and now and then in ourselves, there is a new creation (Paul Tillich).

Yesterday’s post was quite morose and filled with self-pity.  Oh foolish one.

Earlier this year, I prepared and submitted what felt like the mother of all grant applications ($70K/year over the next 3 years) to our local United Way agency to help fund the school success programs we have been carefully growing over the past few years.  In a time when the financial challenges are so daunting as the Episcopal Church learns to be not only the church of the privileged but also a church that serves on the margins, finding new ways of funding ministry is critical.  I took no news yesterday to be bad news.  The recipients for this grant cycle were to be announced yesterday and by the late afternoon I took no news to be very bad news.

I was hasty.  I even went so far as to follow up with my contact person at UW to say I realized we were not recipients and wanted to know who I could meet with to get feedback about our application and how to better prepare ourselves for the next time around.  I got an auto-reply from her mailbox advising me she would be out of town till the 29th.  And then, another note.  Saying we had won the grant.  Congratulating us.  Making real any number of new possibilities and dreams.

On the advice of my colleague and friend, Joe Duggan, the leadership of NRRM has spent the beginning of every meeting for the past month or so, doing a very powerful reflection process based on the passage in Luke about the Annunciation.  Mary asked, “…how then, can this be?”…