No! Not yet! you’re probably thinking. End of Summer already?? Yep, it’s that time of year again. The end of Summer blues, starting to get stressed about all the other stuff that starts in the Fall. I’m already starting to put on my thinking cap for everything that will start (back) up come September. This summer flew—big trips and vacation are outside the normal routine day-to-day and change our sense of time. In a good way, I might add. But coming back to “reality”—not always.

How was your summer? Whether or not you have little kids there’s still a rhythm to the beginning of fall. Grandparents drive around almost as much as parents going to kids’ sporting events, choir concerts, etc. Volunteer opportunities ramp back up… especially at church. There’s a sense of possibility with a new beginning, and Fall is a new beginning—for kids going back to school, for teens going off to college, and for their parents and loved ones adjusting to all this change.

I feel the “pressure” of possibility at St. Matthew’s. Yes, possibility comes with its own stress. Will we be able to capitalize on the opportunities change brings? The short answer is “Yes.” The long answer is “depends”—depends on our shared capacity to act and to spend the time and energy to “make things happen.” The promise in possibility is that it isn’t all up to us. God is the ground and well-spring of all possibility. God is the one who makes possible the “impossible,” like resurrection, life out of death, reconciliation, mending what’s broken, healing, etc. God is the one who gives us strength when we don’t have it within our selves to do what needs to be done, in order to be who God has created us to be, in order to share God’s life within ourselves with others, for the benefit of the other.

I think about all the possibilities at our finger-tips, and even though I get a little anxious and tired just thinking about it, I take comfort in all of Christ’s promises that aren’t up to me. And how freeing is that?!

Peace,
Pr. Christian