WHEN THE E.R. BECOMES HOLY GROUND

The other day, Facebook reminded me that 15 years ago I had been in a minor car accident.  This was during that first year that I found Hope Episcopal church and started the discernment process for becoming a priest.  I spent a lot of time that first year writing, sharing with others where I was encountering God in my life and this car accident was no different.  A friend of mine commented on Facebook something along the lines of “I think these things keep happening to you, just so you can write something profound about them.”

Now, I want to make it clear—bad things happen to everyone.  I am no different, but, yes, the way I cope is by finding meaning, finding God in all areas of my life, especially in the upsetting and unsettling moments.

Almost two weeks ago, I found myself in the ER with excruciating abdominal pain.  I had been living with gallstones for around ten years, and I was very worried that this pain was my gallbladder.  I was hoping it was just gas—spoiler alert—it was not just gas.

My dad drove me to the hospital and both of us were sitting in the ER waiting room for hours, the waiting room maybe uncharacteristically packed for a Thursday night, although the moon was very full that night.

I spent those hours considering my options for pain relief.  Perhaps those two-seater chairs in the waiting room would hold me if I curled up in a fetal position.  What about the floor itself?  At least the floor would be cool.  But no, the hard floor would make my pain worse and getting up again would also be painful and require some assistance.

My vitals that night showed a resting heartrate of 124 and blood pressure at 150/100.  I always love how in these moments they ask you if your high blood pressure is normal and I want to say back to them, “Nothing about why I am here is normal—if anything about my visit to the ER were normal, I wouldn’t be here.”

Adrenaline was racing through me at this point and consequently, I was having to use the restroom quite a lot.  When I stood up for the second time to use the restroom, I discovered that one of the two restrooms was in use and I was stuck with the gross one, the one with the sticky floor that reeked of urine.  But I didn’t have a choice.  I used the toilet, I flushed, took one step and then two to the sink and was suddenly overcome with extreme nausea and the feeling I was about to pass out.

I stopped and leaned over, resting my hands on my knees. 

I hate puking, but my pain had been so intense, I hadn’t eaten much, so I wasn’t worried about what I might wind up depositing on the floor, I was more concerned with the pain of dry heaving.  I was concerned that additional pain might push me over my limit—be more than I could bear.

The nausea continued to build.  The emergency cord was not within arms’ reach or otherwise I would have pulled it.  I realized, suddenly, that I was scared.

And that was when I felt God’s presence.

This calm, still, small voice that speaks to us, to our hearts, to our souls, that reaches us when the noise of the world is so loud.

That still, small voice said, to me, “You are right where you need to be.  Don’t be afraid.”

I took a breath.

My legs wobbled.  I was going to pass out.  But I had a choice.  I could go ahead and sit down on that nasty floor, or I could wait, and faint and wake up with my face on that sticky floor.

So, I sat down, hugged my knees and breathed in and out, in and out.

I remembered—and if you have made it to the end of my spiritual memoir, you will remember me writing about this—the time when I was volunteering as a hospital chaplain and called into a woman’s room, only to find her sitting on the bathroom floor, sobbing uncontrollably. 

At one point, her spirit clearly aching and in pain, she cried out, “This is how worthless I am; I’m sitting here on this nasty floor.”

I stood there silently for a minute and then I asked her if I could come in.  She said yes.  I asked her if I could sit down.  She said yes.  And then I sat with her on the bathroom floor.  (For the record it was far cleaner than the ER restroom the other night.)

I was thinking of that moment as I found myself on that grimy floor at the ER, because as the wave of nausea passed, as everything stabilized, I realized I was not alone.

God was there with me, on that floor.

Suffering, a chaplain once told me years ago, is a thin place.  That in our suffering, the veil between worlds becomes transparent and we can feel the presence of God.  As a chaplain, myself, I could feel God’s presence in every patient room I visited.

And when I wasn’t a chaplain, when I was a patient, at my very lowest, both literally and figuratively, God was there, because that is who God is.

When Moses asks God for His name, asks God who is sending him, Moses, God says “I am, tell them I am has sent you.”

