Expectations
Disappointments
Friends,
I don’t know when I began to have expectations. As I think about it now, it seems from the very beginning of my birth. I had expectations that when I cried, I would receive the attention to whatever it was I needed. It was a cry for help with something I could not do myself. Fast forward to now, in my later years, I still have expectations. And there is a relationship between expectation and disappointment, isn’t there? You expect your car to be completely washed in the car wash only to realize the back is just as dirty coming out as it was going in. You expect to get better after surgery to fix something that has been troubling you and the recovery is longer and harder than they said it would be. You expect to be married forever and it doesn’t go as planned. I could go on and on with disappointment and expectations.
These are valid and normal reactions that I don’t want to discount. And, I know that sometimes our expectations are met and even exceeded. But, today I am calling out the church and expectations. The expectation to love our neighbors. The expectation to do no harm. I don’t know why every church is not standing up to what is happening in our country when people are dragged from their car waiting in a line to pick up their child. When children are taken in the middle of the night and zip tied behind their backs and taken from their parents. When pastors are shot with pepper spray for praying or dragged away while they are doing nothing but serving communion. When no one is allowed into detention centers to check on conditions - something we have allowed even in war. What has happened to the voice of the church - and I use church as a collective this in a broad sense.
I know this is not an uplifting post that usually is here but maybe it will make you think about your own expectations in your spiritual life. What is it that you hold so dear you are willing to stand up for? What is it what you would be willing to go to jail for or put in a detention center or be whisked off to another country without your belongings? How strong is your faith? I ask myself this every day. What is mine to do? What is mine to say?
blessings,
Jace
Expectation Poem
By Sue Ellson
To accept or expect
That is the question
To live in the moment
Or demand attention
The weather forecast
May be right or wrong
But the seasons keep changing
To help us stay strong
We can choose to strive
To seek and not to yield
Or we can just be love
And simply open the field
For it is in the surrender
That we lose the addiction
And find ourselves
In a place without friction
The pursuit of happiness
Has too many highs and lows
The peace of contentment
Allows us to enjoy life’s flows
When I think of love
It is often a chase
But it is time right now
To leave that race
For when I feel in my heart
The love is there
From a smile or a touch
Or a show of care
To believe takes faith
And a loss of control
But that is when serendipity
Starts to play its role
And then it happens
When you open your eyes
To see what is already there
And you finally realise
It is there in full view
But not how you expect
So love what you have
And treat it with respect
https://sueellson.com/blog/expectation-poem/Food That Endures Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life. —John 6.27 How much do we work for comfort, for reputation, for feeling we’re in control, for having our expectations affirmed, for being right? How much of that will matter on your deathbed? What people think of you will perish. All your accomplishments will disappear. But the love you leave behind will endure, because it is part of God, and therefore eternal. Let your labor be to receive God’s love and give it all away, and the God of Life will feed you abundantly. Steve Garnass-Holmes
When You Ask Me If I Can Say Yes to the World as It Is
Today yes is made of lead.
You look at me
and I nod—
and together
we carry the weight.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer