Someone Else’s Lectionary 

“Sometimes we must leave our fixed abode and become sojourners in uncertainty. We need to learn that no place, however hallowed our memories, is more holy than any other. The Earth is the Lord’s – the whole earth. Wherever we go, God is with us.” ~Elizabeth Watson

Some summers ago I found myself on the road to the coast, my car stocked with maps and books and sunscreen. I passed strip mall town halls and Broken Spoke Biker Church where the land is so flat and the sun is so bright you can see all the way to the heat haze on the horizon.

In a brand new place that felt familiar I realized that perhaps familiarity is based not on knowing a place but on knowing the outline of it–replicated, in this case, again and again across the hills and valleys I’ve driven. It’s much like the jigsaw puzzles of our youth–we pieced together the edges in the hope that it would help us make sense of the center, but eventually we find that knowing the contours of the issue only makes its component parts more confusing. In the same way, a new-familiar place quickly becomes either strange or hollow depending on how much you try to fill it in.

In a quiet moment I read that Bachman’s warbler has been declared extinct. The songbird, which lived in the very state through which I now drive, was one of several creatures now formally considered extinct after over a century without a single sighting. All that remains of it are pictures, its song, and no doubt the feathers it was apparently hunted for.

I listen to a recording of the warbler’s call, which sounds like a sizzle. I think about life and death and destruction. Later I will light a shrinking candle and speak its name into the flame, into the thin place. Extinction is a terrible thing to behold, and maybe that pain is its own prayer, its own holiness–something inside and outside pushing us to think about what we are and what we’re all for.

Later, on a bright screen in a dismal place, I read that the west glacier shelf of Antarctica seems to be doomed to melt no matter what we do. There is no beauty in this thin time of thinning ice, no holy mystery in seeing the beginning of an end–or, in the case of Bachman’s warbler, an end of an end, long assumed or anticipated. And maybe in someone else’s lectionary this day is a triumph, but for me it feels holy for all the wrong reasons.

My mind wandered to the Ascension. As a child in church I always thought of it as a glorious occasion–and perhaps it is, in retrospect. But now, in this time of deep departure, I considered how terribly sad it must have been in the moment to lose everything you believed in and be told this was called going home. And out here on the road it feels like every other day is an Ascension–a return of what was lost, then a loss of what returned.

I savor the evening in all its stages, from the pale gray sky with hints of some ambiguous pastel that takes up residence immediately after sunset, through to the warm blackness that follows and blankets everything. I take equal wonder in the black trees silhouetted against the light sky and the brilliant brightness of leaves illuminated by streetlight against a deep black background.

You can stare up into the even darkness until that is all you can see, and in that moment you could be any place at all.

We’re told God didn’t make the sun and moon until the fourth day. For three days–which may have been months, years, eons by human standards–there was no star to guide us to the manger, or anywhere. 

Some scholars argue that magi, though usually translated as “wise men” is better understood as “astrologer” or “astronomer.”

I have grown up in a world where a man has always stood on the moon – not continuously, of course, but I mean it has always been a possibility, a given. I have grown up in a world that no longer bothers standing in the moon, that can barely stand to even regard it as anything more than a given. The speed of this shift is somewhat disorientating. It was just 56 years ago (likely not even a blink, in God’s time) that the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to reach and orbit the moon. On December 24, 1968 their reading of Genesis 1:1-10 was broadcast all around the Earth.

We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you. 

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness

Right now I’m thinking of a sunrise. Not today’s (which was hours ago, as I slept in late). No, I’m thinking of a sunrise I saw several years ago over the Mississippi River one evening with a group of earnest college students.

I once read something about light reflecting off of things we cannot see, and if that’s where the world gets its colors maybe that’s why the sky inspires such awe and admiration. And indeed, on that night by the Mississippi, I remember we thanked God for painting those brilliant purple-pink-orange streaks across the sky.

The morning opened around us with a flutter, like an eye blinking in the growing light. We were at the mountain top, again. The land stretched for us for miles, down and out. Here, in the middle of somewhere. And it was as if we heard a voice–maybe not the same voice–all at once. Calling us to the new day. Broken for you, and for me.

What sticks with me most vividly is not the specifics of the sky, but the feeling of awe and community. Sometimes I think I miss that place, but I’m not sure if what I’m missing still exists, or is specific to that place at all.

Someone told me once about virtual pilgrimages in medieval times–monks and nuns would pray in front of paintings of the landmarks pilgrims passed, walk repeatedly around their abbeys to cover as many miles as other pilgrims did, or say a Hail Mary for every step of the walk. These pilgrimages “counted” to religious authorities even though in some ways they look like they’re feeling the whole point of a pilgrimage – going to a place of sacred importance. Some of this was probably a recognition of practicality (especially with cloistered people) but it also reveals an understanding of place that is spiritual as well as–or perhaps more than–physical.

I have perhaps never learned more about God than I did during the pandemic as I floated between a couple of virtual Quaker meetings. The first few times, I would close my eyes as is my habit during meetings, only to open them periodically, checking to make sure I wasn’t alone. But before long I built up what I realized is trust–that I am with others even if I can’t see or hear them every moment, just as I believe the Spirit is with us.

I’ve always believed, intellectually, that God is not confined to any particular physical space, but it wasn’t until worshiping online that I began to believe it with my heart. It was a personal revelation/revolution to understand that I can take worship, the Spirit, and community with me anywhere–and that I always could, and probably had been, even before I knew it.

My house is now a meeting house, my office is now a meeting house. The meeting house is in my phone in my pocket in my bag in my car on my nightstand or my kitchen or my porch or some quiet spot where the sea air blows.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament:
and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

In a small place surrounded by trees I passed a church so small it might have been a statue. The sky is gray, but a little farther down the street I saw a golden yellow tree so bright I figured I knew where the sun had gone.

I read that the leaves are losing their colors year-on-year, thanks to global warming. And I know that no amount of ink on the leaves will change the truth of climate change, but I understand the temptation to paint over the tough things in life. A friend’s recent letter began with “the future feels both impossible and inevitable every day” and I felt that sentiment particularly keenly out there, where the ocean seems almost manageable.

Maybe in God’s eyes this will be hardly a bump in the road in the end. I remember the time I escorted a spider from my apartment and, while dismantling its web (inconveniently located right by my bed, or else I may not have bothered) I reflected on how spider webs are so strong relative to their size and yet to a medium-sized human they’re nothing but wispy threads. In the end, I think most of us lack the ability to describe or understand power outside of human experience.

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

As I write, the lamp on one side of the room draws all the color towards it. The wall’s blue seeps around the light, eager streaks around the shadows. Draw not like moths, for there is no peril here, only the sense that some things in this world matter above all else.

Some summers ago in Bible study someone wondered if there are fewer miracles in our time than there were in the past, or if miracles are happening at the same rate but we’re just not able to notice them. Neither answer is comforting.