Old Ways and New

Beloved:

            Years ago, a friend and I were talking about our parents’ aversion to buying anything new and she said,  my dad has used at least $200 worth of duct tape to hold together a $25 part on his lawn mower.  It still makes me laugh and at the same time hope some measure of his thrift might persist in this single-use economy of ours.

​            The conversation came to mind while reading my most recent favorite book.  The writer says that for new ways of thinking to gain any traction, holders of the old ways must die off.  He’s speaking specifically of theology -- the ways we think about and know God.  It got me thinking about church too:
            Do the ways we think church must be have to die off for new ways of being church to gain any traction?  Yes.  Can those ways die off without the people who cherish them dying too?  Social science says probably not.  Our faith says absolutely!
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            Given the Holy Spirit’s presence and activity, of course church can evolve inside our own lifetimes.  We only need to be willing to change with it.  And if just one way of being church should die in our own life time, let it be our need to have the moral high ground all the time.  Think of all the time and energy that would be freed up -- time to seek the holy mystery, as Father Richard says.  Along with energy to befriend ourselves and one another, to plant a garden and breathe in the Spirit busy in the soil.  Best of all, time to do nothing and know not a drop of time is wasted,  letting ourselves be loved by the Lover of the universe.
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            I pray this magnificent, beautiful, not so very hot day finds you joyful in to whatever you put heart and head and hands.  I love you.  

~ peace & prayers, 
pastor annette