BE NOT FEAR

 

BE NOT FEAR  “The angel said to Mary, “Be not fear.” (Luke 1:30)  I thank God for angels. I mean the angels of good, who are all around us. They are all around us in scripture, they are all around us in church, and they are all around us whenever communities of good faith gather together.   The word, “angel” means, simply, “messenger.” Angels deliver messages, proclaim things. Angels deliver news. The prefix “ev-” means “good.” Thus, an “ev-angel” is someone who proclaims good news. At its root, evangelism is the proclamation of good news. Good news, not bad news.  The Gospel is supposed to be good news.   In the Bible, there is one particular phrase that angels use whenever they show up. It is a sign that the angel is from God. The angel says, simply, “Do not fear.” It is the first thing the angel said to Mary.   Angels say that all the time. It is what the angel told Joseph in another story: “Do not be afraid.” It is what the angel told Zechariah when Elizabeth was pregnant. It is what the angel told the shepherds in the fields: “Do not fear.” It is what Jesus said when he walked on the water. It is what the angel said to the women at the tomb: “Be not afraid.” It what Jesus said to his disciples as they left the tomb. It is what the Son of Man says in the last book of the Bible: “Be not afraid; I am the first and the last.”   I am preaching to myself this Christmas. I am preaching to the fear that invades me –and you—every day. What I seem to wake to every day are: more things to be afraid of. When I listen to the radio or TV, when I read the newspaper, when I scroll through web sites, the items that draw my attention are often the items designed to make me afraid of something. More dangers, more cautions, more worries, more horrors, more scoldings.   I turn to the 23rd Psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”   I thank God, however, not just for the mere words of the angels. Sometimes, I hear the words so incessantly that they make me afraid: “Do not fear. Do not fear. Do not fear.” Today, there is something about good angels that is even stronger than their words.   It is their presence. It is not the admonition, “Do not fear,” that comforts us. It is the presence of someone without fear. It is the presence of the absence of fear.   Sometimes the best thing we can do for a fearful person is not just tell them, “Don’t be afraid.” Instead, the best thing we can do is to be a presence of non-fear. To be the absence of fear. “Be… not fear.” (Not: “Do …not fear.”)  But: “Be…not fear.”   Like the angels, be a presence of peace, not a presence of anxiety.   I am reminded, on this holy day of non-fear, of the great theologian Charles Schultz, the creator of the cartoon, Peanuts. One of his strips is only one panel long, one drawing. Charlie Brown and Snoopy are sitting on Snoopy’s house looking away towards the sunset. Charlie Brown sighs and says, “One day we will all die, Snoopy.” “One day we will all die.” And Snoopy’s response is simple: “True, but on all the other days, we will not.”   Ah. There are lots of voices, so many voices, who seize our attention with news of death, prophecies of disaster, warnings of calamity. The general news outlets of the world deal us that kind of news every minute.   The news that we proclaim, from this church, and from every community of good faith around the world, is different. Isaiah said,” “Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear” (Isaiah 40:9).   The gospel in these times is not simply to be another word of warning or scolding. Churches themselves have an unfortunate history of being scolders, telling us every minute what we are doing wrong, bringers of bad tidings. “Be afraid,” they seem to say, “Be very afraid.”   That is the old, ungraceful, Christianity of Pharisees. It is bad for us. The healthy gospel is to be, to be, the presence of non-anxiety, to be the presence of non-fear, to be the presence of peace.   The true angels of God, bringing us good news today, proclaiming good news, are the angels singing about peace. True angels are the ones around us whose very presence is peace. They do not even need to say, “Do not fear.” Their presence is itself peace. Their very being is peace. They are not fear.   And the word I do get from them is this:   Do not “be” fear. Do not “be” anxiety. Do not “be” high maintenance.   Be “not fear.” Be “no anxiety.” Be “low maintenance.”   Be peace. Be calm. Every year we try to sing that. “All is calm, all is bright.” It is what we try to represent in church every Christmas Eve, when we stop the liturgy, right after communion and before the last prayer. We get still. We turn down the lights. We light candles. We stop. And we sing the hymn, “Silent Night.” “All is calm. All is bright.” We are singing about a new presence in the world!   The angel told Mary, “Be not fear.” And I am saying the same thing, to myself, and to you, and to the world, “Be not fear.”   Thank you for being a part of “comfort and joy” this year. Thank you for wanting a holy place where “all is calm, all is bright.” The world needs this presence of “No Fear.” Thanks be to God for good news: “Be not fear.”   24 December 2023

