Baby Steps

I admit it, I'm having a little bit of a hard time adjusting. I am feeling like I should be moving mountains and doing great things just because I began as the sole pastor at a new church one week ago. Even with in that sentence, there is so much wrong! Of COURSE I should not be doing it all just in this one week!

But I've always been this way. I was telling a senior colleague yesterday that I remember the first day of ninth grade, when my class moved to the senior high school, I went home disappointed that I had not made any new upperclassmen friends. I had heard that ninth graders could become friends with upperclassmen, and darnit, I though it should happen right away!

I know it takes time. And apparently God/the Universe wants to help me know that. In the span of two minutes, I read the following two emails. The first is from sojo.net (the only Sojourners site) from their daily Verse & Voice mailing (which you can subscribe to here if you're so inclined.) It always includes a Bible verse and a quote from a theologian or religious thinker. Today's quote was the following from Joan Chittister:

"Every spiritual master in every tradition talks about the significance of small things in a complex world. Small actions in social life, small efforts in the spiritual life, small moments in the personal life. All of them become great in the long run, the mystics say, but all of them look like little or nothing in themselves."

The other email was my Daily Kabbalah Tune-Up from The Kabbalah Centre. I love this daily email; it has some of the most real-world, profound advice, and it's high-quality EVERY DAY. Today's said this:

"'Change the world' is the rallying cry of our generation. But the big secret is, because we are all connected, nothing outside changes until the inside changes. Working on correcting our personal flaws is what leads to global change.

Let this paradox sink in: The more you want to change the world, the more you have to change yourself. Today, focus on one tiny thing you can improve about yourself — or at least begin to work on."

I need to just relax. Just trust. There will be work to do, there will be projects, there will be people to sit with and there will be ideas that God will bring that I don't even know about yet. It's only been a week. Every day I am meeting new people, I am learning more about them, I am merging into their community. Thank you God for reminding me that I don't have to do it all by myself, and that I don't have to do it all in capital letters, all the time.