On Monday morning I was at a meeting of the Annual Conference Worship Work Area.  We were discussing a workshop we want to offer in July called "Worship Resources for Times of Tragedy and Trouble."  We had chosen the topic because we're coming up to the 10th anniversary of the September 11 events .... and Sept 11 is on a Sunday this year.  But we don't want to make the workshop only about 911.  Instead we want to acknowledge the range of tragic and troubling and terrifying events that call for a prayerful, pastoral, and maybe even prophetic response from communities of faith.  

As we tried to organize our thoughts and task we began to talk about the framework and at first we divided it into "acts of evil" (like terrorist attacks, assasinations, etc.) and "acts of God"  (like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, untimely death, etc.).  But ... the more we talked the more we were uncomfortable with the "acts of God" idea because, though that phrase carries some legal meaning in terms of insurance, it is not an accurate theological statement.  Generally we don't believe that natural disasters are something that God visits upon us but part of the order of nature. 

It was uncanny that we were having this discussion on Monday morning, as the count of those killed in the Joplin tornado was still being tallied.  We are still learning about the devastation there ... and about these amazing tornadoes that are really several twister funnels wrapped into one.   And as one of the young women interviewed said, we watch these storms, and see the reports on TV, but we never really understand they can happen to us until they do. 

2011 has brought us both "acts of evil" (the killing of six in the attack on Gabby Gifford, the violence in Libya, the  conflict in the Palestinian territories and Israel,, are just a few) and "times of storm" (the Japan earthquake & tsunami, tornadoes in the US, a volcano in Iceland).  And we aren't half-way through the year yet.  And that is just from a "global" perspective.  Many of us right here experience "trouble" in various ways.  As Scott Peck put it so long ago:  Life is difficult.

I used to think that acknowledging the difficulties ... "feeling the pain" ... would make it easier.  But I've learned that pain is still painful, loss is still disorienting, devastation is still devastating .... but that that is not the whole story.  Honestly naming it is a start ... but only the start of a long journey toward something new. 

On this holiday weekend we engage in various memorial activities ... remembering the losses of war and the courage and commitment of those who have served our nation in various ways around the globe.  Remembering is part of the process toward the new.  It is what helps us live into a future with hope.  In the process of remembering, the past, the present and the future are woven together and we are wrapped together in the blanket of God's universal love. 

Let us remember the storms of war, weather and woe,  stand present with those in the midst of these experiences, and anticipate a new day on this Memorial Day weekend and every day.     
 

Blessings,

Rev. Margaret Gramley