The Post-it Note Wall

A few weeks ago at my church there was a pen and post-it notes under every chair in the auditorium. It was the first Sunday after the Covid social distancing and mask requirements had been lifted. Towards the end of the service our pastor asked us to write down something that had happened to us during the COVID pandemic that was memorable, either good or bad. It could be something happy or sad, or maybe just something that the COVID experience had taught us. Then he asked us to stick pour notes on the wall in the foyer. It was up to us whether or not we wanted to put our name on our note. They are still up there three Sundays later, hundreds of them, and every week I stand there reading as many as I can. It has been an amazing experience.

I lost my job.

I found this church.

My father and both of my in-laws died. Deep dark depression.

We lost our dog.

I’ve learned that I love working from home.

It has been the loneliest time of my life.

My church is like most others I suppose, we clean up well, lots of smiles everywhere, and that’s a good thing. But its never all smiles in life at church or any place else. Under the surface human beings are conflicted and complicated. Few of us let anyone else see the vulnerability, we work hard at managing our image as a well adjusted, put together person who is getting along just fine. Deception is much easier to pull off. When someone asks, How are you, we answer fine, not because it’s necessarily true but because it’s more expedient than telling the truth about yourself…actually, I’m a mess. But with these post-it notes, our pastor had given us permission to tell the truth without the social awkwardness. The results were stunning and in a small way, comforting. The most brutally honest notes admitting depression and worse were surprising but shouldn’t have been. I’ve been in church long enough to know that Christian people are just as screwed up as anyone else. Maybe I had been lulled into the notion that this particular group of them were somehow different. It’s hard to fight that impression sometimes when I see all the smiles, all the wealth and comfort there. But there is no amount of money, privilege or comfort that can wash away the human frailty we were all born with. The wall of post-it notes serve as a reminder of this truth. My church family is filled with all kinds of people and many of them are carrying around massive burdens. It makes me love them a little more, reminds me to pay closer attention to those to my right and left and the lonely looking man across the way.

I hope they leave them up. I hope they are a permanent fixture in the foyer. I think it would do every church some good to have a wall of post-it notes. Here. This is us. This is who we really are. We all need salvation. We are all starved for grace. If not, why are we even here?

So, to whoever came up with the post-it note idea, thank you from the bottom of my heart.