By Missy Morain

I tried to skip Lent this year. It wasn’t entirely intentional. There wasn’t any conscious thought to it. I went to the Ash Wednesday service, got my ashes, and even led the Litany of Penitence from the center aisle of the National Cathedral. Yet my head was never really in it and I let other aspects of my life take over. I never came up with something to give up or to add into my day. Somehow living 1,000 miles away from my brother using my teenage standby of “I will get along with my brother” didn’t seem heartfelt or appropriate. Little did I know that Lent would catch up with me.

On the Saturday before Palm Sunday I awoke to phone call from my father telling me that my grandfather had gone into a coma. Around dinner time my mother called to tell me that my grandfather had died. I wasn’t surprised by either phone call. My grandfather was 94 years old and nothing at that age is really unexpected. Unlike the death of Jesus, Papa’s was relatively painless and peaceful, surrounded by people who loved him.

Quickly the mechanics of gathering a large family from across the country began. Life took over again. The details of arranging plane tickets, delayed flights, planning work coverage, getting on a plane, seeing my brother and sisters all took over the space which I could have created to begin grieving, to begin feeling. Allowing me to put aside what my mind and body were telling me to pay attention to.

I arrived in Iowa and went through the motions, attending the visitation and the funeral, even reading part of the family written obituary. Hearing those around me crying yet unwilling to break that barrier myself until I returned to Washington, DC the day after the funeral. Something broke inside me and I finally began to cry. For me Lent had finally begun.

Easter Sunday came only four days after my grandfather’s funeral. I had every intention of going to Easter service but couldn’t walk in the door when the time came. I wasn’t ready for the resurrection. I wasn’t ready to celebrate and say “alleluia, Christ has risen”.

Funny thing about the resurrection is that much like Lent it comes regardless of whether I am ready for it or not. Life works in cycles much like that of the liturgical year. Birth and death and renewal occur whether I am paying attention to them or not. The liturgical calendar of the church helps me to remember this and to remember that there is a point where I will feel ready to celebrate the resurrection again. I might not be there quite yet, and that is just fine, but it gives me hope to know that I will be ready eventually. Ready to say “Good Papa Fred” and hello to the new life, to the resurrection that surrounds me.

Missy Morain is program coordinator at the Cathedral College at Washington National Cathedral. She blogs at Episcopal Princess.

By Kit Carlson

This coming Sunday (6 Easter) was known, in a softer and more agricultural time, as Rogation Sunday. Along with the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension Day (this year on May 17), these were days to "beat the bounds" of the parish, to make a grand procession along the boundaries of a church's parish territory, through the farms and fields, to ask God's blessing on the upcoming harvest.

Like many Christian observances, Rogationtide was a reworking of an older, pagan tradition. The Robigalia, a Roman procession, used to be held in the spring to propitiate the god Robigo. Robigo's special area of expertise was keeping mildew off the crops. If properly beseeched, he could guarantee a successful harvest. Another, separate observance also got glued onto the Rogation processions, when in 470 AD, Bishop Mamerus of Vienne, in Gaul, held processional litanies after a time of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

The medieval church continued to observe these rites, but in the first wave of the English Reformation, they were tossed out as too pagan. Elizabeth I, who always liked a good parade, reinstituted them when she became queen. You can still find them carried out in some English villages.

But in America, our sense of the fragility of the harvest has faded. We harvest our foodstuffs in the supermarket, where frost in Florida or drought in California might push up the prices on our produce. But there will always be Chilean blueberries in January and rock-hard tomatoes year-round to convince us that food comes not from the ground, but from a store.

We have distanced ourselves from the seasons of the earth, from her vagaries and willfulness. We do not fear that one good storm will ruin our season, that an unexpected frost will destroy our orchards.

Some churches have turned to Rogationtide as a chance to connect to Earth Day, to issues of environmental stewardship, to remind ourselves to take better care of "this fragile earth, our island home." And with the very real threat of global warming, this is not an issue to be taken lightly.

But I wonder if we have missed the point of Rogationtide in that case. The word Rogation comes from the Latin rogare, "to ask". It is essentially a lengthy tour of prayer and propitiation through the very sustaining places of life, one that acknowledges that in the end, we are powerless to grant ourselves all we need to survive. It is a season that does not ask us to exercise better control. It is a season that acknowledges that God has control.

And we do not.

So perhaps a better Rogation observance this Sunday might be to walk the borders of your land, the rooms of your home, the hallways of your office building, the sidewalks of your shopping center and pray that they might stay safe and whole. It might be a good day to remember New Orleans' Ninth Ward, the ice storms of the past winter, the tornado the leveled Greensburg, Kansas last week, and the thunderstorms that topple trees and tear up houses. It might be a good day to think about those we have loved and lost to cancer, or heart disease or HIV/AIDS. It might be a good day to remember the students and community of Virginia Tech, how suddenly their peace was shattered, how swiftly death and terror came upon them.

And remember that we do not have control, really. That there is much about our lives that is completely dependent on fair weather, on good health, on a kind of routine-ized and boring everyday safety.

Walk and pray, And ask. Ask for those things we count upon but cannot really give ourselves. Acknowledge God's providence, God's mercy, God's presence in each of those things we need and care for and take completely for granted.

Rogare.

Ask.

The Rev. Kit Carlson, is the rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in East Lansing, Mich. She played the apostle Paul on the world's first internet reality series, The Ark, a project of the Christian humor website Ship of Fools.

You crown the year with your goodness, *
and your paths overflow with plenty.
May the fields of the wilderness be rich for grazing, *
and the hills be clothed with joy.
(Psalm 65:12-13)

I most recently preached about this Psalm at a wedding. It is a harvest song, and it is also appointed for Thanksgiving Day. It points us to the staggering abundance of creation, and to God the "giver of every good and perfect gift."

Thanksgiving is, for many of us, the last serious observance of Sabbath. Like the weekly Sabbath called for in the Torah, it is a time to pause and worship, to give thanks for the God of grace, in whom we live and move and have our being. Creation is itself a grace. So is the sanctifying gift of God's Spirit, which restores our broken fellowship with God and each other.

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for life and freedom, for time and food, for family and friends.

