the ministry of "active helpfulness"

being part of the community group that meets in our apartment on monday nights has challenged me to grow in many areas, and an aid to this growth has been bonhoeffer's life together, which i'm re-reading for about the 5th time. here's a snippet that speaks to the part of me that is overwhelmed w/ keeping the kids and still trying to be a decent pastoral assistant:

we must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by god. god will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people w/ claims and petitions. we may pass them by, preoccupied w/ our more important tasks, as the priest passed by the man who had fallen among thieves, perhaps -- reading the bible. when we do that we pass by the visible sign of the cross raised athwart our path to show us that, not our way, but god's way must be done. it is a strange fact that christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them. they think they are doing god a service in this, but actually they are disdaining god's "crooked yet straight path" (gottfried arnold). they do not want a life that is crossed and balked. but it is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by god.

(dietrich bonhoeffer, life together (san francisco: harper & row, 1954): 99.)