Minutes of Meetings with God and with Myself
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Between Confusion and Hope (life can be a fertilizer factory)

I,  for one, know exactly where I am starting off the New Year! Yes, I am certain that I am someplace between confusion and hope! My confusion springs from trying to make sense of what has gone on in and around my life during the past year ... and my hope has to do with a vision of a better tomorrow ... because the Kingdom of God is going to come, maybe tomorrow. I've been thinking about what has happened in the last 12 months ... there has been so very much. Thankfully, some of the happenings have been exceedingly good. As congregations and as individuals, we have enjoyed some great blessings from the hand of God. Both of the congregations that I serve have done a great deal for God, for themselves and for their neighbors. Some of us, individually, have seen some of our long held dreams come true. Some of us have reached goals that we have worked toward for years. Some of us have received some really unexpected opportunities and windfalls. Sadly, some of the happenings have been very bad. Some of us have had to watch while evil has battered or consumed people that we love and hold dear. Some of us have had to bid farewell to dear friends and loved ones until Resurrection day. Some of us have seen cherished dreams crumble into worthless junk. Others of us have had a real struggle just to keep ourselves going from one day to the next. Some of us have had so much "crap" in our lives that the fundamental question we face is: "Will I allow all this ‘crap' to turn my life into a toxic waste dump;. or, is there someway I can do something constructive with all this mess and turn my life into a fertilizer factory that transforms the ‘crap' into something that not only helps me to grow but helps others to grow, too?" I will admit that I do not understand all that goes on in my own life and in our life together as the Church. There are a number of things that I find very confusing, that do not make sense, and that seem pretty meaningless to me right now. They are things that I hope to be able to meet with God face-to-face and talk over sometime, because I don't think that I'll ever make sense of them in this life. There is something that I think I do understand. In the face of all the happenings this last year, I have found myself reminding, not only others, but my own self, that the "good stuff" that goes on in life can create as much or even more stress than the "bad stuff". Because we enjoy the "good stuff" in our lives, we frequently fail to notice that it has added substantially to the load we carry in our lives. "Good stuff" can burden and drain our spirits, our time, and our energy, too. Not only can the "good stuff" add to our load ... but among the paradoxes of life is this one: sometimes, our troubles really start, and sometimes, our life becomes unbearably complicated when we get what we think we want ... when we arrive where we think we want to go. There seems to be something of this paradox in the story of the Magi and their search that ultimately brings them to Jesus. The Magi appear to have begun their journey with a fairly clear picture of where they were going and of what they expected to find. They thought they knew what their success would look like. As the Magi interpreted the appearance of the star, they concluded that it meant that a king had been born to the children of Israel. They clearly assumed that the obvious place to find the new-born King of the Jews was the capital of the nation, Jerusalem, and that the new-born King would reside in the palace of the current royalty. The Magi traveled to Jerusalem, and, most likely, they thought that their arrival in that city would bring them to the immediate and successful conclusion of their trip. How mistaken they were! When the Magi arrived in Jerusalem ... instead of the successful completion of their journey, they ran into confusion, suspicion, fear, deception and a host of totally unexpected complications. Instead of finding answers in Jerusalem, the Magi found only more questions. They found that they had been wrong in their assumptions ... and, they found that, basically, their search had to start all over again, in new, unexpected, and unknown directions. Instead of the success they had anticipated, the Magi found themselves some-where between confusion and hope ... and it was their hope that kept them going ... hope that they would find "the one" to whom God pointed with the great celestial event which had motivated the start of their journey. The ultimate success of the Magi's journey did not look anything like what they had originally anticipated ... no palace, rather a carpenter's house ... not royal opulence or grandeur, just plain people in peasant clothes ... no noble looking child-king that would rule a brief while and fade into obscurity, but an infant who would first become a carpenter and then who would change the course of human history for all time by building the Kingdom of God. We, like the Magi, will find real success in our lives, when we find Jesus ... as unexpected as He may appear when we finally meet Him. Now, I hope I can find that new roll of stamps that I misplaced ... somewhere in my organized mess!