“…worship does not give us faith…Faith comes, or doesn’t
come, in the struggle to live every day authentically and honestly.” Professor
Renita Weems
A Baptist pastor told me once how
he was surprised, early in his ministry when a parishioner approached him for
the third time in a year to say that he had been “born again.”
“How is it
that you can be ‘born again’ so many times?” the minister asked
skeptically.
“I don’t
know,” the man said, “I guess the spirit comes to me, then leaves me, then
comes again.”…
This is true for all of us, isn’t it? We have our
moments, our times when grace descends upon us like George Bailey’s angel. We
wonder why these moments are so brief.
I wonder, in particular, why I am
such a poor practitioner of what I teach. In the years when I worked as a
hospital CEO, in the controlled settings of nursing units and cafeteria tables
where I roamed as the local chieftain, I thought I was pretty good at
energizing fellow employees.
But the greater truth is that the
rest of the time, in the everyday moments where our lives are lived, I was
prone to irritability and thoughtlessness. I was no more loving than anyone
else and a lot less than many.
A continuous life of joy-filled Love
does not really make sense to us. We are realists. 
Perhaps
this is why I, and so many others, are enchanted by “It’s A Wonderful Life.” In the film,
George Bailey (left) is hardly a saint. He’s well meaning, but he also suffers
depression, gets drunk and plans to commit suicide. In others words, he needs, like all of us, to be saved.
If we are
to live each day with the authenticity Dr. Weems mentions, than we are likely
to face everything that George Bailey faced. In other words, we a not likely to
find ourselves, one day, so enfolded in Love’s arms that we are on the pathway
to sainthood.
Honesty
tells us that our answer lives along a different path. Yet, we still have our
moments of epiphany. We may be human but we are also created just a little
lower than the angels. And this is a reason for us to persist.
Our striving
is one thing that affirms Love’s presence. We fail at various points in our
climb up the peak, but the peak remains. And it is climbable.
I urge
that we pursue a higher pathway even though we are sure to stumble along the
way. To strive for the peak, in the midst of certain falls, is surely a journey more worthy
than to surrender to the valley of mediocrity.
There is a
single justification for all of this that shines above all others: It is that
we are needed. Patients must have our best because that is what their weakened
condition requires. We have knowledge, skill and the ability to be pathways for
Love. They live in pain, fear, and weakness. When these forces meet, a Sacred Encounter is created.
The example
of the Samaritan calls to all of us. We can turn away, or we can answer.
-Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
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