Creating a Future
What a marvelous thing a promise is! When a person makes a promise, she reaches out into an unpredictable future and makes one thing predictable: she will be there even when being there costs her more than she wants to pay. When a person makes a promise, he stretches himself out into circumstances that no one can control and controls at least one thing: he will be there no matter what the circumstances turn out to be. With one simple word of promise, a person creates an island of certainty in a sea of uncertainty.
When a person makes a promise, she stakes a claim on her personal freedom and power.
When you make a promise, you take a hand in creating your own future.— Lewis Smedes, "The Power of Promises," in A Chorus of Witnesses, edited by Long and Plantinga, (Eerdmans, 1994)
The future is not some place we are going, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made. And the activity of making them changes both the maker and their destination.John Schaar
Word for the Day
Listening to the news or watching it on TV, reading the newspapers and magazines that come our way, provide us with plenty of disheartening information. The "future" can seem bleak, even dark and frightening. We all know the future is unpredictable and uncertain; we also know how much we want to predict the future and make it safe and certain.
Add to the "news" personal ups and downs, health issues, work issues, the give and take of our relationships with others and the brightness or darkness of the future, the unpredictability of it all becomes even more magnified.
In this Easter Season, not too many days removed from Good Friday, consider the Apostles, consider Mary, the Mother of Jesus, consider the disciples and friends who had welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem in triumph and then witnessed his brutal death.
As they lay Jesus in the tomb, could any future seem more bleak, darker, or more frightening? On that Good Friday they buried Hope, they buried Love, and they had to fear that they could suffer the same fate if they remained too closely identified with Jesus. We are told that they hid themselves "for fear."
And then, the truly unpredictable happened: Jesus rose from the dead. God did something entirely new and unexpected. And all futures, all attempts to predict futures, changed. When God is in the mix, new and wonderful futures are possible, can be created even when it seems impossible or improbable.
Inasmuch as a man and a woman can shape and control at least one thing (their presence in every future) by their promise, so too can every man and woman of faith depend on the presence of God in every future moment (whether unpleasant - Good Friday - or extraordinary - Easter). We remember the prayer that is Psalm 23: "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." We remember Christmas: "God with us." We rejoice in the news "Alleluia! Christ is risen."
May you find the power of your promise to each other strengthened and affirmed in this Easter Season; may you find the power of your promise transformed in the light of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. May the joy of Easter fill your hearts and your home. May the promise of Easter brighten your future together.
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St. Margaret's Episcopal
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