A Joy that Cannot be Contained

Yesterday before the service began, those of us in the pews watched as a little girl, probably no older than four years old, wandered away from her mother and began exploring the church.

Her eyes were wide.

Her mouth open.

She looked all around her and I couldn’t help but narrate in my head everything she saw.

Yes, there’s the altar rail.

And this is the pew.

And that smell is old wood varnish.

And these are candles individually lit.

And here is the sun, pouring through an upper window.

And yes, here we all are, sitting here with you, smiling and laughing at your joy.

Because, sweet child, that look on your face—I know it well.

It’s the moment when you first realize that you are hungry for something, for the mystery, for the ethereal, for the unexplainable, for whatever or whoever it is that is resting just beyond the veil. 

It’s the first time you know that there is something out there, something huge and magnificent and frightening and joyful and beautiful, something that is in (like the movie title) all things everywhere all at once. 

Keep exploring child of God.

Never stop searching.

Never stop running toward the Love that watches over us.

Never stop believing.

Never lose that joy.

Baptisms and Water Balloon Fights

“We talked about baptism and then had a water balloon fight.”

This was how Reverend Jane explained to us this morning how the youth lock-in went last night.

A few minutes later, she was asking us about our own baptisms, but I was still chuckling, I told them, still imagining Reverend Jane talking about baptism with the kids and then chasing them down with water balloons as if to say, “Come back here, I’m just trying to save you!”

I hope Reverend Jane wasn't embarrassed.  I hope she understood just how on point her water balloon/baptism imagery was.

I mean when you think about it isn’t the water balloon fight a perfect image of baptism?

One of the points Reverend Jane was trying to make this morning in our “Walking the Way of Love” class between services is that baptism is not a one and done type of thing.  Yes, we may only be baptized in the church once, but we need to be renewing and revisiting our baptismal covenant frequently, perhaps even daily.

Which brings me back to the water balloon fight.

Every day, we run from God.

Every. Single. Day.

We run. 

We say things like “I can do this myself.”

We are judgmental.

We are unforgiving to others.

We are unforgiving to ourselves.

We are miserable.

And every day, God chases after us with the promise of salvation, with saving us from our misery, with the promises of hope and joy—and we run from Him.

Our baptismal covenant reminds us to stop running—to just stop and take a breath and turn to God.

Turn to the Way of Love.

And here’s the thing about water balloon fights—I haven’t been involved in too many in my life, but I always remember them involving lots of laughter and silliness and love among friends. 

Stop running from God and don’t be afraid to get a little wet.

 

 

Hummingbird

I have a bird bucket list.

A list (mostly in my head, not actually written out) of birds I want to see before I die, hopefully randomly in nature, though I suppose in a pinch I would accept a zoo visit.

At the top of that list sits—or flutters—the hummingbird.

It has been shocking to me that I have never seen one.  Hummingbird feeders are ubiquitous.  My step-mother keeps one near the back deck of their house and claims to see hummingbirds quite frequently.

As for me—nothing.

At least not until this past Saturday.  I was at my dad and step-mother’s house doing laundry and dog-sitting for a couple of hours, sitting in the living room, watching reruns of Bargain Block, when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, the flapping of wings outside a far window.

I hopped up, investigated, saw nothing and sat back down on the couch.

Over many years of birdwatching, I have learned to notice the small things, the flutter of wings, the flash of color among green leaves, the sound of a burbling brook which turns out to be—somewhat bizarrely—the call of a cowbird.

I notice the little things, because those things might be nothing, but sometimes turn out to be quite something to behold.

So, on Saturday, as I sat back to watch TV, I found myself glancing out the window every few seconds, hoping to catch a glimpse of a bird, any bird, really—when, once again, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something gray dart by the window.

I leapt up again and this time, I saw it.  A small grayish bird, with a pale splash of red, and long, hooked beak, hovering about a foot away from the hummingbird feeder.

It was there for only a breath.

Seriously, for as long as it took me to take a breath and hold it—and then it was gone.

I did not see it again.

I obviously didn’t get a picture.

But it was, without a doubt, my first hummingbird.

And I might have missed it had I not conditioned myself for years to be on the lookout for birds.

Trust me, if your daily goal is to find birds and, if possible, get a picture, you will be attuned to the world differently than if your goal once you step outside your door is to simply go grocery shopping.

It is the same way with God.

One of my goals, when I do workshops with people, is to get them to see that God is everywhere in their lives.  You don’t have to invite God to enter your life.  He is already there.  You just have to learn to recognize His presence.

And recognizing God’s presence in our lives, looking for God in our lives, needs to be a daily habit—not one, like flossing, that we know is good for us and promise our dentist that we will do, but ultimately don’t—but a habit that becomes as natural to us as breathing—and ultimately as essential to us as breathing.

At the end of each day, if we ask ourselves, “Where did I see God today?” eventually, we will see Him everywhere, without even thinking about it.

But we have to make it a central purpose of our lives or we will miss out.

For all we know, the Holy Spirit has been hovering like that hummingbird right next to us, not for seconds—not for minutes—not for days—but for years, and we have been blind to Him, focusing instead on other things.

Yesterday, I went out to take some Fall pictures.  Fall is nowhere close to being at its peak, but as it is my first Fall in more than twenty-five years, I don’t want to miss a second of it.

I also don’t want to miss a second of God’s presence in my life.

So where did I see Him yesterday?

I saw Him in a fallen leaf I found that had been caught by a flower before it hit the ground.  White flower, brown leaf—and all I could see was God holding us up when we have fallen.

Where will you see God today?