The Lord is my Shepherd: A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Easter

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Easter
Preached at Episcopal Church at Yale
April 21, 2013

 

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

 

When I first looked at today’s lessons, now several weeks ago, I was really excited to be preaching today. As I did my first read-through of these lessons to begin thinking about what exactly I would say in my sermon, there seemed to be a hundred different things that caught my attention, things I wanted to point out to you all today.

In the lesson from Acts, we hear about a disciple named Tabitha, the only instance in the New Testament of the Greek feminine form of the word ‘disciple.’  As I first read this lesson, I silently cheered to myself. How cool would it be to preach about a female disciple?

And when I read the Revelation lesson, I was struck by the fact that  people from every nation and tribe were around the throne of God together. And again I silently cheered to myself, thinking about all of the really great messages from this passage I could highlight.

And, of course, today we have that wonderful sheep and shepherd metaphor in both the Gospel lesson and the Psalm.

Basically, I hit the lectionary jackpot. It couldn’t get much better than these lessons if I’d handpicked the readings for myself.  

But then, on Monday, everything changed.

In the midst of one of the world’s greatest athletic events, an event that brings together people from around the world in a great test of strength and endurance, tragedy struck.

And on Wednesday, everything changed again.

As I checked Facebook before going to bed, I saw a status alerting me to what was happening in Texas.  I flipped to a news website and read, in horror, of the explosion at the fertilizer plant in West.

And then, on Thursday night, I saw a news report of the MIT officer who was shot in Boston.

And I woke up on Friday morning to hear that the city was on lockdown. I spent my day like many of you, probably, with my iPhone glued to my hand, reading the Facebook statuses and texts messages from friends stuck in their homes in Boston and unable to stop myself from checking the news every ten minutes.

As I walked out of a choir concert at Woolsey Hall that night, I was inundated with the chatter of those around me who were checking their phones for the first time in an hour and half, and the crowd buzzed with the news that the second Boston bomber had been captured.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I realized that I couldn’t stand here today and say what I’d planned on saying.  

I realized, as I read through these lessons again, that the words “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” sounded a lot different a week ago, before two terrible tragedies struck our nation.

These words, words we hear so often at times of death or other tragedies, words that can comfort us by their familiarity and by the hopeful message of a loving God, a God who takes care of us, can, in fact, be really, really difficult to hear.

As I pored over these words and prayed over these words, I thought about the people of Boston and the people of West.“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Really?  I shall not want?  

How comforting is that to hear?  As I read these words, I couldn’t help thinking that the people of Boston and West probably want a lot of things right now: for their loved ones to be alive and healthy, their homes and businesses to be intact, to return to a time when they felt safe and secure in their homes and neighborhoods: things we probably all want.  

And so, in the midst of these tragedies, tragedies that only compound all of the war and strife already taking place in the world, how can we proclaim, “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” and that goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our life? If you have turned on the news or looked at the front page of a newspaper in the last week, it might seem impossible to make these statements without your fingers crossed behind your back.

Unfortunately, while God promises us many things, one of them is not that life will be without pain and suffering. God does not promise us that life will be easy.  But God does promise us one thing: his presence.  God promises us that he, our shepherd, will walk with us through this pain and suffering, through the valley of the shadow of death.  

God promises Himself to us, a loving, self-giving shepherd, a shepherd who who leads and guides, who feeds, tends the sick, and is, above all, ever present.  

I have heard more than one grief-stricken person ask, this week, “where is God in this?”  

Where is God in the midst of disaster?

Where is God in the carnage and debris?

Where is God in the tears and anguish of those who have lost family members and friends?

Where is God?

Unfortunately, no one sermon can definitively answer all of these questions or rid us of all of our sadness and fear.  What we can do, though, is look again at this broken mess, at these tragedies, and find where we see glimpses of God, because although we don’t know how God will be present, we know that he will be present.  

For me, God appeared when I looked at pictures of the explosions in Boston and, amidst all the people running away from the explosions, I saw people running back to help.

And God appeared in the pictures of those on the ground, tending to the bombing victims.

God appeared in a police officer in Watertown, Massachusetts who was bringing a gallon of milk to a family on lockdown who had young children but was out of groceries.