THANKSGIVING THIS YEAR

THANKSGIVING THIS YEAR This year, I am thankful for grocery store visits.   They usually do not start well. I am irritated that our house has run out of something important, and we are supposed to never run out. It might be eggs or butter. It might be toilet paper. So, we assemble a list of other things we need. I will realize later that I have forgotten something. I make my way. I am already a bit impatient.   I drive my familiar route to the local market. Our store might be a regular chain, and it might be a farmers’ market, but I have a preferred way to get there. Efficient as it is, it is rarely without traffic, and I encounter both the slowpokes and the speedsters. I am on an errand, and it is a chore.   Next, I meet the challenge of finding a convenient parking spot. There is never a convenient parking spot. I am on an errand, and it is a chore. Both cars and people zig and zag through the parking lot; there has never been an efficiently designed parking lot, anywhere. I practice patience.   But something happens as I walk to the store. I meet people. I meet all sorts of people, from the finest to the most slovenly. I realize –I even give thanks—that we are all here to meet our basic needs, and we share something in common in those needs. I say hello. I even smile. The grocery store, the market, has gathered us all together. The grocery store visit is my discipline of practicing patience.   Once inside, I meet more people in need. So engrossed are they in their purchase, they are blocking the entire aisle. I slow down. Next, the poor shelf stockers are lugging huge carts of new supplies down the aisle. They cannot even see me, and they invariably stop their cart right in front of the items I was hoping to peruse. I smile, and they try to move their load.   Patience comes more easily when we respect people! At the farmers’ market, we get a chance to respect their more recreational clothes, too: and we have the opportunity to respect their dogs!   The store is sold out of at least one of things I had hoped to buy. Perhaps the supplier no longer even makes the product. I have to find a substitute. I study a bit. Sometimes, I actually find a new favorite food. I talk with a person I had seen in church last week but not been able to speak to. I see some people I have not seen in years. They are still coming to the grocery store.   I get to the checkout lines and can never predict which will be the shortest. Never. Of course. I inevitably choose the line with the slowest checkout person, and she has to ask me which kind of tomatoes I picked out. She is nice. The person putting my items into bags is doing his best, and I help him a bit. They have helped me assemble my needs. I am thankful for them.   Finally, I have paid the bill; and I push a cart, or carry a laden bag, to the car. I am thankful for the gift of having stores nearby, with such supplies. Not every culture, not even every American, can drive to a local market for fresh goods.   Then, a few days later, maybe that very evening, another routine develops. Someone prepares a feast with the supplies of the day. We may take turns with the preparation. Maybe the dinner is a small supper for only two people, or maybe just one. Maybe, just maybe, the supper is a feast! Maybe others show. Maybe what was only a few fish and some bread, for a few people, becomes a feeding of five thousand.   When people take the time to do their chores, when we go to the grocery store and buy our routine things, we are preparing the way for something tremendous. We are preparing for a feast. I give thanks for the patience and love and discipline that going to the grocery store teaches me. And I give thanks for all those who have gone to the grocery store this year, for me, and for us. Their commitment and patience have prepared tables and altars for us. Eucharist means thanks! Let us give thanks! Let us keep the feast!

People Are Kind

1/12/202

People are kind.

Let me interrupt the program. Let me gently interrupt our anxieties and illnesses, let me interrupt our sheer exasperation with this pandemic, with a special notice: People are kind.

It seems like the journey we have now walked for almost two years is never ending. We’ve climbed some steep hills looking forward to rest and return, only to see still another mountain in front of us. We’ve made some turns for the better, only to find ourselves almost exactly where we have already been.

During our walk, we have been hounded, admonished, chastised, scolded, scared, by people who think they have been helping us. Their latest “breaking news” has often been just another opportunity to raise anxiety. The high drama of daily anxiety would have us believe that another world-devastating catastrophe is right around the corner. The screens we watch somehow present people as threats to us.

For the record, I have become a believer in some of the work of Stephen Pinker; in his book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, he makes the case that, over the long course of history, violence is actually being reduced in human civilization, not getting worse. It may be that, over time, other things are getting better, too. Individual cases can be horrible, for sure. But, over time and as a whole, human civilization is progressing towards the better. The ubiquity of available news accounts would have us believe that catastrophe is everywhere; but the true odds are, it is not.

