Where do I fit?

During a recent study leave, Nancy and I experienced some different forms of contemporary worship and discussed them with those who planned and led the services. The services included significant time for contemplation. I did not intend to compose a meditation during those times, but the following thoughts found their way into the small notepad I usually have with me. I hope they stimulate reflections in you as well. The opening sentence followed a meditation by a young pastor, who has much to offer and ample room to grow homiletically.

How curious that a stumbling, stammering, obviously inexperienced, and unfortunately inarticulate preacher, who wandered through the four lectionary readings and two others just for the mystery of it, came to the very question that has hounded me for months: "Where do I fit?" She offered no answer. Nor can I. Beneath her words, however, I heard or sensed a call, perhaps a command, to trust. Trust what? Trust that calls or commands exist and find their way to us? Trust that glimpses of life speak more truly and profoundly than death? Trust that death itself yields because, for reasons we may never fathom, creation (and hence life) is? Trust that relationships matter, even though those into which we are drawn and we ourselves fail or fade?

Where do I fit? I once claimed with conviction that I knew. Now I whisper and sometimes hurl the query into depths of echoless silence. Perhaps for now that is precisely where I fit until/unless some new call/command comes. Trust will/does suffice.

What/who do I trust? I trust that relationships matter and always have the capacity to matter for good. I trust that we exist only in relationship and that we remain in relationship even when we feel alone and/or refuse to acknowledge the connections that provide and sustain our lives. I trust that God exists in relationship, a relationship best described as perichoresis, which literally means "dance around" and points to the indwelling and intersecting realities that we experience and know as God. Because all that is exists in relationship, I trust that despite our temporality and other frailties we matter and I matter. Because all that is exists in relationship, I trust that we and I stand accountable to the author of life for the gift of life.

Where do I fit? We/I fit with the hungry, for every hunger illustrates our dependence on others, a dependence both necessary and wonderful. We/I fit with the thirsty, for each drink comes from something other. We/I fit with those who may not know they have need and with those who acknowledge their deep, abiding, grace-filled, and grace-seeking need. How curiously we are led, even, when necessary, in spite of ourselves, to the grace and embrace of relationship, which is life.

Thanks for your part of the relationships, MWPC. I do not always claim to know where our relationships will take us, but I resolutely believe that we are led and that we follow most faithfully together.

Grace and Peace,

LP