Like many congregations, ours will celebrate the Eucharist today. Eucharist itself means thanksgiving. It is the "sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving."

Christians have been celebrating a thanksgiving meal for nearly two thousand years, at least weekly, and in many cases daily. The prayer always retells the story of the Last Supper and culminates in the Lord's Prayer and the breaking of the bread. Typically, we also give thanks for creation, for the covenant with Israel, and above all for the Word made flesh, Jesus, God's Son.

The Eucharist points us to the sacred dimension of all meals. From the Thanksgiving Day, with its rituals sacred and profane, to bread broken with friends of any faith or none. Food is sacred, because life is sacred, and the gift of God.

And the Eucharist invites us in particular to forsake privilege, to receive everything as a gift from God's wide open hands. For as Christians, we remember a costly love. A love that sought us out when we were far from God. A love that impels us to share what we have and call no one a stranger.

For if all is gift, nothing is possession.

It comes as manna from above.

To be received with thanks and shared with others.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

‘This light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not comprehended it.’ No one receives it but the poor in spirit who have stripped themselves of self-love and self-will. There are many who have lived for forty years in material poverty without having ever beheld this light. They understand what it is, they have taken it in with their senses and grasped it with their intellect, but in the depth of their souls it is alien and repugnant to them.

“My Beloved, strive with all your might, with every effort of body and soul, to behold this true light, so that you may return to the source where it shines in all its brightness. Long for it, pray for it, do all that you can, with all the strength you can summon. Entreat those who love God to help you. Cling to those who cling to God, so that they may draw you with them into God. May our loving God help us to attain this.
~Johannes Tauler, Sermon 10 (New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1985), pp. 53-54.

Much of the language of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle revolves around light and darkness. This metaphor is suggested by some of the lessons from Isaiah and St. John in particular, including John 1:5, quoted in Tauler’s sermon above.

Even now, the true light is flooding into the world, in a glorious dawn of grace and truth. This light is utterly gratuitous, i.e. unearned. It is also completely efficacious, in and of itself. Only the obstacles we present (Tauler identifies self-love and self-will) prevent us from participating more fully in this marvelous gift.

Liberation theologies focused on race have pointed out some rather fundamental problems with the root metaphor of light and darkness, closely correlated as it is with contrasts between good and evil and knowledge and ignorance. Those focused on disabilities, for their part, have asked some profound questions about the use of the notion of “blindness” in Christian spiritual texts. Likewise, feminist theologies have identified real problems with an excessive focus on the sins of self-love and self-will in a society where many oppressed people struggle to affirm their human dignity and the claims of justice.

And yet, there is a powerful natural symbol at play here as days grow short and nights grow long. And so, we continue to confess that the power of the long cold winter of death is broken by the dawning of the Great Light. We continue to confess, whatever language we may use, that we present various kinds of obstacles to the Light, whether those obstacles are classical sins of self-love and self-will or their mirror image in various forms of human bondage and internalized oppression. We seek companions who know God’s ways, who can show us the Light and help us grow in holiness.

And we long for the Desire of the Nations, Jesus Christ, and the saving light of the Gospel.

For we know that in God’s light, all are one, without becoming the same, in a community of equals in which “none is afore or after other.”

And so, we await the coming of that Light in a stable, at the edge of town, among simple people who remember their Maker and Redeemer and rejoice to see the glory of God shine forth in the face of a poor and humble child.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

"O great, holy God, I pray to You: Open my own interiority to me so that I properly know what I am. Unlock that within me which was locked shut in Adam. Let me see and discover in my interiority of mind the beautiful morning-star in the holy Name JESUS, which offers itself out of grace to us poor men, and dwells in us and wishes to work powerfully in us."

Jacob Boehme, The Way to Christ (New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1978), p. 93.

So often we are closed off even from ourselves. We are unaware of the obstacles that keep us from grace. We work harder only to strain ourselves against unseen limits, the very limits that are killing us.

I like Boehme's notion that something within us was locked shut in Adam. Even those of us who have traveled quite far along the Way can have parts of ourselves that are still locked out of sight for fear or shame.

In this season of Advent, for the purpose of meditation, I'd like to tie this to one of the O Antiphons.

O Key of David and scepter of the House of Israel;
you open and no one can shut;
you shut and no one can open:
Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,
those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Come, Lord Jesus!

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

We beseech you, O Lord our God, be patient with us sinners. You who know our weakness, protect the work of your hands now and in times to come, deliver us from all temptation and all danger and all the powers of darkness of this world, and bring us into the kingdom of your only Son and our God. For to your most holy Name be the glory, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, now and for ever, to the ages of ages. Amen.

An Eastern Orthodox Prayer appointed for afternoon, cited in Stefano Parenti and Paula Clifford, Praying with the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladamir's Seminary Press, 1996), p. 60.

As we wait expectantly through the season of Advent, it is helpful to remember that we are living between the times, that Christ has already come among us in great humility and that we await his coming again to judge the living and the dead. Moreover, Advent is at least as much about God's waiting for us as it is about our waiting for God.

And so, we pray that God would be patient with us sinners. And that God would make haste to deliver us from all temptation and danger and the powers of darkness. That the Sun of Righteousness would rise and bring us all into the fullness of God's Kingdom.

Even now, God's prophets cry out. On the horizon, they see the dawn.

Come, Lord Jesus, in your mercy, grace, and truth.

And what means that, saith he, "Of his fullness have all we received"? (John 1:16) For to this we must for a while direct our discourse. He possesseth not, says he, the gift by participation, but is Himself, very Fountain and very Root of all good, very Life, and very Light, and very Truth, not retaining within Himself the riches of His good things, but overflowing with them unto all others, and after the overflowing remaining full, in nothing diminished by supplying others, but streaming ever forth, and imparting to others a share of these blessings, He remains in sameness of perfection.

~John Chrysostom, Homilies on St. John, xiv.2 in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. xiv.

A thought as we approach the Nativity of Our Lord: from the point of view of the Incarnate Word, who emptied himself and took on the form of a slave, there is a great deal of risk. There is the poverty of the stable and the manger. There is Herod and the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. There is, ultimately, the Cross.

