When one of our kids was in summer camp, they started each session with a litany of healthy practices:
Leader: We will play outside . . .
KIDS: EVERY DAY!
Leader: We will read books . . .
KIDS: EVERY DAY!
Leader: We will be kind to a stranger . . .
KIDS: EVERY DAY!
I found myself tonight saying to one of my favorite pastors who – like me – is exhausted even though we both got a sabbatical last summer:
“Even though there are so many storms, something hopeful happens every day” I told them. I even surprised myself when those words came out of my mouth, but it’s true. Just this week:
- Monday – Coffee with a seminarian under care whose brain I love.
- Tuesday – Brunch with our newest members of Charlotte Presbytery (even though some have been with us for three years. We’d stopped doing these during COVID.) It was fun to watch them connect.
- Wednesday – Gathering with Mid-Council Leaders in a national conference to talk about church finances. Love the statistics because they spark possibilities.
- Thursday – Talking with one of my favorite pastors about a family memorial service.
- Friday – Lunch planned with one of my favorite aunts.
- Saturday – Holiday Market here is Charlotte.
- Sunday – Preaching at one of my favorite congregations who prayed that they would grow and they welcomed 30+ new members last month from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Of course these are not the only things happening in a given day. Every day in Church World there might be meetings that make our eyes glaze over or conversations that exhaust us or conflicts to mediate or missteps that require grace or complaints that make us feel frustrated or even vicious behavior that breaks our spirits. (See my last post.) But I am channeling the summer camp leader who started with a healthy practices litany:
Me: Something hopeful will happen EVERY DAY.
Image of fall bulbs planted in hope.
A Church for Starving Artists 