I love adversity

So, we show up tonight for Cluster Council--or, at least, I show up first with a Chicago hot dog and a strawberry milkshake I bought at Sonic on the way. But there were cars in the parking lot. Instead of eating in the car, I go in to eat with the early arrivals.

But when I open the door to the room where we meet at Emmanuel, the room is dim and half-a-dozen folks are prone on the floor.

Confused I am. I retreat and Ted comes out to tell me there is a Yoga class in the parish hall. I am terrified I went to the wrong church for the meeting, but when the door opens and three other from the Council come in I am not only relieved, but intrigued.

You see, I love adversity, which is a not bad personality trait since the cosmos throws adversity at you so often. But what intrigues me is how the Cluster Council folks will deal with this alteration, this curve ball, this minor adversity.

You see, I like to find out how people adjust to the unexpected. That same cosmos is expert is giving us the unexpected.

By the time the 12 of us are in the church, it is clear to me that these are people I want to be around. A few murmurs about 'why wasn't it on their calendar?' but people then pile the food they brought on the piano--even pizza delivered to what is 'the wilderness' of Emmanuel Church--and people are finding chairs from all over to set up a meeting place in the back of the sanctuary in spite of the slight chill and the dim lighting. Someone even found a table for the clerk to take notes and we ate and had a great meeting.

These are the kinds of folks I want to surround myself with--folks who make the best of a bad situation, who are not cowered by the unexpected, who forge on into adversity.

I was blessed to be with them. Blessed.

Adversity, you don't have a chance with the folks of these three churches! They're up to it....

Maybe it's because of the 'night prayer' we always end with.

I refer you to the post before this to read that prayer--or 'pray' it, if you will. Gives the lie to the power of adversity, that prayer does.....