Epistle

God’s Love in Tragic Times

Published on by Tina Shippey

Fr. Tim’s sermon for the third week of Lent, March 24th, 2019

Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Luke 13:1-9

Click here to access these readings.

            Sometimes, there’s not that much difference between our times and those of Jesus.  This isn’t always the case, of course.  First century Palestine was a very different place and time than 21st century Coquille.  Not only were there no cell phones, but no phones, nor telegraphs, nor even an organized, national postal service.  Life was more focused on the family, centered around farms and small towns.  There were kings, generals, and emperors.  And this is saying nothing of differences in culture or religious worship, everything from how they married and died to how they began a meal.  Jesus was talking to a culture much different from our own, and it’s important to remember that when we try to understand what the Bible is saying.

            But the people of first century Palestine were human, and there are certain things that all humans struggle with.  And one of these common human experiences is tragedy.  What do we do when tragedy strikes?  How do we deal with our sudden grief, our anger, our sudden, arrested hopes?  How do we make sense of the world after a tragedy and, perhaps most importantly, how do we understand God in all of it?  Who is God to us now that we’ve been through such grief?

            And people in Jesus’ time, just like people today, try to make sense of tragedy and, especially, of God’s role in (or God’s absence) from grief.  We hear about a few such instances in our readings this morning, where people reflected on tragedy and asked, “Where is God in all this?”  And just as we might wonder about natural disasters and accidents like the floods in Nebraska, earthquakes in Asia, tsunami in Japan, the people in Jesus’ day were wondering just the same things, here about a building that fell on top of people, killing eighteen of them.  Such sudden accidents and disasters seem to have no reason behind them.  People were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or the weather just took a nasty turn, or the earthquake came from a place, and at a time, when no one expected it. 

            And as we reflect, we might wonder, “Why did this happen?”  And there are always reasons: earthquakes come from the movement of tectonic plates; the weather in Nebraska was particularly bad this year, the tower of Siloam’s foundation was weak and old.  Asking these questions can lead us to answers that, hopefully, can prevent or lessen tragedies in the future.  But it is human nature, it seems, to ask not just “Why did this happen?” but “Why did this happen to them?”  Why did this tragedy happen to these people?  We humans want to understand everything, to make even things that are natural occurrences into things that can fit into a nice, neat, rational box.  And so we want to know, “Why them?”

            The people in Jesus’ time, and a generation later in St. Paul’s time, were asking just this question.  And their answer?  Those people who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them?  The Galileans who Pilate killed?  Or those people destroyed by serpents?  They must have suffered these tragedies, people were saying, because they deserved it somehow.  They must have done something wrong, people thought, and these tragedies, they must have been some sort of cosmic backlash.  It was their sin, people decided, that had led them into disaster.

            And this line of thinking, as I said, is natural.  We humans love figuring out the reasons for things.  We don’t just want to know “how” but also “why”.  And our faith tells us that God is present in all things, working all Creation to the good.  And if this is true, the thinking goes, then it must mean that God wanted these people to die.  Tragedy occurs only to those who sin, those who “deserve” it.  And so we end up blaming the victims and blaming God.

             But Jesus rejects this way of thinking.  He challenges those who were gossiping about the guilt of those who Pontius Pilate killed, or about those who died when the tower of Siloam fell on them – Jesus challenges, and rejects, the idea that our tragedies have anything to do with our moral worth.  Just as we don’t earn our way into Heaven, but are given salvation as a free gift of grace; so too we don’t earn tragedies and disasters by our sins.  Our sins can hurt others, and hurt ourselves, and sins have a great effect on our community and society, but sins don’t necessarily cause towers to fall down or rivers to flood.

            So what, then, does Jesus ask us to do?  We are still human, we still want to know “why”, and not just so that we can prevent tragedies from happening in the future.  Humans are why to the bottom of Creation and back, and if we can’t blame ourselves or God, then what do we do in the face of these tragedies?  Jesus doesn’t say blame, but he says “repent”, which in Greek is “metanoia”, to turn, or RE-turn, to God.  This is the same turning we talked about with the baptismal covenant, where we turn from sin and doubt and hatred to love, joy, and grace in Jesus Christ.  And this is our call, always, as Christians, that when tragedy strikes, whether it is the falling of a tower or a natural disaster, or even if it is something where a person can indeed be blamed, we are to return to God and refound ourselves in his eternal love.  And this is why, on the day we read these stories from Luke’s gospel and St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, when we read about people struggling to make sense of the world, our lectionary also has us read the story of the burning bush and how deeply founded God’s eternal covenant is with us human beings.  Our God is not just so powerful that he can move us around like little pieces on a chessboard, but our God is that great being that is the beating heart of all reality.  God, the source of all love and hope and joy and all good, true, and beautiful things, is where Jesus directs our gaze and the ground in which he firmly plants our wandering feet.

