Love Wins

I went to a funeral today. Not so unusual, being a priest and all. It's one of those things you get used to, and somehow never quite get used to at the same time. One of the things I treasure most about what I do is how people will let me deep into their lives at the most joyful times and the most horrible. This wasn't quite like that though. This time I was just in the pews, praying.

As a lot of you know who hang around the Interfaith Center, Alex Riedinger's mom was killed in a fall last week while he was studying in Spain. A bunch of us from the IFC went up to the funeral in Northern Kentucky. The church was packed, and it wasn't a small church. It was one of those times when we're the church at its best. The whole community, young, old and all in-between coming together. The music was amazing. And as many of you know the most amazing was after communion, when Alex sang a song about his mom he wrote on the way home from Spain. Then we all stood up and applauded. For a long time. And it was a kind of applause I learned in church when I was pastor of an African-American community. Not the usual "that was a good performance" applause. It was an "I believe too" applause. Because the song Alex sang wasn't just about his mom. We could tell he was looking death square in the eye and saying, "No. I still believe." It's like those stickers and t-shirts Steve Boutell keeps putting all over the IFC.

Well today, Love Won.

Thanks, Alex.

in the beginning

So what is all this about?

A canon is usually a list. Like the canon of scripture. Or the canon of law. So I guess this is my personal canon of whatever deep theological topic I'm pondering in any given week.

This week is mainly electricity, and how it's impossible to do any deep pondering without it. With the power off everywhere thanks to hurricane Ike coming to the Ohio Valley I have no access to any of the resources I usually use, so I can't think. Nor do ministry. There's no power so my parish is closed. How Christianity was able to get anything done for the first 1900 years is beyond me. Candles are no help. They just show me enough of my place to see the blank computer screen and the blank tv screen.

But the main reason I'm not pondering anything is because of vacation. One of my spiritual directors in seminary told us that if some work event gets canceled, then the time is a gift from God and you can't fill it up with work. I've always tried to follow that. And now God has apparently given me a whole week. Maybe two. And since pondering theology is my work I can't do it.

So if you have things canceled, don't fill them up with work. Enjoy the gift. And if you don't have anything canceled, maybe God just likes me more than you.

Til next week or I get power and have to go back to pondering