When we stay, when we consent to sharing the whole gamut of human experience, when we agree to the continual process of forgiving and being forgiven, something quite magical happens. We find that we will begin to call this place, this time, these relationships sacred, holy.

For the past year or so, ever since we began allowing children to be separated from their parents at our border, I have a strong suspicion that Jesus would have been easy to find among the migrant families seeking entry to the United States. Jesus would be there,
attending to the needs of the children...God’s children. God’s frightened, wounded, trampled, traumatized children.

The church had huge fights early on about what exactly the Trinity was and how we describe it. And not surprisingly, in cultures that were patriarchal, and councils that were made up entirely of men, the doctrine landed on imagining each aspect of Trinity as male—and that has stuck as male theologians defined what was orthodox and wrote THE definitive theologies. But despite this binary language and doctrine, the God of the Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament cannot be constrained in a binary box, a Trinitarian box, or any of our theological constructs, rather God transcends all the names, descriptions, imagery and attributes ascribed in Scripture and Christian doctrine. 

We try to build towers into the heavens, having no sense of boundaries or limits, no sense that Creation is a delicate and intricate balance of forces, no sense that the Creator has been trying again and again, gently and not-so-gently, to put us in our places.

Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns. And I can’t imagine they were whispered songs but loud, strong hymns of faith, deliverance, freedom. “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around”. Songs sung while shackled to the wall with no idea if they would be executed the next day or if they were going to spend the rest of their lives in prison. 

Despite the fact that many people assume I must have a good idea of what exactly life after life looks like, I really don’t. Even Jesus didn’t really say too much about it. So what we have are a handful of stories of resurrections and the freedom to decide what we will make of them.

This Gospel breakfast story is absolutely full of clues for all those times we are stuck in the sea in the middle of the night, afraid we have come to the end of something with not a clue how to begin again. 

The aftermath of the first Easter was not at all uniformly joyous for those who had loved Jesus. Indeed, those early post-resurrection days were much more emotionally complicated than our contemporary Easter festivities ever let on. 

Whatever the resurrection was and is—its fullness lies in holy darkness, shielded from our eyes. All we can know is that somehow, in an ancient tomb on a dark night, God worked in secret to bring life out of death. Somehow, in the utter darkness, God saved the world.

Ritualized touch. Holy touch. In a world terrified of touching. In a world where touching has earned a terrible reputation. Perceived more often as a source of harm than as a source of healing. Touch is experienced largely as threatening, dangerous–because it has been misused far too often, especially in the church.
And yet still, touch can move us. Still, we crave touch. Still, touch can be safe, sacred, moving, transformative.