Sounds of Sheer Silence

Reflection for Proper 7C Thomas E Wilson, Visiting Celebrant St. Mary’s Episcopal, Gatesville, NC June 22, 2025 Sounds of Sheer Silence 1 Kings 10: 1-15a Psalm 43 Galatians 3: 23-29 Luke 8: 26 -39 Let me start off, not with the lessons themself, but with an old Simon and Garfunkel song: Hello darkness my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again, Because a vision softly creeping, Left its seeds while I was sleeping, And the vision that was planted In my brain Still remains, Within the sounds of silence, In the lesson from 1st Kings for today, the Prophet Elijah has just finished his battle against Queen Jezebel and her prophets. The Hebrew name Elijah, comes from a combination of two names for the Hebrew God; El and Yah. The name means that he understands that he is doubly committed to the Hebrew faith. Now, the thing to make sure you pass on to your children is to never pick a fight with a rich and powerful woman named JEZEBEL. Jezebel is the daughter of the King of a neighboring Kingdom, Sidon, and she was devoted to the Storm and Fertility God named Baal. Her name means “Baal is exalted”. It would be like if you decided to name your child, “Jesus saves” so your child would be raised with an understanding that he or she would be devoted to that idea of God. She brought that worship and devotion of Baal to the court of the Hebrew King Ahab. Ahab’s job description was to be the King under the rule of the Hebrew God, YAWEH. But the King loved the girl, and she ruled the roost as soon as she showed up in town. Elijah could have handled Ahab easily but Jezebel was another story. So, Elijah challenged Queen Jezebel’s priests to a contest; all 450 of them. All by himself, Elijah builds an altar, coveres it with wood and logs. Then he challenged the Priests of Baal, all 450 of them, as an ecumenical gesture, to call upon their God to set the offering on fire, to cook the meat. The Priests spent a lot of energy, shouting, singing, dancing, cutting themselves: all the standard Baal Worship routine, calling on their God to set the offering on fire. Hours passed, as all worship services do, and Nothing happened. Elijah made fun of them when the fire did not come from Heaven. He taunted them that maybe their God, Baal, may be busy, or sleeping, or really busy suffering with an intense intestinal distress in the Celestial outhouse. After all the 450 of them were tired out, Elijah then put water all over the Altar, cut and slaughtered a bull,and laid the pieces on the Altar, all by himself. And then, all by himself, he called upon his God, YHWH, to accept his sacrifice. Then the Altar was covered with a blazing fire. Elijah’s God had won and in a great show of thanksgiving for his God’s power, Elijah then slaughtered all 450 of the Queen’s Prophets, all by himself. In a monarchy, ruled by an evil Queen, you are wise not to win, and even wiser not to gloat by massacring her henchmen. Jezebel puts him on her hit list. Discretion being the better part of Valour, Elijah gets the heck out of town and flees as fast as he can. He keeps running until he hits the wilderness. Then he keeps on running as far as he can go. Then, he clubs a lonely mountain to talk with God. But, his mind is so busy that he cannot stop to really listen. When our minds are full, it is impossible to listen.There are so many places he cannot hear God, but in this place, on the edge of nowhere, he enters into silence, and then, and only then, he hears God in the silence. Many of us who go to church, know something about that situation of when we go to a place of worship and our minds are so filled up with our own agendas, that we get nothing out of that experience. If we are fortunate, the words and thoughts will stay in our brains and later come back when we are reminded with a word or phrase. Last week, I went out to Colorado to see my baby. My baby, Shanon, has been my baby for over half a century. She lives with her husband and their two sons; sons who are in their second decades. One day, I went with my daughter, her husband Steve and one of my grandsons, the one who is studying Environmental Science in College, to the Denver Botanical Gardens Complex. The Denver Botanical Garden is a place of great beauty. Every path we took, we were hit with thousands of wonderful plants, trees, shrubs and flowers. There was a moment when an employee was trimming an amazingly beautiful flowering bush. As the cuttings touched the ground, I fell in love with the beauty. I wanted it! Now I live in a small condo on the Outer Banks, and that means I do not have room for a garden, so this was not something that I was able to buy to beautify my life, plus, even if there was , how could I carry it on the plane ride home from Colorado. Yet, I looked at the cutting on the ground, and I wanted it! The world stopped for me as I looked at that beauty. I asked the gardener, but he told me that wasn’t allowed. I thanked him for the care he took of the garden, and we walked on. But from that moment, there were no words I could come up with about the beauty everywhere. Beauty I could not own, but of which I could marvel. We looked at so many different kinds of flowers and shrubbery, that words seemed so useless. I would stop and look deeply; filled with absolute joy about what God was doing for us and with the gardeners who kept crossing plants to create variations in this creation, But, there were no words deep enough that could be said about all that beauty. I started to walk more slowly, stopping to look more deeply at the beauty, the complexity, of the so many different variations, the gifts from a loving God, who was working with people, so that we could stand in worshipful awe of the plants and the people. I stayed in silence, because words would just get in the way. In the Gospel for today, Jesus confronts a man possessed by demons. Out of compassion, Jesus sets him free from all the noise that had entrapped him. In silence, the man is able to listen deeply, and from the depths of that silence, he is able to speak only the words that need to be said. That is what I need to do more often, and I would suggest to you: listen deeply and speak only the words that need to be said. Sound Of Sheer Silence When I first dated my wife to be, I tried to fill up all my silences, Not knowing what that silence is; It’s when “you” becomes “thee’. But some words do get in our way, Becoming noise without meaning, Conversation turn into demeaning, Ruins what we really mean to say. Let’s take time for us to be still, Leaving spaces for us to grow In the time after we say “Hello Providing room for Spirit's will, Let’s make our sentences to slow, Giving room for our love to grow.

