Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect?
Let me keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.

~ Mary Oliver

The leadership of All Souls is constantly asking ourselves this question: How can we more effectively communicate and embody the mission and vision of our church? How can we encourage the members and friends of All Souls to do the same?

This morning the e-letter team met and asked that question of our weekly e-letter? Is it getting the right words out about what's going on at All Souls? Is it manageable to read in a quick session? Or does all the details about all the different happenings get folks bogged down? 

So we're experimenting a little. For one thing, I'm moving my musings to my blog, which made me sneeze when I opened up just now, it was so dusty. In the weekly e-letter you will still get the synopsis of what I (or the guest speaker) will be speaking on this coming Sunday but I will save my more prosaic musings for this venue. (If you're not on the e-letter mailing list and want to be, click here to subscribe-- there's lots of interesting information about what's going on every week at All Souls.)

The good news is that the intrepid e-letter team won't be waiting on me to finish up the weekly column before they can send the e-letter out, and the better news is that I can write whenever I want, not just on Wednesdays. I will commit to writing at least once weekly; we'll see how that takes form.

It's good to be open to change, to try to do something in a new way in hopes that it will increase your impact. It's also possible that in trying new things we-- you and I-- could experience monumental successes or colossal failures. 

We're not perfect, (Saint) Mary Oliver reminds us in the above poem. We're not supposed to be. We supposed to pay attention to that which matters, which is mostly standing still and being astonished.

Where are you standing still in your own life? Where are you astonished?

For myself, I've been trying to be much more intentional about my daily meditation practice. It can be so easy for me to get swept away in all the things that clutter up a day: deadlines to meet, fires to put out, bills to pay. The funny thing is when I focus on those things they tend to grow in their importance in my eyes. I begin to think those things are more important than standing still and learning to be astonished at all the beauty there is in this battered world of ours, if only I remember to look for it.

I'm excited about this new way of communicating with you, of you being connected to me, to All Souls in a variety of ways. I encourage you to sign up to follow my ramblings, if you want. 

And feel free to share your ramblings with me. I like to know what's going on in your lives, where you are being astonished. Perhaps we can share the wonder together.