Rev. Melinda Giese, Min. of Discipleship & Pastoral Care
For the past six years, I’ve kept a brief daily journal. The format I use sets up each day with room for five consecutive years of journal entries. Which means that when I write my daily entry, I also can read what I wrote on that date the previous year. As I’ve been reading through last year’s entries for March, April, and May, I’m amazed at how many changes we absorbed in a very short span of time. Grocery store shortages, on-line worship, cancelled spring and summer plans, school closures, zoom meetings, our church merger vote…the changes kept coming.
Living through this time of massive change and disruption prompted many of us to reflect on our lives. As we gradually became used to the “new normal,” we started to ask what makes our lives meaningful. When our activities were restricted, what did we miss? What were we thrilled to stop doing? In a period when we no longer took our health for granted, where did we find comfort and peace? Without all our usual activities to fill our days, what did we notice about our lives?
One of my favorite books of meditations is called Fragments of Your Ancient Name, by Joyce Rupp. It includes 365 days of different names for God, many of which are unique and thought-provoking. One of these names for God is “The Disturber.”
Even though we may never have thought of God as “The Disturber,” this is one of the consistent ways God acts throughout scripture. God calls Abram to leave his home to go to a land God will show him (Gen 12:1). God disrupts life for Moses, sending him to Pharaoh to bring God’s people out of Egypt (Ex 3:10). The angel Gabriel comes to Mary with the shocking news that she will bear God’s son (Lk 1:30). God’s holy disturbances continue through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and finally, the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.
Joyce Rupp’s prayer to God, “The Disturber,” helps us see how this aspect of God may be a gift to us:
Wake us up
To what needs doing,
And what needs undoing.
Wake us up
To what must be let go,
And what to draw closer.
Wake us up to what enlarges love
And what diminishes it.
In all parts of our life,
Disturb and wake us up!
While I do not believe that God caused the pandemic (or any of the other terrible things that happen to us or the world), the truth is that rarely do we embrace being woken up or disturbed. We usually prefer the comfort of our routines and predictable lives! And yet, people often talk about times of disruption or crisis as times of spiritual growth.
As we look back over the past fifteen months, we may notice this same dynamic for ourselves. God did not create the pandemic, but during this period, many of us asked different questions. We connected more deeply with our faith. We experienced fresh insights into the things in our lives worth holding onto and those we wanted to let go.
In this time, perhaps we also have encountered God, “The Disturber,” who helps us grow in ways that are impossible when we are busy maintaining the status quo. Through our questions, our fears, our worries, and our prayers, God has been at work within us all this time, that we might wake up more fully to our lives and the world around us.