People are kind.

So, last Saturday, I took another kind of walk. I escaped the world of “breaking news” and the latest anxiety tweet. I went for a walk in one of Atlanta’s great parks, this one along the Chattahoochee River. I knew covid cases were rising and that I had to be free from exposure as I led church services on the following day. There were others with me out there, perhaps with similar desires; let’s get some fresh air without infecting anyone!

On my walk, I saw kind people, pure and simple. We were all so different out there! Me, a seasoned white man. A Black couple, with two scrambling children. An Asian guy jogging. An Hispanic family on a picnic. A group of college guys playing some new kind of game in the field (roundnet? spike ball?). An old couple meandering and taking their time. A cool bicycle guy. Lots of people, of all shapes and colors and sizes, walking their dogs, who were also of all shapes and colors and sizes. I was walking in love.

“Hey,” I said softly, as we passed each other in the woods. “Nice day,” replied the guy with a huge German shepherd. I wondered if I would have been so fear-free if it were dark and we were in some city alley. But we weren’t. I saw young lovers enjoying each other, without a care. They smiled at my smile.

Last Saturday, people were being patient. They were not threatening each other. People were being real, in person, next to each other. Moving to the side to let others pass. Returning errant soccer balls. Letting children squeal. They were walking in love. To a soul, every person I encountered that day was kind. To a soul.

Friends, I have something to tell you. We are going to make it. People are kind.

The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip

MY SOUL MAGNIFIES THE LORD

 

MY SOUL MAGNIFIES THE LORD

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. (Luke 1:46-47)   As a child, one of the most fascinating Christmas presents I ever received was a large magnifying glass. It amazed me that such a piece of smooth, curved, glass could make little ants and tiny seeds look so much larger. And, yes, I learned to focus sunlight into crushed leaves and twigs in such a way that the magnified and concentrated light could actually start a fire!   Later, as a teen-ager, one of best Christmas presents I received was an amplifier. Surely every one of you budding musicians out there remembers amplifiers. The bigger the amp, the bigger the sound, with which we could drive our families crazy – and our neighbors, too. The vacuum tubes of those old amps magnified my little band’s struggling and rudimentary rock music. In those days, I was certainly in to making things bigger.   Much older now, with my eyesight fading, I am back into lenses, fascinated with binoculars that help me see birds and stars. I want to magnify those delightful wings and feathers and tiny star clusters.   However, here’s a curious phenomenon: in star gazing, in particular, it is not the magnification power that is always the most important. It is the objective lens, the second number on your set of binoculars. In the designation “eight times forty,” the “eight” describes the magnification power, and the “forty” describes how wide the lens is, and thus, how much light the lens is collecting.   Yes, that second number describes the amount of light that gets in. Many bird watchers and star gazers prefer a larger and larger second number, the width of the lens that lets light in. In order to see, you’ve got to let a lot of light get into your eyes. In order to experience the magnification, you’ve also got to have light.   “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” sang Mary, when she was only just beginning to realize the light that was coming into the world. The light was starting as only a faint glimmer, the tiny spark of a star inside her. It would be her role to magnify that light. And so she sang, more in hope than in promise, “My soul magnifies the Lord.”  We all sing that song more in hope than in promise.   “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Mary magnified the Lord. What do we magnify? Most of us magnify something, whether we realize it or not. What are you magnifying these days?   I acknowledge that there is reason to magnify our ills, our worries. Our pandemic days are not over, yet, much as we wish they were; and there is reason for concern. Some of us magnify that worry. Some of us magnify other travails. With the world jaggedly torn by division, some of us magnify the separations of the world.   By “magnify,” I don’t mean going outside and yelling things at the world. I don’t even mean writing a letter or making a statement. The way we magnify things in the world can be ever so small. For instance, that magnification happens even if we just forward an email, or a website, even if we forward without comment. Everything we pass on to another person is a form of magnification.   Yes, gossip and messaging and texting are forms of magnifying. If someone forwards to me a provocative message, they have amplified it, even if they claim to be neutral about it. When I spread messages, of any sort, I am amplifying them, especially the negative ones. I am making them bigger, like a magnifying glass does.   Where are you spending your money these days? Where are you giving your money? We call money “currency,” because money carries a current, just like my old adolescent amplifier did. Where our money goes increases the current of that product, increases the current of that message, increases the current of that church! What are you magnifying with your money these days?   “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” said sister Mary.   I used to sing a song that included the words, “One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small.” It turns out, in this spiritual life of ours, that the things we choose to magnify affect the size of our spiritual health, too. We can magnify things that increase spiritual health, or we can magnify things that suffocate spiritual health. We can magnify things that heal us and enlarge us; or we can magnify things that decrease us and make us small.   Sometimes, as Mary knew, attention to too much clutter squeezes the light out! Clutter like riches and food, and pride and power (those things she mentions in her Magnificat). They make us small, and they make our God small. There are lots of ways to make the Lord smaller in our lives.   Worry, for instance, squeezes away the love of God. Anger, drives out God and goodness. Greed, allows no room for God. Even false expectations reduce the presence of God. Last week, we heard some of the mistaken expectations of John the Baptist, a great man, with mistaken expectations.   To magnify means to find that one moment of joy, even the tiniest moment, and expand it! To magnify means to find that one opportunity to give thanks, and to focus on it! Let some more light in on it! Set that thanks on fire!   Lately, in times of trouble, I have been working on a particular spiritual practice: in times of trouble, I try to focus my magnifying glass on what I can give thanks for, even the tiniest thing. In times of trouble, can I focus on gratitude? When I am able to focus on gratitude, a miracle occurs, almost like a virgin birth! When I focus on the tiny seed of gratitude, why, it expands! It even explodes, into a glorious fullness! It becomes a star! It grows, larger and larger, into life!   “Giving thanks” is maybe the most powerful way any of us has of magnifying the Lord. When we give thanks, we are allying ourselves with the ultimate Giver, the giver of all good things. If you want to magnify God and goodness, give thanks for somebody. When we give thanks for a person, we end up finding, and focusing on, and magnifying, the good parts of that person. And we make the goodness of the world that much larger!   “One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small.” Take the pill of thanksgiving. The thanksgiving pill makes others tall, and it makes you tall, too. The pills of complaint, and worry, and anger, and greed: they make all of us smaller.   “My soul magnifies the Lord!” sang sister Mary. And it led to her spirit being able to rejoice in God her Savior. In this season, stressed and anxious as it might be, we sing in hope, too. We give thanks for God, we give thanks for goodness, we pay attention to life, and we focus on love. By giving thanks for those good things, they grow! They are magnified!  And in giving thanks for the good things of the world, we magnify the Lord. Our spirits rejoice, in God!

