It slipped by without my realizing it — the two-month mark. Only yesterday, while in conversation with another local clergy-person, did it occur to me that this past Sunday marked our second full month of Sundays together. Time has gone so quickly… and so slowly… somehow simultaneously.
I’m embarrassed to admit how much remains in boxes. Those with recent moves may identify with the subtle tapering that can happen with that task, before it restarts in fits. It seems time for a restart.
I’m trying to maintain a posture of curiosity about this peculiar sort of season with which we have begun. Typically, those first months of a pastor’s tenure are about connections — learning names, attending meetings, being invited into family systems, integrating with local clergy and the region of the denomination, and the like. And yet eight days after our first Sunday service together, a president was inaugurated who immediately set about dismantling the government with vicious and cruel intent.
As a result, much of the work of these months has instead involved researching and responding to the constantly changing crisis of the present moment: How do we protect our ESL students? What do we do if ICE shows up? What are our liabilities if we become a “sanctuary church?” How do we respond to the distorted Christianity that deports the immigrants the scriptures command us to identify with and welcome? What might we do to demonstrate that you cannot spell imagio dei (the image of God) without “DEI”? And on top of it all: How does our voice get heard in Warrenville over all this noise so that our literal neighbors understand who Jesus really is?
This has not been the season I expected, nor (likely) the one you expected. But it is the one we are in together, and I trust God has prepared us all for it in ways we have not yet fully discovered. While I am hopeful at the pushback the administration is getting, I also expect there is much more chaos and destruction still to come. Evil only fights harder when backed into a corner.
But maybe still — when it comes to this shared beginning of ours (like with my unpacking) — it’s time for a reset. I’m doing better with some of your names, but I don’t really know you — not yet. Feel free to reach out to Robyn at the office to get my cell number and let’s find a way to connect. I’d love to hear some of your stories of life and God, your hopes and fears, or even answer any questions I can about myself.
Remember, we’re all in this together.
Pastor Michael