that can happen in the life of a parish. Its not something that can be manufactured or sold because its a God thing, a spark of life from the Holy Spirit with the power to transform people and in transforming people transform a parish.

Somewhere along the line in the business and routine of being a parish there will be a someone, or perhaps a group of people, who will take a step out from business as usual and ask “Where is God in all we’re doing?” Now, most of the time that pause will be drowned out by the systems, structures, and business as usual and everything returns to what is considered “normal”.

For that rare person or person, though, the question remains and it begins a quest to seek out and draw closer to God in everything, including their local church. After years of doing things for the sake of doing things they will start to ask about why and to what end and the lure of something more, something holier, something deeper, will start to capture their imagination. Faith begins to emerge, not faith in an institution and its plans but rather faith in God and the sense that they, and their parish, were created for something far more wonderful than what they see around them, more wonderful than even their own imagination.

As this fire sparks and then smolders to life inside of them, they start to look for answers to their questions and search for examples of the dreams growing within. The Bible, the ancient writers, the lives of Saints, all of these start to take on a new life not just as relics of some long ago past but rather as real possibilities in the present. They seek, as well, to know if there are others like them, people who are starting to welcome and listen to the Holy Spirit, people with a holy discontent and a spark of heavenly life seeking to actually live the promise for which they were baptized. It may take days. It may take years. Still this life, because it comes from God, has a quality that endures.

At first the expressions are personal. Prayer becomes more important. Being at church for worship becomes increasingly joyful. The awareness of, and repentance for, sin increases but in a freeing and not a morbid sense. The Eucharist stops being a formality and its power to give life becomes more apparent. There is a hunger there, but its not a bitter hunger but rather a hunger for that which is the best, namely God.

Then personal action follows, an increase in quiet charity, a care for people in hard circumstances, a growing list of godly behaviors that become part of the routine of everyday life. From the inside the person, down to their daily habits, is being transformed. Some in their parish will dismiss these things as the person being “religious” and they may even criticize because the light beginning to shine is exposing them, but others will recognize, instinctively, what is happening because it is also happening with them.

From there come the quiet voices speaking up. “What happens if instead of having a festival where we charge people we decide to have a meal where we invite the poor to come to our church without charge?” They’ll start to ask if their church has done anything, recently, to spread the Gospel to those who may not have heard it. They’ll wonder, out loud, why there’s no Bible study. A host of questions will emerge, and these questions are not, as some would think, about a dislike for their parish but rather a desire for that which they already love to become what God would wish it to be.

At this point the trouble may start. Priests and councils and people can become wedded to an order of things. This is not necessarily due to malice but rather the power of a routine to take the place of Faith. It can happen to the best of us, people with good intentions that have somehow gone into auto-pilot without even being aware of it. These new ideas, which are actually the real content of the historic Faith, can be troubling, seeming to be risky, extravagant, and unwise in the ways that the world measures wisdom. The world of balance sheets, reports, and keeping the lights on can be deeply challenged by a vision rooted in the Word, the Tradition, and the living reality of the Holy Spirit in the life of the parish. Those balance sheets and reports can, over time, become masters of a parish and they will relinquish their rule very grudgingly.

Still, even a small risk of faith, a willingness to see both our personal and parish life as being first and foremost about God and a heavenly way of existing, can move a parish to a next step, one after another, until the people discover something that has always been both true and widely ignored. This Christian life, this beautiful path, is dynamic, powerful, life giving, even enchanting in the best sense of the word, and in  living it fully we begin to realize what God, as our Faith and Holy Tradition guide us, designed us to be.

If you are the person with a holy discontent inside of you, and you will know its holy and not just simply discontent if it draws you closer to God,and fills you with enduring love and deep peace, stay the course. Don’t give up on your parish or any of the people who worship with you. Pray for them, for your parish, for your leaders, and be an example in your own life of the kind of parish you would like to see. Seek out kindred spirits to share the journey.

If you are still going with the flow, stop for a moment. Imagine that there are possibilities in life and faith for both you and your parish that are greater than your imagination. If you hear that still, small, voice, inside of you calling you to draw close to God, to the higher, better, and blessed that your heart tells you might be inside of you waiting to get out, listen. You may be one step at a time away from the most remarkable and beautiful life of faith.

There is more. There is so much more. Seek, as our Lord says, and you shall find.

 

 

 

 

because I had to address the world as it is and share those things this past Sunday with the people for whom I care at St. George. It would have been easier to just ignore the changes and hope things go away but a good shepherd has to talk about the wolves when the wolves are really out there, the hard things, the challenges, and the places where difficulty may lie.

Obviously I don’t have all the answers and part of this is because I’m not sure what the questions are going to be. How has our culture changed? What things realistically are dangers and what things are things we can simply ignore? How will things change and how will they be the same?