And yet, from another point of view, God's fullness is so superabundant that it can in fact risk all--even poverty, precarity, and death--without being the least bit diminished. In fact, the fullness of God is brought to perfection in resurrection--precisely on the other side of death--or in the Eucharist as paschal sacrament in which the sign, without ceasing to be a sign, is consumed by and identical to the Signified.

But what we have here is infinite risk and infinite abundance, coming together in a fully human life, which is nonetheless the humanity proper to the Word.

The nearest analogy among God's creatures, is Mary's "yes" at the Annunciation, which is itself empowered by the presence of the Spirit and the grace of her Son. It is amazing that a mere creature, however exalted and spotless, can take such risk. How great her faith must be in the abundance and goodness of God.

Here, we see the faith that risks all and gives all.

And this points us to God, the very Fountain and very Root of all good.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

Feast of the Holy Innocents
Psalm 2
Psalm 26 (Morning)
Psalm 19
Psalm 126 (Evening)
Isaiah 49:13-23
or Isaiah 54:1-13
Matthew 19:1-14
or Mark 10:13-16

Sometimes, our liturgical calendar relies on myth more than we care to admit. The story of Herod ordering the slaughter of all male children age two and under is probably one of those times. The only account of this story is in Matthew 2, with no secular history to back it up--which, frankly, throws doubt into it being a factual historical event. One theory is that it is a "morphing" of Josephus' account of Herod the Great murdering his own sons. However, the lack of secular history doesn't negate the possibility it happened. It could well have been this was such a minor episode in the reign of Herod at the time--remember, no one would have had the hindsight we do, that this child is the Messiah--no secular historian worth his salt would have cared about infanticide in a little berg like Bethlehem. Infanticide was a common way to deal with one's enemies and to put down uprisings.

All the same, the people at the time the Gospel of Matthew would have been hooked on this story, because they would have been familiar with the story of the Exodus, and with prophetic statements in Hosea and Jeremiah. They had heard of "people out to get rid of the offspring of the chosen" before, many times. Regrettably, infanticide still exists in the world, so it still has the power to hook us, too. Killing innocent little ones who have yet to experience the fullness of life is one of the most reprehensible things we can think of, when we think about the evil that still exists in this tired old world.

Yet we psychologically kill "innocence" all the time, more than we care to admit. It's a rare person who has lived his or her life without someone trying to kill something holy and innocent inside of us because of envy or resentment on their part. It's also (unfortunately) a rare person who has never felt the pang of jealousy and wanted to kill it in someone else. Cain is still with us, I'm afraid.

Worse yet, we still, like the historical Herod--implode and order the killing of the innocent offspring of joy and hope within ourselves. There would be no need of therapists, self-help books, and Twelve Step programs if we didn't order all these "killings" of the innocence of self and others.

Our readings today take us on a full tour of the emotional spectrum--joy, rebirth, barrenness, wrath, vindication, and singing. But perhaps the most important message is in either choice of the Gospel when the disciples are told by Jesus to stop chasing away the little children and let them come. It's our tendency, in this busy world, to inflate everything we do into Very Serious Business and push aside innocent things like joy and wonder and the heart tug of the "gee whiz" moment. When we see those things in ourselves, we push them away--and although we may not actively kill them, there might be a place where they simply go off and die of neglect and starvation. When we see them in others, in our own underfed state, it's too painful--so in jealousy we try to kill theirs, too, and often in a more active fashion than the slow starvation of our own.

When we embrace our own holy innocence, we change the playing field from one of scarcity to abundance, and suddenly there's room enough for all the innocent children to sit at the foot of Jesus. Who's the hungry self-marginalized innocent child we should let draw near to us today?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

Psalm 103 (Morning)
Psalm 148 (Evening)
Isaiah 62:1-5, 10-12
Revelation 19:1-16
Matthew 1:18-25

Names are all over the place in our readings today. Our Psalms call to bless and praise the Lord's holy name. No fewer than five names for Israel and her people are mentioned in the verses of Isaiah 62. The rider of the horse in Revelation 19 is named Faithful and True. In Matthew, Joseph hears the name of Mary's unborn child--Jesus--in his dream.

The more we read and study the Bible, the more we recognize that "the business of naming" is an important thread that weaves through both the Old and New Testaments. I've always been especially intrigued how, when one picks Biblical names apart, they have a meaning within the name. Take Jesus' name--Yeshua--"The Lord is salvation." It's as if we are told within the name of Jesus itself, Lesson One in "Understanding Christianity 101."

The mistake, however, is in thinking once we pick the names in the Bible apart, that this knowledge is the be-all and end-all of the message. Human nature has the destructive habit of "Once we know the name of something, once we know how it works, once we have disassembled it and post-mortem'ed it, we're finished, with no further action necessary."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The danger of understanding names is that we tend, once we know the name of something, to use our definition to define the world, rather than letting the world shape and mold us. We tend to use it for the control of things we don't understand. Invariably, this fallacy leads us to placing God in a smaller box than God is capable of occupying. Once we think we fully understand a definition, we fill the air with the aerosol mist of a spray can chock full of of the delusion of control. Instead of letting the names churn our passions, we try to shut our passions down.

What would happen, instead, if we let these names shape us instead of us telling them what they are? In Matthew, Joseph's hearing and obedience to his dream saves his new family's lives. What would grow in us if we allow God to speak to our dreams, our hopes, our passions? Our passage in Isaiah gives us a window into restoration and renewal--a journey that begins forsaken and desolate, and becomes formed into a joyful wedding between the holy incarnation of God, and the mundane existence of our lives. We move from a God "out there" to "God with us." We discover salvation when the rest of this cold hard world would rather separate us with a chasm of despair. We move from a state of spiritual insomnia, afraid to dream, to one where we eagerly dare to dream.

On this day proclaiming the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, dare we listen to our own dreams, that, at times, speak the most profound truths to us? Are we ready to accept the new name God has bestowed upon us? It begins with hearing God speak the name of salvation to us in our dreams.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

For He was not, as might be imagined, circumscribed in the body, nor, while present in the body, was He absent elsewhere; nor, while He moved the body, was the universe left void of his working and providence; but, thing most marvellous [sic], Word as He was, so far from being contained by anything, He rather contained all things Himself; and just as while present in the whole of Creation, He is at once distinct in being from the universe, and present in all things by His own power...

