And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God, and they will be my children. (Revelations 21: 5-7)

The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. – Socrates

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.- Viktor Frankl

 

Its SPRING!  I have tulips coming up in my side yard.  I have a new kitten.  I’m loving being able to go outside in shoes instead of my heavy boots, and a light jacket instead of a parka.  Spring always heralds ‘newness’ for me, and we celebrate it so often starting with Easter Sunday.  Spring brings Proms and Graduations for our students, Annual Meetings and Golfing for our church and potlucks celebrating our hiatus from meetings during the Summer.

At the same time though, Spring also brings rain.  And lots of rain.  Its raining right now as I write.  With the rain has come flooding and high winds that have knocked out power for some, damaged basements for others, and has meant I have a ton of brush clean up to do – when it stops raining of course.

The shadow side of the newness of life, right!  The rain that comes with joy and the winds that come with celebration.

Because the truth of the matter is that all ‘newness’, all change, as a shadow side.  A shadow side of loss and grief that can somehow mire us into ‘stinking thinking’ as the old saying goes.  Even though we love new things, it does mean that we must let go of the old in order to move forward.

Not too long ago, I went down a YouTube rabbit hole watching old episodes of the A&E show, ‘Hoarders’.  At least I did until it got to emotionally painful for me to watch.  Because, the story behind each person’s battle with a Hoarding disorder was painfully similar: they had a history of trauma or deprivation that led them into ‘holding on’ to objects or possessions that were no longer useful or helpful to them.  Eventually, the need to ‘hold on’ to these objects, eclipsed all of their efforts to move forward in life with reasonable amounts of possessions, or ‘healthy’ possessions, and they needed outside help to manage both their feelings and their ‘stuff’.

As each person bravely dealt with their hoard, with as much assistance as they would allow, their always seemed to be a time when ‘letting go’ was too overwhelming and too difficult.  For some people it meant that they couldn’t move forward.  At all.

I have pondered the lesson in that story as we as a church are trying to move forward into a new way of being.  And I mean this as a ‘global’ church, not necessarily our own beautiful community of faith, although we are facing change at the same rate as everyone else.  I have pondered this as I see other communities of faith trying to deal with their own change, and balking at things that I consider ‘no-brainers’ in the process:  A refusal to change the time of worship on Sunday morning for example.  Or even bigger ones, the refusal to downsize to a smaller property even though they are a few dozen meeting in a building set up for 500.  In fact, the issue of property and what it represents looms largest, with congregations struggling to meet property expenses and are choosing to let go of staff over the property.  Property, or stuff, has become more important than the people who made it important.

And I get it, our buildings and how they appear, and what’s in them are places where we’ve encountered God, for many of us, for decades.  I would be really sad if the church I grew up in closed.  And that’s actually a really strong likelihood.

Spring rains.  Change with loss and grief.  They come together, right?  And even when we know because we know because we know that change is necessary and good, it still often hurts.  But the Good News today, is that even in the change and in the pain and loss, that God is present.  God is present as the Alpha and Omega, in the beginning through to the end.  God is present to meet our needs, even our needs for comfort.

So come with me, my dear Bethel Friends, and lets move forward together knowing that the pain and loss we have is also part of our Spring.

Blessings today and Remember you are Loved.

~Rev. Lynne