Living in the postlude

5/18

It’s been raining all week. An empty package for some kind of Dr. Scholl’s foot product.

It’s the morning after.  An emotionally exhausting roller coaster of a day from believing that the West-Park issue wouldn’t come up at all to another 3 hours of negotiation to having a motion to impose original jurisdiction immediately. Which the AC vigorously opposes. 

So. At the end of the day, well night, we’ve got until Friday midnight to find an attorney. Midnight Friday. Or essentially lose control of the  church. I start the phone calls with Alvin Green immediately.

Left Presbytery emotionally exhausted. Feel strongly the divisions of race, class, culture. Corrupting all we are called to be. Natural. Human. But tragic. One friend speaks of the power of privilege. The sense of bullying. Another speaks of domestic imperialism. Ways of describing what is felt. Big vs small, rich vs poor. White vs people of color. Manhattan vs. the boroughs. All stereotypes. But descriptive of the pain of experience.

We could be so much here. Show the broader church how to live in a global community. A community of ultimate diversity. And inclusion. Where we no longer live in Christendom but in  a postmodern landscape of eclectic spiritual expression and secularism. But we are consumed by our internal machinations, as if nothing else existed around us. It feels like an institution that is already dead. Like we are already living in the postlude.

Sometimes I feel like I’m really done with it. Done with living on the brink. Like I don’t care when I’ll see another Presbyterian. Ever.

But. I remember the event Monday night with Mim. The gala for Storahtelling, the creative combination of actors, music, old forms of story telling, performance art. Their lean years. And now a serious gala at the City Winery. It’s founder, Amichai, had a dream, never wavered. Kept the positive energy moving forward. That’s it. Fear, anxiety does not attract. Keep it moving forward. 

Being now what we want to become.

Work on the building. Larry the electrician back. Another bathroom underway. Fire extinguishers needing to be replaced. Need to get Verizon back for the fire alarm phone line. Smoke detectors. The romance of return is over. Those who said this was impossible, that we had no idea how much this would cost, well, they had a point. But it’s our job to do the impossible.