Spring is springing and just like all of you, my life seems to be filling up. It can be very exciting as well as exhausting. I’m trying to head the wisdom words from all of you, “Don’t work too late. Go home and get some rest. Don’t overdo it or you’ll burnout.” This sage advice was also at the Boundary Training Workshop I attended in Farmington. Time to rest and reflect and renew nurtures healthy minds, bodies, souls and relationships. We all know this… but it’s much harder to live it. My clergy self-care (as it’s called in the profession) this week is to keep my thoughts here brief and uncomplicated.
In the musical Oklahoma! There is a great song titled, June is Bustin’ Out All Over. It’s full of hope and expectation. The song has this great line
“… then April cried and step aside and along comes pretty little May.”
It rightly points out the unsettledness of the earlier months and the promise of renewed life in the coming months. Tilling and Planting months. Mowing and Weeding months.
Notice how God’s Garden is full of LIFE! plants, shrubs, weeds and all. Each with their own special offering, both good and not so good, but equally created by God. The same is true for us. Every human is created from the same LOVE and is welcomed and loved by the One God. We all know this… but it’s much harder to live it. April showers bring all the May flowers as different as can be. There is beauty even in the oddest flower. There is beauty in everyone of us. Behold the beauty. Delight in the difference. Honor the sameness.
“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world…”
That, my friends, says it all.
Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chellie
John Street United Methodist Church 