NorthStar

Farewell, My Friends

It's so hard to believe that this will be my final column for the newsletter at Buckingham United Methodist Church. What a wonderful ride it has been and what a blessing you are in my life!

In many ways, I simply don't know where to start with this note. As you know, we didn't have much time to prepare for this move and our heads are still spinning from the news. Every day, one more detail of our plan becomes solidified; one more sign of the transition is passed. We have shared joyous memories and tears of sadness with many of you and there are more to come.

It would be good for us all to remember that life is simply like this sometimes. We make our plans, then find out that those plans are subject to infinite variables: our health, unexpected events, the decisions of others, and circumstances beyond our control.

When things happen that we have a hard time understanding, people often suggest that we will understand those things someday, because they are "part of God's plan," or that "it's meant to be." We struggle to put into a meaningful perspective the events of our lives when they don't make sense to us, and those kinds of explanations comfort many people.

I've found it helpful over the years to think of things like this in a somewhat different way. I know that painful things happen in life-none of us can deny it or construct a pain-free life, although there are many people who make a very good living selling us things they claim can offer us just that. Instead of denying the pain, I try to put it into perspective: I don't believe God ever truly wants us to feel pain, especially when it is caused by the decisions or actions of other people. Suffering happens, I believe, because of the limited, finite nature of our existence in this world. Whether it is physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual, pain stems from the fact that we are limited by the confines of this worldly existence.

Much of the pain I have suffered in my life-which, by the way, has been relatively easy-has been caused by my own decisions and behaviors that were in many ways just plain dumb. Yet, in spite of that fact, many of them have turned out to be extraordinarily helpful as I have grown to be the person I am today. In other words, had I not suffered those things, I would not have become the more mature, more wise, more compassionate person, father, husband, and pastor that I am.

I do not believe God caused those things to happen to me so that I could become a better person. Instead, I see God on the other side of each of those idiotic moments of my life, picking me up and setting me back on my feet. It's not that there was one path for me to take, on which there would have been no suffering at all. It's that when I veered off the path, God rewrote the story for me, using even my mistakes for the good of the world.

This is the infinite nature of God: that there is not one plan, but that God is able to rework in every moment a plan that will allow creation to be healed. You see, what is happening now, in this time of transition, is not really about us, no matter how deeply it involves us. What is happening now is about the work of God that will culminate someday-not on our timetable, but in God's time-in the restoration and healing of creation.

We are part of this story, my friends. And so, as this time of transition comes to completion, I share my best wishes with you and ask that God allow you to fare well in all that is to come.

Grace and peace,

Pastor John