The Spiritual Life
July 2003
A Vision from God
Or fighting for Freedom, here where we live with the weapons of love.
By Rev. Michael Lee Burgess
One of the necessary, but not very fun meetings we have every year is the second Pastor Parish Relations meeting where we try to Assess Ministry Areas. I have lived through meetings where I felt criticized for breathing, but this time we experienced a vision of God's future. Such experiences are rare enough, but to find it in a PPRC meeting? That is truly miraculous. Let me give you some background.
I can measure my Stress levels pretty easily by looking at how my memory is working. When my stress is low, and I am getting plenty of sleep I have an amazing memory. I stun myself with the detail I can bring up, even peoples names. When the stress gets higher and more constant, names start going. Well recently I started forgetting appointments and losing things. The other day I was putting posters up on the little outside billboards Marv Widman and I made and that day I lost the stapler three times. Friday I lost my car keys for six hours. I have not lost my car keys like that in over eighteen years.
In the PPRC meeting we started talking about how attendance is down and not only in worship, but in all kinds of our ongoing programs, including our Martial Arts programs (see announcement). Then we broadened our focus and noticed a kind of overall tiredness, including our giving and participation in other things. We also noticed it was not only in our church, but seemed to be in other churches we knew and all across Omaha. Then we started sharing how we felt. I am going to share some of our thoughts, without labeling who said what.
After about twenty minutes of sharing, which included people living with the fear that their "boys" still serving in the war and dieing, and always trying to be vigilant since 9/11, I lifted up the idea of Chronic Stress Syndrome which can look like depression. Someone earlier had called it indifference. Well that is one of the responses of Chronic Stress, you start to become desensitized to everything. You start doing less, because you have less energy, the depression sucks the energy out of you. One of Chronic Stresses side effects is that you just slow down....
Someone else spoke up, "It is the same way with the economy. What I have heard is that your not going to get a cost of living raise, and your employer knows this. Maybe they can't afford it, who knows. But you are still expected to give your all." "We are working harder than any other industrial nation, we put more hours in for productivity output than even including Japan."...
"So there are all sorts of factors." "It is like insecurity, and this insecurity is significant." "The health care situation might be part of it too. People are watching their incomes stay the same, and the shares they are having to pay to their insurance company and the shares they have to pay out of pocket if they ever get sick, just scream up."... "That is a helpless feeling."
"So are we all feeling trapped?"...
"The fear of layoffs is very high. I hear a lot of people say, if they lose their job in less than a month they will be homeless because they won't be able to pay the rent." "While they have been living that way for twenty years, now they notice it. Because it is more of a reality."...
"I have also heard a lot of people describe themselves as serfs. This is how people are starting to feel. They are not feeling like employees, they are starting to feel like serfs, one step away from slave labor." "And once you feel that you have no voice, your stress level goes up. Once you are responsible for something without the power to do something about it, you will create tension and Chronic Stress." "That is why there is such a high burnout rate among nurses, responsibility without power."
Then I remembered being in Sears and hearing a lady behind the counter say to another worker, "I just wish someone would come in and buy something."
In our discussion we raised that same issue. A person said, "I can stock the shelves, I can help customers, but I don't control whether people get paid a living wage and can afford to buy things. But the boss can come in and say, "Sales are down, your fired." Wait a minute. I didn't have anything to do with that. I did my job, I was faithful." To have responsibility for something you don't have the power to control, is guaranteed to cause stress.
"In someway, not matter what it is, whether its the war, its medical cost, or the loss of older peoples savings and buying power, it is effecting all the age groups."
Then I said, "Now what as the family of God, the very people of the kingdom, who have the hope for the future and the salvation that the world desperately needs, what can we do about it?" "Looking at our discussion, whether you agree with what the problem is, or who is responsible, notice how our anxiety levels went through the roof." "That is also what is happening to all the people in our church." "And it is not just our church, it is all the community around us and all the people in Omaha Nebraska. We are not a different group from the rest of them. If we are feeling this, then so are they. How can we minister to ourselves in our need; be effective; heard, change the world; have hope; and see a vision of the future?"
In our Staff Parish Leadership book it says "Church leaders support and strengthen the church when they pay attention to these leadership functions: (1) help people discover the current reality in which they live; (2) bring together the congregation's understandings of current reality and desired reality into a shared vision; (3) develop the plans to help the community move from current reality toward the reality of its shared vision;..." (pg 4 Pastor-Parish Relations, Betsey Heavner)
The initial step of determining our shared vision of what the current reality is. We just did that. Then, how do we deal with this Chronic Stress that seems to have so much fear in it? What can we do to respond to this grinding, Chronic Stress Syndrome. How do we respond to what seems to be a whole community, nations condition? Possibly with some forms of social and political activism around issues that deal with justice, peace, and the values that God cares about.
But before we can do that, we have to give people a sense of empowerment so that they feel that they matter. How do we do build up peoples sense of value? We have to help them see that: "I, as a child of God am important, whether anyone else recognizes it or not, God does, and I AM important." Out of that realization maybe I will find the motivation to be active, to voice an opinion, to be part of a process that build community and a nation.
Now I am going to give some credit.
LaVerna said, "I think Sue has a good idea." "We can start out by showing love and caring." "By taking three names and for a year, giving them a phone call, remembering their birthdays and anniversaries." "If you are not there on Sunday maybe you will get a phone call saying, 'are you all right'?" "We missed you."
I think Sue and LaVerna were both right, and so I would like to invite all the members of our Church family here at Olive Crest to think about being part of this movement, to act out love and fight back at this stress that is tearing our hearts out. Remember the five love languages I have talked about before? (1) Words of love (2) quality time (including listening) (3) touch (4) gifts and (5) acts of service. We need to find out ways that are natural to each of us to say "I love you" in ways that can build up the family of God. For this is the way we can help give each other value, and in doing that, find our own value.
If your gifts from God include the ability to use the phone with ease, or to write notes or send emails, then please see Sue Luce, LaVerna Bonacci, or Rev. Michael about being part of this love outreach. If your gifts do not lean that way, then think of other ways in which you might build up people here within the family of God or around you were you work and live. If we are going to find relief from our own Chronic Stress, then we need to be part of a process that is trying to combat this destructive force of fear that is sandpapering us all to death, a death of joy and peace. Do your gifts involve doing things? Volunteer to help people move things, or help out with a service project. We are constantly do projects here at Olive Crest, and could do a lot more with more workers. Talk to Rev. Michael or Marv Widman. Do you love to give gifts? Well the family of God sure needs them. Can you hug with the best of them? Then Sunday should not be only Rev. Michael hugging. We could even start up a shoulder rub group for those whose tension hurts their body. But everyone needs words of love and concern. And that most rare gift, the ability to listen is desperately needed. If you have that gift, then use it with purpose. Not only to those next to you, but see who looks like they need someone to listen. Perhaps you know it is the anniversary of death of someone's loved one. Or perhaps a couple is struggling and if you listen and tell them that you lived through hard times in your marriage too, it can make the difference and encourage them to keep going. We all have parts of the gift of sharing love and we are all needed here in the family of God. And strangely enough, we also individually need what it is here. The Chronic Stress we are all living under is grinding us down. Please, we must fight back. For the sake of our own sanity, our families, our church, our nation and most of all, for God. If you feel the drain, then come be part of the solution and as we minister to each other in ways that are natural to us, we will find to our surprise that we are being ministered to as well.
Come love and be loved.
Your brother-in-Christ and fellow worker in ministry
Reverend Michael Lee Burgess
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