high line

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I was driving west on I 10 last weekend and started noticing, along the highway, the huge four legged bases for the new power line that is going in out that way. I had heard about it already, but I didn't realize it was under construction. First these bases were on their side, next to the cement anchors. Then as I drove along they were set up and attached. Further along, I got to see each stage of the process: the towers placed next to the base, then they were on the base, then pulleys were piled along-side, then the pulleys were hung, then I saw the spools of the gigantic wires, and finally, when I reached my destination, I saw the wire strung through the pulleys. They hung loosely there, and stretched out to the horizon as I turned off the highway.

I never really thought much about how those power lines, which I've always called "high lines," were constructed. Of course it has to take many, many steps to carry the electricity from its source of origin to the destination. I heard over a year ago, or maybe two years now, about planning the course it would follow. Before that were other conversations about the need for such high line. I saw a few workers as I drove, and thought about all the planning, production, and finally the construction of those towers, and I felt (once again) thankful that I'm a priest. Considering all those details and planning and the many steps it takes to build a high line, then the actual installation, climbing up to bolt in the pulleys, and thread the wire through seemed overwhelming. I was glad that wasn't my job!

Then I got back to Port Aransas, and Trinity by the Sea. I opened a document in which I've been imagining  a committee structure to help share the ministry we are doing here. It's a way to be sure we, as a community, share in the creativity and leadership of everything from our youth group to stewardship, from care of the gardens to training new lectors. Then I realized why I was paying so much attention to those phases of the high line. We're building a high line, here.

There is a balance I am still learning that I have watched others navigate as they lead congregations. The balance between immediate needs and long term planning, including leadership development. Moving toward a committee structure will help the Trinity community share  in the work of ministry, and the committees themselves will eventually be "small groups" where relationships will be formed, etc. There are many steps along the way, starting with the foundation of a theology of shared leadership. I'm not sure what phase of the construction of our high line we are in, but that's not really the point here. (And I'm not going to push the metaphor to say the electricity is the Holy Spirit, or anything like that.)

The point is, I had a reaction when I saw this process of building a structure for the high line. At first it was fascination and awe, then it shifted into cynicism, or at least negativity. "I'm glad that's not my job." At the core of that, and where I finally landed, was a paradoxical truth: "That is my job." Driving and looking at a high line under construction pushed me to understand one aspect of my priestly work in a new way.

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