Sunday, May 3 2015

It's Sunday morning and I haven't even looked at the scriptures for today.  I've been on vacation with my family, reading the daily office readings but nothing else.  Now I'm up at 4 a.m., frustrated that I can't sleep.  I'm honoring my commitment to write every week, but I don't know that I have anything to share.

I turn to the lectionary and look: Acts 8:26-40, 1 John 4:7-21, John 15:1-8.  Phillip and the Ethiopian, Jesus the vine, and love.  My pulse starts to slow as I read.  

I've been worried the last two days in a way that often happens for me when I visit my siblings.  They are both very successful.  They've worked hard and managed their money and their families.  Now we're all in the neighborhood of 60.  My sister thinks of retiring.  My brother has kids in college, but has saved and planned.  All is well.

And me?  I left teaching in 2000, gave away almost everything to follow Jesus.  I have some little pots of money here and there, and a little Social Security built up, but no plan.  I'm getting by these days, we get by as Companions, but we have no long range plan.  We have no endowment.

This summer we will make our final vows as Companions.  We will pool our remaining assets and trust one another, and God, to be enough.  I've felt ready for this grand adventure for a while, but when I visit my siblings I wonder: am I nuts?  Is this joyful faith, or just avoidance of reality?  Will I really feel God's love and no regret when I'm struggling to get into a Medicaid facility, trying to find enough to eat and pay rent?  Nothing in my family's history prepares me for this.

I pray to know what to do.  If I'm supposed to go get a regular job with benefits, show me.  But how will I know?  John says that "perfect love casts out fear" (1 Jn 4:18).  So probably God is not in the fear.  If I'm to change my path, it will more likely show up as the need to serve in some new way.  Some way that pays money.

For now I'll continue on this path, because I don't see any other.  I'm simply getting too much joy from watching others grow, from building this extended community.  If God is in this, I pray She will continue to house and feed us.  Please pray for me, for us, for guidance and the removal of fear.

Jesus is the vine.  "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." (John 15:7).  Lead me, Jesus.  Lead us all.