Perspective

It's a complicated week in my world: regional assignments happen on Ash Wednesday. For most of us, it is all we can think about. This tiny piece of the puzzle is in some way a reality that we have been anticipating since far beyond our first days in the seminary. While we all do the best we can to wait patiently and trust in the process and the holy spirit... waiting is hard.

This is when I turn to people wiser than I for a bit of perspective. These words are often recalled and always beautiful to me.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.


We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.


This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.


We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.


We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.


We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.

-Archbishop Oscar Romero