What a long decade the last two weeks have been. I have fallen into a horrible habit of doom scrolling right before I fall asleep and then reaching for my phone as soon as I wake up to start again. Its ill-advised for my mental health, but it seems so much destruction happens in the wee hours of the night that I can't not look.
I spent this week in meetings with the Bishop's appointive cabinet. For you non- methodists, this is the group that prays, discerns, and works to find the missional matches between clergy and congregations. It is 'appointment season' where this work becomes our focus as we seek to connect pastors and pulpits before a new appointment year begins July 1. This is my first year at the table. It is a holy, prayer-filled, chaotic and beautiful process. Peppered throughout our time together, we also dealt with how the world is affecting our people- how do we support our immigrant congregations? How do we speak into the void of reason that continues to gape in front of us? How do we make a difference individually and as a whole? How as pastors do we speak prophetically in this time?
I had devotions on Tuesday morning. On Monday, the Bishop had shared that she was leaning heavily into the spiritual practice of hope. This stuck with me and on Tuesday, I centered my devotion around the fact that hope is an act of resistance. In the midst of my doom-scrolling habits, hope is pretty hard to come by. We are deep in the time of shock and awe- when the actual point of all of this is to steal our hope. And while it may feel like we don't have control over anything else happening in the world- we sure as hell can make sure our hope isn't stolen.
Hope is an act of resistance. In the devotional I shared, the writer spoke of a garden in winter, how it is full of seemingly dead things. If you are not a gardener, it can be pretty hard to look out on that fallow dirt and see anything hopeful. But to a gardener's eye- that fallow garden is brimming with hope. Just below the surface, the ground is resting, preparing, and protecting tiny growing things. As the days lengthen and the temps warm, hope begins to poke through in seemingly desolate places.
I asked my fellow cabinet members to take 5 minutes, a blank piece of paper and some colored pens or pencils and draw their hope garden. Once they completed it, I challenged them to put it somewhere they would see it regularly to remind them that hope exists, that it belongs to each of us, that it can't be taken. I encourage you to try this simple exercise. It only takes 5 minutes, but I can tell you- my little rudimentary drawing is a great daily reminder.
Find those people that can tend your garden with you. Those people who you can call, you can sit with, you can drink tea with, you can scream into the void with. They are your master gardeners. They will remind you to whom you belong. They will help pull weeds when they get overwhelming, they will bring water or shade when nature becomes too much. These are the nurturers of hope. Gather your gardening team; friends, pastors, thought partners, tik tok-ers, whoever walks alongside you and speaks of truth, hope, love, and justice.
My home is surrounded by farm fields. My office window looks out over acres and acres of dormant fields. This is not a growing time on the land around me. It is a preparing time. It is a season of cow manure, flung from the manure spreader across the barren fields. It stinks when the wind blows, but it has it's purpose. It prepares the soil for flourishing growth. Friends, we are in a season of shit. I know of no other way to put it. It smells and it is vast, and the stench can distract us from the promise of new things growing. But that is the exact purpose of it- to nurture depleated soil. This season is calling us to rise up, to tip some tables, to speak truth to power, to grow a garden that produces a bumper crop of hope. Hope IS resistance. Hold on. in solidarity, the sassy pastor
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