A newsletter message written for St. David's Episcopal Church, Kinnelon, NJ
Dear
Friends,
Dear
Friends,
Summer is a
time when many of us take some time off from our regular schedules and plans,
and get a change of scenery. Even if
travel is inconvenient or unaffordable, simply making a change in your
schedule, or taking a “staycation” can be beneficial, too. Aside from simply being important for our own
sanity, these regular “breaks” from our normal activities serve vital spiritual
purposes. They give us opportunities to
clear our minds and to refocus ourselves.
They can help us to see the world from a different perspective.
Jesus
regularly called on the disciples to take breaks – to take time away from the
crowds and the work, and to reconnect with God.
And Jesus did it, too. How many
times, after one of the great stories of the life of Jesus, do we hear from the
gospels that he went away, by himself, immediately after?
The fact is,
spiritual work is hard. And it is
exhausting. If you are doing the work of
following Christ (the labor, certainly, but also the spiritual work), you will need
breaks. Hopefully, our Sunday worship is
a part of that time of spiritual renewal for you. As much as we need times of worship to
challenge us and to help us to grow, we also need worship to provide us with time
for rest, reflection, and re-connection with God.
Our
spiritual lives need balance. We need to
work and to be challenged, but we also need Sabbath.
As you make
your way through summer – if you have a chance to get away or to take a break
from your regular schedule, think about how that shifting perspective impacts
your relationship with God. Are there
things you can do that can help you to see the world in a broader way? Are there ways that you can see things and
people and perspectives that had eluded you before?
One of the
things that I believe to be true about God, is that God – in seeing and
understanding all things and all people – can best be understood by broadening
our own perspectives. We can never reach
the breadth of perspective that God has, but in trying, we can move closer.
Of course,
we can do this all year. We’re not
limited to summer, or to vacations. But those
can be times for us to refocus ourselves.
When you have such times in your own life – whenever they might be – try
to remember to include your relationship with God in that refocused
perspective.
In peace,
Jon+
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