When I started dreaming about boxes, I knew I had “Brown Blood, the term used inside U

PS for those who work for the company. Like the majority of people who work for UPS, I started out loading tractor trailers; in my case, five nights a week while I was in high school. The inside of a UPS warehouse is full of miles of conveyor belts and rollers that move packages around. In the morning they move from tractor trailers into the brown package cars that come into your neighborhood. In the afternoons, the flow is opposite, with a few dozen tractor trailers from local companies thrown in. All the packages that came in had to go out within four hours, every day, no exceptions. Even with all of today’s technology, every box has to be loaded into a trailer by hand.

Long story short, they come down the rollers into the trailers fast, and you have to keep up with whatever comes your way. Sometimes, during a rush, they would come so fast that they would get piled up between you and the exit to the trailer. My memory is a little fuzzy on how many packages we could fit into a fifty-three foot box trailer, but let’s just say in was measured in the thousands. I can remember times when I would load at least fifteen packages (boxes) per minute…for four hours straight. Sure, I was in the best shape of my life when I was a loader, but it could also get a little overwhelming. There were nights I would wake up from a bad dream that I had been buried under boxes or that the boxes never stopped coming. And that was normal.

I don’t dream about boxes anymore though. Now I dream about things getting overwhelming in the church! Fortunately the two have not combined to find me buried under parishioners coming at me down huge sliding boards. That would be weird. I

do still have nightmares from time to time about the endless to-do list, or of getting to church and realizing I “forgot” to write a sermon, or of forgetting to show up for a wedding. Lots of bad dreams about forgetting things in the church, apparently. The point is that what I do during the day (or don’t do) makes its way into my dreams. When that happens it is usually a sign that I’m under stress. This is one of those times of year, with so much going on this fall, where I get really active with a lot of projects, and I have trouble letting go of every last bit of stress and worry that comes with it. I haven’t had any bad dreams about it yet, but it’s only the beginning of September.

I assume that many of us have similar experiences. I’d like to think that I am not the only one whose worries and fears show up in their dreams. Some of us might dream about work, others about relationships in our lives, and still others about the sheer number of commitments we have. I recently read an article about how busy kids lives are between homework and activities on top of schooling. I was never that busy as a child, and I’m guessing you weren’t either. We don’t yet know what being that busy all the time does to young people, although based on the rise of anxiety disorders and obesity in children, we might guess. I wonder how many kids nightmares have shifted from bogeymen to their endless calendars? But I digress. The commonality is that we can all get overwhelmed by what life throws at us. Things keep coming down that conveyor belt whether we want them to or not, and it takes a toll.

This reality is not unrelated to last week’s rambling about taking Sabbath and learning to function at a less than 100% pace. When our lives are getting so full that we can’t even rest when we are resting, it’s time to pay attention to that and do something about it. It is bad for the soul to be so busy all the time. As I’ve said recently, we’re going to try to help people work through some of these issues to find heath and wholeness this fall. I would encourage everyone to take a Sabbath day on Saturday, September 27 for our retreat day in the parish hall. Perhaps you want to take Living Compass on Wednesday nights – even if you’ve done it before, this time will be different enough that you can repeat it. Maybe the Daily Endorphin Challenge that starts in October is something for you to consider? You can find out more about all of these things in the current newsletter or by watching News You Can Use. It may be that you’re beyond this in your life now that you are retired, but I bet you know someone else who still needs to find some space to slow down and just breathe a bit. Invite them to join you in one of these endeavors.

I don’t buy the line that, “God won’t give us more than we can handle.” It’s based on the misconception that God gives us “stuff” to worry about in the first place. That’s not how God works. Instead, I prefer to see it another way; all sorts of things come at us in life, and with God’s help we can usually find a way to deal with them before they bury us (figuratively or literally)! If you need a way to shut that conveyor belt off, if just for a few minutes (I used to have good dreams about broken down conveyor belts!); if you need some help seeking and find God’s help, consider taking advantage of some of the programs we’re offering this fall. ...and thank your UPS driver next time you see him (or her).

Tom+

Almighty God, creator of all things: you set the world in motion according to the vision you had for us, your beloved children; in the midst of our active lives, we pray that you would be near at hand through an outpouring of your Spirit to give us peace and endurance as we encounter challenges along the way; call us in from our labors to rest in you, and give us the grace to heed your call, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, who reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.