THE FEAST OF JOHN DONNE IN THE YEAR 2020

THE FEAST OF JOHN DONNE
IN THE YEAR 2020

It is good, so good, that today, March 31, 2020, we keep the feast of John Donne! John Donne is one my personal heroes, because he was what I aspire to be: a strong poet and a devoted dean (though he was a brilliantpoet!).  He died as dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, in London, in 1631.

Here is a quick review: Brought up a Roman Catholic just after the English Reformation, John Donne (born 1573) did not intend to become a priest or a theologian. He studied law and apparently had a way with women. His early poetry surely reflected that tendency, and his is still held as an example of superb love poetry! (Read the bawdy “To His Mistress On Going to Bed”!). When he fell in love with (the young) Anne More, her family did not give consent to a marriage, and so he eloped with her. Her father, therefore, threw Donne into prison. (He wrote, from prison, the short epigram: “John Donne, Anne Donne, undone.”).

It was only later that their marriage was declared valid. Still later, a friend urged ordination, and so he was ordained in 1615. Sadly, in 1617, his beloved wife died, five days after the birth of their twelfth child together. Donne would go on, however, to become dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, and write some of the most sublime poetry of England.

Well, on this March 31, 2020, we are living in a time of both disease and imprisonment. The COVID-19 illness has infected all of us, either with the virus itself or with the fear of it and the precautions against it. We, all of us, are affected by the disease. We are also affected by a kind of prison: our homes!  Most of us are confined to our homes voluntarily, but still our homes can seem like prisons to us. We are stuck.

