I have been out of sorts all week. Have you had weeks like that yourself? Every day I seemed to think it was the wrong day. Every task I attempted seemed harder than it should have been. It was harder than usual to stay focused. Things that were important kept falling through the cracks.
I am aware of many reasons for why this might be the case: healing from surgery, the resulting disrupted sleep patterns, and various conflicts and stressors of family, social, and national life. There are some very specific things I am very concerned about right now, and while they impact me and my family in direct ways, I do not necessarily have direct agency in addressing all of them. For others, the sheer magnitude can feel paralyzing. It can be a lot, simply getting by — again, I don’t think I’m saying anything that many of you don’t know already.
Someone called me recently, trying very hard to avoid verbalizing that they were “reminding” me that I hadn’t sent an email I said I would send. I told them in no uncertain terms that I was grateful for the reminder, and that I hoped in the future they wouldn’t be as shy about extending it. Some days… some weeks… sometimes, I need more help than others. I know this. I am grateful for reminders. I am grateful for help. I want to do well — for me, for you, and for God. And I have no qualms about receiving help to achieve that goal.
Because I’ve been out of sorts, I’m thinking about how easy it is to recognize when someone we love is out of sorts — a friend, a spouse, a child, a parent. Just like we recognize their voice by a certain something, we can tell they are “not themselves” by observing them for a mere moment and without a word uttered. How is that? What is it about them that is so recognizable as themselves? What is it about you? What is it about me? How is our “self” so recognizable to others that they can know how we are doing before we say a word?
I wonder too whether the analogy stretches to institutions like the local church. Do churches have a “self”? An identity or personality that is strong enough to be recognized without saying a word? Can churches have seasons of being “not being/feeling like themselves”? How would a church know? How would a church break out of that “funk”?
How do you break out of the “funk” you get in, when you are “not feeling like yourself”? Is there something here for us to hear, together?
I’d love to listen to what you think.
Remember, we’re all in this together,
Pastor Michael