Piloting Faith: First I was done and then I was free...

A Word for the Day...
A modern parable...
“What are you trying to accomplish?” he asked me, staring down at me over the rim of his glasses.
One more time, I calmly explained what I was working to create. I wasn’t asking permission. I was asking him to join in.
“Tell me, what is in this for me?” he said. I suggested that he could ask a different question, a better one. Try: What is in it for us? The “collective” us. The “common good” us. The “we are all in it together” us.
“Well, it’s a nice dream. You won’t succeed. Not without my help. And I am afraid I can’t give it to you,” he said as he leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest with a smirk on his face.
I nodded, stood and walked out almost giddy to be free of him. Good things usually come when people underestimate me. More than that, good things come when they underestimate all of us as we work together for the common good. Trust is the currency of change. Not authority. Not privilege. Not force. Not anymore.
Then it hit me: When you are moving in conscious ways in the world, ways that feel so much more honest, collaborative and freeing down into your bones, ways that threaten old power structures and ignore privilege, maybe you reach a point when you are simply done with the nonsense. You don’t have to be dramatic about it. You just have to be DONE. And then you are free.
- Rev. Cameron Trimble, author of Piloting Church: Helping Your Congregation Take Flight

Blessing for the Week
May you journey to the place where your creativity is born. May you dwell there with wisdom, trusting sense and shape. May you come out with dancing, delighting in the sacred creative partnership you share with God.
- Jan Richardson, Sacred Journeys: A Woman's Book of Daily Prayer
