Tag Archives: grace

Do over…

03 Wednesday Jul 2013

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This week I was commiserating with another mother of a young child, and we were both noting how hard parenting can be at times.  She confided that sometimes, when things are particularly crazy, she just sings about it.  That morning, she found herself singing, “This morning is insane!”  Although she was complaining, somehow singing about it made her loosen up and feel better about the whole thing.

Her tip reminded me of one of the collects from Mepkin Abbey.  At midday prayer one day, one of the collects was a petition asking God to renew our sense of purpose and use the rest of the day for good.  I remember thinking how full of grace that collect was – like a spiritual “do over.”  I remember thinking that whatever I had accomplished (or not accomplished) in the morning did not have to affect how the rest of the day took shape.  At that moment, in that prayer, I found a new sense of freedom – as if I was given permission to not have to wait until tomorrow to start over, but to start over right then and there.

Courtesy of www.carbonthree.com.

Picture courtesy of http://www.carbonthree.com.

Sometimes I think we could all stand to give ourselves a spiritual “do over.”  Instead of beating ourselves up for our failures, or wallowing in a bad mood because of something someone else said or did to us, we can turn it all over to God and simply start again.  Truthfully, I imagine God is a bit amused by our inability to give ourselves “do overs.”  Our God is a God marked by abundant love, forgiveness, and grace.  Our God is all about the “do over.”  When we forget that, our image of God then becomes a cold, calculating, scorekeeping God.  That is not the God we know.  Instead, our God is a God who is continually welcoming us into God’s arms.  I am reminded of Jesus’ words, as he lamented over Jerusalem, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” Mt. 23.37

Perhaps this week, we might consider how we might allow Jesus to gather us under his wing, to start again living into God’s graciousness instead of wallowing in our own sense of failure or frustration.  Whether at the end of the day, in the middle of the day, or even after breakfast, the “do over” is available at all times from the God who longs to gather us.

A spark…

29 Wednesday May 2013

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One of the things we have been looking at as a parish is how to more intentionally engage in evangelism.  The conversation has not been easy.  We have all been victim of an overzealous religious person who has made us feel uncomfortable.  A few of us have hidden behind closed curtains from someone knocking at our door to share their testimony.  Some of us have crossed on the opposite side of the street from the guy with a Bible, a loud voice, and a handful of tracts.  And of course, we ourselves have begun to overcompensate, avoiding talking about our faith altogether in non-church circles for fear of becoming “that guy.”

But we have been prayerfully working on seeing evangelism not as uncomfortable, out-of-touch haranguing, but as a grace-filled conversation about the goodness and grace of God in our lives.  We have been prayerfully considering how we can create the environment for such conversations.  And we looking at ways to meet people where they are, knowing that we cannot expect to share the Good News if we stay closed up in our church.

Perhaps without even realizing it, this week we did just that.  Last Wednesday, we gathered with people of faith throughout the Plainview-Old Bethpage community and made 495 sandwiches to feed our hungry neighbors.  We shared the work together, we got to know people from other faith traditions and communities, and we prayerfully thought of the men and women whose lives would be touched by our strokes of peanut butter and jelly.

Then, on Monday, over twenty of our parishioners gathered to walk in the Plainview Memorial Day Parade.  I watched as parishioners, clad in St. Margaret’s gear, shook the hands of old friends, had conversations with strangers, and waved with gusto.  As we walked, I overheard onlookers wondering about our Garden of Eatin’ (check out our Facebook page for our fun shirts, props, and banners), talking about where we were located, and not-so-subtly realizing I was the priest.

After the walk, parishioners re-gathered at the church, and planted our Grow to Give Garden.  Our garden is located near the road that our church faces, and I can see that the garden might be a great invitation into our property.  The garden already has brought young and old together.  I am hoping it might also bring parishioner and non-parishioner together too.

handshakeThis week, we started the work of evangelism.  My hope is that the experience gives us some energy around keeping it up.  I am already considering what local establishments I might begin to frequent when I do my sermon preparation.  The Vestry is beginning to ask some of our committees and groups to consider moving off campus to better be seen by and to encounter our community.  Our work is just beginning, but this weekend gave me the spark to keep it up.  See you at a local Starbucks, Cosi, or Panera soon!!