God appeared when I read the stories of the first responders in Texas who gave their lives to protect the safety of the people of West.

No, God doesn’t always tell us how he will show up, but only that he will show up.

In today’s lesson from Acts, we heard the story of Tabitha, a disciple in Joppa.  The beginning of this story sounds a lot like another, better-known story: the story of Lazarus. Like Lazarus, Tabitha took sick and died.  In the story of Lazarus, Christ famously raised him from the dead although he had already been dead for days.  

But, Christ isn’t there this time. Jesus has been crucified, resurrected, and has ascended into heaven. 

This time, it’s just Peter, a few grieving widows, and the body of Tabitha.

This scene seems bleak at best.  Yet then everything changes.  Peter kneels.  Peter prays.  And Tabitha stands, alive, healed, and restored.

Of course, it wasn’t Peter who healed Tabitha.  God healed Tabitha.   

The same God who raised Jesus Christ from the dead was present and acted through the prayers of his servant, Peter.  The God who healed Tabitha is the God who promises us that he will walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death and who gives himself to us in every moment, in ways we can see quite plainly and in ways we cannot even begin to understand.

So, what does this mean for us?  What does it mean that, approximately 2000 years ago, a man prayed for a woman to be healed and it worked?

This means that God doesn’t just give himself to us, but God also gives himself through us.   

In God, we find a model of love and selflessness that teaches us about being in relationship with all those we encounter.  God our shepherd pours out goodness and mercy upon us, nourishing and strengthening us.

By encountering this self-giving love from God, we, then, are strengthened for our own lives in this broken world.  Through the love of God, we can be like those who ran back into the bomb blasts in Boston, like the first responders who battled fire in Texas, and like the police officer who brought milk to the hungry family in Massachusetts.  

Because we have encountered God, we can, therefore, help others encounter God.  We are fed so that we may feed those around us.

We have known the Good Shepherd so that we may become shepherds to all those we meet, making manifest the deep and abiding love of the God who walks with us, even through the valley of the shadow of death.

Amen.

One does not live by bread alone: a sermon for Lent 1, Year C

Delivered at the Episcopal Church at Yale, February 17, 2013

Deuteronomy 26: 5-11
Romans 10: 8b-13
Luke 4: 1-13

Collect for the Day:
Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan; Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

A couple of days ago, I was talking with a friend who comes from a tradition that does not observe Lent, at least not in ways that many of us do, with the tradition of giving up or taking on different practices.

In the course of our conversation, my friend mentioned that she was feeling a little overwhelmed by all of the talk of Lent she’d been hearing. She said she felt as though she could hardly log onto Facebook or walk into the lounge at work without stumbling upon a conversation about what someone is giving up (or taking on) as a Lenten practice. To be sure, she wasn’t insulting Lent, but was simply curious about this practice for which she has no personal context or experience.

She described one co-worker who had decided to give up eating bread for Lent, and who, by Friday, was already getting grumpy over missing his usual morning bagels, My friend said to me, “I don’t get it. Why do you have to give up something? What does not eating bread have to with God?”

I went on to give a rather brief explanation of Lent to my friend, telling her, first of all, that not everyone chooses to give up something for Lent, or to add some sort of devotional practice into their lives, that this is a time in the church year when we put particular focus on drawing closer to God and re-ordering our lives in a way that brings attention to Jesus Christ.

This can be done in a variety of ways, either formally or informally. For those who are intentionally giving something up or taking something on, these practices are a way of becoming closer to God, either by adding something to aid in focusing on God or by removing something that one feels is impeding closeness with God.

Maybe this means adding prayer time every day instead of watching Netflix, or not buying new things during Lent and giving the money you would spend on yourself to a charity, or giving up an unhealthy habit to be a better steward of your body, that bit of God’s creation that has been put in your care.

In today’s Gospel reading, we encounter Christ in the wilderness, where he is fasting and being tempted by the devil for forty long days. Over and over again, the devil comes to Jesus and tries to nag him into proving he’s the Son of God. He suggests that Jesus, in his famished state, turn a stone in bread, yet Jesus resists. He promises Jesus all the power and the authority in the world, and Jesus resists. He tries to get Jesus to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple because, if he is truly the son of God, he will be safe. And, again, Jesus resists.