St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, 16 in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vol. 4.

In subtle ways, we might be seduced by the doctrine of the Incarnation into thinking that the Word is localized. No classical Christian theologian thought this. There is a particular intensification of presence and effect, but the one present is present and efficacious everywhere, considered in himself. The Word is omnipresent or ubiquitous. Witness the words of Athanasius just cited. What God is up to in Jesus, is the same type of thing that God is always up to everywhere, in and through the Word, namely pouring out grace, giving life, establishing justice, showing mercy, establishing and reestablishing all things in a universal communion of love.

As we approach the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ, we might remember that the content of the Word that lives forever in the bosom of the Father, is made historical, tangible, and visible in the flesh, without for a moment ceasing to be what he always is, the perfect expression within the Godhead of all that God is and wants to be for us--pure and unmixed goodness, giving itself to frail and fallen humanity. And whatever is good, true, or beautiful, wherever we find it--in other words, all that is, insofar as it is--is a reflection of this Word's splendor, and shares in his Wisdom and purpose. In and through him, God will bring all good things to their perfection.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

Do not now turn away from the brilliance of that star in the east which guides you. Become a companion of the holy kings; accept the testimony of the Jewish Scriptures about Christ and avert the evil of the treacherous king. With gold, frankincense and myrrh, venerate Christ the King as true God and man. Together with the first fruits of the Gentiles to be called to faith, adore, confess, and praise this humble God lying in a manger. And thus, warned in a dream not to follow Herod's pride, you will return to your country in the footsteps of the humble Christ.

Bonaventure, The Tree of Life, 6 in Bonaventure: The Soul's Journey Into God, The Tree of Life, and The Life of St. Francis (New York and Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press), pp. 130-31.

As I reflect on the missionary themes of the season of Epiphany, I am struck by these thoughts from the great doctor of the Church, a contemporary of Thomas Aquinas, and minister general of the Franciscans at a time of great turmoil. For him, the star leads us with the three kings to “this humble God lying in a manger.” He invites us to join the first fruits of the Gentiles in faith and devotion, so that we might return to our homeland “in the footsteps of the humble Christ.”

But of course, we can’t just go home to the tried, true, and familiar. T. S. Eliot famously observed that the Magi had come to see a birth, but also found death. That they could no longer be at ease here in the old dispensation. The manifestation of the world’s true King and the one true Light shakes loose our settled convictions and patterns of living. It causes us to forsake the path of least resistance and to enter into new and unsettling relationships and ways of life. Ways of life based not on domination but on brotherhood and sisterhood.

As the Episcopal Church, among other Christian bodies, wrestles with a sea change in our self-understanding and mission, we too would do well to consider what the Magi saw that night in Bethlehem and how it changed them. What might it be for us to be called to greater faith? How might we best adore, confess, and praise this humble God? And how might that be Good News in a world that longs to hear it?

There’s a lot that we can do in terms of mission and program, in terms of structure, in terms of engagement with our communities. But it all begins with Christ, who reorders our priorities, gives us new horizons, and turns our lives around.

It is instructive that the two great feasts of the Western Christian year, Easter and Christmas, follow desert periods of preparation, are celebrated with great joy, and then culminate in great missionary feasts and seasons. When we behold the humble God, lying in a manger, as when we see him lifted high upon the Cross, we are changed. We are pushed out, beyond the security of a rented room at an inn. We are driven outside the gate, out beyond our walls and defenses. We are summoned, in the great joy of the resurrection, beyond the locked doors of the upper room, and out into the highways and byways, out into the public square.

Because in Holy Baptism, we do not go into the waters alone. We are brought into relationship, not only with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but with every human being—indeed, every living thing. By our baptism into Christ, we are called to the life-changing work of reconciliation, and into a universal fellowship of love.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

"Christ is the light of the nations." With these majestic words the Second Vatican Council began the greatest of its documents, the "Constitution on the Church." Fundamental to everything else that came forth from the council were the reaffirmation of the missionary character of the church, the recognition of the unfinished task which that implies, the confession that the church is a pilgrim people on its way to the ends of the earth and the end of time, and the acknowledgment of a new openness to the world.
~Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission. Revised Edition. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 1.

As I reflect on the themes of the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple and Candlemas, I am reminded that the Blessed Virgin, along with the prophets Simeon and Anna, lift up Christ within the Temple as a kind of first fruits and sacrifice. We ourselves are the Temple built of living stones, the Body of Christ, which the Spirit binds together in faith, hope, and love. In every celebration of the Holy Eucharist, we are presented to the Father, along with the other gifts, by, with, and in Christ. We are
the ones who have come to know the blessings of his light long expected. We rejoice with God's prophets and the poor in the gift of the Savior. We find ourselves in communion with all those who pour their hearts out night and day to God.

Whatever one thinks of the present state of ecumenical relations with the Roman Catholic Church, it would be hard to find a student of the history and mission of the Church who did not see the Second Vatican Council and in particular the document Lumen Gentium as an amazing step forward, not just for the Roman Catholic Church but for all Christians everywhere. The document, like several others, bears the stamp of the great Jesuit theologian, Karl Rahner. For the Council, the Church is missionary of its very nature and a kind of sacramental reality that makes Christ present in every time and place. And, as Newbigin rightly insists, there is an acknowledgment of a new openness to the world.

There are aspects of Lumen Gentium that I suspect many of us who are not Roman Catholic would find hard to swallow, but the basic perspective has long influenced ecumenical reflection on mission in all communions. Truly the Church is called and sent by the One who is light and truth for all people and nations, namely Jesus Christ, God's definitive offer of mercy for the world, especially the "least of these" and those who have God alone for their helper.

Truly, we are the Temple and the pilgrim People of God, present in all times and places, bearing witness by what we do and say, by how we suffer and struggle and forgive and watch and love and pray. And wherever we are, in all our frailty and brokenness, there also is Christ himself.

Truly, he is the light of the world.

Truly, every flame has become a sign of his Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, the one who spoke by the prophets.

Truly, the many lights--and there are many--now bear witness to the one true Light.

