Mtr Taylor Devine
“Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.”
Dear Friend,
To a passerby I think it is surprising what all goes on in a day in the life of a church. Last Saturday, for instance, there was a Kitchen on a Mission project going on, a retreat in preparation for Solemn Communion for 3rd graders, a lovely coffee with a newcomer, some orienting of young ones to the sanctuary, and a little bit of getting ready for Sunday services. The Garden Guild, and the Altar Guild, and the Prayer Shawl Knitters were there tending, preparing, and caring as well! Somewhere in there stories were swapped, bread was made, a pack-n-play and a sewing machine were swapped. It was a fragrant, tactile kind of day, and sounds pretty quaint in the face of all that weighs heavily on us week to week. I keep thinking though-these are the tracks, these are the neural pathways, these are the practices that form us not so that we can just make it through the week, but do that we can integrate our whole lives to live in a pattern of sharing, of hoping, of doing the slow work of community. The small moments bind us together. Knowing each other helps us love one another.
I have been chewing on a request from a friend recently, and this Saturday came as a kind of answer to her hard question. My friend reached out to see if there was an app or website where she could learn more about the Church, about its liturgical rhythms, and maybe some seasonal spiritual practices. How I wished I had one that I could recommend! And I’m sure a few have something to offer, but not quite what she was imagining. She has a new baby and lives in a new city and I think practicing Lent while home with the baby so much was a little bit daunting alone. I love this friend and wanted to be helpful, and eventually told her the truth-it would be ideal if you could practice these patterns of life with a companion, here are some books, let’s stay in touch, this is a long process but the rewards don’t take long to start to surface. The layered learning of spiritual life integrated with your whole life is a slow journey. This kind of slow process is against almost every other kind of media we encounter, and to start these practices solo just doesn’t sound like it would be life-giving in the same way it might be with a friend.
Over the past week I’ve been thinking about that conversation a lot, and what a counter-cultural thing it is to invite someone into the slow work of the spiritual and communal life, into relationship with Jesus and his people. In the same week I met with a family that wants to baptize their children, and they talked about the pace they wanted to join the church at-an organic one. It seems the pace at which we want to become a part of community is coming up is a central question. Being invited into the slow work is a hard invitation, but lots of good things take time. Practicing patience, pacing, and humility in our faith and relationships forms us and the world.
Today’s Daily Office Gospel is the Transfiguration of Jesus. James and John want to stay in that dazzling moment forever, but Jesus offers them a different way. Wherever they go - dazzling or not, he would be with them because of the way Jesus invites us into communion with him. When the dazzle is gone, when the shine wears off, the Church will still be there, baking, and breaking bread, and caring, and tending, and cherishing, and blessing, and hoping. We are invited into the long haul of faith - to stillness, to awe, to simplicity, to vulnerability. Let us build up our lives and our Church so that even when the dazzle wears off, we can say “Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.”
In Christ,
Mtr Taylor