            And yet, we may still ask: sky do tragedies happen?  Why do bad things happen to good people, or, if not just good people, then people simply going about their lives, good or bad, trying so hard to be happy?  Many generations and many cultures have asked this question, and no one has come up with a perfect answer.  But what we do know is this: that Jesus cried at the grave of Lazarus, that God is present with those who are sick, or who mourn, or who grieve, and that after death Heaven shines with a radiant light that knows no sorrow.  When we face tragedy, or death, or despair, Jesus says, do not blame.  Do not seek reasons in the moral worth of others.  Turn to God, for God will not just make your sorrow or doubt disappear, but will plant it firmly in the rich soil of true reality. And there, in the light of Heaven itself, we may find healing, and reconciliation, and hope.

Fr. Tim’s sermon for March 3rd, 2019

Published on by Tina Shippey

Exodus 34:29-35
Psalm 99
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Luke 9:28-43a

Click here to access these readings.

        Okay, it’s time for another field trip in the BCP.  Can you all pick up your red BCP and open up to page 363.  Now, look down at the bottom of the page.  Do you see those two little phrases there, one right next to the other, is two columns.  There’s something interesting that happens here, and it’s always made me smile. 

        Now, this is right after the Eucharistic Prayer.  We’ve heard Jesus’ invitation to us (“Take, eat, this is my Body”), and the priest has consecrated the bread and wine.  We’ve proclaimed the mystery of faith, and we’ve all said the great AMEN.  And here, at the bottom of 363, we have to choose one of these two phrases to say, though they both basically say the same thing.  We here at St. James’ choose the left side and I say, “And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are bold to say.” 

        Now, when I was first coming into the Episcopal Church, this phrase always made me smile.  Because it’s rather grand, isn’t it?  This word “bold”; it makes this sound like Star Trek: “to boldly go where no one has gone before.”  And I liked that.  There is a power to the phrase, and a joy.  I felt like the priest was saying to me, “Get ready!  This next thing is gonna be big!  Time to be bold!”

        And what was this phrase preparing us to say?  What’s the next part of the liturgy? [wait for answers].  That’s right, the Lord’s Prayer.  This surprised me.  I wondered, at the time, “What is so bold about the Lord’s Prayer?”  This was my good-night prayer.  My parents taught it to me before I was in elementary school.  I could rattle this thing off without even thinking of the words; what’s so bold about saying the Lord’s Prayer?

        Now, this word “bold” here is important, and that’s one of the reasons we use it here at St. James’.  First of all, here in the liturgy, it’s a sort of marker.  If you flip to the next page, you’ll see two different translations of the Lord’s Prayer, one in traditional language, the other in contemporary language.  And you, the people, know which we’ll use by whether I say “we are bold to say” or “we now pray.”  So “bold” is a sort of liturgical marker to help you all along with a liturgy that can be, at times, complicated.  I use the traditional translation, because I like its theology better, and so I say, “we are bold to say.”

        But I say “bold” for another reason.  Think about this: God Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, who made everything from the Sun in the sky to the tiniest little one celled organism, who sustains our life and leads us to eternal salvation, came down to earth as a human being and taught us how to pray.  And the way he taught us to address God, the Ruler of All Things, basically, was to say, “Daddy.”  There’s a boldness to this.  There’s an audacity to looking up to the Creator of Existence and saying, “Hi.  I’m hungry, and I’m sorry.  Please be with us forever.” 

        Early Christian leaders were in awe of the Lord’s Prayer.  They called it the perfect prayer, and some early writers even considered it one of the Sacraments.  Every single type of prayer, from intercession to thanksgiving, is found in the Lord’s Prayer.  And it was spoken by Jesus Christ himself, our Lord and our Redeemer, the man who joined Heaven and Earth and brought us eternal salvation. 

