Efficiency vs. care...

Wendell Berry once noted that "the standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care."  As my faith community ripens into the totally inefficiency of Advent, I am also keenly aware that many churches are completing their stewardship/fund-raising drives, too.  What a clash of realities!  And yet, when the church is really living as the body of Christ - formed and shaped by the paradox of the Cross - we have to let go of our quest for efficiency and trust that God's grace is sufficient.  Barbara Nicolosi put it well:

Creating beauty actually subverts the problem of the Garden of Eden. Satan's temptation was, "You shall be like gods." Adam and Eve, you see, rejected their creaturehood.  And this is the perennial temptation for us:  we want to be like God, we want no limits. But the beautiful makes us content with our creaturehood (so that we might confess) I am small - and that's ok."

This cartoon by the Naked Pastor makes this point in an unexpected way.  I give thanks to God for Advent...