I am.

He is.

Think about all the times in the Bible when God just … is.

Elijah in the wilderness.

Hagar in the wilderness.

Jesus in the wilderness.

The quiet but profound presence inhabiting every molecule, every atom of creation, and thereby holding us, embracing us, carrying us in His love.

Eventually, I was able to stand up and leave that restroom.  I was admitted a short time later—had surgery some 36 hours after that, and in all that time, I felt safe and loved.

Amen.

Exodus 33:18-19

I begin each morning

with the same sweep

of the arm, drawing back

the curtains to let

the light in,

 

even if it’s just a sliver

of the sunrise, winking, blinking,

rubbing its own crusty, sleepy eyes,

 

even if the clouds are dark

and looming, gloomy and pouty

and promising rain,

 

because even if the daylight

is cloaked and shrouded,

a somber monk appearing

for morning vespers,

 

it is still enough—

the light of day is still enough

to fight back against the night,

to drive the shadows away,

 

to open the window to my soul

and air out all the troubles of yesterday,

allowing them to flit and flutter

and fly up and out, along with the night.

 

And so I pull back the curtain

to the back door to check

on the robin’s nest—she has been

gone for days and I know

how nature works, but still

I hope, and in that moment

of hope, with the house finches singing

their joyful hymn—yes it’s a new day,

a new morning, a new dawn—

 

in that moment, a deer steps out

hoof by hoof by hoof by hoof

onto my back patio.

 

The cat has wrapped himself around

my ankles and I call to him,

“Look, look, look,” because I want to—

 

I need to—I have to share this second,

this breath, this wonder with someone

as the adrenaline pours into me

and then out, surging through my fingertips.

Every part of me tingles.

 

“Look,” I say.

 

And the cat does.

He chirps, he chirrups,

he chortles and the deer

turns her head to me,

and suddenly all three

of us are frozen,

unable to move.

 

She is not ten feet away,

only the window separating us,

but she perceives me,

watches me, unblinking.

 

Yes, time can stand still.

Oh yes, it can and it does,

and in that moment,

in that space between breaths

when all things are possible

and visible and knowable,

 

in that moment,

I am Moses

watching the glory

and the goodness of God

pass me by.

 

And I am alive.

I am wholly alive,

in a holy time that did

not exist just a second ago,

before I dared to let the light in.

 

Where will you catch a glimpse

of God’s glory today?

 

Amen.

Listen

Two years ago, when I was house hunting, I put an offer on the very first house I saw.  The offer was accepted, but after inspections, I decided to pass on the house.

Several houses later, I found another house I liked.  I put an offer on that house but was outbid.

Strike two.

I took a deep breath and began the search again.  But this time, I did something I should have done from the beginning.  I prayed.  I asked God to help me with my search and to direct me to the right house.

And so, when my realtor and I pulled up to this one particular house—almost a last chance house—one of the first things I noticed was that there was a church across the street and a sign on the front that said, “House of God.”

And I said to myself—well there you go.  It’s a literal sign from God.

Oh, we human beings love our free will, but we always look for help when it comes to making decisions.  Ideally, we would look for help from God, but often we turn to other sources, something as simple as checking in with our friends and family and getting their opinions, sometimes something as silly as taking out the good ole’ Magic Eight Ball.

But the key to discernment truly lies in honest prayer.  It means taking a good deep breath, exhaling long and slow, and then turning inward in prayer, beginning by asking yourself this question.

“Is God speaking to me?”

Or maybe this question.

“How is God speaking to me?”

Followed by the obvious.

“What is God trying to tell me?”

Today’s two readings from Exodus and Matthew show two very contrasting ways that God speaks to people.  In Exodus 19:16-25, God descends on Mount Sinai in a dark, smoky, fiery cloud.  There is an earthquake.  The ground shakes.  Moses speaks to God and God answers Moses with thunder.  God calls Moses to the mountain peak and warns him that if anyone else should make that climb, if anyone else should try and break through the cloud to get a look at God for themselves—they will die.

