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On my patio this spring, a young squirrel has been busy with her quiet, determined work of stashing nuts in the most curious of places. Not tucked safely underground, but set in plain sight: in the corners of the windowsill, on the edge of the concrete, even inside my mailbox and atop the hanging basket of geraniums. My neighbor and I have delighted in these tiny round offerings we have both received. Are they misplaced? Remembered? Perhaps intentionally left where we cannot miss them? God knows.

They remind me of Julian of Norwich, a medieval mystic whom the Church commemorates this Friday, and her vision of the hazelnut recounted in Revelations of Divine Love:

“God showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand. I looked upon it and wondered, ‘What might this be?’ And I was answered, ‘It is all Creation.’ I marveled how it could last, for I thought it might suddenly fall to nothing, it was so small. And I was answered, ‘It lasts and ever shall last, for God loves it. In this little hazel nut, I saw three truths: the first is that God made it; the second is that God loves it; and the third is that God keeps it.’”

Julian also reminds us that the act of seeking is itself holy work: “Seeking with faith, hope and love pleases our Lord… for as long as God allows us to struggle on this earth, seeking is as good as seeing.”

Like my little squirrel neighbor, we gather and scatter, we forget and rediscover, we see and seek without knowing what we might find. And over time, these small, daily acts ripple outward. Squirrels, by hiding their nuts, plant the seeds of future forests. What is forgotten becomes growth. What seems small carries a world of possibility. There is a quiet wisdom here about being curious, engaging creation, and persistently seeking and acting with faith, hope, and love.

Remember our Voices speaker, Heidi Schreiber-Pan? A recent article in The Banner references her work and explores how spending time in green spaces can help lift what weighs on us and reconnect us with a sense of wholeness. Even brief, intentional encounters with the natural world can restore something in us that feels worn thin.

Perhaps the squirrel’s scattered nuts, Julian’s visions and wisdom, and a Spirit-timed article are invitations to get outside, notice what is small but enduring, participate in something larger than ourselves, and remember that Divine Love holds it all.

• What is something small in the natural world that has caught your attention recently?
• What might it be revealing to you?
• How might God be present in what seems ordinary or easily overlooked?

Love,

Anna

This past Sunday afternoon, a large group of joyful families and friends gathered together in the Cathedral of the Incarnation to celebrate an outpouring of the Spirit as over 50 individuals were either received as Episcopalians or confirmed and sealed with the Holy Spirit. The Cathedral was completely full. People were literally spilling out over pews while others stood in the side aisles or pulled out folding chairs. Excitement, anticipation, and a bit of nervousness filled the air.

There were also giggles in the air, maybe even especially emanating from the Redeemer section as our 7 young people being confirmed and 3 adults being received were surrounded by over 40 family members, friends, and fellow parishioners who had come to support and celebrate with them. This was a joyful celebration and I think we all knew it.

It honestly surprised me how much of a joy it was to be there. Don’t get me wrong, I love liturgies like this as much as the next priest, but there was something special about this liturgy. Sure, I did get to sit next to some hilarious friends who can make anything fun, but more importantly, I got to see these 3 adults and 7 young people, who I have gotten to know and be a part of their journey leading to this sacramental moment, take such a significant and grace-filled stance in their lives of faith. They doubled down on their baptismal promises, and the church around them committed to support them in living these promises in their daily lives. Together with the Easter proclamations, the spirited hymns, the sharing of the Good News, the sacramental invocation of the Holy Spirit, and the giggles coming from the Redeemer section, 10 of our fellow parishioners said aloud who they are at their core.

And as Rev. Steven Holt, Rector of Guardian Angels Parish in Hampden, said in his sermon that afternoon, it is precisely there, at our core, where we are most ourselves that the hope, the light, and the love of God is to be found. He reminded us that our world is in desperate need of these gifts and it is only by authentically being ourselves that we can be and bring the hope, light, and love of God to others.

Just moments after this, our Redeemer group came forward to the sanctuary. We literally spilled into the side chapels and down the center aisle as we laid hands on and prayed for our 10 fellow parishioners. It was powerful and joyful for me to be present, seeing tears roll down the faces of proud parents, wide and curious eyes fixed on a much-loved cousin, and bright face-filling smiles surrounding a fellow chorister. It was warm. It was fun. It was sacred.

During my seminary studies, I encountered a line that curiously has been attributed to so many people (mystics, theologians, and spiritual writers of various traditions and communities) that I sort of think of it as just a shared insight of humanity. It says that Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God. If this is true, then I have no hesitation in saying that this past Sunday was an authentic experience of God.

So I wonder, where are you experiencing joy; that is, where are you experiencing God? Is it at church or in school? Is it at work or at home? Is it in a relationship or a friendship? Is it deep within you, residing in hope, light, and love? Where are you experiencing joy? Call your joy to mind. Name your joy. And hear God laughing with you.

