We finally made our way home! Welcome home! As Jerry Garcia said “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”
Really, it hasn’t been as strange as it’s been blessed. Maybe strangely, awesomely providential that a friend happened to notice the “Rooms for Rent” slide on Centennial’s electronic sign out front.
Several months and meetings, paint coats and carpet tiles later, here we are!
It was disappointing to wait an extra week. The original plan was for our inaugural Sunday to be last Sunday, which was the second week of Advent, with the theme of Hope.
How fitting that the launchpad into our future be on the day of hope!
Except it wasn’t to be. Circumstances got in the way – the adverse conditions of Mother Nature.
Adverse circumstances stole away our experience/our centralization of hope. Adversity robbed us of our experience of hope.
Does that resonate with any of you – adversity in your world/in the world these days – diminishing your hope, which thus diminishing your peace?
I know the answer to this question – I’ve heard your stories. How often do I struggle too.
I have a story of struggle you. It’s the shortest story you will ever hear.
The backstory is that when Japanese poet and samurai Mizuta Masahide was young a haiku student he experienced property damage that caused him to face financial devastation and possible homelessness.
Out of these adverse circumstances came this haiku:
Barn’s burned down. Now I can see the moon.
That’s it. A tiny story about hope and peace amidst challenge.
Here’s a longer one, this time from Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. She calls her story The Talisman.
It wasn’t the time he taught me to ride
without training wheels. Wasn’t fishing
on the lake for crappies or hunting
in the Wisconsin woods for squirrels.
Wasn’t the cassette tapes he made me
when I moved away from home or the rare tears
he cried when I left. It wasn’t the way
he forgave me when I forgot to call
on his 50th birthday. Wasn’t the white
sweater he bought me the year before he died
because he said I looked so beautiful in it.
– Or maybe it was all those things—everything
he did, everything he was, every quiet touch and
unsung sacrifice ,so I never once doubted his love.
His love as solid as he was. His love stained me.
Can never be removed, no matter how fiercely
the world tries to scrub me of hope.
Every day I take in the violent raids,
the infinite ways we defile and dismiss
and destroy each other. And still I can’t unknow
his love, can’t untrust we are capable
of such goodness, such unflinching generosity.
His love, the talisman, I wear in every cell.
It protects me not from the horror, but
from the error of believing the horror is all.
There is also how he hummed to me
when I was scared. How he cheered for me,
even when I failed. How in my most vulnerable
hours, he held me and whispered my name.
These words were written for a beloved person…a father, a grandfather perhaps.
Despite the burdens that weigh heavily on her heart – the very same that weigh on many of us – this person’s love’ sustains her in hope.
While today is a day to be heralded in our church’s history – one for the ages! – the stark realities of our world persist, as we hear it in her words.
We must ask ourselves…just as the depth of her relationship with this person sustains her, does the strength and intimacy of our spiritual lives stain us with hope despite the world’s fierce attempts to scrub it out?
Hear some of her words again, except this time, hear them as a prayer to the Divine.
Every quiet touch of my heart causes me to never once doubt Your love.
Your love stains me, never to be removed, no matter how fiercely
the world tries to scrub me of hope.
Every day I witness the violence
the countless ways we defile each other. And still I can’t unknow
Your love…I can’t untrust that – because of Your love- we are therefore capable
of such goodness.
Your love, my talisman, I wear in every corner of my being,
it protects me not from the horror, but
from believing the horror is all-encompassing.. And so, in my most vulnerable hours, I feel held and my soul hears You whispering my name.
We’re in a storm, my friends – a peace-robbing, hope-thieving storm. And we long for a beacon; the world longs for a beacon.
Today we have joy about our new home, as we would and should, and aspire for this space to be a beacon in our beleaguered world.
But this beautiful setting is only as beautiful as the peace, nurtured by hope, that resides within us as individuals, as a community.
Take a moment to look at these candles of hope and peace. Behold their light. Emblaze within your mind their illumination of this space.
Then carry that light with you. Allow these words, this time, our space here and now, to transform you, so that, even in the face of the storm, your hope and peace remain unmoved.
There was a man named Paul who wrote a letter to his friends the Philippians (4:6-7). He names the anxiousness that many of us are experiencing when he said:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus”.
By prayer there’s transcendent peace.
Let us pause to offer a prayer.
Please join me in prayer as we hear words of peace of John O’Donohue.
As the fever of day calms towards twilight
We pray that all that is strained in us comes to ease.
We pray for those who suffered violence today,
May an unexpected kiss of your serenity surprise them.
For those who risk their lives each day for peace,
May their hearts glimpse providence of history.
We pray that those who make riches from violence
Might hear you in their dreams, your voice through the cries of the lost.
We ask that we might see through our fear of each other
A new vision of your love to heal our fatal attraction to aggression.
For those of us who enjoy the privilege of peace
Might not forget our tormented brothers and sisters.
And strive so that no hurt or harm be done
Anywhere along the holy mountain of your creation.
May it be so. Amen.
When we strive for such things, hope thrives and peace takes up residence, as we have here in our new home. Clarity emerges to guide the journey.
Steffanie and Scott have a wonderful song about clarity and moving forward.
Let’s hear their song now…
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