Truly, all truth, all goodness, and all beauty, wherever they are found, have their source and find their goal in Him.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is here

...[T]hrough the luminous brightness that shone from the face of the Lord on the mount the thrice-blessed apostles were secretly led in an ineffable and unknowable manner to the power and glory of God which is completely incomprehensible to every being, for they learnt that the light that appeared to their senses is a symbol of what is hidden and beyond any manifestation. For as the ray of the light that came to pass here overwhelmed the strength of the eyes and remained beyond their grasp, so also God transcends all the power and strength of the mind and leaves no kind of trace for the mind to experience.

Maximus the Confessor, Difficulty 10 in Andrew Louth, ed. Maximus the Confessor (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 128.

The Transfiguration story is the final Gospel appointed for the Sundays after the Epiphany. It tells us something about any theophany, defined as God's act of self-manifestation to us. Because God is absolutely incomprehensible, theophany never means simply conveying secret knowledge, especially if by knowledge we mean the kind that grasps and controls its object. Rather, theophany leads to deeper participation (itself a form of knowledge) in a Mystery who is Wholly Other. Indeed the living God is so fully Other, that God is free to be with us and in us, more intimate than our inmost selves. Without ceasing to be God, God is free to be the innermost source of all we are. God is free to share God's own life ever more fully with us.

The stammering of Peter before the transfigured Christ gives way to a more perfect disclosure of who the Lord Jesus in fact is. The voice and the cloud are reminiscent of many Old Testament theophanies, and Christ is himself flanked by Moses and Elijah (the Law and the Prophets?), figures who had direct personal acquaintance with the Holy One. The words spoken by the voice also remind us of the Trinitarian theophany at the Jordan, with which the Sundays of this season began.

As we turn the corner into Lent, we ought to bear in mind that the Transfiguration also foreshadows the Paschal mystery. Like the Easter Gospel of the Lord's dying and rising--or, for that matter, any good story about God--the Transfiguration story creates as many problems as it solves. Ultimately, we are led into a set of relationships that we cannot contain or control, only accept and embrace as divine gift. The nearest analogy in our experience is falling and being in love. The beloved really gives himself or herself, yet remains beyond our grasp or control.

Indeed, it is love that binds us to God, so that our flesh (body and soul), might be transformed into Christ's likeness, from glory to glory.

As we enter the desert, and ultimately the darkness, may we adhere to God in love.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

For many, if not for the majority of Orthodox Christians, Lent consists of a limited number of formal, predominantly negative, rules and prescriptions: abstention from certain food, dancing, perhaps movies. Such is the degree of our alienation from the real spirit of the Church that it is almost impossible for us to understand that there is "something else" in Lent--something without which all these prescriptions lose much of their meaning. This "something else" can best be described as an "atmosphere," a "climate" into which one enters, as first of all a state of mind, soul, and spirit which for seven weeks permeates our entire life. Let us stress once more that the purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to "soften" our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden "thirst and hunger" for communion with God.

Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001), p. 31.

I would note that this is true not just for the Eastern Orthodox but for any Christians who attempt to keep a Lenten discipline. The risk of merely formal disciplines, understood negatively as abstention, is high. The hidden meaning of every discipline--and I'd be the last to underestimate their importance--is the softening and the opening of the heart for communion with God.

Lent is meant to be a journey toward something. Fr. Schmemann does not call it "journey to pascha" in vain. Its entire purpose is Easter joy, which is deepened by the desert season that comes before, and which suffuses that desert season like hidden leaven. Every Lenten discipline is pregnant with the possibility of conversion, of a new dying and rising with Christ, of a deepening communion with God.

As we are marked for death on Ash Wednesday, we are brought to remember our baptism and the words that were spoken to us then, when we were sealed with holy chrism (in the very same spot) and marked as Christ's own forever.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

The desert is the home of despair. And despair, now, is everywhere. Let us not think that our interior solitude consists in the acceptance of defeat. We cannot escape anything by consenting tacitly to be defeated. Despair is an abyss without bottom. Do not think to close it by consenting to it and trying to forget you have consented.

This then, is our desert: to live facing despair, but not to consent. To trample it down under hope in the Cross. To wage war against despair unceasingly. That war is our wilderness. If we wage it courageously, we will find Christ at our side. If we cannot face it, we will never find him.

Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1956), p. 8.

I was struck this year, as I typically am in Mark's year, by the sparseness of his account of Christ's temptation. I was also struck by the way the Holy Spirit drives Jesus out into the desert, immediately after his baptism.

Jesus joins us in the place of hunger and temptation, a place fraught with the real risk of despair. (Just as he will soon join us in the place of suffering, death, and shame.)

But, in Scripture, the desert, or wilderness, is also the place of the primitive encounter with God. (Just as the way of the cross is none other than the way of life and peace.) In the wilderness, we can find hope, because that is where Christ himself is found, trampling down death by death, and facing the depths of our despair without for a moment consenting to it.

In Christ, the victory is already won. As we journey in desert places, may we remember him at our side.

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Athens, Ohio. His parish blog is at here

“This is no commemoration service in which we devoutly recall past events. Quite the contrary, we witness to the original event, more than witnesses—we are involved. We share in the death and share in the rising because our sins are involved.
“This is no replay of Calvary. We do not run it again each year at this holy season. There is but one death and rising. The events are transcendent, they ignore time, they are present in God’s eternal now. In that now we briefly share when we move onto the stage of these events. We are out of time. We taste eternity. Indeed we do so in every Eucharist. But, in this holy time, the Paschal Vigil, more profoundly, more dramatically.”
Fr. Matthew Kelty, OSCO, Gethsemani Homilies, Revised and Enlarged Edition (Trappist, KY: Cistercian Publications, 2010), p. 82.

As we continue with the fifty days of Easter, it is good to remember that every celebration of the Holy Eucharist is our participation in the Paschal mystery, i.e. the dying and rising of Christ understood in relation to God’s liberation of God’s ancient and beloved people. The events are a unity and they happen once and for all. And yet, like the triune mystery of God at their heart, they do not close in on themselves but open up to embrace us. Therefore, by celebrating them, we come to be directly involved. Indeed, in the epiclesis (the ritual invocation of the Spirit over the gifts and the people), the distinction between eternity and time breaks down, so that we are caught up into Christ’s one Great Offering of himself, the very same gift in which we were immersed once for all in Holy Baptism. Truly, in every celebration of the Eucharist, we are brought more fully into the mystery of Easter. We are plunged ever deeper into the mystery of Jesus Christ and brought “out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.”