Sermon – Luke 15.1-3, 11b-32, L4, YC March 10, 2013

15 Friday Mar 2013

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The parable of the prodigal son is one of those beloved parables – the perfect parable for a Lenten journey.  Part of the story’s perfection is that there are so many characters with which to connect.  This year, I have been lingering on the older son.  The older son has every reason to be angry with his father’s lavish forgiveness.  The older son has done what has been expected of him.  He is obedient, hard-working, and would have never insulted his father as deeply as his brother does.  He is the consummate good and faithful servant.  And so when his father, who, by the way, has never given much praise for the older son’s obedience, throws a party for his wayward brother, the older son finally snaps.  He throws a first-class temper tantrum, refusing to come into the party and then yells at his father about the injustice of such a party.

What is so real for us with the older son is that we know his reaction all too well.  Two strong emotions take over the older son.  First, he is struck down with a serious case of envy.  The older son sees the party for his wayward brother, and covets the party.  Never once has he been offered even the smallest of parties for himself and his friends.  The older son has a case of what the Berenstain Bears children’s books call the “Green-Eyed Monster.”  In the Berenstain’s book, The Green-Eyed Monster, Brother Bear is celebrating his birthday, receiving gifts.  Sister Bear is mostly fine with this arrangement, remembering her own birthday party earlier in the year.  That is, until Brother Bear gets the most beautiful, sleek bicycle she has ever seen.  Then the Green-Eyed Monster takes over.  But just so that the adults do not think they are immune, before the story ends, Papa Bear gets a visit from the Green-Eyed Monster too when a neighbor gets a fancy new car.  The point is that envy and jealousy are all too familiar to us.

The other emotion that takes over is self-righteous indignation.  The older son is clearly right about his younger brother.  His younger brother did sin, was disrespectful, behaved selfishly, and disgraced the entire family.  The younger brother does not deserve the reception he receives.  But that is exactly what makes the reception so full of grace.  But the older son is so blinded by his self-righteous indignation, that he cannot see the blessing of his father’s reaction.  As one person describes his situation, the older brother is “standing outside in the dark, perfectly right and perfectly alone.”[i]

When we do premarital counseling, we talk about the ways that spouses and partners behave in disagreements.  Every family and couple has them, and so our counseling is a way to talk about handling disagreements in a healthy way.  I once had a priest tell me that the three most important words for any marriage are, “I.  Am.  Sorry.”  They sound like three words that are simple enough to say.  But somehow we have such a hard time saying them.  Partly I think we struggle with saying them because we think they mean admitting guilt or, even worse, defeat.  And few of us like to lose.  But that same priest told me, the next three most important words are, “You.  Are.  Forgiven.”  As hard as apologizing can be, sometimes forgiving can be even more difficult.  But forgiveness is the only thing that can keep our relationships in balance.  Ideally, by one person saying, “I am sorry,” and the other saying, “You are forgiven,” both parties give up some of their power.  Both parties submit something of themselves to the other.  When one party is unwilling to say one of these things, they become like the older son – perhaps perfectly in the right, but also perfectly alone in their rightness.

What the older brother teaches us is that sometimes we have a choice between being right and being in relationship.  In some ways, much like the younger son has been in a distant country, the older son is also in a distant country.  He has cutoff connection to his brother, to his father, and even to those who have gathered to rejoice over the new life his brother has been given.[ii]  In choosing to be right, he stand out in the darkness, unable to rejoice in another’s joy, closed off the hope of redemption and reconciliation.  In Rembrandt’s The Prodigal Son, the older son stands at a distance, hands crossed in front of him, standing in a darker section of the painting.  His face is lighted, but only to highlight the way in which his distance is important.  Like in the parable, Rembrandt shows the older son, in his rigid, distant body language, as choosing rightness over relationship at that moment.

In the face of this stubborn resistance to forgiveness and grace, the father in the parable shows equal abundance toward his two sons.  According to etiquette of the time, leaving his guests at a party was a breach of social mores.[iii]  But the father ignores social mores for both sons.  The father disregards common practice, and seeks out his older son in the same way that he ran to his younger son upon his return.  The father reminds the older son of the promise that still awaits him.  Then the father invites him into his joy – to celebrate a reconciled relationship – much like the reconciliation the older brother can enjoy if he just comes into the room.

