but don't change anything

Invited, yesterday, along with maybe thirty other people, I attended a presentation of the results of our recent parish survey, an early part of the search for the priest who will be our next Rector. 

The presentation was pretty comprehensive and, I thought, well done. And the survey and analysis of results was quite revealing. Perhaps the main thing I perceived in it was that people like our parish just as it is, want a few things to happen, basically as continuing the progression of our ongoing community life, and want nothing to change.

There's a bit of dichotomy there, but that's how I read it: change a few things, but keep everything just as it is, don't change anything.

Just so, a cartoon screened near the end of the presentation said it well.

What does this mean to me, a long retired parish priest who led three parishes in my Time, and made major changes each place, but positively with the parishioners liking it? The answer is that I am concerned that we are so happily settled and satisfied with things as they are, that there will be resistance when the new Rector changes things; conceivably even hostility; and I do not want that to happen. With every new Rector comes change, and I want folks of our parish to be welcoming, open, accepting, accommodating. I think we can be. If we are as positive as we always seem to have been, I think we will be fine, and our new chapter as happy as the chapter we are finishing this Spring 2024. I'm looking forward to it with a mix of sadness and anticipation, sort of like Advent heading into Christmas. Or, stretching the metaphor, Lent heading into the Easter Season.

It's all good.

RSF&PTL

T88&c