I’m still mulling
over yearly meeting and our inability to come to consensus on the issues
related to same sex relationships. We’re still divided as a yearly meeting, and
this is causing paralysis, as well as distress.
One morning
recently, as I agonized in spirit, I found myself repeating in prayer, “I’m so
sorry. I’m so sorry.” Then my prayer morphed into, “It’s alright. Please don’t
be sad. It’ll all work out.”
This reminds me of
when our children were small. After I brought a new-born Kristin home from the
hospital, she had her bouts of crying, like all small babies. There were even
times when, being tired myself and having tried all I knew to address her
distress, I just left her in her cradle to cry it out.
This alarmed her
older brother, and three-year-old David would tell me, “Mom, Kristin’s
crying! You need to ‘there-there’ her!” Apparently when I held her and patted
her back, I would murmur, “There-there. There-there.” Soon we adopted the
phrase, “to there-there Kristin.”
Back to the
present. As I was praying, “I’m sorry. Please don’t be sad,” I realized that I
was trying to “there-there” God. That brought a smile, along with a sense of
the ridiculous. Who was I to comfort God? Who was I to tell God to just relax,
that it would somehow all work out? Who, indeed?
I sensed God smile
back, and real comfort took place, in a God-to-me direction. Seeing the humor
in this serious situation again restored perspective and faith.
The church belongs
to God, and God will lead us as we seek, ask and listen. In the meantime, I
will continue praying and waiting and working and loving. In the words of
Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of
thing shall be well.”
Yes.
There-there.
