Not on hold: Waiting

Daily Devotion - May 16

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

I keep on forgetting something it means to be Church.  It's not hard for me to remember that church is not a place we go, but who we are. We've been talking that way together for a long time.  And this is reinforced every time we gather for online/phone worship - the Spirit is there, the Body of Christ is gathered, God is with us, and we are church.

But I am forgetting about another important thing.  

Being Church means being people who wait.  

Centuries of Advent have prepared us for this time. But we're not just practiced at it, we are called to it.  We are called to expect the advent (coming) of God, and to wait for it. Anticipating. Preparing. Ready. Patient. Hopeful.

As modern people - we don't wait. We hate to wait in lines or on hold.  We buy what we want when we want it, watch what we want when we want it, go where we want when we want to, do what we want when we want to.  We act; we don't wait. 

And if we are not acting, we are planning. Planning also means not having to wait. Planning lets us know what to expect and when to expect it.  We can soothe our existential terror by immediate gratification or by planning ahead. Either way, we get to draw from our strengths instead of face our weakness. Either way, we get to feel powerful instead of helpless.  And either way, it's not the discomfort of waiting.

What we fear most in waiting is sitting in the unknown without a sense of when it will end.  We don't wait waiting if it means trusting someone or something beyond your self to intervene and surprise you. Waiting is vulnerable and excruciating. It's out of our control, and we want control.  So we take the wheel - we act and we plan. 

This time we are in is thwarting both of these pacifiers.  We're limited from acting and we're limited from planning.  But that doesn't stop us from doing both anyway. So some people are rushing to action, saying, "We will gather like before as soon as things 'open back up.'"  Others are rushing into planning, saying, "We will not gather like before for one year, or even two."  Both are ways to deal with our modern discomfort with waiting. Both approaches are aimed to soothe our anxiety and avoid disappointment.
Both only have imagination for what has been.
Waiting, in the Christian sense, cultivates imagination for what might be.

The Church is the people called to wait - to live honestly in what is, and expect God to come. We wait.  We live in this moment, the one given to us now. We plan for this time, knowing things will change, but not yet knowing how.  We don't cling to the past, and we don't foreclose on the future. We stay attentive to the movement of the living God by waiting and watching, What is God doing now? And now? And now?  How can we join in right now?

The Church is not on hold.  The Church has always been called to active waiting.  It's how we participate in the Kingdom of God - which is always breaking in from the future into the present - coming into the real moment, drawing us to each other, drawing us to God, pulling us out of our settled ruts and our false security to watch for the next thing God is doing. 

Christoph Blumhardt writes, "This watching is a part of our life, of our faith, of our service to God. The Savior urges us seriously to “watch, watch, watch!” as though he wanted to lay a foundation for it in our hearts, in our whole lives. It is as though he were always waiting and asking, “How can I come closer to this person, to that person? How can I meet this one who is waiting for me?...For in our watching we think not only of our own lives. We are watching for the whole world." (in Action in Waiting) 

We have a distinct calling in this time and place. We are Church for the world.  On behalf of the world, we wait. We watch. We point out God's in-breaking. We join in God's work.  As Church, we gather, in whatever creative ways the moment allows or ignites.  As Church we remind each other and the world that God's love comes to us now.  We keep adapting, keep adjusting, keep responding, keep dying and being born again.  We let ourselves be changed, be met, be shaped into the people of God for this time and place.  And we wait for what God is going to do - today, tomorrow, next month and beyond.

This is hope. We are bearers of hope.

Our little congregation has four big guiding convictions that feel important all over again right now. (Perhaps I'll spend a devotion with each one at some point...!)

The first is this: God is doing something, here and now, that incorporates the past and leads us into the future.

We trust this. We believe this. We let this conviction guide us.  We will not resort to immediate action to soothe our impatience and anxiety. Neither will we renounce possibility to soothe our impatience and anxiety.  

We will endure the discomfort of waiting. We will experience the anxiety that births new things. We will let the Spirit breathe new life into us, spark creativity between us, bring hope through us.  

God is doing something. Here and now. It will draw on what has been.  It will shape us for what will be.  Right now, it will deepen us in our belonging to God and strengthen us in our belonging to each other, and expand our imagination for how to live that out.

We live in hope. We hold hope for the world. We know God is bringing life.

So the Church waits.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

God, who meets me now,

meet me now.

Help me wait for you to meet me here.

Help me watch for how you meet me.

God who love us now,

love us now.

Help me wait for your love to come.

Help me watch for how your love comes.

God who heals us now,

heal us now.

Help me wait for you to heal us.

Help me watch for how your healing comes.

God whose future meets us now,

meet us with your future now.

Help me wait for your newness to break in.

In the places of death,

help me watch for your new life.

In the places of division,

help me join in your work of love.

In the tension of unrest,

help me trust in your reality of peace.

Amidst the disappointment, anxiety and vulnerability,

within and around me,

infuse me with your hope,

that I may bear it in the world.