Contrast that to our reading from Matthew 3:13-17 which tells the story of Jesus’ baptism.  The Spirit of God descends not as a fiery cloud, not in thunder, but in the form of a dove.  And when God speaks, it is not just to one person, an intermediary like Moses but to everyone with ears as He declares, “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

How things change!  Right?

Maybe not as much as you think.

Because God speaks to a lot of people in the Old Testament in a variety of different ways.  He speaks to Moses first in a burning bush.  He speaks to Hagar in the wilderness twice.  He speaks to Elijah as that still, small voice.  He calls out to Samuel while Samuel is sleeping.  He even speaks to Balaam through Balaam’s donkey who is literally given a voice.  God appears to the prophets like Ezekiel through visions.  Sometimes God’s voice is silent, but His actions speak louder than words—so to speak—like when Jonah is swallowed by a giant fish after refusing to obey God’s word and go to Ninevah.

And when God speaks to these people it is for reasons like “calling.” He wants to lead people to their vocation—people like Moses and Samuel.  He speaks to Hagar and Balaam to set them back on the right path—He effectively keeps them alive, when they would otherwise die.  He speaks to comfort like He does when Elijah is deep in a depression after being on the run from Jezebel who wants to kill him.  And He sends Jonah a powerful message, putting Jonah in “time-out” until Jonah realizes he must do what God has commanded him in order that the Ninevites might have one more chance to repent.  Otherwise, a whole civilization might die.

And when God speaks at Jesus’ baptism, it is for very similar reasons.  God’s words that Jesus is His son, the appearance of the Spirit of God as a dove, all send an earthshaking message.  It’s a message of peace, renewal, and promise.  God has called His son for a very specific role and in that role, Jesus will save the human race. 

So you see, God has always been speaking to us.

Always. 

I remember when I was going through the discernment process for becoming a priest, someone else who had already been through the process warned me to never say that God speaks to me.

And I know what she meant, but it was funny, because, like I said, God speaks to all of us.

He speaks to us in prayer.

He speaks to us in signs.

He speaks to us in dreams.

He will speak to us in whatever way we are most likely to hear Him.

Again, though, the key is discernment.  Is that God speaking or is it my anxious soul beaten down by a very loud world?

How do we pick out God’s voice, how do we identify His voice in the chaotic cacophony that assaults our ears every day with social media and phone alerts and a 24/7 news cycle that seems to warn us every five minutes that the world is about to end?

It begins with prayer.

Honest prayer.

And honest prayer begins with this—taking a breath, living in that breath and then breathing out, exhaling, returning that breath over and over.  Our breath is our offering because the Breath of God, the Spirit of God lives within each of us.  And so we breathe in and out remembering that His light and love flow within us.

And then we listen.

Amen.

Hopecore

The other day, I was sitting in the recliner with Pippin when something thumped on the side of the house and at almost the exact same time, my watch buzzed and my phone displayed an alert that there was someone on my back patio.

I immediately leapt up and raced to the back door.

There was no one.

So I went to the front door and stepped out onto the front porch.  Again, there was no one.

Judging by the video taken by my Ring camera, several boys had raced across my back patio and down the narrow path that is overgrown with honeysuckle, grapevine and poison ivy.  Only the deer dare walk that path.  I have a small fence at the street side entrance as a deterrent.  It doesn’t stop the deer and apparently it also doesn’t stop middle school boys.

I went back inside and pulled back the curtain to the window that overlooks that small fence, and there, sure enough, were two boys, their backs to me, crouching behind the fence.  I mean, I don’t know why they were crouching—anyone could see them.

There was a third boy out on the street hunched behind the neighbor’s car.

I didn’t even think—I rapped my knuckle on the window.  Immediately the boys jumped and looked at me.  I gave them my “I’m not impressed teacher face” and made a motion with my hand, shooing them away.

And off they ran.

When I told this story to a friend the other day, she was laughing, but not because my story was funny, but because it reminded her of a scene from Project Hail Mary where the main character, Ryland, is attempting to communicate with an alien (and I will leave it at that as to avoid spoilers—I have read the book but not seen the movie personally).

