becoming

We cannot become again the nation we were - or thought we were - but we can become the people we are called to be. 

I used to preach that. Too many times a congregation wants back the past. Only better. More like they imagined it to be. 

But it is time to move forward. 

And become what we are called to be - even if that requires the ordeal of change, of emergence, into a new birth fragile with possibility.

It's frightening, really. 

We can become who we are called to become.

The past has a pull for us. Familiar, fantasized, traumatized, dramatized. We wish we were like that. Really. Not just in dreams, fantasies, or nightmares. 

And yet, here we are. On the brink of the world, dancing in a new light. Not a sunset light. Daybreak.

With all the threat and possibility of a new day, come upon us.

There is a good reason we call theology emerging - for we are in the throes of experience, and each new element, in our sensation, perception, evaluation, and response, changes us. We emerge, continually, becoming more and more... more and more what? That in part is up to us, each of us, collectively us. What shall we become? What shall we move toward?

 

We cannot become again the people we once were, 

but we can become the people we are called to be.