I have to admit that I’m not still at peace with things. I feel challenged. I feel a deep sense of loss. I fear that some harsh things could be in store. I’m not always at peace because I feel like a stranger in my own country, someone who has just been told by the powers that be that I don’t matter, don’t belong, and that who I am is completely expendable for the greater imagined good. Friday did all that even though I was expecting it.

We as a Christian community really do have to “wake up” and realize that the world around us in this country has changed There are new rules, new rule makers, and the days of living a Christian life as a sort of respectable middle class veneer are over and done.

And yet in it all I am developing a growing sense of peace. This peace is not about some wishful illusion or whistling in the dark but rather about a rediscovery of what really matters and who, and Whose, I really am. In the whirlwinds and fire a still, small, voice is emerging and it is a voice of hope, not in the world and those who temporarily rule it, but rather in the One who created it and still guides it.

That still, small, voice, is reminding me that this life is not all there is, and that my life is caught up in a larger story that will, by God’s grace, end well. That voice reminds me that I am loved, no matter what, and nothing, and no one, can remove that love from me. Those quiet whispers call me to keep my eyes on Jesus so I can walk above the storm.

I can’t say I’m all the way there, yet. Still, I know that every step I take toward Jesus is a step closer to peace, understanding, and even the ability to thrive in times I couldn’t imagine when I was a child.

Here I am God, jostled a bit but still standing. Challenged, for sure, but holding on. Believing but asking for help in my unbelief. All I know is that I want to be wherever You are because that will be a good place, a safe place, and my home.

Another youth retreat is over and my thoughts are with the younger members of my parish. I don’t recall being as busy, or at least feeling required to be as busy, when I was younger as they seem to be. Advanced placement classes, sports, jobs, various groups, family things. I wonder, sometimes, when they actually sleep. They have a lot of adult stuff thrown at them at a time when they’re still working out all kinds of big questions and if it was rough for me sometimes, and it was, I can’t imagine how it is now.

So when we have a youth retreat people sometimes ask me what the “program” is, what series of events, lectures, and activities am I using to fill the time. I think they’re surprised when they discover there is very little “program” and wide swaths of open space. I guess the idea is that even these times need to be be shaped by the same form that dance class, school, and everything else in their lives seems to have.

And that’s why I don’t often do it that way. To me these good young people are in a whirlwind of daily activities where well meaning people try to cram as much into their lives as possible and fill their potential college application essays with everything they’re supposed to have. It’s almost a kind of competition to do everything and be everything in the shortest amount of time.

There will be plenty of time for that in life after high school and college. In the not too distant future they will be dancing in a blender filled with work, kids, and everything the mad world can throw at them. They need something else.

They need to be allowed to be kids and not just mini adults. There is a kind of fun, goofy, exuberant, kind of life in children that we shouldn’t try to kill off too soon, if ever. Kids need to play. So do adults, by the way, but that’s another post. Somewhere there has to be a release valve where the pressures to do and be and perform are loosened and they can have a precious space of time to be kids without the adult world making its constant demands on them.

Young people need to learn how to rest. Their adult life can be filled with never ending tasks and if they don’t learn how to rest, the beautiful art of doing nothing, they will, sadly, join the herd of unhappy, harried, people who have gained the whole world but lost their soul. God declared a day of rest so we humans could be more than our work, tending to the garden of our relationships and soul which are, in the long run, exceedingly more important than whatever office we can acquire as we claw our way up the corporate ladder.

They also need to learn to contemplate, to look at the stars, live with the kind of silence that can let them think clearly, and ponder great things in the absence of the world’s noise. At one retreat a group of our young folks spent a few hours out on the dock looking up into the night sky and considering the stars above. The knowledge, the wisdom, gained from that is, in my opinion, as important to the development of true character as what they learn in school. While understanding advanced calculus can be a mark of intelligence, pondering the larger world, the whole of God’s creation and its vastness, is what helps make a person wise.

In the end that’s my only program, to create a space where, in the sometimes crazy world, young people can step back from their world, even for a few hours, and be open to something larger than just the continual tasks of any given day. Freed from the moment I hope they will be open to see eternity because no one can see eternity and not be profoundly changed for the good.

in the header is from my recent Orthodox Christian Missionary Center short term trip to Uganda. I’ve been processing everything in the several weeks I have been back and hope to post my thoughts on it in the near future. In this particular picture I am with primary students from the school attached to St. Obadiah Parish on Lake Victoria some kilometers away from Jinja, Uganda. It was a profound honor to serve these people and a part of me will always belong there.

The air bears witness, ever so slightly,
that winter is behind the scenes.
September warmth is deceiving,
The nights tell the truth,
the leaves as well,
and what they call “Good sleeping weather”
is all the coming end of sunny days.
So the pace quickens,
and all the living things
choose to be more lively.
To take it all in.
To prepare.
Gray skies, long nights,
and winter all will come soon enough.
So these last glimpses become gifts,
jewels of the most beautiful kind,
and memories that sustain
in the cold days ahead.