Perhaps why the older son’s story is lingering with me is because we do not know how he responds to the father’s invitation.  The story ends with the ultimate cliffhanger that does not let you know whether the older son remains outside the party or comes inside the party.  Certainly the father’s desire is for him to come in, but we do not know whether the son chooses rightness or relationship.  I have wondered what would happen if the older brother went into the party.  What if the younger brother fell at his brother’s feet too, saying those three hardest words, “I am sorry.”  What if the two men simply embraced – saving words for later.  What if the joy and laughter of that room cracked through the older brother’s tough exterior, and warmth began to seep into his heart.  What if…

In many ways, I think the story ends openly to remind us that we too have a choice.  We too can choose to be right – to hold on to the things in life about which we are justifiably angry and disappointed.  We have every right to protect ourselves and even our family and friends from the kinds of behaviors that hurt us emotionally.  We can be guarded and keep our distance – standing out in the darkness of rightness.  Or we can choose to come into the party, and see what happens.  We may not be able to say “I am sorry,” or even, “You are forgiven,” but we can at least step through the door, into the warm glow of a room that is bursting with abundant grace and love for us and for all – that place where all are forgiven and all are loved.  Amen.

[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Evils of Pride and Self-Righteousness,” Living Pulpit, vol. 1, no. 4, O-D 1992, 39.

[ii] David Lose, “Preaching the Prodigal,” as found on http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=672 on March 8, 2013.

[iii] Leslie J. Hoppe, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 119.

Sermon – Luke 13.1-9, L3, YC, March 3, 2013

04 Monday Mar 2013

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We are half way through Lent, and this is the time that we begin to take stock.  But we do not always take stock of ourselves, humbly repenting of the ways we are stumbling with our disciplines.  No, we look at everyone else.  When we ask our fellow parishioners how their Lenten disciplines are going, we are not asking out of Christian love.  We are asking because we hope they are failing more miserably than we are.  We need to hear that someone has lapsed in their practice or given up altogether so that our weak attempts to hold on do not seem so weak after all.  We are a judgmental people, and we rarely offer the forgiveness that we so long to receive.

Jesus knows this as he listens to those gathered around him in our Gospel lesson today.  They are lamenting with Jesus about two groups of people who have recently suffered – the Galileans at the hand of Pilate and those near the tower of Siloam.  “Isn’t it horrible, Jesus,” they seem to be saying.  The insinuation is that those in Galilee and in Siloam must have sinned gravely to receive such suffering.  The assumption was a common one among the people of Israel.[i]  We remember the friends of Job who immediately assumed Job must have done something wrong to deserve his severe suffering.  Those gathered around Jesus are hoping that Jesus will confirm their suspicions – that Jesus will turn the spotlight on the sinfulness of those people, so that they can all shake their heads in judgment.

But Jesus will not take the bait.  Instead, Jesus tells this story:  Once upon a time, there was a fig tree that was not bearing fruit, and had not bore fruit for three years.  Fed up, the vineyard owner decided to cut down the unproductive tree.  But before the vineyard owner could touch the tree, the gardener made one last plea.  The gardener asked for one more year.  In that year, the gardener would dig around the tree, spreading manure at the roots of the tree.  If after a year of such care the tree still did not produce fruit, then the owner could chop down the tree.

The message seems to be clear in Jesus’ parable:  repent, change your ways, and start producing fruit, or you will be slaughtered.  But this interpretation of the parable gets all the parts confused.  The people gathered are not the gardeners begging God, the vineyard owner, for one more year to tend our garden.  That version of the parable would be too simple.  Instead, God is the gardener – the one negotiating grace – and they are the unproductive trees.

I have been thinking about life as the unproductive fig tree all week.  An unproductive tree is still very much alive – the tree goes about the business of breathing in and drinking up nutrients.  The tree is surviving, but not thriving.  But the tree is doing about all the tree can do.  The tree cannot fertilize itself.  The tree cannot aerate the tree’s own soil.  In order for the tree to thrive, the tree is dependent upon the gardener for the kind of care that produces fruit.