In this situation, read John Donne! John Donne knew of love and prison and illness. And he wrote deeply and powerfully about the presence of God in all those conditions. When he lay ill in his older years, he wrote (in Hymn to God, My God, In My Sickness):

I joy that in these straits I see my west;
     For though their currents yield return to none,
   What shall my west hurt me? As west and east
     In all flat maps (and I am one) are one,
     So death doth touch the resurrection.

But Donne may be most well known by words which ring true, so true, today, from his Meditation 17, NUNC LENTO SONITU DICUNT, MORIERIS [Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.]

Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he know not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me and see my state may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.

The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me. 

…As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

….  No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Today, March 31, 2020, we know again the same thing that John Donne knew: no person is an island. We are connected. Sorrow and joy affect us all. Love affects us all. In all those conditions, God, our holy and passionate God, ravishes us wherever we are, in prison or in illness or in joy or in love. Batter my heart, three-person’d God!

AMEN.

The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
31 March 2020

OFFERING AND LETTING GO

A Reflection on the 2018 General Convention of The Episcopal Church:

It’s hard to get 880 strong-willed and highly-qualified deputies to agree on the precise statements of our Church on sensitive issues. But I took that challenge as my role during this past 2018 General Convention of The Episcopal Church. I was asked by Gay Jennings, President of the House of Deputies, to chair a Special Legislative Committee this year, not one of the regular committees, which would consider any resolutions having to do with revising, or with revisions to, the Book of Common Prayer. I was honored to accept the invitation!

All sorts of proposed resolutions came to our committee, and all sorts of committed Christians came to testify in our open hearings. We prayed. We listened to people. We honored people. The range of issues came down to two: 1) Whether and how we might engage the process of Prayer Book and liturgical revision, and 2) whether and how we might allow same-gender couples to be married sacramentally in their home parishes, when their diocesan bishop is theologically opposed to same-gender marriage.

You can read elsewhere of the very many excellent statements and events of the 2018 General Convention: welcoming the Church of Cuba back into The Episcopal Church, taking steps to ensure safety and honor for women in the church, dismantling racism, going out to make a prayer witness at the Hutto Family Detention Center for the sake of detained immigrants, passing a budget, and how to appeal to Israel on behalf of Palestinians.

But I was honored to be among those crafting and dealing with resolutions on prayer book revision and on same-gender marriage provisions in certain dioceses. In the end, it was a great joy to propose two resolutions on those issues that actually passed. Success!

Again, you can read the actual resolutions (A068 and B012) in the official communication sites of our Church; I especially recommend Episcopal News Service. You can also read comments and reflections that speak of compromise. People were glad to seek, and to recognize, graceful compromise from some our Church’s more passionate and committed members.

But here is what I think happened: not compromise, but victory! I enjoyed noting the victories that our parties, and our entire Church, can rightly claim. For instance, our final resolution on “Prayer Book and liturgical revision” (A068) really does authorize us, the Church, to do revision. Plus, we really did claim that we remember (“memorialize”) the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer continues to be our duly authorized prayer book. But we also committed ourselves to the healthy and ongoing joy of liturgical revision. There was tremendous agreement on the need for inclusive and expansive language in referring to both humanity and divinity. People who wanted prayer book revision, and people who wanted to remain committed to the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, both could claim victory in our final resolution.

On the other issue, which was finally resolved in B012, I believe both “sides” can rightly claim victory. Importantly for me, we found a way for same-gender couples to be married sacramentally in their own, local, parishes even when the diocesan bishop is theologically opposed to that type of marriage. There are about eight dioceses of our Church presently in that situation. However, we were also careful to honor the theological principles of those eight bishops. They remain able to lead their dioceses with their conscience and leadership honored (It is just that “Their conscience is NOT their diocese!”).

Again, what I enjoyed about this year’s General Convention was how we found a way for opposing sides to enjoy victory, and not compromise. Compromise is fine, and necessary; but I believe we did something beyond compromise. We celebrated common victories together, as a Church, and that celebration was truly grace-filled.

Throughout General Convention, my counsel to deputies (and bishops!) is always “to offer and then to let go.” In our Church, all of us have important voices, and we have important offerings. Our role, in Convention, is to make our offering, our statement, our idea, our proposal, but then to let it go! Once we offer our word, that word is no longer ours alone; it belongs to a wider group: either the committee considering the resolution, or the House which is considering the perfected resolution, or the entire Church (House of Deputies and House of Bishops) finally concurring with each other.

