Posted by Sophia at RevGalBlogPals:
It's the last week of the semester here so I offer another very simple Friday Five in honor of the past, present, and eschatological dimensions of this powerful season of the church year.... Please share five ways that God has come to you (your family or friends, your church or workplace, our world) in the past year, that God is coming to you right now, and/or that you are longing and looking for God to come. Marana tha! Come Lord Jesus!
1. In the past year, God has come to me most powerfully in, first, the quiet suggestion, and then the booming imperative, that it was time to come out to my congregation. I stood at the edge of a precipice, and God said, Leap! (The evolution of my thinking/ God's speaking to me can be found at my other blog, [un]closeted pastor, beginning in February. It was a Lent thing.).
2. If God said "Leap!", then my loved ones and congregation caught me, most profoundly. God came to me (and continues to come) in the affirmations and support I have received from nearly everyone in my congregation, and from all my friends, family and Beloved, without exception.
3. God comes to me in the early darkness of Advent. I have long loved this season, a whispered and candle-lit time in a minor key. It pulls me back to center, despite the crazy/busy nature of the way the world wants us to prepare for Christmas.
4. God comes to me in the reminders I receive daily that my work is not "all about me," but rather, like John the Baptist, a pointing upward. In reading the article about which I blogged here, I recognized a dangerous tendency in myself to assume total responsibility for the way things are going at church-- especially when they go awry. God comes as I am able to let go of that particular form or idolatry, and focus on the business of putting the Good News in front of my congregation.
5. God comes in relationships. Beloved, Petra, Larry, peacester, Little Mary... you know who you are. I am constantly amazed to see and experience the depths of love that are available to me. Thank you God.
5 comments:
Rejoicing with you in the tremendous blessings that have come from your stepping out in faith this year...and mine, come to think about it! Godde and her people are so very good.
Oh yes, quite a year it has been. So blessed to share in your journey, clearly God HAS been all over it!
What a year for you! So grateful that God nudged you, you took the leap, and those bearing the face of Christ caught you! What a gift, what a blessing, what a year. May this continue to be a gift to you in the years ahead.
Blessings indeed on the ways God continues to reveal divine love for you and to you. Your comment about overachieving when it comes to taking responsibility at church for the ways the corporate "we" can go awry is familiar to me, too. "They" are complicit as well, since it is so easy to lay the blame at the leader's feet.
Love that candlelight picture. I have it downloaded, too.
OK, am I the only person on the planet who did not know that you and uncloseted pastor are one and the same?
Of course, most things go flying right by me these days ... I think if a gigantic UFO zoomed through the front yard I would miss it....
Anyway, I am so delighted for you that your year has been so filled with goodness and blessings!
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