I Believe

Oh, little sweetheart. I heard the most beautiful song at last night's Good Friday service. It made me cry and cry. It's a quite recent composition and I heard the NYC Trinity Church Choir sing it but the video below is (I think) its very first performance. The young conductor comes out at the end. I'll leave the notes about it (and the amazing words) below. 

It just is a breathtaking expression of faith! How I miss you, little sweetheart, and my mom, too. I hope you two are having a root beer float in Heaven right now and not worrying about me too much, knowing that things like this get to me. We'll all be together again and forever, soon. I believe. With all my love...

NOTES about ""Even When He is Silent"

Commissioned by the St. Olaf Festival in Trondheim, Norway (Olavsfestdagene). 

The text was found in a concentration camp after World War 2: 

I believe in the sun, even when it's not shining. 

I believe in love, even when I feel it not. 

I believe in God, even when He is silent.

On Good Friday

Here, little sweetheart, are remarks I composed and delivered for a Good Friday service a few years ago at NYC's historic West End Collegiate Church. With all my love forever.

 

Holy Week - Good Friday

Little sweetheart, today is another of the days of Holy week that I always observe - Good Friday - and when I was active in that lovely church I told you about, West Side Collegiate, I was invited three years in a row to prepare remarks, reflections for the Good Friday service. The last year I participated, the service was recorded and later uploaded to YouTube. 

My faith is very grounded in the love we shared and my belief that I will be with you again, soon and forever. So, naturally, I speak of you in this address. I'm posting here below. 

Love you forever.

Also - Good Friday...

Today is also Good Friday, little sweetheart. 

At noon there are often services around the world and three or four that I have been to here in New York. The first one I ever attended was at St Thomas. I’ll watch the Trinity Church one today. And for many years, I attended the one at West End, including three consecutive years when I was one of the speakers. 

The Good Friday service is known for its prolonged silences, its meditative component, between the seven pieces of liturgy that are spoken over the course of a service that lasts between one and three hours. The liturgy consists of what are referred to as Christ’s Last Seven Words, although to be more precise, they are Christ’s last seven utterances, what he was heard to say while on the cross. 

Often, these services have seven parishioners choose one of these passages both to read and to compose a mediation upon its theme. That’s what I did those three years in a row at West End, little sweetheart. I always spoke of you, of course. And the final year, the service was recorded. 

That’s what’s here below, little sweetheart. My meditation on “The Seventh Word”, very much to do with you - my love for you, my grief, my faith that you are forever and that I will be with you again soon. 

How I love you! Forever! 

Good Friday - To Be Ever More Mindful

Little sweetheart, one of the most resonant readings in the Good Friday service I watched this afternoon from Grace Church was an excerpt from something called “God’s Daring Plan” - from a book called “Bread of Angels” by Barbara Brown Taylor. The passage was incredibly original and intensely moving and I went looking for more information about its author soon after.

The author was an Episcopal priest and her stories began as a collection of some of her absolutely breathtaking sermons. “Bread of Angels” weaves its way through the stories of the Bible with insightful scholarship, humor and directness, using language both conversationally and brilliantly.

The excerpt read last night from a chapter highly regarded as the very center of the book itself is called, as I said above, little sweetheart, “God’s Daring Plan”. The full passage takes one from creation and Eden all the way up to there Incarnation. It’s absolutely wonderful. I didn’t get to read it in full until just now. Last night there was just this short bit, that even reading aloud now, makes me start to cry. It reads thus:

“He had made them, it was true, and he knew how fragile they were, but their very breakability made them more touching to him, somehow. It was not long before God found himself falling in love with them. He liked being with them better than any of the other creatures he had made, and he especially liked walking with them in the garden in the cool of the evening. It almost broke God’s heart when they got together behind his back, did the one thing he had asked them not to do and then hid from him – from him! – while he searched the garden until way past dark, calling their names over and over again. Things were different after that. God still loved the human creatures best of all, but the attraction was not mutual. Birds were crazy about God, especially ruby-throated hummingbirds. Dolphins and raccoons could not get enough of him, but human beings had other things on their minds. They were busy learning how to make things, grow things, buy things, sell things, and the more they learned to do for themselves, the less they depended on God. Night after night he threw pebbles at their windows, inviting them to go for a walk with him, but they said they were sorry, they were busy.”

There’s something in regret, little sweetheart, in remembering all my mistakes, that makes me long ever more for you and just always to do better. And I think there’s something in this passage too about thinking we have time - the Buddha’s famous caution. May I listen quietly and remember and hear you as you guide me through my days. How very much I love you. How very grateful I am. With all my love forever.
 

Good Friday (remarks)

Little sweetheart, today is Good Friday. It has a special resonance to me for a variety of reasons but perhaps especially because for three years in a row I was asked to write and deliver remarks as part of West End’s service. The last of these was actually recorded, so it could be posted on the church’s website. It’s very much about you, of course, and I’m posting it here, below. With all my love forever. 

Good Friday - Past & Present

Little sweetheart, today is Good Friday. 

I have a lot to tell you about Holy Week and I will within these pages but right now I'd just like to re-share the remarks I compised and gave a couple of years ago at New York's historic West End Collegiate Church for you on Good Friday. 

You're in my every thought, my little sweetheart, and every prayer. With all my love forever.

 

   

The Seventh Word

Little sweetheart, with some film loops and the audio from the Good Friday remarks I wrote for you, I made a little video. It's here. Love you forever...

Keep The Faith

Little sweetheart, I think I told you that I was asked to write and deliver remarks on Good Friday at that little church I go to sometimes. They asked me each of the last three years. This year, apparently, they also recorded them. So, they can heard and/or downloaded here. Love you forever.