But my friend’s reaction to the movie, days after she had seen it, is evidence of a movie that is really connecting to and sticking with moviegoers.  My friend was still tickled thinking of the movie.  The movie was still bringing her joy. 

I was reading an article the other day that appeared in The Hollywood Reporter about the resurgence of what is called “hopecore” in movies, specifically Project Hail Mary and the Pixar movie, Hoppers.  Hopecore is simply a feelgood movie.  It makes us laugh, probably, but it also touches that part of us, our hearts, if you’re secular, our souls, if you are spiritual, that makes us take a deep breath.  It releases the tension inside of us that we hadn’t even known we were holding.  Hopecore makes us feel seen and held and as the name suggests, it fills us with hope and hope frequently leads to optimistic thoughts, thoughts like, “Yeah, the world is in rough place right now, but it’s going to be okay.”

In fact, of the ten highest earning movies so far this year, at least half of them, I would call hopecore.  They include: The Super Mario Galaxy movie; Project Hail Mary; Hoppers; GOAT and Zootopia 2.  Four of these are marketed as kids’ movies, but it’s clear a lot of adults enjoy them, perhaps because it reminds them of a time when things were less complicated.

Even in books, you will find people drawn recently to hopecore.  On the New York Times bestseller lists, you will find books like Raising Hare (one of my top books for 2025) about a woman who raises a wild hare.  Also on the non-fiction list a recently released book When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World.  Among fiction books you will find, once again, Project Hail Mary, but also Theo of Golden, both of which seem to be on everyone’s bookclub lists.

People’s need for hopecore has led to the sudden popularity of cozy mysteries and cozy fantasies.  Basically if Hallmark had written a mystery or fantasy novel.

People are choosing hopecore because it’s the literary and/or visual equivalent of comfort food.

We need to be reminded—we desperately need to be reminded—that there is goodness in this world and that innocence and empathy and peacefulness are not faults but virtues.

We need to be reminded to abide in radical love.

To turn our back to cynicism and pessimism and nihilism. 

We need to be reminded that Jesus’ words in today’s reading from John 15:1-11—His invitation to abide in Him, to abide in His love is not something we should reject.

“Abide” Jesus says eleven times in today’s reading.

“Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”

Abiding in Jesus is to lean into Him, is to be protected by Him, by His love, because—we need protecting.

But it’s not just abiding in Jesus, it’s letting Him in to abide in you, to strengthen you, to encourage you, to drive darkness out and replace it with His light and His love. 

What is it that gives you hope these days?

For me, I get a lot of hope from the natural world. 

I am left in awe every time I look out my back door and see the chickadee and robin who have made nests almost right on top of each other, unafraid to share space, tolerant of each other’s cries and songs.  Those nests are filled with potential.

I also have hope whenever I walk down the street and see the weeds, yes even the dandelions, because that means there is life.  Winter is over.  Spring’s roots are growing deep and much of what looks forsaken now will be overflowing with color and movement and life very soon.

But I also get hope from each of you, from the people in my life, from strangers and friends, from family to new friends.  Yes, I even get hope from the two boys hiding behind the fence in my yard.  Why?  Because they were playing and, for a lot of kids these days, play is luxury.

People give me hope because I see the light in each of you.  And if you only knew how bright your light shined, you would never fear the dark.  It is the light of Jesus abiding in each of you.

Now complete the circuit.

Abide in Him.  Only then can our joy be complete.

Amen.

 

 

The Lady or the Tiger

Let me set the scene for you.

Many years ago, a king has come up with a new way to put people on trial.  It is a trial by fate.  The accused is sent into an arena where they come upon two doors.  Behind one door is a ravenous tiger and behind the other is a lady, specifically chosen to be a good mate to the accused.

If the accused chooses the door with the tiger behind it, he is clearly guilty and the tiger kills him.

If he chooses the door with the lady behind it, he is innocent and must marry the woman.

As it happens, the king’s daughter has fallen in love with a man who the king feels is not worthy of her.  So he puts the man in the arena to face the two doors.

Now, the princess knows the location of both the lady and the tiger.

And her lover knows that she knows.

