I’ve been
looking at the books lining the shelves in my office.
Looking at them and wondering a couple of things:
This is not just a matter for
idle speculation. Reading and reflection are central to my life and work
as a pastor. Central to all of our lives, in fact. The “unexamined
life,” according to Socrates, is not worth living, and a contemporary
observer notes that this is one of the major problems of modern day
life: “We rush from task to task, but we don’t call enough time-outs to
reflect on life’s larger issues.” I’m as prone to that as anyone. It’s
both a professional and a personal liability.
At one level, time for
reading and reflection is a privilege . . . even a luxury . . . reserved
for those who do not have to spend all their time and energy fretting
about and eking out a living, raising children, finding work, taking
care of ailing parents, paying rent, buying groceries, getting medical
care. The “tyranny of the moment” is what it’s called in the lingo of
Bridges and Circles—those urgent, constant, unremitting demands of life
that come at us like a hail of machine gun bullets, requiring immediate
attention (and preventing any kind of respite or breather for long-term
planning). Time for reading and reflection typically becomes more
available as one moves up the economic ladder.
Reading and reflection are
also hallmarks of academic life. One of the core purposes of a
university is the pursuit of knowledge—expanding our understanding of
how the world works. Doing that requires time for study, research,
reading, writing, reflection, discourse, debate—time that becomes
available only as one is able to be freed from day to day subsistence
issues. It is time set aside from the quotidian concerns of everyday
life, in order to delve deeper into the mysteries of life and to plan
and prepare for the future.
This is a substantial part of
the ethos of University Church, situated as we are in the shadow of
Syracuse University, with numerous faculty, staff and students filling
the church’s pews. It is at the heart of who we are—one of the things
that mark and distinguish us from other churches. It is why our new set
of goals for the future includes a focus on being a “teaching church”
and on developing an urban ministry training center. We know the value
of education, both for its own sake and as a way of making life better.
Further, we have the capacity for this, both in terms of leaders and
space. We not only want to model effective urban ministry; we also want
to help prepare the next generation of leaders. This is critical for the
community . . . and for the church.
It’s a theological issue, not
just an educational one. When we fail to make time for reading and
reflection; when every moment of time and every ounce of energy are
consumed by taking care of material needs; it’s all too easy to imagine
that we are at the center of the universe, not God. Taking time for
reading and reflection (along with prayer and worship) allows us to
re-center our lives and perspective . . . to envision different
possibilities for ourselves and the world.
It’s a matter of balance:
between action and reflection, between doing and learning. Both are
needed, if we are to reach our full potential. Learning followed by
doing, followed by new learning, then more doing. It’s a cycle,
really—an action-reflection model of learning. When we don’t do that,
when we don’t take time to reflect on and learn from our experience,
we’re subject to making the same mistakes over and over again, or
blindly repeating activities that used to work but no longer fit today’s
needs and circumstances.
Where is God leading me right
now?
Where is God leading us right
now?
How does this align with the
story of Jesus,
the purposes of God, and the
work of the
church over the years?
Where is the life, the light,
the energy, the joy, the power, the excitement . . . the Spirit . . .
that is moving us forward?
These are the questions we
need to be praying about and reflecting on. These are the questions our
new District Superintendent has urged us to focus on. These are the
questions that prompted the new set of goals and action plans for UUMC.
These are the questions that will open the door to the next stage of
UUMC’s wonderful life and ministry.
Action? Absolutely! There is
no time to waste. But action that is informed by and guided by the best
information we can find. Information that reflects both today’s best
practices and our long-held, deepest values and beliefs.