May 07 | Graduates = Seeds for the Spirit
A whole pile of my friends graduated last night, and it was a great pleasure to be there…even though at one point, I thought, “I should be sitting over there.”
It was right when the inimitable Rev. Dr. Pat Dutcher-Walls was reading from Genesis 1 in Hebrew. I was already messed up from the absolutely amazing experience of playing “Testify to Love” and the whole church getting up and clapping and singing along with us. Hearing what I heard on my first ever day at VST as a shy and nervous first-year was too much – especially when Pat choked up just briefly at the end! But of course, I was glad too, because I’m not quite ready to leave yet – not emotionally. I couldn’t have done the work that needed to be done for me to graduate this year – I wasn’t willing to take three summer courses last year (I was kind of getting married) OR five courses in one of my previous two semesters. I also need to know more about what’s going to happen to me. I’m not sure about how much longer my discernment group has to decide about me, but I can’t imagine it will be later than August. Then I’ll know if I’m going on to Examining Chaplains and the Executive Archdeacon. I know I won’t be going to ACPO until at least this time next year – with some of my friends! It’ll be awesome if I make it through.
As I listened to Archbishop John Privett’s awesome address about seeds, I reflected on the song I wrote at the beginning of this year, which was also called “Seeds.” I often forget about it and haven’t played it in a very long time. That should probably change.
As we rose to applaud and thank Wendy for a wonderful six years of leadership, I also thought about her amazing hospitality in letting me come in and sit down to talk with her the other week in her office, when all I meant to do was say hello. Her presence this year has been such a balm to me, especially during the Tuesday Eucharists. There would usually only be three or four of us at those services, and as she preached to us, she would take care to look everyone in the eye – and not just a glance, but a full on look that would last several seconds. There was only one day when I couldn’t look back at her, and that was one of those days where the whole world was grey and I was stuck at the foot of the Cross, wondering how it could be possible to talk about Easter morning. Of course, she always preached the good news, but good news never comes without a price.
It’s ours to pay, but I’m glad to pay it – because in God through Christ the price is transformed. Our lonely burden of pain becomes a shared burden. God carried hatred, betrayal, pain, and death in God’s own tender flesh.
The first real song I intentionally wrote about God reflects this: in a wood that is decimated by fire, new shoots grow out of the ash. It is only through the fire’s cleansing that they can grow so rapidly. “Out of death, into life.” God knows the feel of the flame, and in Pentecost, which is approaching, we are given some of that new fire. Somehow we are given back the sweet pain that God experienced as we struggle to bring the world the truth of the kin(g)dom: that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had become old are being made new. “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
So con-grad-ulations (ugh, sorry!) to all of my friends who graduated. I’m pullin’ for ya. And I’ll be up there next year – and next year it’ll be in an Anglican Church, likely my own.
Po-freakin-etic.
-Clarity