What are we to do when
a local church has been reduced to a remnant of faithful, albeit disheartened
people, especially compared to days of former strength and glory?
Surely, it has now got
to do something radical (but what?) - for mere survival (if it is to survive).
And can it possibly thrive once more – perchance to rediscover its missional
identity - each congregant becoming a passionate disciple of Jesus, and the
entire church joining with Him in what He is doing – globally where and when
possible, in the life of the particular community and communities all around
it.
In
her book, 'Small Wonder,' Barbara Kingsolver writes -The closest my heart has
come to breaking lately was on the day my little girl arrived home from school
and ran to me, her face tense with expectation, asking, "Are they still
having that war in Afghanistan?"
I
suppose there are a lot of things that may break our heart. The passing of a
loved one, the absence of a friend, the hopes and fears that turn into dashed
dreams and the reality finally happening: something we had greatly feared
actually happens.
"As
if," she continues, "the world were such a place that in one
afternoon. while kindergartners were working hard to master the letter I, it
would decide to lay down its arms..."
Said
her daughter: "If people are just going to keep doing that, I wish I'd
never been born."
Kingsolver
writes that she "sat on the floor and held her tightly to keep my own
spirit from draining through the soles of my feet . . ."
And
she continues: "It used to be, on many days, that I could close my eyes
and sense myself to be perfectly happy. I have wondered lately if that feeling
will ever come back. It's a worthy thing to wonder, but maybe being perfectly
happy is not really the point. Maybe . . . the truer measure of humanity is the
distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, 'twixt two extremes of
passion - joy and grief,' as Shakespeare put it."
One
tries to keep balanced, or get balanced, tries to keep keeping on, to make
sense when there's little sense - only mystery and more mystery, beyond any
possible explanation; and when there is mostly silence when one tries to pray,
or when one hopes a voice may respond to one's attempts at meaningful - even
simple, basic conversation.
