In Between Times

Back during the Covid shutdown, I read this great book by Susan Beaumont called, “How to Lead When You Don’t Know Where You’re Going.”

Great title! It was a great book.

She talks about how there are times in history, when we find ourselves between the disintegration of the old and the emergence of something new – on kind of a threshold. 

And in these times, not only does anxiety rise; but sometimes motivation will fall. There is the temptation to give up or to give in. And if we are not careful, our fears will drive us.

She argues, however, if we are open to it, God’s greatest work occurs in this space. The Franciscan theologian, Richard Rohr claims that all transformation takes place here.

Some time ago, I was listening to an interview with a Benedictine monk, David Steindle Rast. He was talking about anxiety… which so many of us have been feeling these days. He said, “We have to acknowledge our anxiety, but we must not fear. There is a great difference.”  

We have to have space and time in our lives – to stop, to pause, to get in touch with what’s happening inside us. So that we are not driven by fear.

It is true that so much of what’s going on in the world around us is completely out of our control. And often we wonder, what can I do? What difference can I make? 

I’m more and more convinced, that the one gift we have to offer the world around us, is our own inner peace.

My prayer today is that you would carve out time in your own life for silence, for stillness – to allow that larger, stronger presence of God fill you and nourish you. And may the peace and strength that you experience, be a gift you share with a world desperately in need. 

Let us pray: We pause for even just a moment in your presence, O God. Take our anger, our grief, our pain. Wash over us again with your grace, that we might be healed, restored, and filled anew with your peace. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.