The picture today is of one of the many groups of people that I took out on a mystery picnic. All Saints Whitman had a traditional service auction as a fund raiser. Individuals would offer goods they made or skills they had or events they would create for an auction to raise money. One of the items I would offer was a picnic at so much per person, and those who signed up would experience a picnic in the middle of a mystery trip. A mystery because they had no idea where they were going and a mystery because I usually had questions like a puzzle to be answered as we went along based on things I would show them. At or after each site we would stop for one course of the picnic starting with morning coffee break and ending with a major picnic meal. The year in the photo we ended up at Camp Dennen for the main course. The year in the photo we had two vans and our first stop we pulled over for them to make an observation of an outcrop of rock on route 128. Apparently some helpful observer thought it was an accident and so the state police showed up and didn't like my plan. As I think about life and especially life in the church this is quite metaphorical. The life of a church is certainly mysterious. I wish I could predict what would come next in the life of my parish and the parishes where I have worshipped and served, but it remains a mystery to me. I asked the participants in my mystery tours to use the knowledge they already possessed to figure out what they were seeing as I gave them clues. In the church we have a knowledge base left to us in scripture and clues given to us by the Holy Spirit to solve the puzzle of life in the church. Various groups had various success in solving my puzzles. Some of the groups failed to solve my puzzles, but they still got fed. In the church we might grow and fall back, we might find solutions easily or with great difficulty but if we're engaged in the mystery we still get fed. As a Christian man I attempt to approach life like a mystery picnic. I ponder each day the words I find in the knowledge base given to me in scripture and I sit in prayer listening for clues to life's puzzles and I seem to always get fed along the way. And they say life's no picnic.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
The Mysterious Church
The picture today is of one of the many groups of people that I took out on a mystery picnic. All Saints Whitman had a traditional service auction as a fund raiser. Individuals would offer goods they made or skills they had or events they would create for an auction to raise money. One of the items I would offer was a picnic at so much per person, and those who signed up would experience a picnic in the middle of a mystery trip. A mystery because they had no idea where they were going and a mystery because I usually had questions like a puzzle to be answered as we went along based on things I would show them. At or after each site we would stop for one course of the picnic starting with morning coffee break and ending with a major picnic meal. The year in the photo we ended up at Camp Dennen for the main course. The year in the photo we had two vans and our first stop we pulled over for them to make an observation of an outcrop of rock on route 128. Apparently some helpful observer thought it was an accident and so the state police showed up and didn't like my plan. As I think about life and especially life in the church this is quite metaphorical. The life of a church is certainly mysterious. I wish I could predict what would come next in the life of my parish and the parishes where I have worshipped and served, but it remains a mystery to me. I asked the participants in my mystery tours to use the knowledge they already possessed to figure out what they were seeing as I gave them clues. In the church we have a knowledge base left to us in scripture and clues given to us by the Holy Spirit to solve the puzzle of life in the church. Various groups had various success in solving my puzzles. Some of the groups failed to solve my puzzles, but they still got fed. In the church we might grow and fall back, we might find solutions easily or with great difficulty but if we're engaged in the mystery we still get fed. As a Christian man I attempt to approach life like a mystery picnic. I ponder each day the words I find in the knowledge base given to me in scripture and I sit in prayer listening for clues to life's puzzles and I seem to always get fed along the way. And they say life's no picnic.
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