Aug 2, 2020
...Grief is like landing in Holland. Beloved, we are catching our breath and looking around and realizing we are not in Italy. And we cannot will ourselves there. And so there is pain and grief in the ambiguous and personal losses of what we had planned and hoped. And this grief for Italy takes on many forms. Perhaps it is a loved one whose world is different and full of the blessing of tulips. Perhaps it is looking at the school calendar or the church calendar and realizing you can’t see the horizon for the mountains are smokey. Perhaps your spiritual life right now is resembling something like five loaves and two fish and you’re wondering if it will be enough to sustain your soul’s deep hunger. It is enough and more.
Holland is lovely because it is different. The Great Smokey Mountains are breathtaking in part because of their smoke. It isn’t nothing; there are 12 basketfuls of blessing. There is enough and more. Sometimes, like Jacob at the Jabbok though weary and out of joint, we will wrestle out a blessing. As the prophet Isaiah (61) reminds those who grieve, out of the ashes will be beauty.
Sermon for Sunday, August 2, 2020 on Matthew 14:13-21 (and Genesis 32:22-31). Featuring a poem by Emily Perl Kingsley called "Welcome to Holland"