And now she has a choice.  She can direct him to the door with the lady behind it, saving his life or, she can direct him to the door with the tiger behind it because she cannot bear to see him with another woman.

I think we can agree a decent human being directs him to the door with the lady behind it.

She nods to him, directing him to the door to his right.

But while it may be an easy choice for us, is it an easy choice for the princess?  Has she saved his life or ended it?

Holy Week is a week of choices.

Today is Wednesday of Holy Week and though it doesn’t have a specific Liturgical Calendar designation, traditionally it is called Spy Wednesday, as in the day when Judas chooses to betray Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

Tomorrow is Maundy Thursday, another day of choices.  It is here at the Garden of Gethsemane that Jesus, after asking God to take away the cup of suffering, chooses to submit to God’s will.

And then, of course, Good Friday, where Pilate offers the crowd what he thinks is an easy choice.  Jesus or Barabbas?

Keep in mind that Pilate really wanted nothing to do with Jesus, and that was before his wife told him to have nothing to do with Jesus because of a dream she had.  Pilate could see what was happening, the behind-the-scenes machinations that would lead to Jesus’ death.  Pilate was being used, and he knew it, and being a prideful Roman, he resented it.

So, he gave the crowd what should have been an easy choice.  Free Jesus or free Barabbas. 

All of my life I have given very little thought to who Barabbas was.  Only in my book Witnesses to the Passion of Christ, did I think to give him a voice at all.  I thought honestly Barabbas was a placeholder.  He could have been anyone provided that for the sake of the plot, he was clearly the wrong choice.

Barabbas was a known insurrectionist, a murderer.

But for years, I have thought, Pilate could have chosen anyone or anything to pit against Jesus in this scenario.  Pilate could have said, “Will you free Jesus of Nazareth who has reportedly healed the blind and the sick, fed the hungry and even raised the dead OR will you free this man-eating tiger who has already killed twenty of your widows and young children, and who, if you choose to set free, I will release directly into the crowd here and let me just say, he is a very hungry tiger?  Now who will you set free?”

And the crowd raises their fists into the air and says, “The tiger!!”

This past Sunday, in his sermon, Reverend Greg looked at this choice of Jesus versus Barabbas and it gave me new insight.  First of all, our reading from Matthew 27:16–17 tells us that Barabbas’ full name was Jesus Barabbas.  And if you think giving the people a choice between two Jesuses is a bit on the nose, consider that, as Reverend Greg pointed out, Barabbas means “son of the father.”

Jesus Barabbas was, as I said, an insurrectionist and as Reverend Greg stated in his sermon, Barabbas was someone who fought Rome on Roman terms.  He used the tools and the weapons of Rome to fight Rome.

Or, I could sum it up simply as Barabbas fought fire with fire.

Jesus, on the other hand, our Jesus, Messiah, Son of God, did not fight fire with fire—in fact, He was not fighting Rome at all.

When we wonder how a crowd could have chosen Barabbas over Jesus, we are thinking like Pilate.  We are oversimplifying things.  We are thinking that the choice is simply choosing a good guy over a bad guy.

But the choice is more nuanced than that.

To choose Jesus over Barabbas in this situation is to choose mystery, is to choose the unknown over Barabbas, who everyone knows.

Jesus, who flipped the tables in the temple, upsets the natural order of things.  He heals on the sabbath.  He forgives sins.  Everything Jesus does is brand new to people.  He is a wild force in the world.  I keep thinking to the Narnia books where it is said of the great lion Aslan (a Jesus stand-in) that Aslan is not a tame lion.

Jesus is not a tame lion.  You could look at someone like John the Baptist and the way he dressed and what he ate (those yummy wild locusts) and say yes this man is a wild man.

But Jesus—to choose Jesus—is to choose someone so wild, He rewrites the universe every time He speaks.  To follow Jesus takes such a leap of faith—because you are following Him into the unknown.  And there is no telling what will happen next.

It is very easy to fault the crowd, to judge them, for choosing Barabbas.

It is very easy to say that we would not have made that decision.

