Our parish council has recently decided to dedicate the beginning of our meetings to fellowship and formation by engaging in a book study. This year, we are reading An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor. Though we have just begun, I wanted to share the title with you in case you’d like to read it, too. I suspect some of the themes or examples may come up in my preaching as the year goes on.
The premise of the book is that we have allowed the presence of magnificent houses of worship—going all the way back to Solomon’s Temple—to distract us from the reality that God is present everywhere, and that often the holiest of experiences take place outside the church walls. Last night, members of parish council shared with one another examples of times when we encountered God somewhere ordinary—in nature, in a small group, or while supported in a challenging time. For some of us, it took quite a bit of reflection to identify such holy moments. Speaking for myself, I shared one story, but then recalled other experiences long after our meeting ended.
On Tuesday in Holy Week, I attended the chrism mass for the diocese, at which all the clergy renew their ordination vows, and the holy oils to be used in the coming year are blessed by the bishop. At that service, our guest preacher was the Rt. Rev. Dr. J. Neil Alexander, Professor Emeritus of Liturgy and Theology at the School of Theology of the University of the South in Sewanee. Bishop Alexander asked all of us to recall that moment when we first felt alive in our ministries, and to hold onto it—to call it to mind constantly, to let it nourish us. I think Barbara Brown Taylor is calling us to do the same thing. She asks us to recall, over and over again, where we have met the living God, and to hold fast to those experiences of what she calls “More.”
What about you? Where has the holy touched your own life? When was there a moment when you thought to yourself, “Wow, God is in this place!” These are places we might set up an altar, if not physically then in our own hearts and minds, to help us mark that experience as something we can cherish and allow to nourish us going forward.
Love,
Mother Terry+