Yesterday I was crushed to find out that my favorite
restaurant for more than a decade has changed hands: new owner, new wait staff,
new sushi chef. We had dinner
anyway and it was OK, but …. It just wasn’t the same.
I had a long day yesterday – lots of new stuff to integrate
into existing systems, new tasks to do, new ways and processes. Things can change rapidly. I left our meeting and drove multiple
miles through territory that I know well, but it’s been a while since I’ve been
here. So many changes in the landscape.
Trees cut down, roads widened, new buildings put up in place of older
ones. I was looking forward to
something that didn’t change – my
favorite restaurant and my old familiar standbys: salad with ginger dressing,
miso soup, spicy fried rice and a sushi roll. But it was not to be.
The ginger dressing was spicy not sweet, the spicy fried rice was just
not spicy enough. My yellow-tail
tuna roll wasn’t constructed properly and fell apart in my soy sauce.
I really was upset. Kind of the “final straw” feeling. As we
drove home through the pollen tinged rain last night, I asked myself if there
was anything in life that felt like it didn’t change – that felt like
security, that felt absolute. And
truthfully, in this world, the byword is “the only thing that doesn’t change is
that things change.”
And so this morning I woke up with tremendous empathy for
those who are fans of traditional, conservative worship. I understand why at a funeral you
insisted on the 23rd Psalm in King James Version. I really understand why you wanted the
traditional Lord’s prayer instead of our contemporary one in the hymnal. You wanted not just the message to
change, you wanted the medium to remain the same as well. I feel the same at times. I like some of the older liturgy as
well – I occasionally want to say that, “We be not worthy so much as to gather
up the crumbs under thy Table.”
And then I finish the statement, “But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have
mercy.”
You are indeed the same Lord and your byword is grace and
mercy. Praise be!
