If Bill Elder’s past assessments are any predictor of future performance, I’m making a big mistake to write this in my out loud voice.
Any time I mention straightening and organizing my office, Bill just looks at me, smiles and shakes his head. His unspoken thought comes through loud and clear: yeah, that ain’t happening. I smile back and get through a stack or two before I’m called to something else. But I’m going to go for it. And with your help, this time is going to be different. Bill says we’ll see.
This is my commitment: a major thorough clean up and reorganization of my office begins Tuesday, two days after I get back from General Assembly on June 24. I won’t take vacation until August, so I’ll be here through July and that’s where you help me. I won’t be doing Sunday services, but I’ll be around and available — on an as needed basis. Feel free to make an appointment or call with a pastoral concern, but if you are meeting or something’s going on and you don’t really need to involve me, maybe think about helping me stay focused. If you feel like it, perhaps you could give me a nudge every now and then by checking in to see how it’s going.
Years ago, I wrote that in my work as a conservation biologist, many of the natural areas needed fire at regular intervals to remove the leaf litter, release nutrients and open up the underbrush and sometimes the overstory for new growth and restoration and rejuvenation. In my column I suggested that my desk needed something similar – a well-managed prescribed burn to open up space for new ideas and inspiration. Then I cleaned everything off and tossed or filed it away. The green desk pad emerged like new shoots, but the fuel load has built up again. Only this time it’s not just my desk, it’s spread around the room.
As you enter the office there’s a small fountain on the table at the far end of the couch. When the fountain is running, water sheets off a flat center spout over a black slate surface. Three river stones can be arranged to fit the day. It’s been a long time since I turned on the water or moved the stones. You may not have ever even noticed the fountain. It sits there — a quiet Zen reminder of simplicity and presence hidden amidst the clutter of files and papers.
So here is my goal in my out-loud voice framing it in a way that makes it even more accountably head shaking; not just to clean up and reorganize my office, but to straighten and arrange it so that the fountain has a noticeable place and becomes part of my daily ritual and routine. Water flows around smooth river stones in quiet meditation — whatever else and however much may be going on.
Bill smiles as if to say: I’d like to see that. I smile back and nod to say you will.
Summer arrives with June. May this summer bring a seasonal shift into your life and may we each uncover our own reminder of simplicity and presence waiting patiently to be given a little space and light in our day. Thank you for your help.
—Rev. Jim McKinley, Minister