Here With Me: Community, Care, & Ongoing Presence

Yesterday between worship services a member of our congregation approached me, a  bit hesitantly, and offered me a gift.  He wanted to tell me that he’d felt Bruce’s presence at Gloria Dei in strong and remarkable ways lately.  He said that he remembered how, during the closing hymn, I would always stop and step into the pew with Bruce, to sing the final stanza or two.  He said he could sense Bruce with me and he hoped I didn’t find that strange.  

I found it….lifegiving.  breathtaking.  sustaining. 

The truth is, I feel Bruce with me too.  Ministry is a hard vocation.  And it is a holy vocation.  Bruce was my biggest cheerleader, but his support was never  unexamined.  It was true and loving and honest.  And on those days when ministry is hard, I feel him with me.  I hear his voice in my heart.  

Another parishioner is an EMT and is participating in a firefighter’s climb soon.  He is climbing in Bruce’s honor and tucking Bruce’s photo in his hat.  Our whole family is absolutely honored by this.  And Bruce would be surprised and humbled.  Maybe he knows this is going to happen!

This has been (another) very hard week in our country.  And I’m not going to mince words:  what is happening threatens every freedom, every ideal, every value that our country was founded upon.  Those who voted for this administration bear responsibility for this.  This president told us who he would be and lied about much of it.  He’s worse than we imagined. 

I’m in awe of everyone who is in Minneapolis in the frigid winter weather actively protecting their neighbors.  Blowing their whistles and stepping in to film, and in so doing….risking and giving their lives.  And I feel helpless and hopeless.  I can donate money.  I can march.  I can pray.  I can call my elected officials.  But this is a much larger evil than any of us imagined. Neither the law of the land nor the law of human decency matter anymore.   We are, it seems, headed for full collapse unless Republicans in the house and senate find a spine and stand up to the president.  

So, yesterday morning, in a last minute decision, our congregation sang the “hold on” refrain that is being sung in Minneapolis.  We didn’t print it or project it, we simply learned it together through call and response.  And it became our prayer response……Hold on, hold on.  My dear ones, here comes the dawn.  

May it be so. 

May your community, your communion of saints, walk alongside you in this hard season and in every season. May you feel their presence sustaining you.

May whatever your week holds bring you peace and the hope that the dawn is indeed coming.  

P.S.  Dear Bruce, my Beloved, the Seahawks are going to the Superbowl!  But  maybe you already know that, too.