Tags
anxiety, gifts, glorify, God, non-anxious, role model, stress, tension
This Saturday our parish has its Annual Fall Fair – a festive gathering with vendors, food, children’s activities, raffles, and other fall merriment. We are blessed with an 11-acre property, so the event is a wonderful way for us to welcome people to our grounds and remind the community that they are welcome here. Having done this event for so many years, most of our parishioners know what needs to be done – signs, publicity, donors, coordinating vendors, setting up the property, making baskets, bringing in donations. The list goes on. But even though we all know what needs to be done, there is usually a bit of anxiety and stress to make sure the event is a success, especially in the week leading up to the event. As someone who can become easily stressed, I totally understand the reaction. Though I am not involved in the execution of the event, I always empathize with our parishioners as the tension builds in this final week.
But this year, something has shifted. I do not know if it is due to their personalities or if they are being intentional in their behavior, but our co-chairs for this event are being the epitome of a non-anxious presence in the community. Don’t get me wrong, they have had plenty of reasons to become anxious: several key volunteers are unavailable this year, leading to some out-sourcing; the vendors are coming in a little more slowly; and we are trying some very different, new things this year. But the co-chairs seem to be rolling with the punches, creating solutions, and keeping their cool. And although the church is abuzz with activity, I sense that the non-anxious presence of the co-chairs is rubbing off on others. People are doing their assigned tasks, and there seems to be much less tension going into the event.
It is in moments like these when I am grateful to be in a community with a wide variety of gifts. Being a non-anxious presence is one of my primary goals in my role as pastor and priest in this community. I feel like that action alone reduces challenges significantly and enables the body to live out its ministry in a healthy and God glorifying way. But being non-anxious takes work and intentionality, and some days I exude that calm better than others. This week, I am grateful for parishioners who are serving as healthy role models, and who invite me to live into my call in a more healthy way.
I have been pondering for the last ten days what to say about the experience of Hurricane Sandy. I think I felt overwhelmed because I knew that my experience was not as bad as thousands of others in our area. My experience felt superficial somehow, as if I did not earn enough credit to have something to say about all of this. But what I realized these last couple of days is that although I cannot speak for places that were utterly devastated by this horrible storm, I can speak for what life has been life for the rest of us, tied to those who are suffering more while suffering ourselves.
Finally, I have been struck by the overwhelming ways in which this storm has brought out the goodness in others. My parishioners have been running extension cords across the street to share power with others. I observed all of us talking to one another more – learning more of each others’ stories – caring more about the welfare of each other. People without power themselves have bent over backwards to make sure my family was okay. Friends and parishioners have taken us in for hot meals and for washing laundry or for simple camaraderie. People long to help others even when they are suffering. There is a sense of abundance in the face of devastation. There is joy watching a toddler find creative ways to entertain herself. And the outpouring of love from all over the region is even more overwhelming. I have felt like that wall that keeps us from sharing Christ with one another has been decimated, and Christ is found all around us as we love and care for one another.