Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, we’re back to our regular schedule at 8:30 and 10. It’s been nice to have a more relaxed pace on Sunday mornings with just one service, but I miss our 8:30—it’s quiet and contemplative and I pray so well with that shape of liturgy! We’ll bless backpacks and laptops and lunch boxes and whatever else you bring—prayers for new beginnings and new endeavors.

A lot is new, but a lot is the same. Still, there is a spiritual quality to newness. Paul writes to the Church in Corinth that whoever is in Christ is a new creation. In the book of Revelation, the fantastical vision is of a new heaven and a new earth. In Ezekiel, God promises a new heart and a new spirit. Why do we need all this newness? Aren’t things fine the way they are?

Yes, yes, and no.
Putting my son on the school bus to 2nd grade this week, I was vividly aware of how much everything changes, and fast. Next fall his sister will be on that bus with him—to kindergarten—how I became the parent of school aged children already is anyone’s guess. I have a front row seat to everything new in their lives, but there’s plenty new in my life, too, and yours, I’ll bet—new presences as well as new absences. Not all the new is shiny and compelling; sometimes it’s raw and tender. When someone we love dies, we change, too. There’s newness of tragedy, too, when we thought the world was safe and it turned out not to be. The stray bullet out of nowhere and the tumor that doesn’t shrink both bring their share of newness, a kind we’d never wish on anyone, nevermind seek for ourselves.

I wonder, too, about the newness in ourselves that we don’t notice. Our brains are primed to crave novelty—we want new stuff to buy, new stuff to look at—the pleasure-centers in our brains light up and crave that kind of transient newness again and again. We can be insatiable. But it takes more sustained attention to seek the spiritual newness that, I think, is more like what the apostle Paul and the prophet Ezekiel are talking about. What’s the newness that comes when you let go of a fear? What’s the newness that comes when you make a commitment, the newness that comes out of faithfulness over time or learning something about yourself you’d never seen? What fears have you released over the years? What anxiety over status or appearance or the judgment of others have you let go?

What is the new, really new, that you’re looking for? Something more solid than novelty, but a good and life-giving change? Let me know what you’re thinking about, and let’s talk about how we can support each other in those ventures. I’m still planning for October Tuesday education, so give me your ideas.

But still bring your STUFF that brings newness on Sunday… your new diaper bag or lunch box (daughter Adah has one with a transformer on the front with flashing lights for eyes). The gear might not change your life, but it’s still fun.

Blessings,
Sara+