“with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,” - Ephesians 4:2
It seems inevitable that if you have a lot of projects going on at the same time, some of them aren’t going to go according to plan. The risk for the proverbial “dumpster fire” seems to go up when you are under a time constraint, or if you try to do everything on a budget.
Since moving to Cincinnati and beginning work at Lord of Life, both my home and church life have been a continuous string of projects - bathroom renovations at home led to … the rest of the house renovations at home. And it is already difficult to remember a time when we didn’t have an office for our Seminary Intern, but the truth is, that office was just the first of many building projects that brought us where we are with our Share the Light renovations.
In the last weeks, in addition to some lightning-paced progress on the sanctuary renewal, we had our parking lot re-striped so we can see the parking spaces better, and sent our altar and baptismal font away for refinishing. What could possibly go wrong?
1 - An actual dumpster fire.
As Independence Day celebrations dragged into the second week of July, a garbage truck driver noticed the back of his truck was on fire. As the blaze grew, he pulled into the most convenient lot he could get to, which happened to be Lord of Life, and dumped the burning waste onto our freshly painted parking stalls. The fire had been caused by fireworks that hadn’t been fully extinguished before being discarded.
2 - Quality craftsmanship cannot be rushed.
My niece was baptized on Sunday morning, and I came in the night before to get things set up. We expected the newly finished font to be in the building, but it wasn’t, and I soon learned it wouldn’t be ready until after the baptism was over. We are blessed to be rich with relationships with our sisters and brothers of other denominations, and not only was Mother Phyllis from St. Anne gracious enough to loan us a font for the next morning, but the resulting conversation has already led to some potential future collaborations.
Both of these situations could have been opportunities to panic, or be fearful or angry. But anger never would have solved either of them. It was fortunate that our lot was near enough for the garbage truck to dump into - it might not have been as safe to drop the fire in a more residential area. And as soon as we realized our own font was unavailable, we were gifted with a beautiful alternative because of our ecumenical relationships. I’m sure the continued renovations at my actual home and my church home will result in additional surprises. I pray that we respond to all of them with the same grace and humor.
Gracefully yours,
John Johns, Music Director