Over the years, whenever the passion play has been read aloud in church and the congregation has been asked to yell out, “Crucify Him!” I have stayed silent.

I won’t say those words.

But as Reverend Greg was preaching on Sunday, I was sitting there thinking, “Crap, two thousand years later and we are still choosing the wrong Jesus, aren’t we?”

We’re still fighting the same wars in the same ways rather than choosing another way, rather than wondering how the radical love of the other Jesus might change the world.

We are so quick to judge those who chose Barabbas, to point out the splinter in their eyes, without acknowledging the wood plank in our own eyes.

Earlier I was sharing with you the very well-known story of The Lady or the Tiger, but I didn’t tell you how it ended.  The story ends in the unknown.  The author never tells us what was behind the door, the lady or the tiger.  The point of the story is self-reflection.  Are we the cynic who thinks the tiger is behind the door, or the optimist who thinks the lady is behind the door?  Do we believe the best in people or the worst?  What if the man had not chosen either door?  What if he had refused to play the game?

What if … what if … what if … can we ever be comfortable in the unknown?

Can we ever be comfortable in the mystery?

Because if we can, we may find that the world, the universe, is more wild and wonderful and amazing than anything we could have ever imagined.

Amen.

Embrace the Mystery

Years ago, when I was living in Cape Canaveral, Florida, I was driving home from work one afternoon when I noticed a massive rainbow just north of east in the sky.

There were too many houses and buildings and trees in my way to get a good picture, but I thought if the rainbow could just stick around for a few more minutes, I might have enough time to race home, grab my camera and head to the beach, because that would make an amazing picture.

So I said the same prayer I always say when confronted with the fleeting nature of … nature, I pointed to the rainbow and said, “Stay right there.”

Five minutes later I was on the beach with my camera and there was this amazing rainbow.  It is literally impossible to know what sits at the end of the rainbow.  It’s why we mythologize it with stories of a pot of gold sitting there in the vast unknown.  Rainbows are, in fact, our own personal illusion.  We see them based on our perspective, our point of view and how the light and the water in the air interact from that point of view.

If we try to move closer, the rainbow moves with us.  If we try to get a different angle, again the rainbow adjusts to our movements.

But that day at the beach, I can tell you that for a moment, the mystery as to what sits at the end of the rainbow was solved.  That day, the end of the rainbow illuminated the rocket gantry that sat on a small peninsula, jutting out into the ocean.  It was incredible.  I took the picture and that same picture is hanging on my living room wall, today.

We human beings are fascinated by mysteries both large and small.  It’s why, on the one hand, true crime podcasts and conspiracy theories propagate so well.  And on the other hand, mystery is at the center of mysticism.  Mystery drives our spirituality.  Mystery fuels faith.

It’s right there in our own liturgy when the priest says, “Let us proclaim the mystery of faith.”

Mystery, in this sense, is something to be embodied, something to be lived—it is not necessarily something to be solved.

It’s like the idea of a prayer labyrinth.  The prayer labyrinth isn’t a maze to be lost in, but a maze to be found in.  It is paradoxical in a way—counter intuitive.

But part of the Christian faith is living with the unknown, embracing it, because God is more than we could ever imagine.  We don’t have to prove our faith.  We don’t have to prove the existence of God, because the mystery of who God is lives inside of us.  And we, too, become a mystery.  We, too, become something more than we could ever imagine.

And isn’t that great?  There is something beautiful in the unknown.  The mystery drives us, fuels us, to be something more, to constantly be on the lookout for the “More” which we also call God.

The mystery fuels artists and poets, but it also inspires physicists, astrophysicists who spend their lives looking further and further out into space and therefore looking further and further back in time, hoping to get a glimpse of the moment of creation.  And theoretical physicists who look to the quantum world, the tiny universes that make us—us. 

Today is a Holy Day—it is The Annunciation of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

When Mary was told by the angel, Gabriel, she would become pregnant with Jesus, the mystery of it was almost too much for her.  It probably didn’t help that Gabriel told her, “Don’t be afraid,” which I think always has the unintended consequence of making people’s adrenaline spike.

So she asked the angel, “How can this be since I am virgin?”

