How do any of us decide what to do with our lives? Obviously, in an ideal world, who we are should determine what we do. As philosophers say, “Being precedes doing.” The trouble is that no matter at what age and stage of life we ask, “Who am I … really? the answer has to be, “I’m not absolutely sure.” In his autobiography Arthur Miller writes, “I would be twenty before I learned how to be fifteen, thirty before I knew what it meant to be twenty, and now at seventy-two I have to stop myself from thinking like a man of fifty who has plenty of time ahead.”
Aristotle was right: “Life begins in wonder and mystery.” Only he should have added, “and ends with wonder and mystery, too.”
As Christians we ask a further question: “What does God want me to be and do? Again, we have to guard against absolute certainty. What we can say about the Christian life is that it is love in search of form. “Though our outer nature is wasting away,” says the Apostle Paul, “our inner nature is being renewed each day.” During the coming years, Bethesda-by-the-Sea has the wonderful opportunity of new ministries, of a new rector and new vision, of putting your love to work in many forms. It will be a great adventure of unfolding grace, some bumps and bruises and joys and victories along the way, and many exciting and surprising avenues of offering your life and labor unto the Lord and the Lord’s world.
God be praised!
Bob Dannals
Interim Rector