Dear saints,
This past week the vestry and staff have been doing some reflecting on this most curious of years. I even had the opportunity to do so with a group of unsuspecting Rotarians as a guest speaker at one of the local clubs. I found myself raising up some lessons learned: improvise, early and often; accept that ’normal’ is always provisional; learn to see the remarkable resilience of human beings; and trust that in the end life will find a way to thrive. For the staff I added: never bring your dog to a meeting, it rarely ends well. During our Wednesday night ‘On Reflection’ broadcast, even the three men on the clergy team at All Saints’ managed to reflect with tenderness on how this year had helped us see our bodies in new ways. For me, change, including great, big change like a year of Covid-19, is a stretching experience. It expands our frame of reference and enlarges our scope of vision, not because we all of a sudden become wiser than we used to be, but in the slight and not so slight fissures we see where it is we now need to grow. In the words of the singer-poet Leonard Cohen I so love to recall, this Advent more than ever is a time to pay attention to what is between the cracks: ‘Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering, There is a crack, a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.'
Grace, mercy and peace to you all,
