Reflections from the Interim Rector
Hopes and expectations
What a warm welcome Cherry and I have received from parishioners and staff at St. Andrew’s On-the-Sound. We cannot thank you enough, and it’s hard for me to express the joy I feel about joining with you for this interim time. We are giving thanks for all the beautiful things God has done among you, with faithful leaders like Richard Elliott, and we look forward to the new thing that God is beginning among us even now.
When each of our three children was born, Cherry and I had great hopes for them. We loved the joy and adventure of rearing our children, but things didn’t always go as we planned – far from it! As each child grew and occasionally veered this way and that from our plans for them, we from time to time applied a little loving pressure, hoping to get things back on track, in accordance with our hopes and expectations. All to no avail – things frequently just didn’t work out as we planned.
Finally, and I don’t think this was a conscious thing on our part, Cherry and I sort of let go. And what we realized about our children was that, in each case, they turned out far better than we hoped. In fact, we did not know that we could even ask God for the miraculous children and young adults they turned out to be.
C.S. Lewis famously said that God probably finds our hopes, desires, and expectations to be paltry and anemic, compared to the glory that God is trying to offer us. Contenting ourselves with drink and sex and ambition, we are like children who insist on our own plans: we want to go on making mud pies in a slum, while we are being offered a holiday at the sea. We have no idea what we are being offered, so we insist on our own way.
Maybe our hopes for an interim time and your search for a new rector can obscure our vision of the much greater things that God is trying to offer and do among us. If we can simply let go a bit and open ourselves more fully to the presence and activity of God within us and among us, this interim time and the calling of a new rector will likely work out far better than we could ever have hoped or imagined.
The title of J.B. Phillips’ book says it all, “Your God is Too Small.” So are our hopes and expectations.
Instead of relying on our own brilliant planning, perhaps patience and contemplative listening are key, so that in the end we will not say, “We accomplished just what we set out to accomplish!” Instead, we might say, “Wow. We didn’t even know we could ask God for the beautiful things that have been done among us.”
As we begin this interim chapter together, I am drawn to a meditative poem by Kabir (15th century, translated by Daniel Ladinsky). It reminds me of Jesus’ beloved invitation, “Come to me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11:28) Like Jesus’ words, this poem can be an opening to prayer – not just a written prayer that we dutifully recite every week, but an actual surrendering or giving of ourselves to God. You might try reading it slowly, perhaps more than once. Then, perhaps close your eyes, as you silently release yourself to the reassuring Presence within you, the One who’s shoulder is soft, and who is all too happy to steer for a while:
You are sitting in a wagon being
drawn by a horse whose
reins you hold.
There are two inside of you
who can steer.
Though most never hand the reins to Me
so they go from place to place the
best they can, though
rarely happy.
And rarely does their whole body laugh
feeling God's poke
in the ribs.
If you feel tired, dear,
my shoulder is soft,
I'd be glad to
steer a
while