From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

One of the things I’m fairly insistent on in parish life is that the week after Easter and the twelve days of Christmas should be a time of rest and celebration.

It wasn’t that long ago that Sundays were a day of rest in our culture. I remember winter vacations till those faded away. Of course we all remember summer vacations but those are fading, too. Now we work on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and more. Our culture has squeezed and squeezed until there is hardly any time left for what matters in our lives.

I think it’s demonic. We’ve managed to convince ourselves, as a nation, that we must remain so busy because our work is so important that we’ve no time for what is most important in our lives. So we’ve built an economy and culture where we spend much of our time at work—regretting that we can’t be home. And much of our time at home is spent working so we’re never really present at either.

We talk of work-life balance these days. We talk of creating healthy boundaries between work and home. Both of these seem a sad evolution. What we don’t seem to talk about is wholeness—what is the integrated way we can be whole in life, work, and home? It’s a struggle for many and even more so when email and social media or the quick text or call are just part of our work.

Gradually, we find an erosion of our ability to simply be in any space or time. Of course, this has to be the Devil’s dream! Because such an existence leaves no space for prayer, contemplation, deep reflection, or studied living. It leaves room only for reaction and reactivity.

So our small act of resistance, as the Church, should be to insist, however we can, on the space to reflect on the cosmic significance of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The whole world may not do so—and that is just fine. But the Church should be a place where we carve out the time to make a commitment to go deeper into the mystery of faith. That doesn’t happen if we don’t make it happen.

The Church isn’t a means of production—we don’t make widgets. We are the Body of Christ. We exist to be that which is given, living, and brought to new life for the sake of the world. So taking the time to be drawn deeper into that mystery is no luxury—it is essential to who we are. We won’t all be able to take time off around these holy days. But I hope you will mark them as sacred somehow.

Our oldest son was off from school last week. He was home the first two days of this week, too. I’ve been perfectly ok with him being home from school recovering from a long week of prayer and worship. He will go back to school no further behind. He’s done his work at home. But he will go back to school knowing that what is most important in his life is his faith. He will go back to school, perhaps a little dazed from being home and not shoved right back into the press of minute by minute tasks. That’s a perfect reminder that he’s more than what he does or produces or gets done. He’s loved by God.

We’re all loved by God and we all need a break. I wish our culture, economy, and society recognized that these days. We’ve forgotten something important in the midst of thinking that we’re all so vital that we can’t take a break. We’ve forgotten to breathe and take in the living spirit of God. 

I don’t imagine that we’re going back to Sundays as a day of rest or long breaks at holy times. But maybe we can all find small acts of insurrection that will create that revolution in our consciousness that can reclaim our humanity in an inhuman world. For that we can only pray!

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert