Much To Do

Many thanks to each of you for your encouragement and support as I have walked the rather arduous six-year journey to ordination. What an honor it is to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church, and what a special gathering we had this past Sunday of voices who have been so instrumental in the life of our church. May the Lord bless our days ahead with the energy and encouragement of a wonderfully circuitous path! (If you missed it or if you would like to view again, click here to see our December 27 service.)

As we look forward to celebrating the New Year, join me in pondering again the irony of the words I shared this past Sunday from Dr. Robert P. Kerr in The People's History of Presbyterianism:

Books are to be read, not to lie on dusty shelves. But this is a busy age, and most persons will not take time to read extensive treatises. The people call for short sermons, short prayers, and short books. Nor is this demand without reason; for life itself is short, and there is much to do.

Kerr wrote these words in 1888, a time when the telephone was first gaining popularity and many years before automobiles were affordable. How curious to hear a scholar from an era we view as slow-paced bemoaning the rush that we feel in our 21st-century Silicon Valley scramble, right? Just as Kerr acknowledged the hurry of culture in 1888, I hope we will all ponder the pressures that define our lives -- both with COVID restrictions in place and as we (hopefully) emerge in the year ahead. Is our "much to do" honorable, biblical, and energizing? Are the pressures we feel each day Holy Spirit-inspired? As we align our lives with Christ, is our busy-ness worthy?

Acclaimed nature writer and National Book Award winner Barry Lopez died on Christmas Day after a battle with prostate cancer. Lopez, who was a longtime resident of Oregon, often spoke of our inability to hear one another when we are "people with agendas." When we are pressed for time, agendas can be logical; they help us to be efficient and purposeful, drawing from an experience what is most helpful and moving on to the next. But are we able to listen well, to be fully present in each new moment, when we are distracted by the agenda we have prepared and are waiting anxiously to attend to?

Perhaps our greatest challenge for the New Year is simply gratitude: loving the world we already have and praising God for the intricacies he has set in motion for us in the present moment. It is not our job nor our calling to race about frantically, striving to satisfy agendas that mean little in God's majestic eternal view. "Mystery," Lopez writes, "is the real condition in which we live, not certainty." How can we enter 2021 grateful for the mystery and joy-filled as we encounter each new moment with Christ-like attentiveness?

Blessings on your New Year's celebration,

Jennie