        When I think about this, when I think about all the history of this prayer, the holy lips that first spoke it, and the eternal Being that I address when I speak it, I feel in awe, and I hesitate.  It seems too much for me, I who am so small, just a single man who is trying his best to be a good Christian.  And I’m not alone in feeling this, because I think it’s something of what Peter felt when he saw Jesus Transfigured on the mountaintop.

        You see, Peter is also struggling to understand the power and the grandeur that’s right in front of him.  Earlier in chapter nine of Luke’s gospel (where we are in our gospel reading this morning) Jesus takes five loaves and two fishes and feeds five thousand people.  He then tells the disciples that his road isn’t to glory, but to death, and a pretty nasty one at that.  And he also tells them that if they really want to follow him, whoever really wants to save their life, they must lose it.  And if that’s not enough, up on a mountaintop, Peter and John and James witness Christ revealed, in all his heavenly splendor.  Their heads must have been spinning.  This guy who they’ve been traveling with, this man who they’ve been eating with, sleeping next to on the dusty ground, trudging under the hot sun with, and probably complaining to, this guy is not just a guy, but God Almighty, here in the flesh.  On the front of your bulletin is an icon of this scene, and in it, one of the disciples is so amazed that he’s fallen on his back with his feet up in the air.  His world has turned upside-down. 

        And Luke doesn’t record it, but I wonder if, after the Transfiguration, after they’ve come down from the mountaintop, the Peter, James, and John gather together and wonder what to do.  “We’ve just seen God, all but face-to-face.  How do we go on?  How can we just sit down next to God himself and eat a bit of bread, or fall asleep around the campfire next to him, or wake up in the morning without constantly falling to our knees and worshipping him”.  I’m not sure if the disciples wondered about this, but I know I would.  Here is a piece of Heaven on earth; how do we go about our normal lives in front of him?  Or, thinking of the Lord’s Prayer, another piece of Heaven on earth, how can we just say it, knowing the holiness from which it came?

        Now, if this worry bothered the disciples, it certainly didn’t bother Jesus.  Because look at what happens after they come down from the mountaintop: Jesus is back with the crowd, back with those who are hungry and scared, sick and in need.  A man comes up to him, shouting, probably not just to be heard but because of the pain in his heart, begging Jesus to heal his son.  And what does Jesus do?  Jesus who just yesterday stood as God on the mountaintop?  He invites them in, and he heals the boy, and gives him back to his father. 

        And, maybe, maybe Peter realized something when he saw this.  Maybe he saw that holiness doesn’t mean falling on your face but opening your arms.  There is a boldness to saying the Lord’s Prayer, surely, but it is a boldness that says, “God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, and of all things in the cosmos, whose voice is contentment, and whose presence is balm, our God:  is here.”  Our God is not some distant being, off somewhere beyond all knowledge, checking in on us every once in a while to make sure we’re not ruining the place.  No, our God is with a young boy who is sick, and his father who has nowhere else to turn.  Our God is with poor, the sick, those who mourn, the meek, the peaceful, and the merciful.  As one of our collects at morning prayer says, “Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace.”  Holiness is the presence of God in the very fabric of our lives.

        In seminary, we were introduced to a bunch of different Sunday school curriculums.  Each of them were good in their own way, but one I really liked.  It instructed kids on how to be Episcopalians, and so it taught a lot about the liturgy, about the sacraments, and the church year.  And, when teaching about the Eucharist, it encouraged the teacher to use the actual vessels that are used in the church service.  You know, the expensive, highly breakable, glass vessels.  At first, I was really anxious about this.  I knew these things were going to break.  The kids would pick them up, and not even by anyone’s fault, they’d drop them and they’d break.  And the instructor said, yeah, sometimes they break, but actually, this is how kids learn about holiness.  They pick up holiness and they turn it in their hands.  And she said, the reverence these kids have for these vessels, and for the Bible, and the altar, and, really, for God, is amazing, because they could touch them, use them, see how we treat them  Letting kids touch these vessels was inviting them into that holiness.

        Nor is this lesson just for children, but for us adults as well.  God has invited us into the holy through Jesus Christ.

Those who bring us to Christ

Published on by Tina Shippey

This morning at prayer breakfast, we read 1 Peter 5:1-4.  These verses are about leadership, and the conversation quickly turned to mentoring.  And this brought up an interesting question for me, and it’s one that we heard a lot while in seminary: who is it that brought you to a deeper understanding of God in Christ?  And how did they do it?  God the Spirit works in our lives to enlighten and deepen our faith, surely, and often the Spirit works through people in our lives.  Who were these people? 

