Minister Ponderings - February 2012
- Written by Byron Miller
These are interesting days. That's not meant to be understood in the way of the old Chinese proverb: “May you live in interesting times.” That was not actually a proverb, but rather a curse. No one needs curses (especially if it's “Curses!Foiled again!) And sometimes we use the word “interesting” to avoid giving an expression of positive or negative evaluation. In other words, it's a form of avoidance. Isn'that interesting!
We, yes, we are living in interesting times and it is not a curse. It is a time of transition and transitions are most interesting, indeed. It is change, but not just any change. Changes are the one thing we can all be sure will be guaranteed. I do not mean “guaranteed” in terms of any particular outcome or desire. But the only thing that can be guaranteed is that change will occur.
Change has not often not fared well in theology. Traditional attributes of God concentrated themselves into immutable and absolutist categories. Something that constantly changed could not partake of the “perfections” that were thought to be the essence of the divine. If it could change it wasn't perfect yet. Thus, it was the timeless that was coveted because that which was in time could not be the best it could be.
But theology has not always fared well in the world as we know it because the one thing that is always guaranteed is that we change. So if change is the reality within which we live, what are we to do about it?
Some of us really prefer to have all of our lives under control so that the changes we endure are foreseen and can comfortably be anticipated. Such change becomes routinized and thus takes on the appearance of something unchangeable. If that routinization is the “best of all possible worlds” there is no reason to change it. But that's just the rub. That is so rarely the case. When one begins to consider the visions for the future … any future … one realizes that it is the future that rises above the limitations and foibles of the past that is, in fact, the future we all desire. We may not all agree on what that future is to be or how we are to progress from temporal point A to temporal point B, but we sense the need … the urgency to move forward.
A personal goal that has continually informed how I attempt to move through the tasks that are before me is to take everything I do more than once and bring a principle to bear: Everything I do I want to do better than the last time I've done it, and more quickly the time before … that is until we reach the optimal point that is the best we can do. Sometimes the requirements of need exceed the ability to do the routine better and quicker, but rather obliges us to break the old molds that no longer allow the achievement of what the present and future require. What's required then is something new that departs from what has gone before in order to break out of what stifles creativity and, therefore, achievement of what is above and beyond the past.
We are at such a crossroads at UUFW now. We have before us a bold challenge and a creative opportunity. And while that can sometimes seem formidable, it is in no way insurmountable nor is it even remotely close to impossible. It requires focus, determination and the willingness to step forward with the risks in the name of what we intend to achieve in the process. And what is it we want to achieve in the process? A larger service to the congregation in speaking to its needs; a more open invitation for others to become an active and participating part in that life of the congregation; a vision of programs just a bit larger than that which we think we can comfortably achieve. Why “just a bit larger?” Well, why not think bigger? It doesn't hurt any more to fail thinking big than it does thinking small. But thinking small will tailor the size of the success to a result much less than we can really achieve if we would extend ourselves “juuuust a little more!” Blu Phrog can jump to Blu Skies. Let's get jumpin'!
Reverend Byron Miller, Interim Minister
Byron.Miller@uuwaco.org
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