This is where I got stuck in the parable.  First, Jesus tells the people to repent; but then, Jesus tells the people that they are immobile trees, incapable of changing anything without the help of a gardener.  As someone who likes who likes to do, to be active, to achieve something, this parable is especially difficult.  If Jesus had just said to repent, I would have had a task to do – a job to accomplish.  Repenting, amending my ways, returning to God are all things I can work on and do.  But being a tree that just stands there, waiting for someone to help her, depending on God’s grace feels a lot less comfortable.

This Lent I really struggled with choosing a spiritual discipline.  I have tried all sorts of practices in Lent in the past:  reading a daily devotional, taking up a prayer practice, creating an exercise routine, or even giving up a foul mouth.  I tend to like the practices that add something to your life, rather than take something away.  But this year, nothing seemed to fit.  I talked to my spiritual director about my quandary, and she suggested something radical.  Instead of taking on something or giving up something, she suggested I just commit to just being more aware.  My busybody nature was totally confused and apprehensive.  But my spiritual director encouraged me to just try – to try spending this Lent, not busying myself with a discipline, but daily taking stock of my life patterns and observing.  This non-practice practice has been the most awkward experience for me.  As a person who needs tangibility, I have been left with this intangible practice.  No checklist to consult, no achievements to track:  just a practice of being, of letting God work on me.

I think what my spiritual director has been trying to get me to live into is the tree identity of our parable today.  In naming ourselves as the tree in Jesus’ parable, we are claiming a couple of things.  First, we are claiming that we are utterly incapable of determining our future.  The tree in the parable is not bearing fruit, and nothing the tree does will help the tree change this status.  The tree cannot try harder or behave differently.  The tree is simply a tree planted where the tree is.  Second, in identifying with the tree, we are claiming that we are dependent upon the gardener.  We are dependent upon the gardener’s mercy – the gardener who lobbies for one more year of trying.  We are dependent upon the gardener for determining the kind of nourishment we will receive.  We do not get to consult the gardener about the type of care we think we need.  We must trust the gardener to do what the gardener does best.

What I like about this parable today is that the parable takes us out of our comfort zones and puts us squarely in God’s hands.  First, by telling the people to repent, Jesus takes the people out of a mode of comparing and judging others and puts the people in the mode of tending to themselves.  His instruction to repent is almost Jesus’ way of saying, “Why don’t you stop worrying about what Pilate did and what the people of Siloam did, and why don’t you take stock of your own stuff.”  And then Jesus takes the wind out the sails of the people even further.  His parable tells them that not only do they need to not worry about what everyone else is doing, they need to realize that even the things that they are doing do not matter – because ultimately they are trees dependent upon God’s grace and mercy to thrive.

Now this may not sound like good news to us, but this is a tremendous word of grace for us today.  In the midst of the season of Lent, that season that we are typically kneading the dough of our lives, trying to get ourselves just right for God, Jesus leaves us with a word of grace.  Jesus’ parable today shifts our energy this week.  Instead of desperately grasping to change and amend our lives, Jesus invites us to let go:  to let go of trying so hard, and to remember the God who lovingly offers to do the work of digging in our soil and spreading smelly manure so that we might bear delicious fruit.

As we have been thinking about gardening this Lent, I have been hearing many stories of your own gardens.  For those of you who garden, you have lived this invitation that Jesus offers.  You have lived through a season where the tomatoes did not make it, where the new crop was not planted in the right place, and where critters have come in and destroyed.  And for those of you who are seasoned at this work, the common phrase I hear from you is, “Ah well, we’ll try again next year.”  This is the kind of letting go that Jesus is inviting us into this week.  This is the kind of trust in God that Jesus encourages.  As we come forward for healing prayers today, an old gospel hymn keeps running through head when I think of Jesus’ parable today.  The chorus says, “Your grace and mercy brought me through.  I’m living this moment because of You.  I want to thank you and praise you too.  Your grace and mercy brought me through.”  In the midst of our Lenten journey, we pause today to recognize the ways in which we are simply trees in God’s garden, dependent upon God’s grace and mercy to get us through.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] Daniel G. Deffenbaugh, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 92.

