Tuesday, May 2, 2023
Memorial of Saint Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Long days in the desert
Those who had been scattered by the persecution that arose because of Stephen went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch.
Of course Paul and Silas, Luke, Barnabas and Timothy along with so many others, did not wander alone. Not all the time. Often they took to the desert road or track with each other, two by two, looking toward heaven together, praying with each other, trusting God together. And often they celebrated feasts and church plants and baptisms with the rest of their parishioners.
Together.
But then there were the many other times when they were alone.
They sent Barnabas to go to Antioch … then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul.
In Antioch the community grew in joy, understanding and numbers. Perhaps Mary, Mother of Jesus was there.
I remember one spring and summer twenty years ago the nightly worship, celebration and revival at Champaign Vineyard a block north of our house. The revival lasted for weeks, and I think of those weeks like the way it must have been in Antioch.
Large numbers of people were added to the Lord. And for a whole year Saul and Barnabas met with the Church, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.
The solitary side of me often left the revival with its worship and its laughter. In Urbana we built a backyard gazebo under the trees with a nice porch swing, and I sat on the swing alone and felt goosebumps in the warm silence between the bird songs. I walked alone through King Park across the street, then down Beech Street or Dublin Avenue, or the alley between the two. No hurry. Nowhere to go. Already there.
All those times you walked through loss,
wandered in disorientation,
trudged on an endless trek to nowhere…
and thought you were alone.
There is a kind of being held
that, if you let it hold you, holds you
through the deepest abyss, the bleakest ruin,
and never loses you.
But the Unseen One gives no clues,
you can’t detect your being held
any more than a fetus can.
Only afterward can the child
recognize the mother.
Even only now, late in the poem,
do you see:
someone has been reading with you
from the first word.
– Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Ha! Steve got me there. “Even only now someone has been reading with you …” And I’m pretty sure that the reason I feel so un-lonely when I sit in the swing or walk down the alley is just that quiet company I don’t even notice – the unpretentious, unimpeding, inviolate love of God, wisping with me across the grass, over the broken pavement. Lo, you will be with me always, even unto the end of the world.
In the silence of the desert, or even in that Urbana alley, nothing gets in the way of God, who just walks with me in time and space, saying nothing, waiting for me to speak, listening.
Only afterward can the child recognize the mother.
On Google maps I see the houses I walked by, even a faint glimpse of our car in the driveway. The gazebo is obscured by a big tree. My mother, my Aunt Mary, my grandpa and my Dad, God the Father, Jesus … I see them too, not their bodies, but the Spirit which falls over all of it. And the voice of Jesus, clear as a shepherd’s bell, calling.
Listen:
Jesus walked about in the temple area. The Jews asked him, “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus said, “I told you and you do not believe. My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”
 (Acts 11, Psalm 87, John 10)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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