This morning I wrote Pastoral Letter 19 since the lock down started on March 23. We didn't know then how long this would all go on, and we still have no clear pathway forward beyond easing lock down and carrying on with the public health measures known to hinder the spread of Covid 19. Over these weeks I have written weekly to our church community, and prepared a brief Thought for the Day based on one biblical text each day. As time passes they are building up into an archive of pastoral care by written words. I live 40 miles from Montrose, so till the last week or two travel was impossible, and even now physical distancing and restricted meeting frustrate the desire for presence when face recognises face and heart speaks to heart.
I haven't reread any of them, but I suspect some recurring themes will be becoming evident to those who read them week by week. The theme or text on which I write is not pre-planned but arises out of the overall context we find ourselves living through. The mood of the country, the daily updates on statistics and public health measures, my own sense of what is happening, conversations with various folk I try to help and support, all influence the way I think, pray and write. In other words, theological reflection takes place in the here and now of a zeitgeist exuding anxiety about health, uncertainty about work and economic damage, impatience to return to normal which feels like a form of denial of the reality that it may never again be the way it was.
So, where now? How to live faithfully and purposefully in a world evolving into something different but unclear? At the level of local church communities the questions are just as troubling and the answers just as difficult to find. Every week I've struggled to find words and ideas that might help our church community to hold on to hope, to think new thoughts, to see our times against the backdrop of God's long purposes, to acknowledge the reality of suffering and not give facile faith lifts.
In doing all that I've learned to do something that has become part of the way I am a pastor mostly en absentia, physically distant but wanting to be near. I pray through the list of all those who are part of our church, formal members and committed friends, those who are always there and those who are seldom there. A number of folk I've supported by phone, email, text and letters / cards. I've always done these things, but now they are the primary expressions of a calling that has previously relied so much on presence, spoken words, and the sacrament of physicality that is the human body being present as grace to other people.
So as I have come to write each week, I have a growing sense of those who will read, think about, and respond to all those words. Some will be for blessing, some will touch places where pain resides, some will annoy though that is never the intention, and some will inform, encourage, or empower - this I hope, and pray. It isn't the same; indeed it's nothing like the same as embodied, incarnational presence which is both sacramental and mutual in the meeting of hearts and minds and the nearness of the other.
Today's letter was written around words written 2,400 years ago, give or take a century or two. The Book of Proverbs is a reader's Digest of one liners for smart living, or wisdom as the book calls it. In chapter 3 there are words that will become axiomatic in how faith communities go about their decision making processes.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3.5-6)
What I wrote about that verse, I'll post on Monday once it has gone out to our folk. For now suffice to say it has sharp relevance to any of us who ask of God, where now? Meantime, I also came across a prayer written by one of the thinkers I follow closely in his books and online. A man of spiritual wisdom, humility and realism about how the world actually works, and who commits this day as each day to God. This is our prayer for the week in our wee church, in Montrose, week beginning August 3rd, in the 19th week since lock down, and in the confusion and uncertainty of the times, seeking for right paths.
Eternal God, I have many plans for today.
But I do not know what the day will bring, despite my plans.
And more – I am a mist. I appear for a while – and then vanish.
My life here is but a moment, but you are eternal.
May I embark upon this day, intentional about what I think you want me to do,
and yet humble about the limits of my plans, my knowledge, my control.
Into your hands I commit my day. AMEN
(David Gushee, Distinguished Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Centre for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University.)
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