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Hi Beloveds!
It is so good to be back at my church home with my church family period. Thank you for all the welcome hugs, notes, and kindnesses. I missed y’all, too. Did I get some rest? Yes. Did I have fun? Yes. Did I get to connect in a deeper way with my family? Yes. So many thanks to all the hard working lay people and all the clergy that allowed with me the freedom to go on a much needed sabbatical while you and God continued the loving work of Saint Gregory the Great Episcopal Church!
And now we’re back to a season that’s familiar to so many of us, the beginning of the academic year and the ending of summer. And with that beginning and ending, as folks go back to classrooms and offices, or return to our lives after surgeries and illnesses, (or for those for whom summer meant no break, keep working), and we contend with the increased traffic in town that school brings, we add new schedules, rules, or habits to help us manage and grow. These additions are meant to help us live more fully or efficiently or in better health. But with the newness can come a pressure, an oppressive perfectionistic ideal that our grind culture nurtures, that doesn’t allow for the changing circumstances or bodily changes, or occasional variances of human beings living real life with other very real and variable people and circumstances. The rule, habit, or new practice then becomes a huge and heavy hammer, and to that hammer, everything else, including sometimes our sense of self, and/or how we respond to others, becomes a nail.
How do we avoid becoming a nail? By making a priority of actively and in real time, living in relationship with our God who is love, as our center. Then, these new rules, habits, or schedules are operated in an air of compassion, offering some spaciousness and tenderness in our lives, which we can then share with others…helping make Beloved Community, rather than supporting the often competitive, perfectionist, and always speeding hamster wheel that so often tries to run our lives (and us) into the ground. I love how Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie say it in their book, Good Enough: 40ish Devotionals for a Life of Imperfection:
“You can see the devolution from ‘Hey, that’s a neat idea!’ into a repressive regime…. (Instead,) The little habits we create (and sustain) with God’s guidance (can and) will actually be made to fit us. Fit me. Fit you. The particular you, (in this particular circumstance) in this particular moment.”
Jesus said, “Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” The Message, Matt 11:29-30
This fall, here’s to us walking forward in God’s unforced rhythms of grace, together.
So much love to you,
Mother Nikki+
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