ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
March 4, 2026
The best-made plans! How many times have we said those words or thought them? Yesterday was election day, and the George H. W. Bush Community Center was a polling place. They had communicated to the church the need to use the street parking on the courthouse side for additional drive-up voting, but when I arrived at the church yesterday morning, they were in our circle drive on the library side… a circle drive that is used all day by the church. It’s not easy, once things are put in place, to get a voting location changed after voting is in progress. And I truly understand the need for the election to be safe, consistent, and as easy to navigate as possible. Everything got worked out in the end, but when I first showed up around 8:20am on Tuesday, I approached the two poll workers who were standing near our circle drive. Those two individuals had zero authority in the organizational structure. They had not made the decision. They had only been told where to stand and what to do. How often do we have a concern or a problem, yet we are talking to someone who has no real capacity to address our concern or solve our problem? Have you ever been that person who is answering the phones or sitting at the welcome desk, yet you get an earful? I will say that the poll workers were very good even when they couldn’t solve the concern. They listened, remained very calm, and never got defensive. I sort of wonder if those three strategies would be excellent guidance for all of us. Over the years, I have learned that people are often hoping to be heard, and even if they don’t get the resolution for which they desired, feeling that they were treated as a human being whose concern was worth someone’s time means a lot. What does it communicate when we demonstrate compassion with nothing more than the gift of a little time in which we allow someone to feel heard?
You are gracious beyond measure, O God who first loved us. In your grace is a never-ending capacity to listen, even when we are simply needing to vent. Help us to remember how others whose frustrations are unexpectedly dumped on us are often looking for nothing more than a little of that grace. Amen.
