Humans are, in a sense, a collection of stories-stories about what has happened to us and about who we are. Our stories can be fairly accurate reflections or they can be a little, or even more than a little, off base. Sometimes, if we are lucky, others will point out to us when our inner story seems to be out of whack with our outer story. But sometimes not and we, both as individuals and as institutions fumble on cocooned in our own mythical narrative-harboring a blind spot that threatens to engulf us.

I have written you this letter on the day of your Baptism. It is a very special day; I am honored to be here with you. As an infant, you are too young right now to be paying much attention to what I am saying, but I hope your parents have saved this letter so you can pull it out and read it now and again. Hopefully, we still know each other, although life has a way of taking us off in different directions. Please pray for me as I shall pray for you.

Once upon a time long, long ago, there was a little girl who lived on a farm with her mother and father, several aunts and uncles, and her sisters, brothers, and cousins. Their farm was in a very hot and dry land. The little girl and her family worked very hard together to harvest their modest crops.

One morning, when the little girl was filling buckets of water from the well, she looked up and saw people approaching from the distance. As they drew near she saw that they were children – but not all of them; one was a man. One of the children ran ahead and got to the well first.

We must discern and claim how we name God in the context of our own 21st century empire...how do we do this? We might begin by not settling for less--not settling for smallness, but choosing instead to live large lives, turned toward the life that we see in the world around us.

Being contained, secure, and predictable is not what Christianity is all about, though Lord knows we have done our best to try to force faith into boxes through many of our traditions, doctrines and institutions. I have come to see the Easter message as fundamentally a call to relinquish a sense of the ordinary and tumble headfirst into the fantastic.

Given the magnitude and pervasiveness of economic disparity in our city, nation, and globe, how might our lives be shaped by the spirit of Christ?The problems are daunting. But doesn't that simply mean that our dreams need to be more far-reaching, more courageous?

These moments of loss happen in our lives. But it’s not the last moment. Even though the one we love has died, we have not died. Even though the future we imagined is no longer, we will live into a different future. Ready or not, the dawn comes; we awake and arise to a new day.

In this age of science, when we can see everything from galaxies far away to atoms through microscopes, when we want proof of anything and everything, we have no room to sneer at Thomas -- we are Thomas. And there is nothing wrong with that.