Sermon – John 1.1-18, C1, YC, December 30, 2012

31 Monday Dec 2012

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Our Christmas text today from John sounds more like the introduction to a dramatic movie – you can almost hear James Earl Jones’ deep voice saying the words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Of course, John’s version of the story is not as action packed as Luke’s version of the story.  Luke’s story of an evil empire, of a scandalous marriage and birth, of magnificent angels, and of rebellious shepherds is much more like the Christmas blockbuster we would all flock to the theaters to see.  John’s version of the story is a little more like the movie at the independent film theater that you might be dragged to with your artsy friend – or maybe you would just wait until the film came out on DVD, to watch if you had time.  John’s story is less engaging because he takes us away from the dramatic and relatable details of that holy night, and takes us to the cosmic understanding of that night.  The language is beautiful, but we have a difficult time finding a way to connect to the story.

The good news is that John gives us more than we realize at first glance.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  The beginning of John reminds us of the beginning of another great story of our faith – the beginning of Genesis.[i]  We hear the similarities from Genesis:  “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…”  We can hear James Earl Jones’ introduction here too.  In Genesis the world was in darkness and chaos – “tohu wavohu” are the Hebrew words for this dark chaos, this formless void.  By referencing this time of darkness from Genesis, John hints that when Jesus is made flesh among us, the world has fallen once again into a time of darkness.  In fact, even though God forms the world and gives the world light, the light seems to battle with darkness from the earliest days.  Though God gives the world covenants, laws, judges, kings, and prophets, the darkness still fights with the light.[ii]

And so, in the midst of this struggle between darkness and light, we pick up the story with John.  God, unwilling to cede the world to darkness, takes on flesh.  Jesus Christ becomes the incredible gift to us – God incarnate to show us the way to lightness.  Of course, Moses and Job saw glimpses of God’s glory and light.  But when the Word becomes flesh, God puts flesh on light, glory, grace, and truth, “so that followers who want to know how [light, glory, grace, and truth] sound and act have someone to show them.”[iii]  John does not start his gospel telling us the story of Jesus’ incarnation; Instead, John tells us of the significance of Jesus’ incarnation.  John cuts right to the importance of this event instead of letting us linger in the blockbuster version of the story.

What is challenging about John’s version of the story is that John immediately invites us into a choice when we hear the significance of Jesus becoming incarnate.  John explains, “[Jesus] came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God…”  When we hear these words we often think of those people who did not accept Jesus.  We hear John’s words in the past tense, thinking ourselves as separate from a time when Jesus had to be accepted or not.  Unfortunately, we do not get off so easily.  We too can be people who do not accept Jesus, and who do not live in the light.  We turn our eyes from those in prison, from those barely keeping out of poverty, and from those victims of discrimination and intimidation.  We allow the darkness to spread, not claiming the light of Jesus in our lives, and not shining the light of Christ into the darkness.

I stumbled on a commercial recently about parenting.  The commercial shows three quick vignettes – a father drinking milk from the carton, a dad shoving some dropped trashed under a bench, and a mother yelling angrily at the car in front of her.  At the end of each scene, a child is shown to be watching, taking in every last bit of behavior from the parents.  The commercial warns parents that children are constantly watching, listening, and learning from all of us.  We are our children’s teachers and children learn by imitating us.  The commercial is eye-catching in its honesty and simplicity.

What John is arguing for today is somewhat like this commercial.  Like children and parents, the world is watching us.  The world, knowing us to be persons of faith can see when we are agents of the darkness or of the light.  A few weeks ago, when a police officer gave shoes to a homeless man, the world saw his light.  When young dancers agreed to perform during their Christmas Break to raise funds for the victims of Hurricane Sandy, the world saw their light.  When we empty our pockets and purchase gifts for those suffering right here in Plainview, our community sees our light.  Whether we want to admit the reality or not, the world is watching us for some hint of light in this world that can be so dark.

Being an agent of light can feel like an overwhelming responsibility.  But John’s gospel gives us two words of encouragement.  John first tells us that to those who claim the light, who claim Jesus in their lives, God gives power to become children of God.  In other words, God will give us the power to become the light in the world.  Second, John tells us that we have all received, grace upon grace.  God’s grace can lift us up out of the darkness, and allow us to shine Christ’s light in the world.  Through God’s grace and power, we can be agents of light.  We can be agents of light in a world that still struggles with darkness.  We can be agents of light because “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”  Amen.

[i] Paul J. Achtemeier, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009),189.

