There are many kinds of transitions in our lives and the lives of organizations. I’m feeling a little ragged these days as it seems like every major organization I am involved with is in an intense transition. This includes my work with the SJA Transition Team. I’m not sure if it is a sign of the times or what but I have lost more sleep, had more headaches, higher blood pressure and shed more tears on behalf of others than any previous work year of my life. Normally, I’m rather cool and centered but not this year.

Transitions that we don’t want tend to make us feel like things are falling apart as noted in the reading today. What was known and safe and perhaps wonderful begins to unravel. The most common human reaction is fear and anger. Emotions like these are normal. It’s what we do with the emotions that affect our spirituality.

Let’s start looking at heat and transitions as positive forces in life rather than ones to be feared. Here are two quotes to start with.

• Love can bottle the heat in July to warm the chill of December. - Margaret Gregson
• Nothing splendid was ever created in cold blood. Heat is required to forge anything splendid. - Arnold Glasgow

Story1- Do you remember learning to swim? I remember thrashing about so hard trying to control every muscle, to do every stroke just right. I didn’t get too far and I just wore myself out. I especially remember the first time someone told me to try floating on my back. Did you trust the water? Did you really believe the water would hold you? I thought it might but I wasn’t sure. Did you have any sensation of fear so tight in your belly that when your instructor told you to take a deep breath, there wasn’t any room for it? So you sank and said to yourself “I knew it wouldn’t hold me.” How did you learn to not only trust the water but to love it? I don’t think you can learn to swim if you can’t trust the water. Can we as a parish trust the transition we are in to be God-infested and able to hold us?

Story 2- My daughter has always liked hermit crabs. We’ve had a number of these intriguing creatures. Land hermit crabs occupy snail shells in order to protect their soft abdomens and to retain moisture. A critical element to a hermit crab’s survival and growth is that it must change its shell as it grows or it will suffocate to death. We had several that died. I don’t know for sure if it was because of a resistance to change, but I wonder.

One of our hermit crabs named Sam didn’t change shells for a long time. We worried about him. We tried tempting him with a variety of exquisite shells but he wasn’t responsive. I imagined he was afraid. Afraid of experiencing a sense of loss of what was known, comfortable, protective and nurturing.

I learned that changing shells could be a dangerous time for the hermit crab. The first step is it has to let go of the protection of the old shell. Then it has to cross the sands to a new shell. In those moments of crossing, it is vulnerable. Is the sand a safe world to be trusted or is it really a threat? And as it approaches the new shell, it must worry about whether it will be the right fit. If it isn’t, what will it do? Sam made it and found a good fit and stayed in that one for quite some time.

We had another hermit crab named Sheila. Unlike Sam, Sheila seemed to really like to change shells and did so with a sense of curiosity and adventure and more often than was required. I imagine that for some reason she trusted the process and that made all the difference. She taught me there are different ways to take the same journey. Which hermit crab are you like? Which one does this community want to be like?

Story 3- I coach people and organizations that are in transition especially as the forces of globalization make them feel like hermit crabs who have to change their shells. I care deeply about my clients as individuals and about the common good of all the stakeholders. I’m picky about clients so I’m not talking about companies that are greedy and driven only by the bottom line.

I have several people who are in fights around values in their organization related to these transitions. More than once I have seen an individual that I care about become so convinced that he or she is right and the appropriate authorities are wrong that they escalate the fight. What can happen is that their response to the situation takes what could have been a healthy discussion and turns it into a power battle that he or she will ultimately lose.

Today my focus is on walking on the spiritual side of these kinds of transitions rather than the tangible and objective side. I am saddened by what it may be doing to the individual’s soul, let alone the collective soul. The person tends to become angry, self-righteous, defensive, paranoid, and even blind to his or her own role in intensifying the conflict. They may become dishonoring to other good people and even go on the attack by trying to create pressure on the rightful authorities through politicking. Their inner and outer worlds begin to become contradictory to the very values that they say they are protecting.

My Story- I, like many of you, have had my own struggles with our parish transition and knowing that we have completed only part of the journey. I have known for quite some time about George’s retirement plans and yet it was a shock when it finally became real. I didn’t want to let go of him. I barely made it through my farewell remarks about George at the Friday night celebration without crying.

When I was asked to be on the transition team, I was honored and yet worried about keeping 4500 households happy when I knew we really would have much work and responsibility, maybe a little influence and no authority and no control. I feel a great weight from the worries that sit in the midst of our parish life about who will be sent to us and if he will be a fit. I’m hurt that it has to be a him and can’t be a her. I’m frustrated that after seeking out and interviewing 30 people that we haven’t secured the right fit. I have been confused and upset over Jim’s not being appointed. I can’t help the emotions. They just happen. But, spiritually, I have to decide what I am going to do with those emotions. There is the challenge.

For myself, I have continually found peace and faith and trust with my transition team partners. I have trust in the universe and the God that can hold us, just like the water holds the swimmer. I have vast trust in the resiliency of this entire community that no matter who comes here we will gain in our spiritual journey from that person in unpredictable ways. The new pastor will gain much from us and be influenced by us. That happened with George and with other pastors that we have had. It will happen again. I am not afraid that we will have an appointee who will challenge our deepest essence. We will remain Joan of Arc but in a new shell and we will all swim together. We are not alone. We are in a trustworthy world even when the temporary darkness seems threatening.

I feel called to act as a member of a peace church even when I feel threatened. I challenge myself to not create enemies where there are none. To the degree there is concerns with the hierarchy, I’m trying to practice love, the serenity prayer and integrate that with the Buddhist practice of nonattachment and I all I know from the Theory of Everything that I teach.

I have learned that sometimes our souls, both in our private lives and in our organizational lives, want us to take journeys that we don’t want to take. That is because, as Chardin pointed out, we are first and foremost spiritual beings who happen to be having a human experience. And our souls want us to go places we don’t want to go. When I go where my soul wants me to go and do it with trust and peace, it has taken me wonderful places I never dreamed possible.

There are pearls to be found in the dark times, in the vulnerable times, in the transitions that we don’t want and for reasons we may never know. The question is who do we want to live into being as we make the journey.