Paul and Silas Bound in Jail

A Reflection 7th Sunday of Easter Thomas E Wilson, Preacher St. Luke/ St Anne’s Roper, and Grace, Plymounth June 1, 2025 Acts 16:16-34 Revelation 22:12-14,16-17,20-21 John 17:20-26 Psalm 97 Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail As I begin this reflection about Paul and Silas Bound in Jail; I have to give you a warning. Many years ago in the mountains of North Carolina, I went to a BlueGrass Festival and it was there that I first heard it, and fell in love with a song that I started to sing along with a phrase in the chorus sung by so many different people over the decades. Paul and Silas bound in jail, all night long (3X) One for to sing, other for to Pray, all night long (3X) Saying who shall deliver for me “Who shall deliver for me?” So far in my pastoral life, I have visited many people in jails and prisons in three different states, but have not yet not been confined myself. So far, so good. However, there have been more than a few times where I could find no way out of difficult states of mind when I wondered: “Who shall deliver for me.” There are times when I come home, open the door, and I am hit with the fact that my wife who I loved and was loved by, died one hundred and five weeks ago, and she is not going to be there. And our dog, Yoda, the Wonder Dog, which we together rescued from the pound, died last month. Therefore, I am going to be alone and there is no one to deliver me from my sorrow. The reality is that I don’t want anyone to deliver me. My hope is that I can remember to see that I am not alone, but there is a power greater than myself ,who is there with me who will deliver me from my self-pity and remind me how fortunate I was to be loved and have the number of those hours, days, weeks, months and years together. In the story of Paul and Silas, they have the opportunity to escape, but they choose to remain in the jail with the jailer, out of compassion for the jailer who would be executed if any of his prisoners would escape. They do not take advantage of the release, but choose to enter deeply into their imprisonment and new ministry there with the jailer and his family. The question for them is not “Who shall deliver for me.”, but “Where does our faith lead us?” Out of love for the Risen Lord, they are what we would call “prisoners of hope” set free to do ministry in the world in which they live.. In my life, when I walk through the door into the empty room, I also have to ask, “Since I was loved, where does my faith lead me out of my love for her.” This last week, I had to write a reflection about what it is like to have someone who loved and was loved in one’s life. It is the understanding that it is only when you realize the jail you are in; when you understand this is the place where your particular ministry can begin and where you, in spite of yourself, are loved, So, where does your love lead you today?