Jesus resists the devil on each account. Jesus doesn’t need to prove he is the son of God. Jesus doesn’t need to turn those stones into bread. After all, it is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’

When I read this Gospel, sometimes I think that Jesus makes temptation in the wilderness look easy. Would I be able to turn down all the power and authority in the world so easily? Maybe not. My own Lenten discipline is not nearly as difficult as fasting in the wilderness for forty days and having all the power and authority in the world dangled before my eyes. If Jesus could resist that, surely I should be able to resist my own temptations. Right?

Well, maybe. But Lent isn’t a contest. Lent isn’t about who can read the most of their BIble,
or lose the most weight, or who can restrict themselves from the most things for the next forty-or-so days. Lent is about the re-ordering of our lives, the re-orientation of ourselves toward God.

So, the good news of today’s Gospel isn’t just that Jesus resisted all of this temptation (which is, of course, extraordinary). The good news of today’s Gospel is that Jesus resisted his temptation in the service of something greater; his resistance is borne out of a love of God and a desire to follow God.

And this, this love of God, this desire for God, is at the heart of our Lenten season and is the cause for this re-ordering and reorientation of our lives.

So, what does this mean? What does it mean for us that we are supposed to spend these forty days turning our attention to God? Like Advent, the other penitential season of the Church, Lent is a season of preparation.

Within the Gospel of Luke, this temptation of Christ in the wilderness is situated early, at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. Earlier in this Gospel, we heard of Christ’s birth and presentation at the temple, of John the Baptist proclaiming his coming, and of Jesus’ genealogy, but his real work, the work and the message we live by is yet to come. These forty days in the wilderness are, in a sense, Jesus’ own preparation for his public ministry.

And, like Jesus’ time in the wilderness, these forty days in the Lenten wilderness are our own preparation. As Jesus resists the devil and turns his attention to glorifying God his Father in heaven, we, too, can use these forty days to turn our attention to God in preparation for proclaiming the Easter message of the resurrected Christ. It is through prayer and action that we turn toward God and prepare ourselves for this resurrection glory.

Maybe you don’t have a specific Lenten practice. And that’s okay, because we each learn about God and love God differently. Or maybe you decided to take up a Lenten practice this year. Maybe you decided to read your Bible more in Lent, with each bit of time spent in the Scriptures giving you an extra chance to learn about God. Or maybe you gave up fast food for Lent, and each temptation is the chance to make a decision to put only wholesome foods into your body, the body that God created and entrusted to you. No matter what you are doing in this season, we are all growing ever-closer to the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.

But, we’re not there yet. We’re still early on in this Lenten season and have a lot of temptations set before us.

So what is the good news in the midst of this season of penitence which began with a reminder that we are but dust and to dust we shall return? Where is our hope?

The good news is the resurrection of Jesus Christ that awaits us.

The good news is today’s reminder from Romans that there is neither Jew nor Greek and that “the Lord is generous to all who call on him.”

The good news is in the words of Deuteronomy that tell the story of the Israelites who have wandered in the desert for forty years, the words that tell us of God’s fulfillment of his promise to his people, words that assure us of God’s faithfulness.

And the good news is in the words of Jesus Christ, that “man does not live by bread alone.”

When we come to this altar in a few minutes and partake in bread and wine, it is not these simple elements that sustain us, but rather the grace and comfort of God, poured out through the Holy Spirit.

So, as Christ’s words echo in my head, I am reminded of the question posed to me by my friend a couple of days ago: “What does not eating bread have to do with God?”

In this case, I think, everything.

A Sermon for All Saints’ Day

A Sermon for All Saint’s Day
Preached at Episcopal Church at Yale, November 4, 2012

Isaiah 25:6-9
Psalm 24
Revelation 21:1-6a
John 11:32-44

“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

I have a confession:
Of all of the feast days on the church calendar, All Saints’ Day, which we commemorate today, is one of my least favorite.  It’s not that I completely dislike this day, but rather that I don’t always know exactly what it means to celebrate ALL SAINTS, because I think I’m still trying to figure out what exactly it means to be a saint.

