Hypothetically, an awareness of this new cultural context could make it easier to fumble through all the versions of the "What's next? questions without giving it much mind, but the truth is this has not been the case. The reality is the rate at which I find myself in situations where I trip over words to avoid an answer feels utterly inescapable; over email, on the phone, ordering coffee, having lunch. Everywhere I am, the question keeps showing up. At this rate, when I stand up to lead worship next year at this time people will just start whispering to each other "Why is she still here?" There is a sense that I should be moving on, moving up even.... Aren't we supposed to know what we are working toward? Aren't we supposed to have a plan and goals, hopes and dreams? This question has placed itself above my head like a conversational bubble in a very boring comic strip; as of yet my life has no punch line although I often do see the comedic element of it all. I am not a person lacking motivation.
If anything, I believe it has been my naive dreaming combined with an intense blast of self initiative that has kept me imagining the possibilities for my future within Hope; a new church start, a community spiritual center, a budding non-profit for people in need...my dreams are the helium balloons that carry me forward when my feet can't decide which way to walk. Wendell Berry writes, “It may be that when we no longer know which way to go that we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” I need you to know that if the words of Wendell Berry are true, which I believe them to be, I will never be unchallenged nor unemployed while at Hope UMC. Your questions and the spiritual reflection they have instigated have pushed me to realize that my real journey has begun. I am totally baffled. The church is not what it has been. There is no ladder, although the illusion of one still exists enough to perpetuate an unhealthy sense of competition in the clergy body. Churches are closing in our Conference and many, perhaps most, of the churches in our Conference are not able to afford full time clergy.
The blessing in this, as I see it, is there is no longer the distraction of the traditional path, no mirage of moving forward at the cost of leaving God behind. This is the gift; the letting go of the answers. When I was a young child I spent my summers at a small cottage my grandfather built on Pages Lake in Pennsylvania. My best memory is floating in those gigantic black rubber tubes in the middle of the lake. I always knew the dock was there to return to and so I was never afraid to lay my head back, close my eyes and float away for awhile. Hope, you are the dock which gives me the security to float to places the institutional church is still too hesitant to go.
