had taken, she said, "you have a good eye," a compliment I enjoyed hearing. Of course, she meant nothing about the status of my physical eyeball but instead was referring to the way I frame shots and set up pictures.
Though I have been told that before, it always comes as a bit of a shock. It's not something that I've worked to learn; I haven't trained myself to set up shots...I seem to just do it. And sometimes, I surprise myself because a picture comes through that I didn't even know I was seeing.
At another picture taking time during a trip to London, I took a shot of the crowd at a big outdoor market. There in the center of the picture is a woman staring directly at me, as much as to say, "what are you doing with that camera?" I missed her when I took the picture completely. It wasn't until I got home and downloaded the pictures onto my computer that I saw her. My eye didn't catch what was going on as I took the shot; that that woman was communicating with me in her way and I missed it.
How often is that sort of thing true about our relationships with God and with each other? No matter how good our "eye" for that sort of thing is, we miss things...we overlook the obvious...we don't observe those things that are right before us. It's not until later, if then, that we realize what we've missed or overlooked.
Sometimes, with each other, it is sadly too late to go back and recapture a moment in which we were blind to something right before us. We are all human and recapturing in hindsight can be difficult because time intervenes, personalities change, egos are involved, and everyone needs to cooperate. But fortunately, the good news is that with God it is never too late. God is always ready for us to try again. God will redo moments and pose in front of our lenses time and time again and come back for more. It's never too late to begin to work on your "eye" to better observe and capture those moments in your spiritual life that will make you a fuller and closer to complete child of God.
Pace e Bene,Gerry
PS--Okay, it's really hard not to get a good shot in the Marin Headlands, so maybe including that picture isn't fair. And the second photo may be too small in this setting for you to really be able to see what I'm going on about.
[The photos used here are my own and are from my Flickr account at www.flickr.com/photos/revger/.]
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