Do you want to know the best way to play a trick on people with Type-A personalities? Hide their calendars and to-do lists. You will instantly render them immobile.
Planning and predictability are oxygen for the task-driven. Without a schedule, the anal-retentive souls will be set terrifyingly adrift. A workaholic cannot work without a plan. All systems and structures fail, equalling complete chaos.
While most people (excluding yours truly) would be thrilled to flip a calendar and find no appointments on a new day, representing free time, the Type-As (including yours truly) find themselves lost. An unplanned day is scary – it is totally unpredictable. The uncertainty can be overwhelming.
However, this unsettling fear of the unknown extends beyond taskmasters. This week alone, I have had people share anxieties about facing uncertain futures due to life passages and situational changes. Caregivers losing loved ones find themselves grieving not only the passing but the absence of their own purpose moving forward. The awakening to inner demons strengthens those heroes who are unrecognizable to themselves to stand up and choose an unknown path ahead. The vastness and unfamiliarity of a blank slate can be frightening.
To the purpose-driven, we depend on guideposts to give us direction and clarity, to mark our definitive progress. A clean piece of paper signifies emptiness. It compels us to recognize that all is new and possibly unknown. How do we cope with that?
The women at the open tomb on Easter morning had their schedules dashed. Their scheduled daybreak tasks of anointing and preparing the deceased’s body were shattered. The Evangelist Mark tells us, “they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. (Mark 16:8).” The women and other Jesus followers did not yet understand the death and resurrection of Our Lord. The faithful, probably Type-As and Type-Bs alike, were given a clean slate. And it was no cruel trick. It was a gift to celebrate.
Join us on Sundays to celebrate the Sabbath, the day the calendar is cleared to praise our Lord. We worship this Sunday, September 25th, at 8:00 AM for a half-hour outdoor worship service (weather permitting), at 10:15 AM for traditional worship, and at 6:00 PM for Contemporary worship.
Blessings,
Pastor Marc
