It seems sometimes that everything is closing in around us, like everything is falling apart, like there is simply no hope for things to improve.
Shiloh has been under a cloud for the first several months of 2014. The weather has been awful. It has kept many away, both from worship and from activities in the life of the church. When people do not come, everything in the life of the congregation suffers, from morale to money.
As always, Shiloh has been a very busy place, where we work tirelessly to "Live the Word by Serving the World." The February concentration on Black History Month was meaningful and energizing, as was the celebration on March 2-3. Bible @ Boston's has been going strongly enough, especially through that celebration and into Lent. Weekly Bible studies are sparsely attended but very meaningful for those who have been attending. The dedication concert for Shiloh's organ console was well attended and a tremendous success, despite the fact that the antiphonal, which worked just that morning, ceased to function.
The staff has been decimated by illness and injury. One member of the staff has had knee replacement surgery and is not yet back to the office. Another faces triple bypass surgery later this week, and faces at least eight weeks off of work. A third has just been hospitalized with pneumonia. A fourth has been affected by flu-like symptoms, and has missed some activities. A fifth staff member is on vacation this week, while the rest of us are walking and driving very carefully. We simply can't afford another staff member off work and maintain anything like the level of activity to which Shiloh has become accustomed.
It has felt recently as though, like Milne's Eeyore, a dark cloud has settled over us. We do excellent ministry, but it seems more and more difficult to accomplish the things that we had, in the past, taken for granted.
Perhaps it is appropriate at this point in the season of Lent to feel the oppression of the surrounding darkness. Maybe it is right for us to feel a sense of dark depression, to recognize the impending doom of both Jesus' Crucifixion and our own faithful response. It may be the case that we are unable to genuinely experience the light of Resurrection without first passing through the darkness of death.
As we heard during Shiloh's Black History Month celebration, maybe these are times that we can but "watch and pray," waiting for the light of new life to break into the gathering gloom. Pray for Ken and Sid and Martha and Aaron. Pray for one another, as we take this journey together.
Watch and pray!
1 comment:
I should add to this mention of a staff member who has spent a week in Indianapolis with a spouse who had particularly sensitive surgery. Happily, they are now home, though still in the mode of recovery.
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