Looking Pretty

• Lute Concert to benefit Suicide Prevention today at 3pm. Please feel welcome to join and donate as you are able.
• Annual Meeting is May 19th after Church (reports are due next Sunday)
• Strawberry Social on June 29th 2-4pm.

Enjoy the recording HERE.

Five years ago, on Easter Sunday, we shared a Reflection after the burning of Notre Dame of Paris.  The fire happened early in Holy Week.  We watched in horror as the fire spread, the spire and roof collapsed, and fires began to fill one of the great towers.  It seemed a miracle that she still stood the next morning.  

We tried to make sense of such terrible destruction.  We felt for a sister church in her moment of devastation.  We felt for a people in the horror of terrible loss.  We grieved and prayed and sang. If you want to read that Reflection, it can be found on our website: April 21, 2019.  

It’s been five years.  When you walk up to the front of the Cathedral now those incredible towers greet you.  The face of Notre Dame looking (for the most part) as she always has with the beautiful spire rising up from the center (the spire was just completed last month).  From the face of things, everything looks pretty well.  

Then, you look closer and turn corners.  

In a class I taught recently, we talked about how we put on our “faces” to go out into the world.  We make everything look good, even when it’s not.  In certain circles that is what we need to do.  We need to fix up our front towers so that we can go out and do the work we are meant to do in the world. We need to be brave and tall to tend to and care for the world.  We need to be strong to inspire and encourage one another in our own special way and with our unique gifts that make the world a better place.  But…we also need places where we can take off the mask and be tended to and supported.  

Resurrection and healing takes time.  That was clear behind the beautiful tall towers.  

The entire building is still cocooned in scaffolding.  Every one of those incredible flying buttresses are held in place by beams.  The whole thing is fully supported by steel and wood.  It’s also supported by teams and teams of people who know this building is important and worth tending to and rebuilding and resurrecting. 

It takes a lot of support and love to rebuild, heal, and resurrect.  It takes an incredible amount of time.  

We don’t like to wait.  We like to rush things, to get things done, to move on, to get quick answers and quick results.  We don’t like to sit in the long spaces of pause and waiting.  We don’t like to be uncomfortable or face the ugly things.  We certainly don’t like to sit and marinate in them.  

Resurrection and healing take time.  Illness, pain, grief, loss, etcetera…it’s all a slow process.  It’s often a big “hurry up and wait” process.  Moving forward, then stalling.  Moving forward, then stopping.  Moving forward…waiting, waiting, waiting.  It often feels like full stop…although it rarely is.  

We also usually aren’t thinking as clearly in those moments of pain.  We just want it to be over, but we also know that quick answers and quick results often don’t help us to fully heal.  Quick and fast usually lead to hidden and festering wounds or terrible results.  The face that looks out onto the world looks beautiful, but inside the whole thing is a patchwork of bandaids and glue ready to fall apart.

We need stronger support than that.  We need the steel scaffolding.  We need the giant wooden beams.  We need the teams and teams of people who remind us that we are important and worth tending and caring for.  Just the support building takes time, the stuff before the healing and resurrection can even begin.  We need places that support this deep kind of Love. 

Perhaps we rush because we are afraid of being left behind or lost in this incredibly fast paced world.  Perhaps we rush because we are afraid we are not worthy of the structures of support.  PAUSE  Perhaps these are our lions (see: children’s moment).  When we are afraid of slowing down because we might be left behind or get lost…that’s stress and fear talking.  It’s definitely not Love and Grace talking which loves us and has all the time in the world for us. 

The best things in life take time and patience.  True healing.  PAUSE.  True love.  PAUSE.  The most worthy works.  PAUSE.  It takes slowing down to build and rebuild well.  PAUSE.  We must take time to make sure the whole thing is fully supported before we move on…so that we are ready to face the days and years ahead not just the next things to be done.  Not just enough to “get by”.  We need more than that.  We are worthy of more than that.  And we all have our own time and pace to rebuild and heal fully.  

It took over a hundred years to build Notre Dame.  One hundred years.  People began work they knew they would never see the end result of.  How beautiful is that?  We often want to see the end result.  We don’t want to begin things that don’t benefit us.  We like to see the results of what we do. We like to “get credit” for the things we do. That’s too often how we decide things are worthwhile.

Notre Dame was begun by someone who would never live to see her completed.  That is beautiful.  

Recently, it was said that those beautiful spires, or in our case white steeples, that were once a symbol of peace and welcome are no longer.  PAUSE.  I beg to differ.  There was an incredible sense of peace and hope seeing that spire rise up again.  A call of welcome to pilgrims, travelers, seekers, tourists.  A welcome to all.  Of course, people are people everywhere, and there are problems we need not be blind to, but do we turn away from hope, resurrection, and peace because we have people problems?  Do we turn away from faith and love and people because we have system problems?  

One of the ways we rush is to rush through people and ideas that we don’t agree with.  We just keep rushing past, assuming the worst in one another.  We all have common dreams and goals and hopes.  We rush by, because it’s easier than finding the “somethings” we agree on.  We would rather walk away and throw it all away rather than take the time to understand and move forward together.  

Our work is to be there to support one another.  To be the steel and the beams and the teams and teams of people of compassion and gentleness.  To be of support times of rest and patience and healing.  To be mirrors that remind us that every one of us is…worthy.  Worthy of being tended to and cared for and Loved.  Worthy of healing and rebuilding.

It’s been said that rebuilding Notre Dame is a waste.  Well, a few brave fire fighters risked their lives to ascend one of the towers to put out the fires, knowing that if either of those towers fell the whole building would completely collapse.  They thought the Cathedral was worth saving and were willing to die for it.  That is powerful.

In a world rushing by where we feel more and more lost and alone and afraid of being left behind, these are the places of welcome rest and pause.  These are the places of peace and gentleness.  These are the places that ask us to look within and to find the grace and light that is more than the pretty made up faces we present to the world. These are the places where we can be true and raw and messy and know we are still loved.  

These are the places that leave us awed and remind us that we can build things not for our current pleasures but for the healing and hope of a future long after us. These are the places of respite from a world of racing and competing for…more.  

These places matter because we don’t give up on what is most precious and beautiful, even and especially when it’s hard.  These places matter because they remind us to take time our of the busy to slow down for the things that matter most.  To rest and breathe and be confused and filled with wonder all at the same time. 

It doesn’t have to be a big Cathedral.  It can be a small living room or a small church in rural New England.  But these places matter, just as each one of us matters, as small places of potential hope and grace in this busy-busy world.  We are reminded that we don’t just discard and give up on one another because we are broken or burned or because we are outdated or old or we made mistakes.  

The places matter because they remind us that we matter.  These places matter because they remind us we are beautiful…scaffolding, scars, supportive beams, bandaids, glue, and all.  Each and every one of us is child of Grace and worthy of being supported, tended, and healed.  Each one of us is worthy of the time it takes to heal and be resurrected.  Each one of us is loved by God.