If you look up the word saint in the dictionary, which I did when I was preparing to write this sermon, you’ll find several definitions. And if you check out the Wikipedia entry for saint, which I also did, you’ll find a survey of what different Christian traditions (and even some non -Christian traditions) think this word means.

For some, the title of saint applies to anyone who is in heaven.  In some traditions, as well, some of those saints in heaven are elevated even further because of displaying particular holiness and virtue.  This category, of all those in heaven, is one that I have always struggled to understand as we, with our human hearts and minds, cannot truly know who is in heaven or not. We can hope and pray that those who have gone before us have reached this beatific vision, but I sometimes feel a little bit weary when we start rattling off lists of names of those we “know” are in heaven.

And like in the hymn we just sang, there are other traditions, still, who define saint more broadly, who believe that a saint is anyone who is a Christian, anyone who knows Christ in their life, either living or deceased. And so, with all of the these different definitions of sainthood floating around, I’m sure I’m not the only one who sometimes wonders what it really means to be a saint.

When I hear these descriptions and ponder the distinctions between them, I wonder where exactly they came from. This saint title can feel like a human marker that we have invented to distinguish some from others; when I think about how some Saints are venerated above others, I wonder whose standard determined this? Was it God’s standard? Or was it an earthly standard?

And although Paul, or Saint Paul as some like to call him, uses this language of sainthood, it has never clarified anything for me. Every year when this day comes around, I find myself struggling to understand what it means for us to remember saints, what it takes to be a saint, and what the experience of sainthood looks like.

But even as I wonder what it means to truly be a saint, I find hope in the words that we have just heard.

True, today’s lessons don’t tell us a lot about specific saints – people whose faithful examples show us how we can follow Jesus Christ. Indeed, most of the people we consider to be saints came after the time of Christ, after the scriptures were written. Yet these lessons do speak to that which is promised to all of God’s saints. These lessons call us to look beyond this moment into what is to come.

Today we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah proclaiming to us that the Lord of hosts will make a feast for all peoples, a feast of rich food and the finest wine. Death will be swallowed up, tears will be wiped away, disgrace will be vanquished. And there will be gladness and rejoicing, for the Lord will be present.

And just listen to Saint John who, in the Book of Revelation, echoes the prophet Isaiah, saying again that God will wipe away our tears, and that the home of God is among the mortals.

How glorious does that sound? To stand face to face with God, to dine at a rich banquet, to have our tears wiped away and our sorrows assuaged by the greatness of God, to be able to say goodbye to sorrow, and death, and mourning? I’m sure we would all welcome the chance to say goodbye to these things in our own lives.

And so, if this is what sainthood would look like, sign up me up.

But…wait.

How do we get from here to there? How do we get from this broken, sinful world, to the banquets with their rich wine, to the wiping away of tears, to the vanquishing of death? How do we join in this beatific vision?

And Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

In the Gospel today, we hear the story of Lazarus, a close friend of Jesus who has died and has been placed in the tomb. And as Mary, sister of Lazarus, and those who were with her suggested, if Jesus had been there, Lazarus would have lived.

Now, I’ve heard this story interpreted in various ways. Some like to read this story as Mary blaming Jesus for her brother’s death, that, when Mary says to Jesus “if you had been here, he wouldn’t have died,” there is a subtext that says, “but you WEREN’T here and he DID die and that is YOUR fault.” Maybe that is what happened. Maybe that is what Mary was thinking.

But I’m not entirely convinced that Mary was blaming Jesus. Perhaps, when Mary said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died,” she wasn’t blaming, Maybe she was affirming her faith in Jesus’ healing power. Maybe that was her way of saying to Jesus “in spite of my grief and sorrow, I still believe.”

And Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

Mary did believe, and Mary did see the glory of God. Mary, Martha, and their friends saw Lazarus, whom they had placed in the tomb, stand up, walk, and live. They saw death vanquished, and their mourning was no more. They saw a little glimpse of the glory of God, the glory that we hear is waiting for us.

But, perhaps, that glory isn’t just waiting for us. Perhaps that glory is as much present now as it will be eternally with God in heaven.  We are a community of the faithful who have gathered here, to pray, to worship God, and to share in a feast together. We are gathered because, although it may not be something we entirely understand or can articulate, we believe that something happens here when we are together.