Two priests come to my mind, though surely there are many others.  These were priests who both served at an Episcopal Church I attended in Athens, Georgia.  At the time, I knew very little about the Episcopal Church, and both were open and patient with my questions.  They never made me feel bad that I didn’t know about something, and they were happy to sit with me as I struggled with my growing understanding of God.  And they were funny!  They laughed a lot, and when I try to picture them in my mind, the first images that come are them smiling and laughing.  Both of them were good priests, and such good, good Christians as well.

Thinking of these two priests, I wanted to ask all of you: who were your mentors?  Who brought you closer to Christ?  Who deepened your faith through their words, actions, or just plain who they were.  And if you feel open to doing so, post a bit about these people below.  I’d love to hear more about them.

~Fr. Tim

This meditation was posted on our Facebook page. If you’d like to share stories about your mentor with us, hop over to this Page and leave a comment.

Father Tim’s sermon for February 24th, 2019

Published on by Tina Shippey
Jesus in the Desert, by Ivan Kramskoi

Genesis 45:3-11, 15
Psalm 37:1-12, 41-42
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
Luke 6:27-38

Click here to access these readings.

        To much joy and many accolades from the children, we are going to be changing our seasonal colors again soon.  We’ve been in green for six or seven weeks, and, after Ash Wednesday, we’ll be in the long months of purple.  And you’ll probably remember from my sermons before and during Advent, purple is the color of contemplation, reflection, and penitence.  Purple marks the times of the year when we sit down, alone or in community, and look at our lives in a mirror, strengthen ourselves and deepen our faith.  It is a quiet time, a calmness before the storm.  But the storm in this case is Easter, when light and life and joy is poured out upon us by the Spirit.  In this time of Lent, we remember and witness in our own hearts the last gasp of Death before the Resurrection, when Jesus rose above death and made the whole creation new.

        This time of reflection, though, is not often easy.  These times of muted colors, when we turn to face the darkness of the world and the darkness of ourselves as well, are not easy.  And it is not a coincidence that the time of Lent follows the season of winter, and that time just before the coming of spring.  Oregon seems particularly apt for a dark, cloudy, stormy Lent.  I wrote this sermon on Saturday morning, when it was cold and rainy and still.  And so it may seem like the best cure for the dark and dreary is for a nice dose of joy, to turn up the lights, lighten to some happy music, and sing and dance.  And doing so may certainly help, but doing so would ignore the wisdom that is in the dark and stormy times, not just of the seasons but in our own hearts as well.  In Lent, the Christian tradition says, “God is here as well.”

        And we know that God is here in the dark times, because Jesus was here when he walked on this earth.  Lent is forty days long, a number that is pretty rife with symbolism in the Bible.  Noah’s ark was out on the sea for forty days and forty nights; the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years; and Jesus was tempted in the desert for forty days.  And on the cover of your bulletin, I’ve put a magnificent and haunting picture of Jesus in the desert.  It’s a 19th century oil painting by Ivan Kramskoi.  When I think of Jesus in the desert, I often think of him as stoic before the devil, denying each temptation with an easy wave of the hand.  But Jesus wasn’t annoyed by the devil; he was tempted.  In this image, Jesus remains strong and steady, but there is deep grief written all over his face and in his clenched hands.  God, in Jesus Christ, knows the dark times of this world and our hearts, because he lived through them, too.

        Now, during Lent, we are called upon by our Church to take on some practice or discipline.  And we do this not as some kind of self-improvement scheme but instead to help us see God more clearly in the world.  I remember one of the first times I took part in Lent, I gave up my mornings.  Now, I really, really, really like to sleep in, so I thought, hey, that’s something that I think is good, so why don’t I give them up for a few weeks?  I’ll wake up early, maybe pray a bit, read from a devotional book, and start the morning right.  Yes, that’s what I’ll do.  And I failed.  In those forty days, I think I got up a total of three times, and once I fell asleep in the chair while reading.  And part of the reason I failed is because I really, really, really like to sleep in, and my will-power is at about zero in the morning, but also because I did it because I thought I should do it.  I thought it’d be good for me, that God wanted me to get up early in the morning, because that’s just a good thing to do.  My discipline was more about me than it was about God.

