CUMC Connections September 17, 2020

For the past couple weeks, I've been rubbing my eyes constantly. I even went to Dr. Anderson and had my eyes checked, but something seems to be clouding up my vision and it's driving me crazy. Perhaps it's the smoke from all the fires, but it's no fun not being able to see clearly. It reminds me of an incident several years ago.

I was at my desk in my previous church when a visitor came to the office for some assistance. He was a middle-aged man wearing jeans with a collared shirt and carrying a backpack. He was cleanly dressed, looking sharp, except for his glasses, which were awkwardly bent and pieced together with tape. I sat with him in my office and asked to hear his story.

His name was Donald and he lived at a halfway house near downtown. He stopped by the church because he saw the steeple while walking the neighborhood. He told me about his run with the police while helping out a couple of guys who needed a ride. Unfortunately, they were undocumented immigrants and when he was pulled over at a checkpoint, he was arrested.

After several months in detention, he was getting his life back together again but needed a some financial assistance. But rather than the typical need for food or shelter, Donald needed a new pair of glasses. During his arrest, his glasses fell and someone stepped on it, crushing it on the asphalt. The frame was broken and the lenses badly scratched. He couldn't see properly through them. So he asked if the church could help.

The church paid for his glasses, and it always feels good to help those in need. But beyond just good works of charity, that incident got me thinking about what Donald said about not being able to see clearly. You see, he had been diligent in finding a job and had the heart to work hard, but without clear vision, he struggled through his tasks and he couldn't read the orders printed on paper. Donald wanted so much to get his life together but his blurry vision was a stumbling block.

Well for Donald, his vision problem was physical. But I wonder if our spiritual vision can just as get blurry or cloudy at times. We just celebrated Rally Sunday, and what a blast that was to start off our Fall season. But more than just filling our calendars with activities, especially during this pandemic, we need to develop a clear vision for our future. In the coming weeks and months, my hope is to work with our Church Council and leadership to begin a process of discerning where God may be leading our ministries for the future. In many ways, this pandemic affords us some downtime to reflect and focus, so that when all this clears, the vision of Camarillo UMC will also be clear to minister and reach out into the world.

Blessings, Pastor Elbert