Today we heard of a banquet with rich food and rich wine where we will feast in heaven, in eternal glory. But in a few moments, we will come to this altar, and through God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, we will feast on other rich food, The Body of Christ, and other rich wine, the Blood of Christ, food and drink that will keep us in eternal life, food and drink that give us a foretaste of what is to come, food and drink which make manifest that heavenly banquet here in the present.

But before we partake in that feast, we will first stand, and say together a creed, a statement of belief. We believe in God the Father, we believe in Jesus Christ, we believe in the Holy Spirit.

And then, a few minutes later, we will “join our voices with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven,” to praise God’s holy name. This is our affirmation as a members of the Body of Christ, as members of the faithful, as saints of God who are awaiting His glory, that we believe in Christ’s sacrifice, and we believe in God’s presence with us, now and forever.

We believe.

And Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
Amen.

Curiousity for Christ: A Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost

Curiousity for Christ: Asking Questions as Spiritual Exercise
A Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost, September 23, 2012
Delivered at Episcopal Church at Yale
Text: Mark 9:30-37

 

But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Have you ever had a small child (maybe four or five years old) ask you a question? Inevitably, upon hearing your answer, the child will decide that it wasn’t satisfactory, and proceed to ask you another question. And another. And another. And another. Soon enough, a question about why a balloon floats can snowball into a detailed physics lesson. A question about why the sky is blue can turn into a lesson on the way light scatters, or, if it goes even further, on the nature of God as the author of creation. And even if you answer the child’s question by saying “I don’t know” there is a good chance that your answer will be met, once again, by the question “why?”

In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus telling his disciples to bring children to him.  This command, which we hear not only in today’s lesson from the Gospel of Mark but throughout other Gospels as well, is, in many ways, a radical act of hospitality and inclusivity. But perhaps this is not just about being hospitable and inclusive.  Perhaps Jesus is commanding his disciples and ostensibly us to include children not only because they were often excluded; perhaps Jesus urged the inclusion of children because there are lessons we, as adults, can learn from them.  I believe one of these lessons we can stand to learn from children is to unabashedly ask questions, a lesson, it seems, Christ’s apostles desperately could have used, too. 

Of course, it isn’t always easy to ask questions, to look outside of our own hearts and souls and minds to seek knowledge and answers.  In a crowded lecture or seminar, it can be unnerving to ask a question, to admit, in the presence of our peers, that we are confused or did not understand. It can take courage to knock on a professor’s door and seek help. No, it isn’t always easy to ask questions.  Even Christ’s disciples, his closest friends and followers and the greatest witnesses to his ministry, didn’t always understand what was going on around them.  Even they were afraid to ask questions.

In today’s Gospel, we hear more than Jesus just urging his disciples to welcome children; we first hear of Jesus, on the road to Capernaum, telling his disciples that he, The Son of Man, will be betrayed and killed and will rise again.  But this is not the first time Jesus has said these sorts of things to them.

Indeed, in last week’s Gospel, we heard Jesus proclaim this same message to them, that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be killed. He didn’t get a particularly nice reaction then, with Peter rebuking him for saying these things so publicly.  But yet here is Jesus, only a few verses later, saying the same sorts of things, once again proclaiming to his disciples that he must be betrayed and killed.

And although this situation doesn’t deteriorate into a verbal sparring match between Jesus and a disciple like in last week’s Gospel, the result here is also not entirely ideal.  His disciples don’t understand what Jesus is saying. Maybe they don’t understand why Jesus said one of them would betray him (after all, the disciples were all devoted followers; how could any of them even think of betraying Jesus?). Or maybe they were confused about what Jesus said about rising again? To even suggest such a thing sounds almost absurd. But although the disciples didn’t understand, they were afraid to ask.

I would venture to guess that we are like the disciples here, that most, if not all of us, have experienced those moments when we, too, were afraid to ask questions.  Because to ask questions is to make oneself vulnerable, to admit that we don’t know everything, to admit that we are not entirely self-sufficient, a quality that is so-often prized in our culture.

