Under Construction

It is summertime and that means many roads are torn up or blocked off as diggers, bulldozers and trucks fill the roadways and ditches to improve the road. There is the old joke, “There are only two seasons in Canada, winter and construction.” Well, it isn’t only on the roads. This morning I was feeling a bit beleaguered. I am moving my office to a different space. Even though it is within the same building there are books to pack and numerous knick knacks and doodads to put into boxes to move across to the other side of the building. At home I am still mulling over what of Carl’s stuff to keep and what to let go of and how to do that. To add to all that I decided this was the year to make a new garden and so I dug up a section of lawn and have been planting and transplanting for a coupe of months now. All of this was roiling around my thinking this morning and as I texted to a friend, I said, “I feel like every aspect of my life is ‘Under Construction’!” She replied, “Yes, but the good thing about construction is that there is an end to it and we usually love the results.” Wise words but hard to appreciate in the middle of a muddle within the muddle of a mess.

I remember, way back in 1988, when the church was discussing the call of gays and lesbians to ministry, it was a difficult time in the church. Many of us leading in congregations were subjected to hurtful and sometimes hateful comments. People left the church and members of other denominations mocked us. I attended a day for clergy to just talk about what we were experiencing and to offer support to one another. One of the ministers at the meeting said, “I take solace from the fact that the amount of chaos is generally equal to the wonderful thing that God is creating.” I have always held on to those words. When my life is chaos and it feels like everywhere I look I am under construction I think, “What amazing thing is God creating now?”

As I sorted papers in my office and decided what to move and which ones to recycle I came upon this poem by the late Archbishop Oscar Romero. It seems an appropriate find in the archeological dig I am into on this afternoon of chaos.
Thank you Archbishop.

“We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying
that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes that Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
That is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities
We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master-builder and the worker.
we are workers, not master-builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own!”