09-12-23

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
September 12, 2023
I have written about this before, but September 11 is a strange day for me. Like many of you, I have vivid memories of that day 22 years ago. There were so many emotions from that Tuesday and the days that followed. The church I was serving at the time had a community worship service that night that we had to put together quickly, and I had to write a sermon in a very short period of time. There was fear, confusion, lostness and so many other emotions that people expressed at that time, but of course, September 11 is also my wife’s birthday. 22 years ago, we had big plans for dinner together, but that had to be delayed. But as the years have come and gone, I find myself focusing on the positive—my gratitude for the amazing human being who continues to call me her spouse. Though I still feel grieve for what occurred on that day, I find my focus elsewhere. As I think about life in general, there is probably a lot of that in a lot of our lives—circumstances where we hold two very different emotions in tension, or maybe we do not emphasize the more common emotions on a certain day of the year. I remember hearing a person talk about despising Christmas, and then she shared her story. When she was done, I realized that had it been my story, I might have despised Christmas as well. It wasn’t the holiday or even the Christian meaning attached to the day, but an experience that one does not erase. In the end, let us be slow to judge people and quick with an invitation for them to tell us the story. I believe James said something about being slow to speak and quick to listen.

We live in a complicated world where perception is shaped by experience. Holy God, provide me with the grace to listen and the capacity to respect the experiences of others, especially when those experiences are nothing like my own. It is good to ask questions, but it is never my place to question the experience of another. That is my hope and prayer. Amen.