Love,

Josh

Dear members and friends of Redeemer,

On the drive home the other evening, I passed through a stretch of road where the trees had grown together overhead, their branches weaving into a canopy so thick it felt like a tunnel. For just a moment, the world narrowed. The wide, busy road became something else, enclosed, shadowed, almost still, even as I kept moving.

I’ve been thinking about that moment ever since.

Since Holy Week, life has been moving at a rapid clip. The sacred intensity of those days, the vigil, the cross, the empty tomb, carried its own momentum, and somehow that momentum never quite let up. We moved from Easter day into the weeks that followed, and the calendar kept filling, the needs kept coming, the world kept spinning. Before long it stops feeling like a season and starts feeling like a current.

Life comes at us fast. And when it does, there’s only one choice in front of us: hold on tight or let the velocity overwhelm us.

That’s what the tunnel reminded me of. Not because it slowed me down; I was still driving, still going somewhere, but because for a few seconds, it simplified my field of vision. The canopy overhead did what so much in our world struggles to do: it gathered everything in.

Maybe that’s what we need more of. Not an escape from the road, but moments where something gathers us in. A prayer. A shared meal. A Saturday evening or a Sunday morning where the light through the windows hits a just the right spot. A community that says, “you are not driving this alone.” There goes that road to Emmaus again.

The tunnel ended, of course. The road opened back up, and the world came rushing in again. Breathtaking. But I carried something out of it, a quietness, brief and real. A reminder that even in the middle of everything moving fast, grace has a way of arching overhead.
May we have eyes to see it.

Blessings,
Keith+

Dear Folks,

The disciple Thomas in John’s Gospel is what educators call a concrete thinker. Imagination is not his strong suit. He’s a realist, someone who calls a spade a spade. If Thomas was in late middle school or the early years of high school, and I asked him to analyze Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken,” he would write three sentences instead of the three pages assigned. His reflection might go something like this: “Mr. Frost went on a walk one day. When he came to a fork in the road, he chose one. He didn’t go the other way.” The end. Attached, to a similar offering I once received, was an asterisk and a note. “Dear Mr. Ware, I don’t like poetry. It seems so roundabout and vague. Why don’t the authors just say what they want to say? Do they even know what they are talking about? How do I know what to believe?”

Thomas has the same questions. He doesn’t believe in fairy tales. He is the one in our lives who cries “Humbug!” and points out the little man standing behind the curtain who calls himself the wizard. His questions are direct, exposing, even jarring, yet his guilelessness is a gift. When the stakes are high, the uncomfortable, straightforward question is the one that saves the day.

Like in the scene at the disciples’ final meal with Jesus. Supper was about over, most of the dishes had been cleared, and Jesus picked up a scrap of bread and starting talking about his death. “Little children,” Jesus said, “I am with you only a little while longer… Do not let your hearts be troubled. Give your heart to God, give your heart also to me. In my father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

No one else said a word, but Thomas couldn’t hold back. “Jesus, I have no idea where you are going, and I don’t know the way to get there.” “I am the way” is what Jesus told him, perhaps one of the most difficult pieces of poetry ever spoken, hard to understand and harder to know what to do with. You can imagine Thomas’ internal dialogue—Jesus isn’t a way. He is a man. Why is he talking in riddles?—yet Thomas’ voiced struggle conjures a metaphor from the Holy One that has made all the difference. “How can we know the way?’ Thomas asks. “The way is about human thriving,” Jesus suggests, “about choosing life over death and violence, about loving everyone without regard for tribe, about aiming for right action instead of right belief.”

The story goes that later Thomas was not around at the time when Jesus appeared to the other disciples after his death. They were crowded in a room with the door locked and the shades drawn, scared sick that they’d be the ones to get it next, when suddenly Jesus was present. No writer tells us where Thomas was at the time. I wonder… One good thing about being a concrete thinker and having not too vivid an imagination “is that you are not apt to work yourself up into quite as much of a panic as Thomaas’ friends had.” (Frederick Buechner) Maybe he had just gone out for a walk or a cup of coffee? Or maybe he was running an errand or sitting on a rock some place? Thomas’ reaction to the news of Jesus’ presence was what I would have expected: “I need to see Jesus, too,” he said. “I need to see his wounds and touch them.”

Fair enough. And Jesus comes to Thomas, and the two touch each other, doubts and wounds and all. And Thomas realizes that this is God.

So really, Thomas and his friends are not so different. Each of them is locked up in one way or another, scattered and scared, perhaps playing a role, worried that someone will pull back the curtain of their lives and see how much their knees are shaking. Us too. To be human is to question and wonder, to shine and to struggle, to be weary and wounded and full of promise, at once. The surprise for Thomas is that God is wounded, too, and that running away from our own brokenness is to hide from God herself. In the place that we are most hard-headed, most scared or angry, most shut down and locked away, most stuck and self-righteous is the place where God is reaching out to touch us.

What is the way, Thomas? Through the wounds…

Love, David