Candidating “fortnight”
Tomorrow’s the big day
Rev. Lissa Gundlach is our candidate
Preaching tomorrow at 10am
Congregational meeting tomorrow at 11:30 
If you vote to call Rev. Lissa
She will become your minister on August 1
I will continue as your Interim Ministry through June 30

Work of the next month
Close the books on this fiscal year.
Prepare a budget for fiscal year that begins June 1
Re-start the paused Stewardship Campaign
Elect new Trustees for the Board, etc.
Congregational Meeting on May 31.
Vote on a couple of amendments to the Bylaws
We’ve been talking about moving the awards presentations to June 21.

In worship we have a lot of “ending the church year” business
Coming of Age culmination (May 31)
Our Music Sunday (June 7)
Our RE Sunday (June 14)
My last preaching day (June 21)

I willl talk about how we make a good ending
Starting on Tuesday
After you’ve had your vote.

2)  Message

Resiliency

Resiliency as a quality of spiritual health is a concept that has been talked about a lot lately.
Here’s my definition of resiliency
Resiliency is a measure of a person’s ability to recover from a set-back
Resilient people are able to re-set from a problem
Dodge the blows
(Or shrug off the blows that land)
Keep moving forward against headwinds
Stay the course around obstacles

Faced with a major challenge
Perhaps like we’re going through now
Or even something worse
Some people feel the problems of life overwhelm them
Control them
Bury them
Resilient people navigate the challenges and disappointments of life.
And stay on the positive path of their lives
Or return to the positive path if they get shoved off.

Researchers who study resiliency
Note that different people respond to the same experiences in different ways

Some people experience a trauma

            Which triggers a negative, overwhelming, response

Where other people experience an annoyance

            Which triggers a positive, resilient response

From the same circumstances

So here is the lesson from that

            Which is my message for today

There are no inherently traumatic experiences

That is, the trauma, or the annoyance, we feel in an experience

            Is not part of the thing we are experiencing

            They are our response.

                        They are our feeling

                        Internal

                        Belonging to us.

So this doesn’t mean that they are no challenges in life that are objectively bad.

            Anybody would be able to name some situations as worse than others.

            But how we feel about them

                        Is up to us

                        Our response belongs to us.

And resilient people respond to the challenges of life in a specific way.

“This is an experience that I will master”

            I will learn from this

            I will grow from this

            I will come out from this better.

There are three general attitudes that resilient people use in order to master the challenges of life

It’s not about you

            Resilient people say, “This is not my fault.  I didn’t do anything to deserve this.  This is about them, or it’s about some natural process doing it’s own thing.”

It’s specific, not global

            Resilient people say, “This particular part of my life is super challenging right now, but generally, my life is good.”

It’s for now, not always

            Resilient people say, “This is temporary.  It’s excruciating.  But it will end.  It will be over.”

I’ll see you tomorrow 1pm