We're Not In Kansas Anymore

“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” That’s what Dorothy says after a tornado rips her away from home and drops her in Oz.

Her statement seems to me to be a fitting description of where we are. Beginning in March 2020, at least here in Georgia, the tornado of COVID-19 has blown us into a strange and frightening land.

Unlike Dorothy, however, we have faced not just one tornado, but several as COVID-19 surges again and again. Moreover, a tornado of staff transitions has blown through our church.

We may therefore wonder, like Dorothy, if there is a way to get back home. Like the tin man, scarecrow, and lion she later meets, we may wonder if we have the heart, brains, or courage to go on.

Fortunately, the story of Dorothy and the others does not end there. Despite their doubts and insecurities, Dorothy and her newfound friends make their way together to the Emerald City in search of what they want.

Along the way, they face many obstacles: spells set out by the wicked witch of the west, flying monkeys, and finally a blustering bully of a wizard, who in the end turns out to be a fraud hiding behind a curtain.

By facing up to the challenges that confronted them, they find what they are looking for: brains, hearts, courage, and a way home. Indeed, they discover that what they were looking for was something they already had within them.

So it is with us. We are in Oz, as a nation and as a church. To become the best that we have it within ourselves to be and to do, we must not shrink back from, but instead honestly face the challenges ahead of us. That is how we will develop heart, brains, courage--and ultimately find our way to whatever home will be.

As inspiring as Dorothy’s story can be, we need to remember as a church that we have another. That story tells us that there is more going on than what we already have inside us. As the apostle Paul reminds the Philippians in the midst of their own fear and trembling, it is “God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

So then, let us not fear, but instead face the whirlwinds, trusting in and enabled by God to find the heart, brains, and courage for the living of these days.

Paul Lewis
Chair, Coordinating Council