No Small Moments - ASAP - July 12, 2026

No Small Moments

“ASAP”

©Hubcatstide2026

I want to talk about ASAP and the role we allow it to play in our lives. But before I do that, I want to share something with you that sums up why I am here. My purpose is not to promote a path or a way for you. My purpose is living in connection with the Spirit and in alignment with my values with hope that how I manifest the presence of LOVE will call forth within you the excitement and mystery of your own evolutionary process. In the simplest explanation, the meaning of my life is to help others find the meaning of theirs. I stole this from Viktr Frankl but I have made it my purpose.

Life always happens as soon as possible. When we say “soon”…I’ll be there ASAP, or I’ll get that to you ASAP, or I will do that thing my mind and body know I need to do for my highest good ASAP…often our “ASAP’s” are camouflages for procrastinating in living in alignment that leads to wholeness in our bodies, minds, souls, and in our relationships.

Light teaches us love. Dark teaches us strength. Wholeness becomes our reality when we embrace both. But there is another reality…the reality of doing the right thing, which is sometimes the hard thing accompanied by dark exploration, climbing, digging ourselves out of our egos and shadows, or staying tethered to the wind of the Spirit as we sail through change, loss, grief, and beginning again. When our ordered lives encounter disorder, we are called to reorder what matters the most in the present time we are living. In order to continue to evolve instead of becoming stagnant, we must stay the course during the shedding growth demands until all that is not in alignment with the Holy, and all that is not our highest selves, falls away.

I remember a life changing moment when I stepped fully into my gifts without apologizing. I had just completed a two-week intensive Leadership course with the United Church of Canada in August 2010, and I invited a few of my colleagues to come to my church service and join me afterwards for lunch in my home. The last day of the course, our instructor, Ted Dodd, called each student outside for a one-on-one review of our participation. I was humbled by Ted’s words, and commentary from the other nineteen ministers/students attending the course. Ted said something that awakened me. He said, “Traci, after all my years in serving the UCC, and teaching this course in Presbyteries across Canada, I have never witnessed anyone under a collegiate spotlight like you. You have been gifted with many gifts and the way you offer them, the way you authentically show up, scares the old boys club. For a while, and I do not know how long, you will encounter a wall trying to stop you or an energy trying to snuff out your light every time you offer yourself. You will grow weary of the scrutiny. You will almost give your voice away. You will be in a cave of retreat…a cave of your own making, a cave of your own choice, because you will be spiritually, mentally, and physically exhausted, and you will doubt that the Spirit can breathe life into dry bones. You are not called to give your energy away to people who insist dinosaur ways of doing church are the right ways. The church as we have known it is going extinct and it needs to die and this fills those people with fear that they will become obsolete, so they passively stomp out the new fires that are burning in people like you. If you let them blow out your fire, it will be because you are not grateful for what you have been given and the journey you have been called to experience. Your energy is wrapped in heartache and joy, leaking meaning, and inspiration everywhere. I promise you, when you step out of your cave of being less so others will like you, accept you, MORE LOVE will catch you, and use you up until nothing is left but LOVE.”

 The Sunday after our course, when I stepped onto the chancel, I stepped into the Light and strength of LOVE and stopped shrinking to make others feel better. There is a quote I love to say to myself and others that says, “If you are an ocean, be an ocean. Do not be a pond just because some people cannot swim.” Folks, I have smiled at people who have said the most terrible things about me, and they think I don’t know. Anything we lose by speaking our truth is not a loss. It is an alignment.

Fear of change steals moments. Understanding change must be lived out ASAP when we are already stretched, we will discover new energy in the effect of becoming a new way of being a community of faith. We will be awakened to our need to get our inner wheels into a new alignment. ASAP ways of being reveal new paths where we can be stilled by loving presence in our tracks, instead of being stopped in our avoidance of anything painful. ASAP does not imply we are going to authentically show up. It usually means that we show up wind blown, but not always by the Spirit. Our journey, our healing into human and spiritual wholeness isn’t linear. We often hope that healing will return to us who we were before. But evolving doesn’t go backward. It introduces you, me, to someone new…our new selves.

When we step into the wind of the Spirit, the gifts inside of us become like dandelions being blown into places, into hearts, we could have never imagine touching, and each spore of our meaningful journey becomes life-giving prisms of peace, hope, joy, and love wherever they land.

Since the world is watching, and if you are on a chancel, you live in a glass house, we might as well tell the truth. Rachel Held Evans said, “And the truth is, the church doesn’t offer a cure. It doesn’t offer a quick fix. The church offers death and resurrection. The church offers the messy, inconvenient, gut-wrenching, never-ending work of healing and reconciliation. The church offers grace. Anything else we try to peddle is snake oil. It’s not the real thing.” So, let’s speak the truth. If today was our last day…most of us would probably reach for what feels good. Jesus had a sense that the next day could be his last, so he reached for a towel.

Here is my gift for us to digest during July…a new definition of ASAP:

As soon as possible.

As soft as possible.

As soulful as possible.

As sustainable as possible.

As sincere as possible.

As steady as possible.

Allow space for rest.

As we leave this time together, may we enter July moments knowing wherever we stand, we are called to be the soul of that place in that moment. And may we choose to live in this alignment with all our hearts as soon as possible.

There are no small moments.

Traci Hubbard