Life over Death

Today was a long and interesting day. I began the day in difficult fashion as I had the graveside burial of a stillborn infant who was carried to almost full gestation. The notion of burying a child is so difficult especially an infant. The pain and grief for this family is so real and I was deeply moved by their strength in the midst of such palpable pain. The interesting transition for the morning was from there to Wednesday Morning Eucharist. We offered that Eucharist for Baby Michelle. In the Eucharist we are reminded of God’s saving love for all of us. Being with the community we were all, in our act of celebration, recalling the brokenness of Jesus of Nazareth and the triumph of the Christ. In our celebration today we relived the victory of light over darkness. I was moved in that celebration as we prayed for Michelle and her family, I was moved when we prayed for the many more people who are in need of our prayers. I was moved because I felt the real presence of Christ among us as we strove to be church, to be the people of God. I was moved because we in our sacrifice were identifying with the oppressed, the lonely and the forgotten. We were connecting with the broken and in a great and wonderful way we were connecting with the family that I had to pastor to prior to the service. I am glad that I went from the cemetery to the table of Jesus. It was good for me to be reminded of the Easter story, which is really what every Eucharist is. It was good to be with a community of people who are full of light and love. It was good to be with a people of the resurrection. I needed that reassurance today.

Today came to a close with the last night of the Markus Book Club for the book the Dream Giver. We had a home Eucharist and we were able to our closure to our study of this very good book. We are now moving on to look at Adam: God’s Beloved by Henri Nouwen. This will be on Thursdays beginning next week (hopefully). In closing this chapter of the Markus Book Club we all reflected on how this book was good for us. I was pleased that there was so much offered and most especially that we all have some ideas on how we might work to live the fullness of God in loving out the dreams God has given each of us.