Repairing or Repeating
Repairing or Repeating
I’ve been fascinated—as millions have—with The Rise & Fall of Mars Hill podcast. It’s the story of pastor Mark Driscoll and the spectacular implosion of “his” (it was a textbook cult of personality) Seattle multi-site megachurch. It’s a little like watching an excruciatingly slow motion multi-car pileup; you know it’s going to be awful, but you can’t look away. And it’s not schadenfreude, though candidly sometimes for me it got pretty darn close.
The latest bonus episode is an illuminating interview with spiritual trauma therapist, Aundi Kolber. In it she drops five or six pithy and memorable verbal gold nuggets. The one that stood out most to Lauren and me was, “We repeat what we do not repair”. It prompted a deep and candid discussion for us on our drive from Kalispell to Missoula, MT Tuesday, and we’re still mulling over its implications.
This is because what we repeat—or practice—often enough can be really problematic. For good and for ill, practice makes habit.
Forgiveness, while not necessarily requiring restoration (and this is very important), is repair. Practice unforgiveness enough and it can become habit…something that's really problematic for marriages, families, and communities of faith.
This, I believe, is St Paul’s word to us in this week's Epistle.
See you online* Sunday.
Steve+
*Online-Only This Sunday
COVID concerns mean that we will meet on Zoom for Morning Prayer online-only this Sunday at 10. Join us here. Feel free to “mute” your video if you’d prefer.
Oh, and please let anyone you know who may be planning to attend but may not be on our mailing list about this. You can share this link with them: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83523274233
No Potluck
Especially discouraging to those of us who often dream of crockpots full of delicious-looking-who-knows-what, our 5th Sunday Potluck has been postponed. Sad face emoji.
Picture credit: Lampos Aritonang on Unsplash