        And it was around this time, as I was struggling with my disciplines, that our bishop, Michael Hanley, told a story about his own struggles.  He also met with failure, and he also realized that some of his practices were more about himself than about God.  And so he did something very simple: he sat down with God and said, “God, where do you want me to be today?  How can I do your will?  How can I give your love to your people today?”  And after praying, he wasn’t hit with a great epiphany of what to do or how to serve, but each time he sat down with God he asked this question again.  And just by praying this way, just by looking away from what he saw was his failure, he turned himself, each day, more and more fully to God.  This is what we should be doing in our practices.  If there’s a “goal” of Lent, this is what it is.

        Our practices are seeds.  St. Paul writes that we don’t sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed.  And what he means by this is that we don’t start in perfection.  We aren’t baptized into a full and perfect faith that never falters and never fails.  We may come into moments of beautiful clarity and presence before God, but then we see again the grief of the world, and we despair; or a loved one dies, and we doubt; or we speak an evil word, and we lose hope.  And we think: my faith is so weak, what good is such weak faith to God? 

But the ground, the soil, that we are sown into is pictured on the front of your bulletin.  Our ground, the thing that nurtures our seed, that gives it nutrients and water and warmth, that life-giving ground in which we grow is Jesus Christ.  And haven’t you experienced this life before?  Those times when you’ve prayed, “God, I need your help to get through this” and you find that, somehow, you can; or just that person you really needed to talk to calls up or walks in; or the grief lessens just a little bit so that you can see where to go next?  In our lives, be they in conscious practices of turning to God or us just going about our business, in all our lives we encounter these moments of life, of renewal, of hope, strained or free.  These are encounters with God, even if, or especially if, they are small.

We are about to enter into Lent, and Lent is something we prepare for.  A week or so ago, I gave you a challenge, and I gave the people at our Soup Supper last Wednesday a similar challenge.  And I’ll give it to you again this morning: God has planted seeds in our faith and in our lives, and God is right now nurturing those seeds.  Where is God calling you, right now, to focus.  To which seed, or which sapling, or which young tree, is God calling to you to tend and nurture with him?  How is God asking you to not only observe Lent but make it a holy, life-giving Lent?

Fr. Tim’s sermon from December 16th, 2018

Published on by Tina Shippey

Zephaniah 3:14-20
Canticle 9, the First Song of Isaiah (Isaiah 12:2-6)
Philippians 4:4-7
Luke 3:7-18

Click here to access these readings.

        It’s a good day today for lighting our pink candle, isn’t it?  This morning, Helene and I bundled up the kids and ourselves and set ourselves for a cold and blistery morning, but when we got outside it felt like spring.  It’s still the usual December dim, and the sky is blue with rain, but it’s warm and windy.  It’s the perfect day to think about our pink Advent candle set amidst all the dark purple of the rest of the wreath.

        For the color pink is a symbol of joy, hope, and expectation.  There’s just one other pink day in the church year, do you know when?  It’s in Lent, and it’s also towards the middle-end of the season.  Again, it’s a single day of pink set deep within a penitential season.  Twice a year we are asked to think about this joy in darkness.  It says, I believe, something very important about joy and something very important about sorrow.  It says that, no matter how much sorrow we experience in life, no matter how much hardship, we should not forget the joy of Christ.  Christ is the light in the darkness, which no darkness may overcome. 

        But what do we mean by “joy”?  What is this joy of the pink candle, the joy of the light of Christ.  In Philippians, St. Paul says that we should rejoice in the Lord always, so does this mean we always have to be happy?  Now, I’m a pretty optimistic, happy guy, but I would be completely exhausted if I had to be happy all the time.  Back in high school, I used to have a pair of yellow sunglasses that I called “Happy Glasses.”  They made everything bright and yellow and spring-like, even on grey days, and they always cheered me up.  But after I wore them a while, I had to take them off and see the world for what it is.  Some days, grey weather suits the mood just fine.  Some days, it is good to rest.  Some days, it is okay to be sad.  Not every day is a roller-coaster, Paul.

