Grace, Peace and Skipping Class

August, 2026

Sometimes I am amazed by the way a line from a movie or television show can become memorable, quotable, and a part of our culture. Quite often, they are from productions that we would not expect to yield quotable, and certainly not poignant lines.

However, I think we were all captivated, back in 1986, when Matthew Broderick, in his role as Ferris Beuller, looked right at us through the camera and said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

t has been seven months since I began work here as Senior Minister, and the time has gone by fast. I think that is true for several reasons, one of which is that time just seems to pass faster every year. Another reason is that we have had a lot going on. Just a quick scroll through our Facebook page looking at the posts over the last several months provides ample evidence that we are not sitting on our hands around here. Advent and Christmas seasons gave way to Lent and Easter, which kept us busy until spring that brought preparation for graduation, blood drives, food drives, and Pentecost. Our most recent flurry of activity has been related to preparation for and implementation of Vacation Bible School. It was a huge success, and that success was facilitated by a bevy of volunteers who all worked hard to make it so. I am grateful to one and all for the donation of time and energy that was really quite intensive.

I am grateful also to be a part of a church that is busy doing important things. Jesus called us to be his followers. It is not enough to say we love each other, so we must demonstrate it by the way we live and act in the world. I look forward to more of these kinds of activities. From here, I can see the terrain of the fall and winter seasons, that will bring more important things for us to do together.

And, I am certainly cognizant of the fact that all of us have personal lives that are quite busy. Even the summertime and the vacations we spend so much time planning and longing for can add to our seemingly interminable lists of things to do. I talked with someone recently who said they had enjoyed their vacation at the beach with family members they don’t see very often. Then they added that they were also glad to be home with much less to do and fewer people to feed and worry over. I get that.

So, I am hopeful that this next little while in our life together, say, the month of August, can be a kind of sabbath time. Before school starts back, and before Sunday School begins and the resumption of choir practice, and all the things that occupy our time in the fall and winter, I hope we can take some time just to breathe a little.

I was recently introduced to the term “grind culture” in an article by Mark DeVries, a licensed psychologist in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The term is borrowed from a work by Tricia Hersey, and it refers to the stress and “voluntary servitude” we all take on in a society that places a high value on productivity and consumerism. Because we are steeped in such a society, it is quite easy for us to become slaves to the values of efficiency, autonomy, and perfection. DeVries describes our modern problem with work quite succinctly, as follows: “We would do well to realize that no one can be good at everything, and that we are not required to adhere to some platonic ideal of omni-competence. The failure to excel at all of one’s endeavors is not a diagnosable disorder. Struggling with a demanding job while juggling other life stressors is a life problem, not a mental disorder.”

He goes on to describe the antidote for our modern preoccupation with work and productivity as rest, or something called “sabbath consciousness.” Namely, says DeVries, cultivating in ourselves a sabbath consciousness, “reminds us that we are valuable simply by virtue of being. That we are worthy from the very start, not because of anything we accomplish but rather simply because we are.” That seems like a good word for all of us right now. Take some time to rest. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat —- as many times as necessary. And remember, “A day off is a day well spent; it’s the ultimate rebellion.” (F. Beuller, 1986)

Grace and peace and skipping class,

Morgan

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