Saturday, May 23, 2009

Clarity



“Making room for less …”

That phrase has stayed with me now for the last two and a half weeks. Making room for less.

I write this sitting by a lake in one of our state parks. Temperatures have been much cooler these last few days compared to the other days of May. I have a tent pitched and water is coming to a boil on my camp stove. I am alone. But then again, I am not alone at all. When we live in community, as people of faith often do, we are never alone.

At home, my wife and youngest son prepare themselves to turn in for the evening. My oldest is with his mother, getting ready for bed before his last day of second grade.

The congregation I currently serve is now seated around a table for a called board meeting. Their task, as I understand it, is to be creative as they discern and plan their future in the midst of economic crisis and chronic anxiety.

Tonight, MY congregation includes crickets chirping, a very friendly squirrel, a thirsty deer, and birds playing on a sand bar a lob wedge’s distance away. There are also gnats swarming around me … every congregation has gnats.

The sun is beginning to set.

The church choir tonight is Jimmy Buffett on my I-Pod (ironically, “My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don’t Love Jesus” just started. No lie. You cannot make stuff like that up.).

It has been windy today, but now there is just a breeze. The Holy Spirit likes to worship outside, too.

A couple of Sundays ago, I sat with a different congregation. The music was to die for. A thin young man wearing a turquoise shirt and khakis with a beautiful voice sang a capella. His voice filled the church and my soul. God bless the men, women, and children with that gift; I certainly covet it.

The sermon that day was “based” in John’s Gospel; Jesus’ words of being the Vine. Vines. Branches. Fruit. Pruning. I heave heard these words and preached them more than I sometimes care to. I soon became disinterested in the sermon. It seemed to be ill-prepared and rambling. In my head, I began to write my own sermon - I guess from that standpoint the sermon was “successful.” Here it is, nine days later, and I still reflect upon it.

Each biblical text, I believe, has within it at least one“image.” Some are obvious, others are more embedded, if you will. My mind began to wander to the image of “pruning.”

On my most cynical day, this should not be to surprising. William Sloane Coffin once stated that in order to protect the sheep, you have to get rid of a few wolves. That is pruning. This, however, is not the type of pruning I was considering … THIS time .

I was thinking more of the temporal pruning my life – and I am sure, most lives – find themselves in need. A pruning of things that in the Grand Scheme … that in a healthy and fruitful life – that within the Kingdom of God – do not mean a damn thing. My wife calls it “clutter.”

I have a lot of clutter in my life and most of it is clutter you cannot see. It is the clutter that fills my mind and often troubles my spirit. It is the clutter that causes me to grind my teeth and clench my jaw. It is the clutter that causes me to snap. It is the clutter that causes me to question. It is the clutter that brings me to the woods. THIS clutter needs to be pruned. It needs to be cut away and burned in the unquenchable fire. This MUST happen in order for new fruit to spring forth and flourish.

When the clutter is gone, newness has the potential to come in and take its place. Without clutter, there is the possibility for clarity.

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