Good question, Mary!

Mary doesn’t want mystery.  She wants details.

And Gabriel says to her in Luke 1:45, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.”

Gabriel brings her back to the mystery.

Mary doesn’t press him any further.  She says in verse 38, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

At our 9 am reflection group this past Sunday, we discussed a section of Madeleine L’Engle’s memoir A Circle of Quiet.

In this particular part, she describes a dinner she had with friends where the topic of the supernatural comes up and a friend says “that when the electric light was invented, people began to lose the dimension of the supernatural.”  With light, we no longer wonder about shadows and darkness, about the things that exist in this world that we cannot see.

L’Engle goes on to quote Albert Einstein who said, “The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious … He who knows it not, who can no longer wonder, can no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle.”

The other night we experienced a terrible windstorm in my area.  We were pummeled with hail and then gusts of wind that knocked down trees, picked up my storage shed and threw it, and left us without power for around seven hours.

You would think the best time to lose power is at night when you are asleep, but I, for one, can’t sleep when the power goes out.  It’s the unknown that unsettles me.  When will the power come back on? I wonder incessantly.  But it is also the silence that throws me off.  No whir from the refrigerator or the white noise of the air purifier, no hum of the heat kicking on. 

I realized that night how much I try to drown out the background noise with other noises.

For most of the seven hours the power was off, I did not sleep.  I could not settle my mind down.  But I did doze briefly for about hour right around the time I finally convinced myself of this—it will be light again.  Even if the power outage were to last for days, the sun will still rise.

When the power did come back on, shortly before sunrise—when the rain stopped, and the winds died down, I took one of my large Maglites—you know those flashlights that can double as a club if you are attacked—and went outside to assess the damage.

Specifically, I had heard cars all night, running over something on the darkened road.

As I shined my flashlight on the street, I could see several medium size branches—not twigs—that I was able to kick to the side of the road and then, I shocked myself, when the beam of my flashlight caught sight of a massive part of a neighbor’s tree which had snapped off in the wind and crushed the chainlink fence below.  This all happened 20-30 feet from my house.  In fact, I had heard something hit my roof during the storm and then roll off.  I think when the tree hit the ground it exploded and pieces of it flew up on my roof.

All in all, I was very fortunate.

Later in the morning, when the sun was up, I walked outside.  There was trash everywhere.  I live on an alley.  There is always trash, but this March as been particularly windy.  There are black bags from the nearby Corner Store stuck high in the trees, thirty feet above ground.  You want to know which way the wind is blowing?  Look up at the bags.

I also noticed something stuck in the puddle and mud at the end of my drive.

It was a bright pink deflated balloon, the type that holds helium—the kind of balloon frequently lost and cried over by children who can’t quite hold on.

I have always wondered what happens to those balloons once they are lost, the mystery, if you will, of how far they travel, what they encounter and where they finally wind up.

The mystery of faith is always tied to wonder and curiosity.

And so I would say this, if you want to increase your faith, engage those two things—wonder and curiosity.

Explore, create, become a child again and see everything in this world as new and awe-inspiring.  Look for the light, but do not fear the darkness.

And of course, the mystery of faith is tied to love, too.

So, love.  Love God.  Love your neighbor, unconditionally and without exception.

Amen.

 

A Genesis 50:20 Calling

Many years ago now, when I had been an Episcopalian for only a few months and was anxious to experience every opportunity the faith provided me, I attended the ordination of a woman named Pam.

Pam had been present at my very first visit to the church some months before during Easter Sunday.  She was a postulant for Holy Orders at the time, fulfilling her internship at our church as she learned the ins and outs of being a deacon.

I found her to be someone filled with boundless joy.  And so, of course, I was excited to attend her ordination.

The ordination was held at the cathedral.  I feel like every Episcopal diocese is mandated to have a cathedral, something large and gothic appearing, something that makes you stare up at it in awe before you’ve even entered through the doors.

It’s the perfect setting for ordinations, for the culmination, the acclimation and the affirmation of a holy call.