Amen.

(Prayer by Kara Root)

The New Normal

Daily Devotion - April 23

I will send a brief message each day
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

(Keep Calm and Carry On was a motivational poster the British government produced in1939.  As WWII loomed, the poster was designed to boost the morale of, and give guidance to, the British public, through the "new normal," which included widely predicted mass air strikes on major cities. It debuted in 2009 on the wall of the dining room of the Root household to help me parent through a particularly rough season of dinner/vegetable battles with my strong-willed toddler. In April 2020, I began regularly consuming coffee from my mug with the "Keep Calm..." logo to help me through Quarantine).

How are you doing today?

For me, it is dawning (again!?!) that this will change us for a long time.  There is no snap of the finger back to normal. Our governor just canceled in-person school for the rest of the school year, and I'm watching colleges talk about fall semesters online. Andy and I were on a zoom call yesterday for an event we were going to lead together in October (OCTOBER).  The whole, everyone at a retreat center in one place idea is out.  Now, if it is safe to gather, it will likely be in small groups, so maybe smaller concurrent gatherings with Andy and myself rotating between them and the rest seeing it through a live feed? Or something nobody has even thought of yet...? 

October.

When "normal" does "resume" it will be in fits and starts, a little here, and little there, slowly, gradually, 10 people at a time, maybe 50 now, oops, back to 10, etc.  

What does Church look like then?

(What does then look like then??)

I've met with some other pastors (via zoom, of course!) this week, and here's what I heard about what Church is looking like for others: Groups of people praying together by phone, online weekly bible studies, an online VBS in the works, pre-recorded bible study video snippets, coffee hours - like ours, where people are checking in with each other, weekly confirmation class zoom gatherings, online organ concerts.  We are preparing for our first online memorial service.  One church I know of found a lovely way to invite people to come by and leave cards at the home of someone who has lost a family member. Some tiny congregations of under fifty are seeing thousands "joining in" their livestream, some large congregations accustomed to high attendance have much lower "viewership" of their services. Some congregations have never really had "small group" ministries, so are figuring out how to pivot their whole model and help folks get connected in completely different ways.  I think what we are all realizing is:

This is not temporary and then we'll go back to normal. 

This is the new normal until there is another new normal.  

That is a mindset shift for me, and I imagine, for you as well. So the question of how to live in the now continues to be a biggie - for ourselves and our households, but also for our congregations.  

How are we being Church well right now?  
How might we need to keep adapting - we did from "normal" to "temporary," now we're going from "temporary" to "new normal" - to meet some new needs that have arisen, or address some needs that have been put on hold?  
How are each of us coping?  
How can we help each other remember our primary belonging to God and each other in the midst of this?  

The new normal for our church session (board - used to meet monthly) is to meet for an hour every week.  And we'll be circling back with our hospitality teams in the next few days as well, to check in on how each person is doing.  In following the sound guidance from our state health officials and our governor, and looking at the trajectory for COVID-19 in MN in the coming weeks, session voted this week to continue meeting online and by phone through May.  

So, the six weeks we've had so far will be joined by a minimum of five more.  
What can we do to help each other find joy, connection and grounding during this? 
How can we keep seeking the presence of God in our lives and in the world during this phase of new normal?

I came across this quote today, and found it quite lovely.

"We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanence, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even.  Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now." 

                - Ann Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

So, (while I think there are gift in looking back and also looking forward), I feel compelled by the invitation this quote raises to trust in life's ebb and flow. This is to say, for me, to trust also in the Holy Spirit's constant interference, comfort and guidance, and to see God's presence, which is always in the here and now, by living in the present and accepting it as it is now.  

This feels like a huge challenge, and I find myself reacting to it with lots of internal resistance, but also with some curiosity and longing. A small part of me even wants to scream out "Yes!"  And I know this to be true also because I've been genuinely blessed, and not a little intrigued, in hearing some people' stories of these days include words like "contentment", "joy", "peace", "surprising ease", "gift" and "treasure."  I believe those things are given to us in any and all circumstances, and right now we have the opportunity to discover them in new places, and ways we've not yet learned to look. 

So, here's to the new normal. Here's to living in the present and accepting it as it is now.  

I'll see you here.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps, sometime today, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might extend a blessing in this way, and so join our hearts:

When you pray this prayer - keep the "us" and the "we" - pray it for yourself, but also for your congregation, or family, or community. (And then, you could pray it again for your nation, and again for our world).

May the strength of God pilot us.

May the power of God preserve us.

May the wisdom of God instruct us.

May the hand of God protect us.

May the way of God direct us.

May the shield of God defend us.

May the host of God guard us against the snares of evil

and the temptations of the world.

May Christ be with us,

Christ before us,

Christ in us,

Christ over us.

May your salvation, O Lord,

Be always ours this day and forevermore. Amen.

- Patrick of Ireland (389-461)