I am told that things will soon slow down at St. Paul's. But it doesn't seem that way yet. There has been no let up since Lent and Easter. We had the wonderful baptisms of two Sundays ago; this Sunday we celebrate our youth, and they will be taking over most everything in the 10 am worship. The column restoration project out front is in full swing. We've also had a series of memorials and funerals, with more to come in the next few days. Meanwhile, our Community Garden is about to be launched this Sunday (more on that in another post on another day). Later in May we will have our first annual "Choir Celebration Sunday" and the music being planned is awesome. Bishop Shannon will be in Charlottesville at noon today, and my calendar is jammed with meetings. It is much too easy to get caught up in all the business of busy-ness and forget that Church is more than about the tasks in front of us.
During Lent, the amazing Barbara Crafton sent this little missive along that helps keep things in perspective, I think, and I pass it along it here:
The nice thing about church is that it's not all up to you. Not all the resources can come from within you. Maybe none of them can, not today. Church isn't just you at your very, very best. Sometimes it's you at your next-to-worst, and you must rely on others within it to carry you where you cannot go on your own. You may not have it all together, but at least you are not alone in this: they are there to lean on -- the composers and the organ builders, the painters and the sculptors. Many of them are dead, and hence have more time than you do. Things probably look a lot calmer from where they sit.
Ask them for help. Life swirled around them, too -- maybe not as fast as it swirls around you, but the past was no cakewalk. They survived it long enough, and with enough energy, to leave us beautiful things, things to hear and see, things that can take us to a better place at times when we really need to go to one.
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