This moment

 

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. (Philippians 4:4-5)

I despair of saying anything useful, something that will lighten your burden or make our current situation easier to bear. Everything is strange, emotions are frayed and we should not expect life will get easier, more free or fun any time soon.

The president says the pandemic is going around a bend. But if so, it’s because we are going around in a circle that will not be broken until there is a vaccine Americans trust.

So … must we just grit our teeth and bear it? No. There is more. There is always more.

We have this moment, and this moment, however conflicted, burdened or bleak, is more alive and beautiful that we know … or claim.

Yesterday, a disabled woman hobbled across the narthex as we completed a long afternoon of recording an online worship service. Out of breath, she was looking for a place to vote. Hearing there is no early voting at St. Timothy, she sat with a sigh, exhausted, and we talked.

She had no deep story, no tale of woe, just weary frustration that she’d been directed to the wrong place on this dreary, gray day devoid of sunlight.

We sat there, listening, me to her and her to me. Nothing important happened. Nothing memorable was said, just a few words of encouragement and direction to an early voting site. Then, refreshed, she stood and limped toward the door, offering words of thanks for a moment’s respite.

That was that. Nothing important in the world was changed, except for the two of us.

Our paths crossed in a moment we could not have anticipated, a drop in the endless ocean of time, meaningless it seems. But by being there, by paying attention, late afternoon weariness became a moment of grace on a chill autumn day when a stranger became a sacrament of the gentleness and hope for which we ache as these endless days stretch toward the horizon.

Every moment holds exactly this simple, gracious possibility, the opportunity to just … be there … with your heart open … in every present moment … and then the next … and the next.

This is how we get through this time … and every time … and become more human in the process.

So don’t get downhearted. Rejoice in the present moment, for the Lord is near. Closer than you think.

Pr. David L. Miller