[iii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009),191.

Reflections on the Storm…

09 Friday Nov 2012

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I have been pondering for the last ten days what to say about the experience of Hurricane Sandy.  I think I felt overwhelmed because I knew that my experience was not as bad as thousands of others in our area.  My experience felt superficial somehow, as if I did not earn enough credit to have something to say about all of this.  But what I realized these last couple of days is that although I cannot speak for places that were utterly devastated by this horrible storm, I can speak for what life has been life for the rest of us, tied to those who are suffering more while suffering ourselves.

As background, we lost power for seven days.  We have a fireplace (although it took us several days to secure wood) and we had hot water.  But we did not have heat, the ability to cook, or the other conveniences of electricity.  We had filled our cars with gas before the storm, but we knew we had to be careful about the number of trips out of the house.  We also have a three year old daughter.  We had several trees fall on the property, one damaging the church, but mostly we were spared significant damage.

Over the last ten days, several reflections have occurred to me.  First, I used to work with Habitat for Humanity, and in our work there, we told personal stories of homeowners to potential volunteers and funders.  I remember telling stories of families whose only heat source was their gas oven, who could not afford their electric bill and just went without power, or whose children suffered in school because of poor heat, comfort, and nutrition at home.  I told those stories and my heart broke as I imagined the faces of each of those homeowners.  But I had never experienced those realities, especially as a parent.  As we struggled this past week to warm our child by bringing her into our bed; as I slept by the dying fire (making sure to avoid accidents), realizing that although my body was warm, the frigid air around my head was keeping me awake; or as I found that despite my two layers of clothes, long robe, and a blanket, I still could not keep warm during the day, I began to see those Habitat stories in a whole new way.  There are neighbors who suffer this pain everyday, and yet we are blind because they are hidden in homes we do not notice, in sections of town we do not frequent, or in coworkers whom we do not know well.  Despite our suffering for seven days, or the continued suffering for people up to ten days so far, there are people who live this suffering everyday.

Second, there is a way in which the varied experiences of a disaster make you feel like that if you do not suffer in a particular way, your experience of suffering is not valid.  You feel shallow or weak or insensitive for complaining if your experience is less burdensome than others.  And in a way, I think that is appropriate.  We should always be grateful for our blessings and recognize that there are many ways in which things could have been worse for all of us.  But stifling our pain for the sake of honor others’ pain has begun to feel corrosive to me.  Despite the fact that my suffering or even the suffering of my parishioners was milder compared to other areas of Long Island, our suffering is still hard.  The experience of long periods of cold, of worrying about the health of yourself and your child who cannot stop coughing and wiping running noses, of worrying if the mental health benefits of getting out of the house are worth the anxiety of the uncertain gasoline situation, of feeling cut off from the rest of the world, of worrying about those whose suffering is worse, of being frustrated about not being able to reach those without power to see if they are okay – all of that takes a toll on the psyche.  And even when we got power a week later, about half of my parishioners were still without power.  So any sense that things just go back to normal is false.  The frustration of just wanting to get back to work without the ability to get back to work can be overwhelming.  It was not until the snow hit and the schools closed yet again that I realized how much of this emotion and anxiety I have been stuffing.

Finally, I have been struck by the overwhelming ways in which this storm has brought out the goodness in others.  My parishioners have been running extension cords across the street to share power with others.  I observed all of us talking to one another more – learning more of each others’ stories – caring more about the welfare of each other.  People without power themselves have bent over backwards to make sure my family was okay.  Friends and parishioners have taken us in for hot meals and for washing laundry or for simple camaraderie.  People long to help others even when they are suffering.  There is a sense of abundance in the face of devastation.  There is joy watching a toddler find creative ways to entertain herself.  And the outpouring of love from all over the region is even more overwhelming.  I have felt like that wall that keeps us from sharing Christ with one another has been decimated, and Christ is found all around us as we love and care for one another.

This last week and a half has been an emotional rollercoaster, and the end is not necessarily in sight.  I ask that you pray for one another.  I ask that you seek and serve Christ in all persons.  I ask that you love and give yourself grace the same way that you are loving and giving grace to others.  And I ask that you remember the ways in which you are opening yourself to others and not to forget that new way of being when we finally do get back to “normal.”