ya can't always be perky

It's 11:17 p.m. Tomorrow night is Vestry and I need a good night's sleep. I'm already not going to have that because I'm still awake. I can't get comfortable enough to sleep. The muscle and joint aches are keeping me awake. Tylenol doesn't help. I'm tired. But tired isn't enough.

It's funny, that. Because sometimes congregations get tired of trying to stay alive as the church they always were. So tired they can't catch a vision. So tired they convince themselves they're too old to do the work of redevelopment. So tired they lose their imagination. Keeping the doors open becomes one long night of not being able to get comfortable. Nothing they do is able to help. What is the answer?

For me, the answer might just be to stop taking Femara, the post-chemo drug I'm on. I imagine, however, my doc will want to try stronger analgesics so I can continue taking the drug that's supposed to greatly reduce the recurrence of my cancer. 

For the church, the answer might be more direct, daring prayer. Let us pray: Lord Jesus, rouse yourself! Stir up your church! Shake us, turn us upside down, route us from our buildings and our idols and make of us a people so imbued with the knowledge of your unconditional love for all people that we are on fire to tell everyone we see who and what you are, who continues to live and serve, and calls us to serve the people who don't know you, now and forever.

I don't know if my body can stand masking the symptoms of chemo drug assault on my body. I don't know if the people of the churches can stand being shaken up so hard that their world is turned inside out. I do know I can't sleep. And I do know the world can't sleep because it needs the churches to be true to their Lord and Saviour, who came not to be served, not to be taken care of, not to be comforted, but to serve, and to care for, and to comfort and strengthen all those who do not yet know that God is nothing but Love, pure, unconditional, unadulterated Love.