Sunday Best – March 26, 2023
My work team is celebrating its sixth anniversary this spring, which sent me on a spiral of investigation about why iron is the traditional 6th anniversary gift, and how it is the element towards which both lighter and heavier elements converge, and how the stars themselves burn out into iron in the end.
This has me thinking of the Lenten reminder, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” When I was small the priests explained this phrase as a kind of humbling admonishment, a reminder that our physical beings come from nothing and will return to nothing, our bodies back to the essential elements when we perish.
Put these two ideas together, and we see something different.
We are not dusty nothing, briefly something, returning to nothing.
We are elemental everything,
briefly something different,
returning to everything.
Sunday Best – March 19. 2023
Years ago, I had the chance through work with Habitat for Humanity to meet President Carter and attend one of the Sunday school classes he taught in Plains, Georgia. The sermon that day was from Peter, and President Carter’s theme was “even though” – the idea that faith is worthy even though – or maybe especially when – it might bring hardship.
Later on, he answered a question about what made him most proud. He talked about his family, eradicating guinea worm disease, and “some political things too,” like his work in the Middle East. Then quietly and slowly he said, “I’m proud that I led our nation for four years, through a difficult period. We never dropped a bomb. Never launched a missile. Never fired a bullet.” Knowing how strong the critique of these decisions was back then – and even now – these comments struck me as particularly meaningful. “Even though.”
Dear ones, sometimes it’s what we do makes all the difference.
Sometimes it’s what we choose not to do.
Through it all, may we keep our faith.
“HOPE IS DEFINITELY NOT THE SAME THING AS OPTIMISM. IT IS NOT THE CONVICTION THAT SOMETHING WILL TURN OUT WELL, BUT THE CERTAINTY THAT SOMETHING MAKES SENSE, REGARDLESS OF HOW IT TURNS OUT.”
– VACLAV HAVEL
Sunday Best – March 12, 2023
I was rushing to work the other day, somehow already feeling behind though the sun had just risen. As I quickened my pace, hitching my heavy bag up on my shoulder and adjusting my headphones so I could hear the CFO’s conference call comments, a flash caught my eye.
It was a HAWK! A big huge hawk, right in the middle of the city, and not way up in a tree or circling overhead, but right in front of me on the lawn. I stopped dead in my tracks, and reflexively blurted out, oh, hello! We spent a few minutes together before she took to the sky and I took to the path.
Friends, the week might bring snow squalls or oatmeal for dinner or a George Bailey style run on the bank.
But it might also bring a hawk at sunrise.
…the world is full of signs and wonders that come, and go, and if you are lucky you might see them. Once, twice. Perhaps never again.
– Helen MacDonald, H IS FOR HAWK
Sunday Best – March 5, 2023
You cant have anything till another thing shows up.
– Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger
A tree can’t be a forest.
A book can’t be a library.
A drop can’t be an ocean.
A note can’t be a song.
A person can’t be a community.
Here’s to the other things,
and how they make us not just more, but us.
Sunday Best – February 26, 2023
I’ve been mulling over the differences between awe and wonder lately, in part thanks to this recent terrific conversation between Krista Tippett and Dacher Keltner. Their discussion stayed with me because Keltner’s work highlights that the most common form of awe is not the Grand Canyon or the Redwoods, but humans awed by one another. Durkheim’s concept of “collective effervescence” is an extension of this, the amplified energy and meaning when awe is experienced together. These are vital and alluring topics, and I took extra delight in hearing Durkheim’s name for the first time since Divinity School.
Friends, there is the essential joy of the brain, and there is the elemental joy of the heart. Both precious, both needed.
Tonight I witnessed a genius musician perform in the most beautiful home imaginable, surrounded by people who were all just as delighted and focused and appreciative as I was. By the end we were almost dizzy, buzzing and speechless before this amazing gift. This was Awe with a capital A. Collective effervescence.
Dear ones, I wish you joy.
I wish you wonder.
I wish you awe.
*******
By popular demand, I am including photos of the potato cake and the pretzel cake mentioned last week. They may not garner Awe, but they were indeed awesome.
