beautifully unaware

I’m editing my new upcoming book on Vision. It will include cartoons. I’m quite excited about it.

I went back through my blog gleaning all relevant posts. So last night I took a sort of fly-over of the whole history of my blog. I made an interesting discovery from my years of pastoring my last church:

We were at our best when we were at our worst.

In other words, when we were struggling with something: cancer, accident, the death of a loved one through cancer, suicide or heart attack or something else, financial disaster, personal bankruptcy, ridicule from other churches, gay rights and full inclusion, pregnancy before marriage, miscarriages, etc., etc., etc… that’s when we shone.

I read the notes I’ve kept from people during these times expressing how grateful they were for the church in all its simplicity and weakness, authenticity and genuineness, its raw and unpretentious nature that allowed them to be themselves, to find healing, and to be restored to contributing compassionate citizens of this world.

Adversely, it was when everything was going smoothly that trouble started stirring. It was during the doldrums when people got restless, impatient, ambitious and, for lack of a better word, bitchy.

When our focus changed from compassionately caring for someone in our midst in deep anguish, pain and sorrow to wanting to become something… that was when we got ugly. In my opinion.