Sisyphus

It's easy to think at the start of a week that there's loads of time before next Sunday comes.

But the last week of school in the summer term completely contradicts such lines of thought. I long since learned the hard way that if I don't get right ahead in the first two days of the week I'm really up against it from then on.

It's a festival, special time, I suppose. Like the local Children's Gala here on Saturday. Crowds of people out and sharing in the varied celebrations.

The day was great and the place was mobbed.

And this whole week's the same. Great. But mobbed out with all sorts of different things.

Wednesday morning's pretty taken up with the first four years of the Primary School and their service here at the church. Thursday morning's much the same, except the venue's reversed and I'm along there for the Upper School's final assembly and Award Ceremony. And Friday morning's a longer thing still with the Secondary School's Commemoration Day and Prizegiving Ceremony.

I'm not back from that 'til nearer 1pm.

And, of course, for each of these occasions there is preparation to be done. On top of everything else. And less time than ever to do it!

So you get the picture.

I have to hit the ground running or I don't really stand a chance. I'm just chasing my tail the whole week through.

Anyway, I long since learned the way that this week works.

So I was in good and sharp and hard at the tasks that needed addressing and done.

All these different services. Orders of services, powerpoint talks, the prayers for the Friday event, and praise to be chosen, not just for the Sunday services, but Wednesday lunchtime too.

And all sorts of e-mails I needed to write. And people to visit, a list that just seems to grow as every day goes by - and that despite my getting out and seeing folk and spending time with them.

Sometimes it starts to feel a bit like Sisyphus must have felt. I can't remember exactly what he'd done that was wrong, but whatever it was (a catalogue of things, I think), he was the king whose punishment saw him rolling a huge big boulder up a hill only when he reached the top to have the boulder roll back down again and he had to start again. And again. And again. For ever.

Presumably he's still at it (according to the story). Poor guy.

You'd have thought he'd have wised up to what was going on and found a way to break the dreadful cycle which went on and on and on.

Like going on strike. Or using ropes. Or .. I don't know, finding some good way to break the mould. Or at least smash the boulder to little bits.

Today I guess it's called the rat-race. And none of us are immune.

In fact I think that much of our western society has got the Sisyphus bug. Or fallen for the Sisyphus con.

Carting all our baggage like some massive, weighty boulder, up the mountainside to somehow try and make it to the top. And finding, snakes-and-ladders-like, we just come tumbling straight back down again. And again.

I don't want to live my life like that. But I sometimes think the Christian church - I mean the institution - too often lives like that.

The boulder is the baggage of a centuries-old tradition which gets bigger with each passing generation of the thing. Our energy and time is too much spent, I guess, in trying to roll this whole amazing baggage up the hill and keep the old show going as it were.

I think the church is simply full of 'boulder-rollers'. People who've gladly got involved. And then find the whole thing becomes a dreadful, weekly (daily even) sort of bind. So many things to do. And even when you do them all there's always more to do.

The Sisyphus club. Who wants to join it?! Yeah, OK, silly question!

Anyway, that's a long way of saying there are occupational hazards in my line of daily work. And I'm more than a little aware of them.

I've absolutely no desire to be another 'boulder-roller'. No matter what others expect me or want me to do.

Jesus wants us bolder, sure. I don't have problems with that. And he wants us to be on a roll, I don't doubt that. That sort of bolder roller 's fine.

And I'm learning to live like that. Which is fun.

We met again as the 'famous five' at night. The two couples whom I meet with on a fairly regular basis, to work through the Bible and to join with each other in prayer.

We're working through the book of Genesis just now. Chapter 9 tonight again (we did the first part of the chapter the last time we met). Noah invoking a curse upon his son (well, really more upon his grandson, for reasons best known to himself).

Not easy stuff. But it gave us more than enough to toss around. Not least in being able to see that by our prayers we can indeed, in amazing ways, shape a people's destiny and change the world for good.

Not like Sisyphus. Where nothing ever changes.