All that remains is the doing. We’ve said our piece.  Expressed our opinions. Given voice to our anxieties.  Articulated our principles and perspectives. Our annual meeting in January had more passionate speech than any other in the six years of my tenure at Peace.  This is a good thing. We muddled through together, and I’m grateful for that. I’ve always been nervous at the lack of conversation about budgets at previous meetings.  Silence in the face of the choices and priorities embodied in a budget is not a good thing.

It can be a sign of good health when members of a community define their positions—especially when the positions aren’t universally  shared—and at the same time stay connected.  Exercising these “muscles” in this “body of Christ” can be a stretching experience.   It may leave us feeling a bit sore, but in the end it will make us stronger as long as we take care of each other during the process.  When we exercise our gifts to build up the body (rather than tearing it down), the whole body benefits; it helps to build our collective “immune system” and to strengthen us against the kind of threats that can weaken or even destroy communities.  So we keep on growing…we keep on learning…we build our resilience…we grow more capacity for the tasks ahead.

The images we saw on the screen at our meeting, the numbers on paper, the words on the pages of our annual reports, the names of the newly elected to council and task force—all these count, all these matter.  But they are—all of them—PRELUDE.  Now that the meeting is over, the show, the liturgy, the dance (abun-dance?), the mission commences. All that remains is the doing; all that remains is putting it into practice—putting our talent and energy where our heart is, and our money where our mouth is; doing “God’s work” with “our hands;” practicing what we preach.  Are you ready for that?!

When Jesus sent his apprentices off on their first mission trip they were still wet-behind-the-ears learners.  They had mastered nothing.  In fact, much of what he’d taught them they failed to understand.  But Jesus didn’t hold them back for more course work; he didn’t keep them in school until a more appropriate time.  No—he sent them out, knowing that it was in the doing that they would learn the most about themselves, their gifts and limitations, the world’s hunger for wholeness, and the unbelievable power that belongs to all who are companioned by the Spirit of God.  Jesus set basic boundaries around where his apprentices should go and what they should be about, and then he sent them off.  That’s where we are.  All that remains (all!) is the doing.

In her provocative book, Jesus Freak, Sara Miles asks, “what would it mean to live as if you—and everyone around you—were Jesus, and filled with his power?  To just take his teachings literally, go out the front door of your home, and act on them?”  “Jesus,” she writes, “does not, anywhere in the Gospels, spend too much time calling his people to have feelings, or ideas, or opinions.  He calls us to act: hear these words of mine, and act on them.”

Time to get crackin’.

Pastor Erik

Sara Miles, Jesus Freak. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010) pp. ix, xiv

Beloved of God,

 Fellow travelers,

A good poem opens a door to another world, inviting us to enter. Wendell Berry’s poem, The Peace of Wild Things, does that for me.  It opens a door to a world I look forward to spending some time in over the course of these summer months.  Wild places have (almost) always had a calming effect on me.  I say “almost” because black bear encounters have reminded me in not so gentle ways that I was the interloper in their territory.  Sharing trails with grizzlies along the Toklat River in Alaska and realizing I was no longer at the top of the food chain has a way of concentrating the mind!  So the experience of entering wild places may be calming or it may be exhilarating, but it has always been for me freeing.

When a group of us from Peace head for Holden at the end of July, I hope that among our experiences will be this entry into the peace of wild things. Which is not to say that entering wilderness—particularly at a place like Holden—is a benign experience.  The wilderness seems so accessible there—only steps away from the Jacuzzi and snack bar—and it is.  But risk and danger as well as peace attend the wilderness experience, and those who do not discern when they have crossed the boundary between Village and Wilderness can get themselves into trouble fairly quickly.  The point is this: it is proper to prepare before entering wild places and this preparation can extend and deepen the sense of freedom one ultimately experiences.

Teaching my youngest two children how to enter into and appreciate wild places is high on my list of paternal duties.  Spiritual formation has many dimensions.  Learning to experience wilderness without being intimidated by it, allowing oneself to be tutored by wild places and wild beings, are important steps in spiritual formation.  The Scriptures teach us that wilderness has been one of God’s preferred settings for tutoring his people through the ages.  Israel spent 40 years in God’s “outward bound” program trying to learn how to trust God and live in community with each other.  The prophets’ message was honed in the wilderness, John the Baptist found his voice there, and Jesus began his ministry with a wilderness sojourn that shaped and prepared him for what was to come.

Like many things in life, after we’ve acquired a level of experience from the school of “hard knocks,” we can forget how long it took us or how hard-won that knowledge truly is.  Passing on a love of something therefore requires patience, and a willingness to enter into the experience as if for the first time. The natural curiosity and intuitive nature of kids makes this process exciting and fun and, because of the nature of nature…precarious.  Another poet, Michael Meade, has said: Every path a child takes looks precarious to the parent’s eye.  And it is, and “precarious” is an old word which means “full of prayers.” For this and for many other reasons, I hope and I expect that our sojourn at Holden will be full of prayers.

Wherever these summer months find you, I hope that you will spend time in the places and spaces which bring you peace and freedom and refreshment.

Blessings,

Pastor Erik