        But I don’t think being happy all the time is what Paul’s getting at when he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  Joy isn’t only about being happy or excited all the time.  It certainly can be, but joy can also be quiet, it can be peaceful, and it is always healing.  A perhaps silly example is when I went on a trip to Hawaii.  I had been living in Japan for a year or so then, and my parents wanted to see me.  We decided to meet up at the halfway point between Japan and New Jersey, which is Hawaii.  Now, my plane got to Honolulu in the morning, and my family wasn’t due to land until the afternoon, so I went exploring.  Or, rather, I went in search of a place to have breakfast, because I was starving. 

        It was, though, pretty early, and the only store open was a TGI Fridays that was serving breakfast.  And, now, let me say, I love Japanese food, but there’s nothing like a good American breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and eggs.  The Japanese don’t really do eggs and bacon; their traditional breakfast is rice, fish, and miso soup.  And while I kinda like that as a meal, my inner American was demanding some pancakes, so I ordered the works.  And it was so delicious.  Everything was perfect – it was exactly what I had hoped for.  And it was really so good that I started crying.  And the waitress came up and asked in a hurry, “Oh, dear are you alright?”  And I just nodded and said, “It’s just so good.”

        C.S. Lewis, our great Anglican writer of the 20th century, wrote a lot on Joy.  For him, “Joy” was the part of a thing or an experience that led the heart to God.  Lewis found “Joy” in his community of friends, in a pint of beer and a pipe, but also in walking in the British countryside.  And perhaps one of his greatest joys (if I can speak for him) was that, after remaining a bachelor for most of his life, he married a woman whose name was Joy.  And Joy taught him more about the goodness and grace of God than he could have ever imagined.  Lewis found joy, and found God, in good things like laughing with his friends and calm, peaceful moments with his wife.

        Did I find God in that breakfast in Honolulu.  In a way, I did.  Those weren’t just eggs and bacon that I ate.  It wasn’t just a tall glass of orange juice.  It was home.  It was a breath of air that I knew to my bones.  It was soil that I had been planted in as a child.  You probably know the feeling after getting home from vacation.  No matter how good the vacation was, there’s something glorious in stepping back into your own home, washing off the dirt of travel, and sleeping in your own bed.  And this goodness that I’m talking about – of eggs and bacon, of laughing with friends, and of CS Lewis finding a wife late in life – this stuff isn’t just good because it is comforting or feels homey.  It’s good because it all reminds us that we have a True Home, one that will never fade, and that is with God in Heaven.  By enjoying those eggs, I was looking to God.

        Am I going to far here?  Am I just exaggerating.  I mean, they’re just bacon and eggs, right?  It’s just laughing with some buddies, right?  Yes, but we also say, every Sunday morning, that something as simple as bread and wine can be the very Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  When Paul says “Rejoice in the Lord, always, again I will say, Rejoice” he doesn’t want you to just leap up and laugh and play.  He wants you to see that God is present in all the different parts of human life, in both laughter and in tears.  He wants you to look at your eggs (or whatever folks ate for breakfast in his day) and say, in this I can learn of the love of God.  He wants you to look to your brother and your mother, your friends, your church, and your community and see God standing with and among them.  Paul wants you to have Christ so firmly planted in your heart that when you see the rising of the Sun, you smile and see the rising of Christ; or that when the Sun sets you see the rest that God gives us every day.  Or that when we do something so simple as reach out, shake someone’s hand, and say to them “Peace of the Lord” we are giving to them the gift of Heaven. 

        Back in 2015, when Gwendolyn was born, a friend in seminary gave me a small book of meditations about parenthood.  That time was exhausting, I remember, trying to figure out how to be a father, how to change diapers, and how to support Helene.  In those first few weeks, there were nights when I don’t think either of us slept.  But in this book, I remember one meditation that talked about the grace of simply holding a child.  This small act, just sitting still with a sleeping child – my sleeping child – this alone was a grace, this alone was the love of God right here in my life. 

        This, for me, was a deep, deep joy.  Some of you may share similar memories.  Or for some of you, your joy may be louder, more exuberant.  Your joy might be in a stadium in Eugene or Corvalis.  Your joy might be listening to music in the car with the windows down.  Your joy may be in the past, and your joy may be in the future.  But whatever the case, Paul reminds us, rejoice in it.  Those things you love, those things you love with a full and open heart, God is in them, for God is love.  And so, says Paul, rejoice and give thanks, for the Lord is in our lives even now, filling our hearts and lifting them up to the Lord.  May we praise God for ever and for ever more.