Keeping Perspective
Over the past few months, our parish
community has been rather strongly affected by anxiety over our financial
problems created by poor cash flow. We had to go into a spending freeze
in our programs in order to ensure that we could pay fixed monthly expenses.
This was very frustrating for our committees and ministry organizations,
and it has been hard on our staff. Hallway and telephone conversations
have spun fearful and negative threads. Some folks have become angry. I
understand. The problems have been tough, and since we're all in this together
everyone will feel them in one way or another.
Even so, one thing is getting
lost in the fray: we're going to get through this! Three months ago I told
the Vestry that this situation may take some time to play out, but in the
big picture it is only a temporary "blip" on the screen. We will have to
get some things right so that all of this doesn't happen again, but All
Saints' is still a strong and vibrant parish and I'd put us up with any
other congregation. As Bishop Gray noted in his sermon during his annual
visitation. All Saints', Tupelo is held in high regard as a leading and
exemplary church in the Diocese of Mississippi, both for our local ministries
and for the leadership we provide in the Diocese. I am absolutely confident
that this is as true now as it has ever been—and it will continue to be
true in the future.
Indeed, several parishioners
who have been at All Saints' for a long time have told me "Things here
now are better than they ever have been. If you think we've got problems
now, you should have seen what we were facing back then!"
Difficulties, in themselves,
do not define who we are. Neither do they change that we're called
to do as a community of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. With or without our
money problems, there is absolutely no reason why we should not continue
to celebrate WHO WE ARE and there is absolutely every reason to be confident
about WHY we are gathered together as All Saints' Episcopal Church! Remember
the old saying, "That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger." We're going
to be even stronger.
One of my favorite figures in
all of Church history is Dame Julian of Norwich, a
14th-century English mystic.
She was famous in her day for fifteen visions (she called them "showings")
of Jesus she received when she was thirty years old in 1372. Dame Julian
described this experience in her immortal book Revelations of Divine Love,
and she meditated on the visions until her death in 1417. The insights
she gained from doing so made her a much sought-after spiritual counselor.
Julian reported these words as being given to her by Jesus: I CAN MAKE
ALL THINGS WELL; I WILL MAKE ALL THINGS WELL; I SHALL MAKE ALL THINGS WELL;
AND YOU CAN SEE FOR YOURSELF THAT ALL MANNER OF THINGS SHALL BE WELL.
I'm sure that the people of
Norwich 1417 would tell you that Dame Julian was never wrong.
In Christ,
Shannon+