That day at Pam’s ordination, the cathedral was packed.  The inside was just as impressive to me as the outside and I think I spent quite some time just looking around with my mouth open.  There was a choir in the choir loft and the acoustics were such that there was not one inch of that place that wasn’t filled with holy song.

As the candidates for the diaconate began processing in, they did so solemnly, one at a time, maybe one or two risking a small smile as they passed a loved one in the pews.

But then came Pam.

Pam was all smiles.  Her smile was one of those open-mouth, count-every-tooth-kind of smile.  It was the kind of smile that hurts but in a good way.  And as she walked, she pointed to the friends and family she saw on both sides of the aisle and she waved and she laughed and she clapped.

She exuded joy.

The story of how Pam became Deacon Pam is her own to tell, but I will tell you that over the years, I have heard the stories of many people who became deacons and priests, and each story is unique in someways and identical in others.

Many people called to the priesthood and diaconate later in life come from jobs you might expect.  I have met nurses and therapists who became priests.  I, myself, was a teacher before answering the call. 

But I have also met former military and law enforcement.  I have met bookkeepers and accountants, people who used to sit behind a desk all day.

The one thing they all had in common was a call they could not ignore, a call from God that for some felt out-there but for all of them—felt right, more right and more perfect and more true than anything else in their life to that point.  God was calling them to be their true-self.

Indeed, in the gospels, Jesus calls His first followers from all sorts of jobs, from fisherman to tax collectors.  Though the disciples worked in jobs, though they had a profession, the disciples lacked something Jesus brought them—a vocation, something that beckoned to them and offered them, even at perhaps great sacrifice, a path in life that would give them meaning and purpose beyond just physical survival.

I think back to the Samaritan woman at the well.

She immediately becomes an evangelist after meeting Jesus, proclaiming that “He told me everything I ever did.” 

Now, as far as we know, the only thing Jesus told her was how many times she had been married.  But it is perhaps what Jesus didn’t say that tells the woman everything she needs to know about Him and about herself.

He does not shame her.

He does not judge her.

He welcomes her.

And she is so convinced that He is the Messiah, that He alone can provide this living water, that she leaves her own water jug behind as she races back into town to tell everyone about Him.

In today’s reading from Genesis, we hear my own personal favorite verse in the Bible, Genesis 50:20, where Joseph says to his brothers in this translation, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.”

This verse is an essential verse when you are trying to forgive someone.  Joseph, having been sold into slavery, by his brothers, then later falsely accused of rape, then later jailed and seemingly headed to death, has now risen in power in Egypt to becomes second only to the Pharoah. 

When his brothers come to him in desperate need of food, Joseph has the opportunity to exact vengeance upon them, to make them pay for what they did to him.

Instead, he offers them forgiveness.  He doesn’t brush off what they did to him.  He doesn’t gloss over it or pretend it wasn’t that bad.  He acknowledges that what they did was evil, but that God’s power triumphs over all evil.  God used that evil to do good through Joseph.

You see when we don’t forgive someone, we give power to them.

When we do forgive, we acknowledge that God has the power over every living thing in this universe.

Joseph’s brothers hurt him, but God was greater.

Genesis 50:20, though, also speaks to something else—what it means to be called, what it means to hear God in your heart and respond.  Though not everyone is called to ordained ministry, please know that God does call each and every one of us to something unique and special for us.

In Joseph’s case, God took a very awful period of Joseph’s life and shaped it to a call that brought Joseph to a place where he could do, not just good work, but God’s work.

Last week I shared this quote from Frederick Bueckner about calling with a friend of mine.  It says, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

That is where each of our callings becomes unique.

I think of Pam processing into her ordination and the joy she radiated—not just any joy—but the joy that comes when you have seen God’s light and love and now that light and love is reflected in you and from you.

That was her calling.

To let others see God’s love within her.

Actually, that is everyone’s calling.  How we fulfill that calling is unique to each of us.

During Pam’s ordination, the choir sang a hymn many of us are familiar with which includes the line, “Whom shall I send?” followed by, “Here I am, Lord.”

I had tears that day as I sang along.

God calls each of us.

Amen.