The Rev. Bill Carroll now serves as rector of Emmanuel Parish, Shawnee in the Diocese of Oklahoma. His new parish blog is Emmanuel Shawnee Blog

Psalms 118, 145
Deuteronomy 16:9-12
Acts 4:18-21, 23-33
John 4:19-26

"Sir, I see that you are a prophet."

It has to be one of the greatest understatements in the Gospel. Unfortunately, our reading today starts at the punch line; it's the discourse preceding this that makes the story of the Samaritan woman at the well, and is worth a read along with today's passage--take a few minutes to read what just precedes our text.

At the beginning of this story, the Samaritan woman is mostly delivering a load of snark at Jesus. "Yo, dude! Have you noticed I'm Samaritan and you're Jewish? Like you are going to share anything with me? Riiiigggghhhhtt....living water? Now how you gonna do that without a bucket? 'If I knew who you were'...are you bigger than our ancestor Jacob? Or maybe you've just been out in the sun a little too long, hmmmm?"

Generally speaking, it's also an understatement to say there was no love lost between Samaritans and Jews. In the eyes of the Jewish people and the Hebrew scriptures, Samaritans were pagans and half-breeds. Jews often put extra mileage on their journey between Judea and Galilee by crossing the Jordan and avoiding Samaria entirely, for fear of contamination. Those fool enough or desperate enough to travel through Samaria would be met with bullying and taunting. (Evidently, one of the taunts was that the Samaritans had an older copy of the Torah and that they were actually following its precepts better.)

We aren't shown entirely why this woman continues the conversation instead of kicking dirt at Jesus or hurling a rock at him, but as the conversation progresses, we see the conversation move from snark to curiosity ("Well, now, if you're serious about this living water stuff...well, it would sure save me a lot of trips to the well...") and finally outright dumbfounded awe when Jesus, out of the blue, reveals that he knows her rather checkered marital history, which is where today's reading picks up.

At this point, he has her absolute attention, and he proceeds to cut to the heart of what separates Samaritans and Jews--the "correct" spot where God chose to establish the kingdom. For Jews, it was Jerusalem; for Samaritans it was Mt. Gerizim. Deuteronomy 12:5 states, "...you shall seek the place that the Lord your God will choose out of all your tribes as his habitation to put his name there..." and uses the phrase "shall choose," implying it's yet to be.

But we're back to that business of that older Samaritan copy of the Torah again. That manuscript describes the place God "has chosen" (implying it's already been chosen," and Samaritans identified that place as Mt. Gerizim.

Jesus goes on to tell her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

What's incredibly interesting here is that it's clear Jesus has her ear, and he could have given her the "correct" answer in this dichotomy, but he doesn't. He could say "who's right" and "who's wrong." It is, after all, a prophet's right to do such things. Instead, he swings a circle big enough to hold both places--Jerusalem and Mt. Gerazim. The circle is big enough to hold the things Jews and Samaritans were sure they knew, and the things Jews and Samaritans didn't know, yet remain hopeful for truths that are not evident at the moment.

This discourse reminds us to examine those times in our lives when we were absolutely positively sure of what the "Christian" perspective was, and our response to anything challenging it was pure snark. How many times was our surety destroyed by being face-to-face with an unavoidable and revealed truth? Did we, like the Samaritan woman, change our attitude and approach it with awe, using it as an opportunity to hear and learn? Or did we bristle and throw more snark at it?

Additionally, as we head into General Convention, perhaps this passage calls us to consider those things we claim to be "sure" about regarding the hot-button issues that will be facing our deputies and bishops. Are we insistent on being on the side of "the truth," or should we be taking a cue from Jesus to draw a circle big enough to hold it all, until time passes and more truth is revealed?

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

This [i.e. the infant Christ] is a child who cannot bear to be separated from his mother. We have seen that God is not ashamed to be our God, to be identified with the one who is involved with us; here, though, it is as if he is not merely unashamed but positively shameless in his eagerness, longing to embrace and be embraced. It is not simply that God will deign not to mind our company: rather he is passionate for it. The image of God’s action we are presented with here is of a hungry love.
Rowan Williams, Ponder These Things: Praying with the Icons of the Virgin (Franklin, WI and Chicago: Sheed & Ward, 2002), p. 25.

These words come from a meditation about a type of icon called the Virgin of Loving Kindness, or the Eleousa, the most famous example of which is perhaps the Virgin of Vladamir. Williams presents the hunger of the Christ child as a revelation of God’s passionate love for humanity. Perhaps God longs for us just as much as we long for God, not out of any lack but out of a superabundance of love in all its forms. Notwithstanding the powerful insights of the theologies of agape, God also has an eminent capacity for friendship and desire. The basis for these loves which ground human community and intimate partnership is found forever in the blessed exchange among the three persons of the divine Trinity, who give and receive eternally within the divine society in which “none is afore or after other.” In the mystery of the Incarnation, this love spills out to bless the world tangibly, revealing in an especially vivid way the inner dynamic of God’s fruitful love that leads God to create and redeem the world in freedom. What is more, in Christ, God’s love becomes our love, as love is returned for love and we are swept up, in the grace of the Spirit, into Christ’s own relationship with the One he called “Abba, Father.”

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as rector of Emmanuel Parish, Shawnee in the Diocese of Oklahoma. His new parish blog is Emmanuel Shawnee Blog

Psalms 146, 147 (Morning)
Psalms 111, 112, 113 (Evening)
Job 38:1-11, 42:1-5
Revelation 19:4-16
John 1:29-34

Today's readings, particularly in the interplay between our reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, and the Gospel, might best be classified as examples of what happens when God launches an "air assault." God speaks to Job straight from the eye of a whirlwind, and through John the Baptist's testimony that the Spirit descended from Heaven upon Jesus like a dove.

Now, at first glance, one might think hearing God thundering from the whirlwind is a lot scarier than the spirit of God descending like a dove--but don't bet on it.

