As we continue to discuss in worship together the cycle of Order-Disorder-Reorder, I am reminded that we can sometimes get stuck:
So comfortable and stuck in our sense of Order, that unexpected Disorder just shatters us, and
So hopeless and stuck in our sense of Disorder, that it is difficult to see signs of Reorder that emerge.
Life is not so simply binary of either/or, but rather a more fluid mix of both/and. Holding those in tension enables us to keep our eyes on the bigger picture–the bigger Truth–and remain open to growth. I look at my calendar and see two examples.
On consecutive Saturdays, April 2 and 9, we will celebrate the lives of Ron McFarland and Rick Cline respectively–significant losses for our church family. It is easy to get stuck in our sense of disorder and see only the natural losses that occur due to age and circumstance. And it can be difficult see what is also happening on those consecutive Saturdays.
This Saturday, April 2, I will leave Ron McFarland’s memorial and drive to Anna to celebrate the wedding vows of Scott and Apryl Burns with their extended Burns/Murray/Garza families. On the same Saturday (April 9) of Rick Cline’s memorial, there is also a large Community Yard Sale here at the church as well as a Confirmation Retreat for about a dozen middle school youth who will join our church in May (and these in addition to the six adults who joined our church just last week).
In the wilderness, there is always the disorder of death but there is also the reorder of new life. This is the sacred rhythm of our personal lives and of our life as a church. We can trust that rhythm because we trust the Creator who gave us that rhythm. We feel the death but, at the same time, we know the new life – the new order that is coming.
In the wilderness especially, we hold them both, trusting the Spirit who walks and sails alongside us toward the Easter horizon.
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
