It's September 1st.
I feel like I should mention it because even though I live in Florida and the only clue that I had this morning that autumn was approaching was a thermostat that read seventy-seven degrees instead of seventy-nine or eighty.
The stores are displaying their "seasonal" goods.
And, as is the routine now at Hope, next Sunday the Bishop will visit our church and confirm and reaffirm parishioners.
Three years ago, I kneeled on the bottom step there in front of the altar and Bishop Hugo confirmed me. Three years ago, I looked up at Bishop Hugo, tears streaming down my face, and answered perhaps the most important question of my life.
"Are you happy?" he asked.
"Very," I said.
And yet "happy," now seems like such a small word, not nearly large enough to sufficiently explain the joy and peace and Godly fire that made my very skin prickle that day.
Yesterday I mentioned those "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess" moments.
I believe that every one of us has a need to be in relationship with God. I believe that every one of us, even so-called atheists, has a yearning for something, for some sort of connection that we cannot name. It is one soul calling out to another in the wilderness. Some spend lifetimes searching for it.
But when we do find that connection, we kneel and we confess, not because we fear hell and not because we want our reward in heaven, but because the very weight of God's love brings us to our knees.
If you have ever felt that love, you know that kneeling is less an act of submission and more the act of a child who was lost but has been found. We kneel because we've stood for so long and searched for so long and spent so many nights and so many days wondering what the world is about and now we've found it.
We've found it.
And we can rest.
And so we kneel.
I feel like I should mention it because even though I live in Florida and the only clue that I had this morning that autumn was approaching was a thermostat that read seventy-seven degrees instead of seventy-nine or eighty.
The stores are displaying their "seasonal" goods.
And, as is the routine now at Hope, next Sunday the Bishop will visit our church and confirm and reaffirm parishioners.
Three years ago, I kneeled on the bottom step there in front of the altar and Bishop Hugo confirmed me. Three years ago, I looked up at Bishop Hugo, tears streaming down my face, and answered perhaps the most important question of my life.
"Are you happy?" he asked.
"Very," I said.
And yet "happy," now seems like such a small word, not nearly large enough to sufficiently explain the joy and peace and Godly fire that made my very skin prickle that day.
Yesterday I mentioned those "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess" moments.
I believe that every one of us has a need to be in relationship with God. I believe that every one of us, even so-called atheists, has a yearning for something, for some sort of connection that we cannot name. It is one soul calling out to another in the wilderness. Some spend lifetimes searching for it.
But when we do find that connection, we kneel and we confess, not because we fear hell and not because we want our reward in heaven, but because the very weight of God's love brings us to our knees.
If you have ever felt that love, you know that kneeling is less an act of submission and more the act of a child who was lost but has been found. We kneel because we've stood for so long and searched for so long and spent so many nights and so many days wondering what the world is about and now we've found it.
We've found it.
And we can rest.
And so we kneel.
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