It is Wednesday May 6. I am officially in my 5th day on staff at Trinity Church. Yesterday was a brilliant taste of summer with temperatures in the 80s. Today is cooler with a soft spring rain falling. Tomorrow calls for seasonal temperatures, which seems to be the pattern going forward. Or is it? There are times we look at the forecast and then we look outside and what we read and what we see are different. We expect to see what we read in the forecast. After all, forecasting the weather is a science and science is about facts which lead to solid conclusions.
For some people, there is an expectation that faith works like the weather. To have faith means there is a prescribed or “forecasted” path to follow and if we do all that is asked we will be rewarded. If only it was that clear. Much like the weather, there is the “forecasted” life of faith and then there is the one we “see out the window,” the one we live every day. There are days when the prescribed path of our faith is difficult to see, understand, or follow. There are days when what we thought was happening turns out to be the opposite of our expectations. And there are radiant days when all is as it should be.
We are in the joy and glow of the Easter Season. A season of faith when our voices rise with alleluias and our is hope renewed. The Franciscan theologian Richard Rohr writes: “We must honestly admit that we don’t always understand the seemingly random forces at play, but if we believe that the Risen Jesus is the full and trustworthy unveiling of the nature of God, then we live in a safe and love-filled universe.” This is the solid foundation of our faith that sustains us through the days of our lives whether they are calm or stormy for we our surrounded by a “love-filled universe.”
In Gratitude,
Rev. Stephen J. Connor