God said, “Go from your country
         and your people and your family home
         to a land I will show you…
         and you will be a blessing.
                  —Genesis 12.1-2

These days many of my United Methodist clergy colleagues are preaching their last sermons in their churches and packing up to go to a new appointment, or retiring. Students are graduating and heading off into new chapters in their lives. Some of us are staying put, but invisibly all of us are moving on, even if it is simply to a new way of living, a new depth of forgiveness, a new place of awareness or openness or compassion. God calls us to go, to leave behind the familiar and to venture into the mystery, because that’s where we meet God. We meet God in the place of not knowing, not being in control. Our unknowing opens our hearts to the presence of the One who is beyond all comprehension.

In the strange place, God is with you. In the awkward, hesitant moment, the Beloved accompanies you. In the tricky passage you have never encountered before, where you don’t quite know what to do, you are a gift, not because of your expertise, but because the Holy One is in you, radiant with blessing. Someone needs you to be right there, even if they haven’t been born yet.

Let go of what you must. Grieve what you leave behind. Do not seek self-confidence but God-confidence. Go into the mystery, where you will meet God. You will be blessed to be a blessing. And know that you are held in prayer, in gratitude and in solidarity as you go.        

         Teach me your way, O Lord,
                  that I may walk in your truth;
         give me an undivided heart
                  to revere your name.
                           —Psalm 86.11

Gather my heart, O Loving One:
         a heart undivided, not dispersed,

all of my fear and clinging
         absorbed into love,

all of my desires and distractions
         taken up in reverence,

my many motives aligned
         with the pure will to be a blessing,

not scattered to defend my little Self
         in all its various weaknesses

but one in trust and wonder
         and compassion.

All my bits and pieces I give you;
         make me one in your one heart,

to bear your love with grace,
         only to bear your love.

 

        We have been buried with him by baptism into death,
         so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead
         by the glory of God,
         so we too might live brand new lives.
                  —Romans 6.4

Glorious Love,
I let it all go now,
I let myself go.

An old tree disappearing
into the forest floor.
A whole closet cleared out.

All that I cling to,
what I wanted to do and to be,
the very who of me

I let fall into your hands,
die into your glory,
breathe out.

All day long I will wait
for the life you will give me,
for the I you will have me become

to rise at your touch,
to emerge from your breathing in me,
created in the moment,

not by my choosing,
not the old way, but a new life,
Christ raised, whole, in me.

I breathe out.
I wait.
I breathe in.

 

In the grass along the road
the body of a sparrow.

This road I walk, this mystery,
do I imagine myself unseen, unaccompanied?

Hagar and Ishmael in the desert,
watched over by angels.

A road seems good, but narrows,
becomes a mere path, fades into weeds.

Still, I am not alone. This is still
only the middle of the story.

I sit a little way from myself, a bowshot,
and get some perspective.

Even the silence is the voice of God,
this path a line on God’s palm.

Not a sparrow falls to the earth
apart from the Loving One.

 

                  
I walk on the wrinkled knuckles of roots
that reach far beyond my knowing
into blackness and life. They find water.

I eat the blossoms of the purple vetch.
I want their surrender to come inside me.
The meadow is its own kind of wisdom.

So many unseen creatures, so many
forms of life thriving, glorifying.
The woods know so much more than I do.

I sit still as my root hairs
feel their way among the stones
and memories to a river of stars.

A wolf appears and waits,
the earth meditates, breathing,
the trees sing their ancient hymn in me.

In outer space the sun’s light is invisible,
meaningless—until it finds a place to land.

Here, first thing, the sunlight
touches the tops of trees,
then lights up the faces of the houses,
wraps its arms around the town.
It reaches between things with delight,
warms the ground,
makes little pools of color in the woods,
dresses things, changes the air.

After 93 million miles the sunlight finds things,
even an old stone wall, to make it beautiful.

No matter your state,
you are here for a place
for God’s grace to land
and not fall on empty ground.
Grieving or joyous, sick or well,
struggling or at ease,
you are where God’s grace needs to come
to be beautiful.

Let it fall into you, and give thanks.

 

Dearly Beloved, Grace and Peace to you.

                          God is Love. Love is not an object but an action, a process. God is love and the loving of love, and the receiving of love. God is an unfolding relationship. So God is one, and yet must also be more than one. God is a loving parent and a begotten child and the love that proceeds from them, all three. God is community. God is a family.

The Holy Trinity live in loving attentiveness to each other but it is not a closed circle. They open out to us. You are invited to come to the table, to share in that love, to be part of God’s nature, God’s being, God’s loving. This is what it means to be part of the Body of Christ.

All people are our sisters and brothers, all living beings, all Creation: though we are many there is only One of us. Join the communion of the One Who Is Many. Come into the tender love of the Mother who births us, the Lover who desires us, and the love begotten in us. Find your being in the Holy One in whom we are One.

You are the fourth person of the Holy Trinity. Come.

Holy One,
Mysterious Love,
“I Am,”

        I wonder; I surrender.

Gentle Christ,
Self-Pouring
Companion,

        I thank you; I love you.

Holy Spirit,
Divine Breathing,
Emerging love,

       I bear you; I follow you.

 

                  (If you want you can sing this
                  to the Tune of Finlandia)
 

O Holy One, O Mystery beyond us,
we praise you, Lord, O Grace without a name.
Creator of the universe within You,
source of our life, Thou Infinite Divine,
unseen, unknown, we cannot frame or bind you,
only our wonder and our praise proclaim.
 

O Loving One, O Love who made the heavens,
you choose to come among us as our own,
the Living Word, in flesh revealed, Companion,
stranger and Friend, whose suff’ring is your throne.
Eternal Christ who humbly dies among us,
your tender mystery in love is known.

O Living One, O Grace who lives in our life,
we can’t contain you, but we can adore.
Spirit of Love beyond, beside, within us,
into our hearts your healing presence pour.
Many and One, O Myst’ry, Christ and Spirit,
we sing, we live your praise forevermore.

 

         Go make disciples of all nations,
         baptizing them in the name of the Father,
         and of the Son,
         and of the Holy Spirit.
                  —Matthew 28.19

The Holy Trinity is not a doctrine
but a mystery, a koan,
the paradox of three persons in one,
a meditation on the names of God.
Meditate on the mystery.
Pray with the names. Let them speak.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Mother, Child, Love Between.

Creator, Christ, Holy Breath.

Source of all Being, Eternal Word, Living Spirit.

Abba God, Only Begotten, Spirit of Love.

Infinite Parent, Infinite Sibling, Infinite Self.

The One Beyond, the One Beside, the One Within.

Transcendent Mystery, Healing Presence, Emergent Energy.

Source of Love, Experience of Love, Energy of Love.

Holy One, Holy Many, Holy Us.

Lord of the Universe, Jesus of Nazareth, Heart of my Soul.

Loving Silence, Gentle Word, Abiding Love.

Mystery of Being, Gift of Love, Breath of Life.

Mother, Son, Holy Spirit.

Loving One, Loving One, Loving One.