Making A Home

A Reflection for the 6th Sunday of Easter St. Mary’s Church, Gatesville, NC Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher and Celebrant May 26, 2025 Acts 16:9-15 Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 John 14:23-29 Psalm 67 Making a Home I am a very lucky man, I get to drive about a hundred miles one way, close to 2 hours, in order to get here on Sunday morning. By Sunday morning, I should have already written the sermon and emailed a copy to St. Mary’s so they can make a copy I can read from. The drive gives me two hours to leave the sermon alone, forgetting the whole concept of perfection, and just have moments of awe about how beautiful this part of this country is. The roads are not too crowded in the early morning, so I can think about how blessed I am. It gives me a chance to keep some friendsin my heart with prayer. While I have to keep my eyes open in that kind of prayer, I don’t crowd out my thoughts with words, but keep thinking of old friends of mine, like one whose wife is dying, being surrounded with graceful peace. He is my age and I met him when I was invited to volunteer at an Addiction Treatment Center as a Chaplain, to help the addicts to go deeper into the Serenity Prayer. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference; just for today” I did the volunteer work there because my older brother had been an addict and he refused to get help. He committed suicide when it got too much for him. His two teenage sons came to live with me and my wife for a time that summer. I realized I needed to help people who were not parishioners, and was given the opportunity to help addicts there at the center. As I prepared for the Sunday sermon, especially, I was swimming in the words from the Gospel Passage from the Book of John’s Gospel, for this Sixth Sunday of Easter: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.” I am praying that my friend and his wife will find that the Holy ( Father, Son and Holy Spirit) are making a home with them. “Making a Home” There is a difference between being a guest and making a home with someone. I have been a guest in many homes. In a couple of weeks I am going to Colorado to visit my daughter. She is putting on a full court press to get the old man to move to Colorado. She informs me that her husband has already connected with a real estate person who will be taking me around to look at properties. I love my daughter, my grandsons and my son in law. I will be a good guest, but at this point I am not yet ready to make my home with them. My daughter is a wonderful person; she is in her 50’s, but she is still my baby. I will enjoy my time snuggling with them. I will take them out to dinner, and I will pay for my grandsons’ drinks. We will laugh and perhaps cry together. We will share special moments. We will make meals together. We will use the same bathrooms: to the naked eye we will share a property; but it is not yet making a home with them. My home is on the Outer Banks, it is the place where my wife and I lived; until she died two years ago. Every day I walk into that Condo we shared, and while she is not physically there, I relax and tell the empty space the news of what is going on at the places and the people I have visited that day. In the home we shared, I will tell her I miss her and share what is going on with our friends. I was reminded of Carl Sandburg’s poem Home Thoughts THE SEA rocks have a green moss. The pine rocks have red berries. I have memories of you. Speak to me of how you miss me. Tell me the hours go long and slow. Speak to me of the drag on your heart, The iron drag of the long days. I know hours empty as a beggar’s tin cup on a rainy day, empty as a soldier’s sleeve with an arm lost. Speak to me … When I speak honestly to my wife; her spirit is there with me. The same is true of my Lord Jesus. When I speak honestly with my Lord, I indeed know he is with me, making a home when I share my heart. It is not the words we use, but the hearts we open. Prayers are not the words we memorize and recite, but the heart we share. With churches, there is a difference between going to a church and making a church home. One of the problems of the Book of Common Prayer, is that we are tempted to speed read through the service. If we only say the words out loud with our mouth, but don’t engage our souls to share with our Lord and our fellow parishioner, or visitor; we miss the whole point of prayer. As a Priest, I have to empty out my pride and remember that I am only a servant taking part in a mystery beyond my understanding. As a Preacher, I “make with a message” by going deeper than the surface of the words I would read in the scripture lessons and prayers for the day, echoing in my heart, under scoring with God’s Spirit lived out in the lives of my neighbors, parishioners, friends and family. As a Parson, I am called to listen to Parishioners and neighbors who struggle to be faithful to their church, their community, their family, the people in the other pews, and the promises they make and have made throughout their lives. I have been fortunate in that the four and a half decades in the churches I have served as a Priest, when they dared to believe in forgiveness rather than perfection. Thank you for allowing me a chance to come into your heart.

