Adventure Yourselves With Him

 

On this, the last day of what has been the longest year in our lives, our thoughts turn towards the future in hopes that 2021 will see an end to the ravages of coronavirus, the beginning of less political squabbling and ill will, and the dawn of more just treatment of those on the margins.  2020 has brought heartbreak and illness and sorrow and loss to nearly everyone, but we are still people of hope and trust in the God who is with us through it all.

The above picture is of the convergence of Saturn and Jupiter as seen from my front yard a few days ago, a sight that calls to mind the Star of Bethlehem which led the Magi to the Christ Child. As we recall their journey at Epiphany and prepare for the new year, it is also a time for many Methodists to celebrate a covenant service just as the Wesleys and other early Methodists did. Whether we are able to participate in one or not, it is helpful to reflect upon Wesley’s words of instruction for the covenant service, making them a mandate for our travels into the next year.

Adventure yourselves with him; cast yourselves upon his Righteousness, as that which shall bring you to God: as a poor captive exile, that is cast upon a strange land, a land of robbers and murderers, where he is ready to perish, and having no hope, either of abiding there, or escaping home with life: and meeting at length with a pilot, who offers to transport him safely home, he embarks with him and ventures himself, and all that he hath in his vessel: do you likewise; you are exiles from the presence of God, and  fallen into a land of robbers and murderers: your sins are robbers, your pleasures are robbers, your companions in sin are robbers and thieves; if you stay where you are, you perish, and escape home of yourselves you cannot: Christ offers, if you will venture forth with him, and then he will bring you home, and he will bring you to God... ~ John Wesley (Directions for Renewing our Covenant with God)

Not knowing what lies ahead but hoping for a much better year, let us nevertheless go forth with holy boldness to adventure ourselves with Christ, remembering always that he is Immanuel, God with us.

There Are No Perfect Marriages, But There Are Perfect Moments

 

Marrying relatively late in life, Mary Bosanquet and John Fletcher were only together for a few years before his death, but their mutual love and respect and their shared ministry in and around Madeley fueled one of early Methodism's most successful partnerships.  She nursed him devotedly and after his death often dreamed of him advising and supporting her in the same gentle way he had done in life. When he died, she mournfully wrote that the sun of all her earthly joys had set, but she faithfully kept preaching and teaching, inspiring countless women and men in their Christian journeys into the nineteenth century.

Our 31st wedding anniversary is later this month, and I'll be officiating at the backyard wedding of our next-door neighbor in less than a week. It's going to be small and Covid-19 safe with me and the couple and about 8 mask-wearing guests, so not much like ours with its 150 or so guests and several attendants.  Weddings can be stressful events, but fortunately this one promises to be pretty laid back.  

I'm working on the service and plan to make some remarks though not to deliver an actual homily. Naturally my mind is focused on scripture and the Church's understanding of matrimony, but I'm also influenced by the years of wedlock I've shared with my husband. The picture above is of our hands just minutes after we became a married couple, when we were so young, so much in love, so clueless of what might lie ahead.  

And there has been plenty of stuff in the past three decades! We've moved several times, been through seminary and seminary and yet more seminary, adopted and reared two children, survived his one job and my several churches, traveled and sheltered at home, laughed, cried, argued, read and watched television, cooked and cleaned and painted and built a life together.  He's still my favorite person in the world, and there's nobody who makes me laugh or smile more. 

When I was in Divinity School, I apparently told an unmarried friend who really wanted to be married that there are no perfect marriages but that there are perfect moments. Thank you, God, for the sun of my earthly joys, with whom I've shared many a perfect moment. 💟

God hears even when we hardly hear ourselves

As Scott and I continue to wait for more information about his diagnosis, seeking clarity for our next steps, we’ve been binge-watching The Crown and various travel shows set in Scotland, even though we’ve seen all the episodes multiple times, and I am somewhat mindlessly re-reading Agatha Christie mysteries. Sometimes it’s a relief to escape into some other world instead of dwelling on our current situation, so I don’t feel too bad about this coping mechanism.

 My other main activity has been an additional devotional practice that I would have done for Advent anyway, and it has proven to be invaluable during these anxious days. I’m reading Frequencies of God by Carys Walsh, an Advent journey through poems of R.S. Thomas. His raw honesty about the silence of God and the difficulty of perceiving God’s presence resonates with my experience, and his insight into the reality that God is always with us reminds me that we are held by the very One whose presence we seek. That’s very good news indeed!

On my Facebook page, former Bishop Charlene Kammerer reminded me that not only are we held by God but that we are held by all of you who are praying for us and lifting us up before God when we can’t quite do it ourselves, and that, too is very good news. Sometimes it feels too overwhelming to form words or shape sentences, and resting in the care of those who love us is all we can do.  

I am also encouraged by remembering John Wesley’s gentle, reassuring lines to Mary Bosanquet when she was struggling with her spiritual journey and was apparently finding it hard to pray.  He wrote:

It is certainly right to pray whether we can or no.  God hears even when we hardly hear ourselves.  ~ John Wesley (letter to Mary Bosanquet, March 26, 1770)

What a practical and deeply scriptural word of encouragement! I’m reminded of chapter 8 of the letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans in which he confidently attested to the intercession of the Spirit on our behalf in sighs too deep for words, and for a moment my sorrowful soul is able to rest.  It doesn’t matter if I fumble with trying to tell God how I feel or what I want because the One who created, gifted, called, and sustains me hears the cries of my heart even when I scarcely know what I am saying. While that doesn’t make our uncertainty and grief go away, it does remind me that we are constantly in the loving presence of Immanuel, God-with-us, and that truly is the best of all.