My Newsletter Article

The following will appear in my church newsletter in October.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about “transitions,” and how we’re all perpetually in one. It seems like every time I turn around someone is transitioning from one job to another, from summer break to a school year schedule, from one apartment to another, or even from one mindset to another. The fall seems to be particularly rife with change as even the leaves on the trees begin their next phase—multicolored compost.

This fall the stakes are even higher as this country is about to transition from one President to another, and both major candidates have tried to bill themselves as change-makers. John McCain’s website places the quote “Country First: Reform, Prosperity, Peace” front and center, and Barack Obama embraces the slogan “Change You Can Believe In.”

As a church, I know that this congregation has faced quite a few transitions, from the loss of beloved congregants to changes in polity and church structure, as well as the new experience of having an intern minister. While some of these transitions have been exciting and positive, others have been heart wrenching and overwhelming. Regardless of the effect, change always comes with some grief for what was.

I must admit that part of my preoccupation with transition is that I recently went through several pretty big ones, leaving my friends, colleagues, and church community on the west coast to begin a new life and new ministry here. Usually a pretty easy-going person, I found myself anxious and preoccupied straddling two different cities, two sets of roommates, and two jobs. Even my cats were anxious, finding a way to hyperventilate through 6 states on the move from San Francisco to Kansas City.

While transitions seem pretty constant and inevitable, they also expose a pretty powerful asset in our human toolbox—each other. Even before I arrived in Kansas City, I was receiving dinner invitations and a “Welcome to Kansas” package from my internship committee. The effect was striking. While I was leaving one home, I knew that I was going to another. Imagine what the world could be like if we all felt so welcomed, so connected, so appreciated. Imagine the worldwide community that could be built. Imagine the hope and trust that could come from hospitality, from feeling connected even when we’re thousands of miles apart.

We’re all transitioning, all the time. We transition personally, as a church, as a country—the list in endless. It can be hard, liberating, ridiculous, exhilarating, and overwhelming. What seems to make the difference, what makes transition that much easier, is when we find a way to support each other through it. No matter what happens in the next month, the next year, the next 20 years, may we find ever-deepening ways to connect, to support, to ease our way through transitions. Change is constant, may connection and community be as well.