Clay Oglesbee is district superintendent for the River Valley District (southeast Minnesota) of the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Texts about "striving" make me itch. They bring to mind our
own cultural commitments to speak about lifting ourselves by our own bootstraps
to reach high goals.
An organization was leading a training seminar for professionals. At one point the leader asked participants to imagine themselves setting out on an adventure with only ten items in each of their packs. A few minutes later, they were told that an imagined mishap had occurred and that it was necessary to leave behind five items and keep five.
As pastors, we spend a great deal of time sharing in the
ongoing lives and adventures of our congregants and community members. We are
also called, literally, to come to love and suffer with them when
disappointments, disasters or deaths occur.
A man once bought himself a cemetery plot and a lawn chair, and then took a week of vacation to sit on the chair at his plot. I don't think he sat there because the view was pleasant or because he was proud of his new property. He did it because he wanted to see his life from the point of view of his death and his death from the point of view of his life.
Support the Christian Century
The Century's work relies primarily on subscriptions and donations. Thank you for supporting nonprofit journalism.