To ask questions is seemingly to reveal some deficiency in our thoughts and in our knowledge. To ask questions means to, perhaps, admit that we are not the greatest. And it’s not always easy to admit that we aren’t the greatest. The disciples certainly struggled with this act of humility, too. 

But what does this mean for us? What does it mean for us and for our relationship with God to suggest that we should not hesitate to ask questions? After all, to speak of asking questions of God sounds almost subversive. The act of questioning God sounds far from humble, a quality, we understand from the Scriptures, that God values so much. To ask questions makes it sound as though we may even doubt God.

But to ask questions is not to doubt. To ask questions is to show interest and curiousity; to ask questions is to seek knowledge and deeper understanding.  To ask questions is a recognition that we do not contain within ourselves all that we need to survive and grow and flourish, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. To ask questions is to acknowledge the wisdom and expertise of another; to build relationships with those who can teach us what we do not know. To ask questions is to open dialogue.

And so, in light of all of these things, to ask questions of God is not to say to God “I doubt you” or “you owe me answers.” To ask questions of God and about God is to strive for a deeper knowledge of God, to seek understanding so that we may know God more fully. To ask questions about our faith is to acknowledge that we do not have all the answers, cannot have all the answers, but will ever strive to love God more truly. To ask questions is to engage our faith more deeply, to ask questions is to humble ourselves and admit that we are not, perhaps, the greatest after all, but that we yearn for God, who is the greatest. To ask questions is not to subvert or undermine but, perhaps most importantly of all when it comes to our relationship with God, to ask questions is to seek.

And we are all seeking. Not one of us would be here in this chapel tonight if we weren’t seeking something: peace, joy, hope, friendship, a chance to step away from the busyness of our homework, a free meal, a sense of community, an experience of the divine, the presence of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. 

Being present here and now is an act of humility; we come together in worship because, where two or three are gathered together, God is there. God is here.  We come together in worship because we do not contain within ourselves all that we need to sustain us. We must look outside of ourselves; we must look to God, to God incarnate, Jesus Christ, in whom the invisible God was made visible and rendered present.  In a few minutes, we will come to this altar and Jesus Christ will be rendered present once again in bread and wine, Body and Blood, and we will partake in the spiritual food that nourishes us, that sustains us, because we alone cannot sustain ourselves. 

And so my prayer for all of us is this: that here together in this place and as we depart here tonight, we may humble ourselves in front of God and each other, to ask questions so that we may understand more fully, and seek God so that we may love him more truly, trusting not in our own righteousness, but in God’s manifold and great mercies.

Amen.

Holy Ground

Late at night, behind the divinity school by the garden, I can imagine I’m not in the city anymore.  If I squint my eyes just a little and train my ears to hear the sounds of distant cars as the rushing of water, I can almost convince myself I’m in Appalachia, lying in the Peterkin field by Grenelda or on the bank of the south branch of the Potomac at the Pancake Family farm, counting shooting stars and feeling the strong earth beneath me holding me up.   And I forget.

I forget that I’m not lying in the Appalachian dirt, but in the grass on a university campus in urban New England; if I sat up and looked around, I would see street lamps, a parking lot, and construction vehicles.

Last night, as I counted three, four, five shooting stars rocket across the sky above me, my thoughts meandered back to my home among the hills.  I imagined myself in a rocking chair on a porch, gazing out over a mountain sunrise, and then the pitch darkness and complete stillness of night (save for the sound of a gurgling creek, a few cricket chirps, and the stars dotting the sky above me).  I imagined myself in a place that feels holy; on a mountain, set apart, being formed and transformed into who God is calling me to be.

But yet shooting stars look the same at any latitude.  And maybe, like the mountains I miss from the very depths of my being, where I’m standing now is holy ground.

I’ve been getting all the questions:
“What’s this grad school thing you’re doing?”
“What are you going to do with that degree when you’re done?”
“Are you nervous?”
“Are you ready?”

I never quite know how to respond.

But maybe the answer is simply this: I’m going up on a hill for a while, to be formed and transformed, to learn to love and serve God and neighbor more fully, and to continue to become who God is calling me to be.

Am I nervous?  Yeah, I am.

Am I ready?  You bet.