Okay, I admit it.  I’m struggling to get my regular job done.  I’ve been drinking from the fire hose of information about the Republican Convention, the shootings in Baton Rouge, the Jurisdictional Conference elections and complaining about the heat a lot.  It feels like the world, as I know, is becoming unwound.  In some ways this is true.  The old rulebook  for politics has been thrown out. Our national racism, which has always simmered just below the surface of our society, is showing and we do not know what to do about it.  The institutional church’s influence and power is shifting.

I’ve been reading Richard Rohr, Falling Upward A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, and it has been shaking up my world.  One of the most helpful statements I have been using in these days is, “You cannot walk the second journey with first journey tools.  You need a whole new tool kit.”  I believe we are in a time of shifting paradigms and we do not yet have the tools we need for this new journey and path we are on. In times of fear I want to make a blanket fort and hide out with a book and a cup of tea.  Yet we live in a time where hiding out will not change a thing and could actually makes things worse.

I’ve decided to follow the advice of this church marquee sign from Faith United Methodist Church in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.  I think Jesus said something similar too.

Grace and Peace,

Shelly