Your Custom Text Here
Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me?
I said, I'm not resisting you!
He said, You gonna follow me?
I said, I've never thought about that before!
He said, When you're not following me, you're resisting me.
--Bob Dylan
Dear Friends,
Richard Niebuhr has coined a powerful quote:
Redemption is about the co-existence and interplay of fate and destiny. Fate is what happens to us beyond our control – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Destiny is an opening through which our choices and commitments have agency and impact.
Fate can be lovely or tragic. After arriving home from Kenya on this Wednesday afternoon, I was on the phone with Rob. He shared with me the latest fateful news. Mich fell again resulting in multiple breaks and fractures. Yesterday, I sat with him at the Stamford Hospital. He is hurting, literally and otherwise. Why so many setbacks and so much hardship for one man and his family? I don’t know. Fate has no mind for fair and unfair. It is both lovely and tragic.
Before I left the hospital, the other side of the coin reared its head. Mich wanted to share one of his recent poems. Fate would not deny him this creative outlet. His destiny as a lover and maker of poetry was still intact. I was moved. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was made flesh. The Word is energy. The Word is inspiration. The Word is love.
The Word does not defeat the reality of fate, no more than fate can defeat the presence of destiny.
We make poetry. We sit at the bedside of our friends and loved ones. We build schools in Africa.
The Word is love.
Carter
Dear Friends:
This summer I’ll be highlighting some Biblical Storytelling, my favorite way to approach the texts. Allowing imagination to breathe life back into the stories has some interesting consequences. I can’t always tell, when I get started, where the story will end up. Often, once I have the characters in my imagination, they start showing me things I never expected, or asking me to research things that I haven’t yet considered. For example, this Sunday I will be sharing the story of Peter as he dares to walk on water. I haven’t written the story yet, but Peter is suggesting to me that I need a little more information about the size and depth of the sea, the kind of fish that tend to be found there, the color of the water, what stars might be seen overhead. I am not sure if any of that will end up part of the story; still Peter needs me to be more familiar with his surroundings if he is going to tell me what was in his heart that moment when he asked Jesus to bid him to walk on the waves.
Storytelling also implies a living relationship with the texts for me. The story I might cook up today may be nothing like the one I discovered 5 years ago. And it has an implicit invitation for you to allow your imagination to scan these texts as well. Together we make space for the texts to show us something rather than expecting a granular and bounded declaration of what the texts “mean.” When people ask me what the bible says, I always think: What the bible says to who? And in what circumstance? And does it say anything at all if you don’t demonstrate a willingness to enter it’s domain and stay a little while?
So come for some stories (and a Sunday of singing old hymns).
In the meanwhile, may you enjoy the story of your life, and be blessed by the music of your spirit.
Blessings,
Susan
Subject to change, here is a look at what I’ll be up to this summer from the pulpit:
June 24: Peter walks on Water; Matthew 14:22-33
July 1: The hemorrhaging woman; Mark 5:25-34
July 22: Hymn Sunday; we can sing whatever you want to, plus I’ll share a few of my favorites and why
Aug 12: Feeding the 5,000; Matthew 14:13-21
Aug 19: The woman at the well; John 4:1-42
Oh, I can hear you, God, above the cry
Of the tossing trees—
Rolling your windy tides across the sky,
And splashing your silver seas
Over the pine,
To the water-line
Of the moon.
Oh, I can hear you, God,
Above the wail of the lonely loon—
When the pine-tops pitch and nod—
Chanting your melodies
Of ghostly waterfalls and avalanches,
Washing your wind among the branches
To make them pure and white.
Wash over me, God, with your piney breeze,
And your moon’s wet-silver pool;
Wash over me, God, with your wind and night,
And leave me clean and cool.
-Lew Sarett
When we respect our blood ancestors and our spiritual ancestors, we feel rooted. If we find ways to cherish and develop our spiritual heritage, we will avoid the kind of alienation that is destroying society, and we will become whole again. ... Learning to touch deeply the jewels of our own tradition will allow us to understand and appreciate the values of other traditions, and this will benefit everyone.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