Dearly Beloved,
First, a reminder -- it's daylight savings on Sunday, so set your clocks ahead and come to church an hour early so that you can be on time!
I was so grateful today to go back and read what I wrote last week.... I don't quite have the rhythm yet, but I am prioritizing rest in a variety of ways. Prioritizing slowing down and paying attention, not just to the big things, not just to the big questions, but to the very specific ones. The ones right here. In front of me.
I recall as a girl living in Zimbabwe, our neighbor Chitta (Chitta was a doctor from Bangladesh who moved in next door and spent lots of time with my family) asking three questions:
What is the most important task?
Who is the most important person?
When is the most important time?
These were questions from Chitta's life of faith -- I believe that Chitta practiced Hinduism, but I could be misrecollecting that. In any case, I remember clearly Chitta's answers:
The most important task is the task at hand.
The most important person is the one you are with.
The most important time is right now: this very moment.
In many ways, these questions and their answers echo Mary Oliver's poem that was included in last week's message.
Be here now.
Be here.
Be.
At some point, in simply being, we manage to be here -- in this place. And we manage to be here now -- in this place in this moment. And yet, how often do we get distracted? We get busy instead of allowing ourselves to get full -- full of beauty, full of peace, full of compassion, full of hope, full of life and love in this very moment.
What is preventing you from being? From being fully? From telling your whole truth? What is preventing you from being here? And being here now? And what is helping you to be? And to be here? And to be here now?
This Sunday, Nikki and I want to open up our worship space for your questions of us. We want to wrestle with you and share our thoughts on all things holy, music, worship, sacred, ecclesiological (having to do with church) and theological (having to do with God). While this is not an invitation to quiz us on our personal lives, this is an opportunity to ask us about our own faith journeys -- how we got to be here now. And about our wrestling. And certainly about our understanding of God/Spirit/Christ, church, worship, and music.
So, bring your questions. If you worship with us remotely, please email your questions ahead of time or you'll be able to put them in the chat during our prayer time. If you worship with us in-person, you'll have a chance to write your questions and we'll collect them. Almost certainly, we will run short on time. But what a good problem to have -- to many questions, too much wondering, for us to get to all the answers.
We will get to practice being patient with all that remains unsolved in our hearts and in our heads and holding (some of) the questions together.
With love and in wonder,
Thandiwe