In northeast Missouri, the dove we're most acquainted with is the mourning dove, and they are some of the fanciest, most elusive fliers going. Doves are seed eaters, and frankly, they look for easy pickings. Their little legs are not all that efficient at scratching, so they tend to prefer eating in open fields, where they know they are an open target for predators. They are incredibly patient when it comes to seeking a meal, often loafing and lounging in trees or on power lines until they are absolutely sure the coast is clear. But when they think they can eat safely, watch out! They will come in by the flockload, zipping through lanes of trees so narrow that one would think they'd be hitting branches on the way in. They zip, zig-zag, and zoom in with unmatched skill and speed, and eat like there's no tomorrow as fast as they can, then zip out in the same crazy convoluted way they came. They can dive bomb so fast and purposefully, that if you listen carefully, their wings make a whistling noise as they put on the brakes and hover in for the last few feet.

Likewise, if you've ever seen a pair of mourning doves defend their nest, you'll give up every notion you ever had that they are peaceful. I've seen a mated pair of doves send more than one tom cat under the porch, whooshing and pecking, the poor cat's Cheshire grin replaces with a total look of "What just happened?"

Yep, given the choice, I'd take the whirlwind. At least with the whirlwind, I know what I'm up against. So did Job. It's pretty easy to figure it's time to shut up and listen up when God thunders, "Excuuuuuse me! Where were YOU when I was cobbling the universe together, Mr. Fault Finder?"

In contrast, one can almost hear behind the surety of John's testimony, a little twinge of "I'm telling you, it really happened like this," as if his audience was going to have a hard time buying it. I wonder if he did not expect the fulfilling of the prophecy to be so swift and deliberate. "I mean, I didn't even KNOW the guy from Adam's housecat, but I could tell who he was when I saw that!"

Our Gospel today is a reminder that no matter how confused or puzzling it seems when we are trying to discern God's call to us, to have the assurance and trust that when God has chosen us for a task, we'll know it when we see it--but don't be surprised if we don't feel a little like that old tom cat when it happens.

Maria Evans, a surgical pathologist from Kirksville, MO, writes about the obscurities of life, medicine, faith, and the Episcopal Church on her blog, Kirkepiscatoid

The very life of God is one of goodness expressing itself generously, fully. This divine goodness lives in personal communion. God is interpersonal and relational.
This communion has at its center the Word, the core or middle of God’s life as Trinity. Wishing to express overflowing goodness, God wishes to pour out an expression of the divine life.

God’s desire to share goodness is expressed as creation. But creation is not merely to receive some partial, limited sharing in God’s goodness and life. God will actually give away even the very heart of the divine life, the Word.
William Short, OFM, The Franciscans (Collegeville, Minn.: Michael Glazier, 1989), p. 105.

These words come from William Short, a Franciscan friar and scholar, who is interpreting the basic insight of the Franciscan theological tradition, especially in Bonaventure and Duns Scotus. There are antecedents for viewing the Trinity in terms of God’s self-communicative goodness in Dionysius and Richard of St. Victor. But this view owes as much to Francis and his insight into poverty and the absolute goodness of God. It’s as if God is so radically non-possessive that God shares God’s own life within the Trinity and then that goodness spills out in creation and Incarnation. God holds on to nothing, so that “God will actually give away even the very heart of the divine life, the Word.”

On Trinity Sunday, I was struck by how the doctrine of the Trinity is meant to describe the “conditions of the possibility” of total divine, self-giving, such as we experience in Christ and the Holy Eucharist. The Father sends the Son and the Spirit into the world. There is differentiation within God and yet the persons sent are fully God. What the doctrine is about is radical grace that embraces sin, finitude, and death without fear, because in the context of such immortal and abundant life, the self is found in having one’s being from and toward Another.

And we, by the power of the Spirit, have been caught up in this eternal, reciprocal self-giving, which comes into sharp focus in Christ’s self-emptying and obedience “unto death.” (Philippians 2)

A little later in the same chapter of his book, Short puts it this way: “God gives away all, holds nothing back as property. This is the poverty of God, showing in the visible things of creation the invisible and constant self-giving which is the life of the Trinity. The world mirrors, now clearly, now obscurely, the inner divine life of unending bowing over in generosity.”

The Rev. Bill Carroll serves as rector of Emmanuel Parish, Shawnee in the Diocese of Oklahoma. His new parish blog is Emmanuel Shawnee Blog

We are midway through the season of Advent. How is it going for you? For my part, I have to admit to a guilty secret. In the past couple of days I have been sneakily listening to Christmas carols.

This wasn’t something I meant to have happen. I had planned that, honoring the Advent season, I would find quiet time for reflection and would try to live in the moment. I would studiously ignore the canned music in supermarkets and malls and hurry by the Christmas displays without looking. I would save touring town to see the funky and beautiful lights and the house decorations synched to music until after the 25th. I would dutifully try to stay present in hope and expectation until the proper night for the baby’s birth.

But the other day, in my imagination, I looked in the manger in the wintry stable in Bethlehem and found a baby already there. He was small and wrinkled in that peculiar way of newborns, tiny fists clenched in sleep. The shepherds and angels hadn’t found him yet, but his mother was right there, making sure he was warm – and in love with him in a way she never could have anticipated. So was Joseph, blinking like an owl, unsure whether to feel joy and pride or suspicion and fear – or all of those things together.

“We don’t get to spend enough time in Christmas,” I muttered defensively as I felt my own heart swell. And so I have been listening to Christmas carols.

This out of season arrival of joy somehow makes up for the times I have waited patiently through Advent only to find the Christmas moment flat and empty. In those years I felt no new life, no coming of the Messiah, only another day in another long week, this one full of wrapping paper needing to be recycled and lots of dishes needing to be washed.

And then there were the years when horrible things happened at Christmas – heart rending family fights, losses, terrible disappointments. Those were moments when Christmas carols seemed like a horrible mockery.

It’s silly to try to orchestrate a birth. They come early or late or not at all. None of this is our fault; it’s just how things are. We can’t plan it.

We can make room for it, though. We can lay warm blankets in the manger, figure out a way to bring in food and water, shoo away the cows. Advent is about the painful opening of our hearts, centimeter by centimeter, in the face of having been disappointed so many times before.

