It’s that time of year again. We’ve been getting more rain lately, and my lawn is not subtle about it. I mow one weekend, and by midweek, the grass is halfway up my shins again. Last year, I expressed my frustrations with how quickly the grass grows. This year, I am trying on a new perspective. I do not want to be frustrated with growth and treat its tending as a strenuous task. Maybe I should be tending to it as a spiritual discipline.
This past month, Easter flowed into Confirmation, Confirmation into Earth Day, and then into the ordination and installation of new elders and deacons. In our first Shaping Our Future Gathering, we also made space to discuss how God uniquely led each of us to ELPC. You may have noticed that with so many opportunities to reflect on God, worship has been full and attendance and engagement in our community life are growing. And although growth can be frustrating at times, what comes with it is the honest, holy work of tending to one another. In this season, we must still make time to grieve with those who have lost loved ones, welcome and celebrate new members and friends, and listen for where the Spirit is pulling us next.
It can feel exhausting. It can also feel like a spiritual discipline. Is this not true of our inner lives as well? Even as growth occurs, we must tend to the pruning and watering, the patient attention, the showing up again and again.
The prophet Isaiah offers a promise to a weary and rebuilding people: “You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail”—Isaiah 58:11. People of God, although our faithfulness is in the tending, the living water always comes from God. So thank you for the ways you are tending and checking in on the folks in your pew, your neighbor, your church family, your prayer life, and your own soul. May God keep us grounded and growing in this rainier, greener season.
In Christ,
—Pastor Michael