“Offering and Letting Go.” That is my motto for successful General Convention activity. In our Church, no one –no matter who we are! – no one gets their own way. We offer what we have, and then we let it go. We don’t get our own way. But we do, indeed, get the Church’s Way, the greater good, the common good, the Way of Christ. The same goes for our local congregations and local communities of faith. Our most healthy communities of faith are those where people faithfully make our offerings, and then let them go, for the sake of the whole Church. In the end, it is not any one person or party who “wins.” In the end, Love wins! Alleluia!

THE INTERSECTION OF TWO HEAVENLY BODIES IS NOT RARE!

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We were so happily enthralled and overshadowed by the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017! What awe! What mystery! What fun! Some of us had made plans for months to travel to some spot within the seventy mile “path of totality.” Others of us took off work to watch with special glasses or homemade pinhole viewers. Those who experienced the total eclipse, when the world became dark for up to two minutes or so, were spectacularly moved. Others of us shared their thrill vicariously.

Wherever we were, it was wonderful for us to pause, and to let it be. Recognizing, and imagining, the paths of two huge celestial bodies – heavenly bodies! – crossing each other was a truly awe-inspiring event. I would say that those several hours on August 21, of waiting and watching, touched people with transcendence, a sense of majesty and power that was so much bigger than us. Moreover, we shared those transcendent moments with other people: some of them friends, but others in campgrounds and parks, and some of them strangers we happened to park beside along the road. We shared both transcendence and intimacy.

For some of us, the more we studied the event, the more profound particular details became. We were aware that the moon’s shadow was racing across the continent at between one thousand and three thousand miles per hour. We were aware of slight angles in the earth’s and moon’s orbits that make an eclipse possible. We were aware that the precise size of the moon, at this particular time in its gradual withdrawal from the earth, is what makes a total eclipse possible – and not an annular eclipse (which does not completely cover the disc of sun).

Finally, some of us became aware of something else. Solar eclipses are not exactly rare. They are certainly rare if you stay in one place on the earth. However, they occur somewhere on earth about once every eighteen months – about 2 every 3 years. Indeed, many people claim to be “eclipse chasers,” making plans even now to be at the next solar eclipse on July 2, 2019 (though most of it will occur over water, in the South Pacific Ocean). I read where Joseph Pasachoff, astronomer from Williams College, has experience 65 solar eclipses.

I reckon, then, that if we include space and time outside earth, then celestial bodies –let’s call them heavenly bodies!—are intersecting their paths somewhere, almost all the time. Stars are crossing in front of other stars. Moons are coming between suns and planets. (These events are called “occultations,” which means “hidings”).

In the tremendous universe of God, then, there is always an intersection happening somewhere. What if we, we ourselves, are also such heavenly bodies? Sometimes, we are depending upon one light source, and another body moves between us and the source. Sometimes that movement occurs with amazing speed. We can see the shadow moving quickly along the floor, and it overtakes us. Sometimes the shadow is not a negative phenomenon at all, and the darkness can be helpful to us. Darkness can also show us that we have other sources of energy to depend upon, other sources of growth. In short, the darkness can both excite and calm us, showing us again our particular place in the tremendous order and creation of God

Yes, we human beings are heavenly bodies, too. We make paths and trails and orbits and intersections. When we meet another heavenly body –let’s call that heavenly body a spirit, shall we?—when we meet another spirit, when our paths cross, we have the opportunity for a fruitful intersection, we have the opportunity to say hello, to wink, to pause and to rejoice. (Or we have the opportunity to resent the shadow, to resent the interruption.)

The glory of this week’s total solar eclipse, then, can teach us about our own eclipses and intersections, and overshadowings. It is restorative simply to pause, and to marvel, at the glorious constellation of heavenly bodies among whom we live, and move, and have our being. We salute the complicated wonder of this universe of heavenly bodies. All of us travel in beautiful orbits. When our paths cross, a fruitful intersection will be that same combination of transcendence and intimacy that so many of us experienced August 21, 2017.

It is worth remembering one of the most mysterious and transcendent of all intersections: the one between divine and human. That intersection will always be impossible to fully describe, but here is how the gospel writer, Luke, described it: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). Right. It’s a miracle. And it can happen in us. And it can happen all the time.

(This article also appeared in Episcopal Cafe, and in The Cathedral Times. Thank you!)