It’s about both remembering and anticipating the shocking wonder of God. Because, whether or not we feel it,

God has,
God is
and God will be
entering history just to find us.

Laurie Gudim is a religious iconographer and liturgical artist, a writer and lay preacher living in Fort Collins, CO. See her work online at Everyday Mysteries With others she manages a website for the Diocese of Colorado highlighting congregations' creative ministries: Fresh Expressions Colorado

Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written,
‘Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles,
and sing praises to your name’;
and again he says,
‘Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people’;
and again,
‘Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles,
and let all the peoples praise him’;
and again Isaiah says,
‘The root of Jesse shall come,
the one who rises to rule the Gentiles;
in him the Gentiles shall hope.’
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. -- Romans 15:7-13 NRSV

Next to Advent, Epiphany is my favorite season of the church year. The expectation is over, the event has been celebrated, and now, like the party after the really great party, the church relaxes slightly, kicks off its shoes, has a little more champagne as it talks over the events of the party and enjoys taking a break before it gets into the penitence of Lent and the unrestrained joy of Easter.

One year I wanted to really welcome Epiphany and celebrate it to the fullest. Being the wordy person that I am, and also wanting to try to cultivate an attitude of gratitude, I decided to write a letter to God every day of the season, looking at ordinary, everyday things and trying to see the sacred in them. It worked. I noticed so many more things I certainly would have missed. It also taught me about something I would later come to know as theological reflection and its look at an event, a text, a picture, a movie or an experience through the lenses of tradition, culture, position and action. I welcomed the discipline of writing, and I continued it for quite a while. Maybe I should take it up again. The attitude of gratitude has worn off a bit and needs to be re-honed.

But thinking about welcomes, I have to recall the Sunday I first tuned in to a stream of a service at All Saints', Pasadena. My stepson had encouraged me to watch to see if I could see him and his partner in the congregation but mostly, I think, to show me "his" church and the kind of place that drew them both in. I watched, and honestly, I felt more welcome through the computer monitor than I have in most churches I have visited in person. If that first visit online was any indication, I thought, it's no wonder that church is growing and flourishing. It reminded me that welcome doesn't mean just shaking hands at the door and offering coffee or a short blurb in the break between the liturgy of the word and that of the table. It's an ongoing theme, expressed again and again as if to make sure the message sinks in: you are welcome here, no matter who you are, where you come from, where you are in faith or in no faith, and what you've done in the past. If it weren't for the distance, I'd probably say "Sign me up now!" I felt like I was seeing how the future of Christianity could be assured.

Paul's words to the Romans encourage them to welcome one another, practicing the kind of greeting and attention that Jesus offered not only to the Jews but to the Gentiles -- the Syrophoenician woman, the Roman centurion, the Gerasene demonic and others. Not the hospitality of house and home, not even the extending the gifts of food and good conversation, rather it was the sense of his attention focused on them and their problems, his interaction with them to heal them, and his willingness to do this again and again for people who were complete strangers and who he would undoubtedly never see again. He embraced them into and with his presence and eased their burdens. What more radical welcome could there be?

Whether on paper (or electrons), in person, on the road, in church, at work, on the phone, there are a hundred ways to show welcoming every day to both friend and stranger, believer and unbeliever. When I write I invite people into my mind and heart just as I feel invited into the minds and hearts of those whose words I read. I can feel welcomed by a friendly clerk at a grocery or department store or a priest standing before an altar in church. I can look forward to the welcome into heaven when the time comes, and I can welcome Jesus into my heart every day. And I can enjoy the time of each church season with its particular gifts and insights.

Welcome, Epiphany. I am looking forward to your visit and your lessons

Linda Ryan co-mentors 2 EfM Online groups and keeps the blog Jericho's Daughter

Luke: 6: 18 “They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.”

It is almost Palm Sunday. I try to keep the story of resurrection before me with images of palms, feet washing, betrayal, dying and new life. But it is all mixed in with bunny rabbits and eggs. I avert my eyes when I walk through the store with aisles of Easter baskets and chocolate candies. It is a jumble of childhood fun and something that cannot be contained.

Easter doesn’t come for everyone. Some of the youth with whom I work see themselves stuck in betrayal and death. But for some, a connection is made.

Luke has it right. We come to be healed. We who are troubled are cured.
A young girl sitting across the table from me asks “Okay, you say that I am a child of God. Is that for real? How is it possible?”

We talk. She wants proof that she is as good as anyone else. No, she wants to know she is somebody. She wants to be healed of all the taunts and abuse that lodges within her. She wants to be cured of self loathing. She wants to know that resurrection is real. A bunny rabbit doesn’t freight the meaning.

Soon after this encounter I visit a youth in juvenile detention. He gets caught frequently drinking and fighting on the street. I spend quality time with him when he is in jail. As I am his only visitor, he wants to talk even with a security guard in the room. “How do I convince the judge to let me out of here?” he asks again and again. It is a little complicated since he cursed the judge at his last hearing. I suggest he write a letter that gives a good reason why he should get out.

The following week he greets me with joy. “I know what to tell the judge. I can tell him that someone who loves God loves me.”

Part of me is glad that he has made some connection in trusting me. A larger part of me is brokenhearted that he has not made a connection to that which provides him identity and purpose. He does not believe in a God who could possibly love him. How can he believe that if he dies to a destructive self that he will not just stay dead? How can he believe in a resurrection when he cannot see beyond death?

“Are you afraid to change?” I ask.

“I don’t think I can,” he replies. “I always go back to what I did before.”

We talk then of the power of ceremony. I ask him to learn a prayer which we will say each week at our jail visitation, even if we do not fully believe what we are saying. He agrees and we pray “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the Word and I will be healed.” That prayer coils itself in and around our bones, into those hidden places where we are still afraid.

This is an Easter story. It is the long journey we each take to go beyond what hurts toward the one who heals us. It is our connection to that which is eternal, which is profound, which is wholeness.

Kaze Gadway has worked with the emerging leaders of the Episcopal Church within the Native American community of Northern Arizona as a volunteer for eleven years. They are youth of promise from ages twelve to twenty-four. The Spirit Journey Youth is an outreach program of the Episcopal Diocese of Arizona with forty young people. She is on Facebook and blogs at infaith's posterous