Bit by Bit

Not to name names, but someone with my same initials who lives at my house decided that having three yards of compost delivered yesterday was a good idea. Undoubtedly, my veggies, herbs, and flowers will appreciate this black gold. Unfortunately, it still has to be moved from my driveway to the raised garden beds with my own two arms. Right now this pile feels a bit overwhelming, especially when I look at it in relation to my shovel and wheelbarrow. Having spent my entire adult life in academia or ministry, probably my strongest muscles are my typing muscles. Friends, this is a bit much. 

But, when I turn around and look at my garden beds, and realize there are just eight of them, the work doesn’t seem as interminable. Bed by bed, that’s all I have to do. First the blackberry bed, then the soon-to-be strawberry bed, then the pea and onion bed. Then a break to plant spring peas. Then a rest. I can manage thinking about moving this load to where it needs to be when I think about the beds themselves rather than the pile that seems to never end. And, I can always call in help if I need to.

Sometimes Christ’s command to love this world feels like moving this pile - impossible and never ending. We are called to love our sisters and brothers (1 John 4:20-21), neighbors (Mark 12:31), and enemies (Matthew 5:43-48).  But when we consider how much energy we have compared to how great is the world’s need, it seems impossible - almost like throwing one starfish back into the sea while the beach remains covered with thousands more. Or like having one out-of-shape pastor-theologian move wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of compost.

This week there was another school shooting, this one at a private school in Nashville where six beloved lives were lost. Three of them were nine-year old children. We know this isn’t the first horror of this kind - in fact, it is only one of about 130 mass shootings in the United States in this year alone. We are not yet three months into this year.

We all know children around that age - in fact, a few of them are a regular part of the Phillips family.  They come in each Sunday morning bright eyed and happy to greet me (or, as in the case of one of our preschoolers to try to jump out and scare me!). The year of the Sandy Hook shooting, when 20 first graders were murdered, my own daughter was the same age. I remember picking her up from school that day, with a crowd of parents pushed up against the school fence, holding back tears. It was too close. And we were across the continent in SoCal. 

Sandy Hook was 11 years ago and each school shooting since is shocking and overwhelming.  Each one leaves so many of us overwhelmed at fighting the gun industry and power-hungry politicians so we can send our country’s children to school rather than to war zones. 

This pile is big. 

We can’t move it alone. 

Step by step. Bit by bit. 

What we can do is commit to standing up against violence in all its forms, wherever we encounter it. We can push for better gun legislation. We can actively learn how to live at peace with neighbors. We can mend wounds we have inflicted so they don’t fester and rupture. We can teach our children the same. 

When I think of it this way, election by election, neighbor by neighbor, reconciliation by reconciliation, or child by child, I feel more able and willing to set my feet down each morning and commit to the active love I see in Jesus. I feel more able to weep as Jesus wept when Lazarus died – and then to stand up again and start to roll away stones so that life can invade the places of death in this world.

Church, as we face this week’s fresh horror, please commit with me to choose to step into each day with love so that we might be Christ’s hands and feet and bring light where there is death. 

Step by step. Day by day. This is what we are called to.

Patience and kindness,

not envious, boastful, or arrogant,

not irritable or resentful,

rejoicing in truth,

bearing all things,

believing and hoping all things,

Never ending.

Enduring all things.

This is love.

Love is a choice.

A choice we make every day

when we set our feet on the floor in the morning,

when we pick them up off the floor at night,

and all the moments in between.

This is love.

Love is a choice.

In its best moments it makes our hearts soar

and in its hardest moments shatters them,

Love those you have chosen,

so their and your hearts can soar

and will not shatter.

Love.

It endures all things.

It does not end.

Love is a choice.

Blessings,

Pastor Amy

PS - Lifespan hospital has put out a guide for talking to children about school shootings and community violence. Perhaps you might find this helpful with the children in your life.