Just one thing beautifully
Posted in Uncategorized by gbcs on June 1st, 2009 I love to read, and I use a number of reading approaches and styles.
Sometimes I want to zip right through what’s before me, gobbling up a fun who-done-it by Patricia Cornwell or P.D. James, or a grabber of a story by Dan Brown or Lemony Snickett.
Amory Peck
Other times I’m in the mood to learn something, and I read studiously. I have Marcus Borg’s The Last Week, and I’ll read it that way.
Sometimes I want to sink into the beauty of words, cherishing each image. I approach Frederick Buechner and Madeleine L’Engle in that way.
I’ve come to the new Social Creed Companion Litany to the United Methodist Social Principles in all three ways. I’ve read it as a wonderful, zestful statement, the tune ringing in my ears. I’ve thought about what each item might mean: How should I understand “justice and mercy embrace”? And, I’ve been living in the beauty of “that we may be one in divine love for the world.”
We: each of us individually. One: all of us together. Professing, living out and creating “divine love for the world.” Individuals, groups and organizations, working for the common good.
As I wondered about all that, I listened with new ears to Holly Near’s song, “Planet Called Home.” In it, she gives the history of the world, up to the time that our “planet called home” was at the threat of decline. The lyrics tell us:
They moved as one being, even though each would arrive here alone. They promised to work in grace with each other to save the beautiful planet called home. There was no promise that they could save it, but how exciting to give it a try. If each one did just one thing beautifully, complex life on earth might not die.
Two ideas to think about. First, each person was called to do “just one thing beautifully.”
Star struck
I don’t want to make myself sound too much like a kid in from the country, but I was star-struck when I attended my first meeting as a member of the Board of Directors of the United Methodist General Board of Church & Society (GBCS) last fall.
There I was, meeting Jim Winkler, the famous, influential, sometimes controversial Jim Winkler. There were the other staff members, with their amazing portfolios. There was Fred Brewington, one of my heroes from General Conference 2008. There was Faith Fowler, an incredible force in the Detroit area, a woman whose reputation for good works I know well. Bishops, clergy, incredible lay people gathering from all over the world.
That was a foolish worry.
Many were returning for their second four years as a board member. They were moving through the process with ease and confident assurance. It was both daunting and exceedingly exhilarating. How could I ever live up to what each of those would bring to the board?
But, of course, that was a foolish worry. I’m not to live up to what all the other board members bring. I’m not called to “be them.” I’m called to “be me,” to bring to this group those small, individual things that are mine to do.
The Bible reminds us often of the necessity, the importance, of each piece of the body, and the need for all to work individually for the whole. The Message tells it this way:
So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ’s body, let’s just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren’t.
If you preach, just preach, just preach God’s Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don’t take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don’t get bossy … keep a smile on your face (Romans 12).
Do one thing beautifully
Or, in the words of Holly Near, do one thing beautifully. Amory, don’t worry about Jim’s thing, or Fred’s, or Faith’s, do your one thing beautifully.
Holly Near’s song has two prescriptions: one, each of us is to do “just one thing beautifully,” and, two, we are to “work in grace with each other.”
We are to ‘work in grace with each other.’
I also had a mighty bout last fall of the-work-of-this-board-is-overwhelming syndrome: Alcohol and Other Addictions, Economic and Environmental Justice, Human Welfare, Peace with Justice, United Nations and International Affairs. Phew! Oh my goodness, phew!
But, easy, Amory. We’re doing this together. Staff and board, each working in grace with each other, to tackle these concerns of our hearts.
The Message, in Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10, says:
It’s better to have a partner than go it alone. Share the work, share the wealth. And if one falls down, the other helps … by yourself you’re unprotected. With a friend you can face the worst. Can you round up a third? A three-stranded rope isn’t easily snapped.
There we are: a board committed to the work and to each other, a multi-stranded rope that certainly cannot be snapped!
U.N. Commission on Status of Women
Despite being so new on the GBCS board, I have already been so blessed by my membership here. The first two weeks of March I stood as a representative of the board at the 53rd gathering of the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). A functional commission of the United Nations Economic & Social Council, CSW is dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women.
That theme … opened up a realm of related topics.
CSW is a principal global policy-making body. Every year representatives of Member States gather at the U.N. headquarters to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.
Linda Bales, who directs GBCS’s Louise and Hugh Moore Population Project, and I were among hundreds of members of non-governmental organizations there to witness worldwide deliberation on the priority theme: “The equal sharing of responsibilities between women and men, including care giving in the context of HIV/AIDS.”
That theme, while it sounds fairly narrow, opened up a realm of related topics: sex trafficking, prevention of parent to child transmission, religion and sexual reproductive rights, female and male condoms, etc. Those topics were explored through a series of parallel events throughout the ten days.
Awe at the process
Holly Near’s prescription — working in grace with each other, with each one doing just one thing beautifully — was surely vibrantly alive at the United Nations.
It’s a refreshing process to see the member from the smallest of countries having equal status with the U.S. member.
I am in awe of the process, women from all the Member States, one voice for each country. It’s a refreshing process to see the member from the smallest of countries having equal status with the U.S. member.
As messy as it is, and as many compromises that need to be made to have it happen, the consensus process gives me hope for the world. It also caused some mighty reflection on the polarizing nature of our voting at the United Methodist General Conference, our denomination’s highest policy-making body.
I can’t think of any place that more represents “each one working in grace with each other” than the United Nations. Messy and contentious as it might be from time to time, “each one working in grace with each other.”
Church Center at the United Nations
I can’t think of anything that gives me more pride than the Church Center at the United Nations, a 12-story building, directly across from the delegates’ entrance to the United Nations. Prophetically built in the 1960s by the Women’s Division of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, it is a proudly labeled beacon of ecumenical pride and activity. The Rev. Levi Bautista and Joe Kim are housed there to conduct GBCS’s United Nations and international affairs ministry.
It is a proudly labeled beacon of ecumenical pride and activity.
The CSW session was surely a time of people doing just one thing beautifully. The U.N. building was a beehive of activity. The body as a whole, doing the work to be done. Individuals staking out their “one thing”: staffing information tables, faxing and texting messages to delegates, crafting morning worship. And meeting one another. I’ll never forget the incredible gift of having conversation and shaking the hand of a woman from Iraq.
I’m not intimidated any longer. I’m fired up, ready to live out with all of you the Social Creed Litany call “that we may be one in divine love for the world.” However I read it, it’s a life changing message.
Editor’s note: Amory Peck of Bellingham, Wash., is Lay Leader of the denomination’s Pacific-Northwest Conference. This article is based on her remarks at the closing worship on March 22 at the spring 2009 meeting of GBCS’s board of directors, which was held in Washington, D.C.