New Commanment: Love One Another

A Reflection for the 5th Sunday of Easter May 18, 2025 St. Luke and St Anne’s, Roper, Grace Plymouth Thomas E Wilson, Guest "New Commandment; Love One Another” Acts 11:1-18 Revelation 21:1-6 John 13:31-35 Psalm 148 From the Gospel of John for today: “'Where I am going, you cannot come.' I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." I had an older brother when I was growing up. He was a year and four days older than me and athletic and handsome as all get out. As we were growing up, he was always going to be taller than me. We got into a lot of fights with each other; most of which I lost. My mother, who had been an only child growing up, longed to have a brother or sister and could never understand why we were wasting our energies competing against each other. As we grew older, he was held back a year in High School and he and I graduated together. I went to Chapel Hill to college and he went into the Marine Corps. We got into heated discussions over the War in Vietnam, but that Christmas, as we were both on leave, he took me out for my first legal beer the day I turned 18. We had missed each other and we learned how to disagree. Two years later, when our father died, we realized how much we loved each other and life was too short. When he got out of the Corps and I graduated from college, he asked me to be the best man at his wedding. We both had many flaws, and over 20 years later he died. My mother asked me to say a few words at his funeral, and I spoke of how much time we lose letting differences get in the way of love. Life is too short not to love. The lessons for today are about needing to remember to love. Love is not meant to be restricted to people with whom we agree, but to go way beyond approval and about loving the neighbor, even loving the stranger, and even attempting with divine help, to love the enemy. The writer of the Book of Revelation reminds us God does not look down from a far off heaven: "See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. In the Book of Acts, Peter is relating about his trying to show how pure he is; so pure that he will not associate with the uncircumcised, meaning Gentiles, or 99% of the Roman Empire. This is the reality in which he lives, choosing rigid conformity instead of open love for neighbor. These are the people who are beyond his compassion. But the new vision of Grace that Peter is given is of a radical expansion of what family means. Our brothers and sisters are those in the much larger human family. In my senior year in High School, sixty one years ago, I was a confirmed member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Upstate New York. I had been confirmed by Bishop Peabody and one day, two months before graduation, we gort news that Mrs Peabody, the Bishop’s wife, was arrested for being with a group of black and white people who were attempting to integrate a restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida, after attempting to integrate the local Episcopal Church whose ushers had refused to admit her and her friends. It was considered scandalous that she acted out of a love that went beyond accepted social, and even legal, boundaries. When I graduated from High School that year and went to college in North Carolina, I stopped going to church, because I had felt that the Episcopal Church had become a clique rather than a church. It was more a fit of pique, a disappointment that the church I loved had let me down. In my second summer, in 1966, I took a job working in an Outdoor Drama in St. Augustine, “The Cross and Sword”. One Sunday morning that summer, I stopped in front of that church and in my bitterness, I refused to go in. The next year in March of 1967 my father died while he and my mother were visiting my mother’s parents in Daytona Beach. After I graduated in 1968, she moved down to Daytona Beach to help take care of her father. She placed my father’s ashes in the Veterans Cemetery in St. Augustine. Every year I visited my mother, I would always stop by St. Augustine, visiting his grave, but it took me almost two decades to stop at that church. It was only after I graduated from Seminary that I had enough faith to forgive. Forgiveness is not given to people and institutions to forgive because the offenders deserve it, but forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves to let go of our hate and pain. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in 1967 in his last book, Where Do We Go From Here, is about hope in the midst of disappointment and bitterness; “These reactions poison the soul and scar the personality, always harming the person who harbors them more than anyone else. The only healthy answer lies in one’s honest recognition of disappointment even as he still clings to hope, one’s acceptance of finite disappointment even while clinging to infinite hope.” We end with the words of the Psalmist for today, where we end up praising God in the middle of the lives which we live: Young men and maidens, *old and young together. Let them praise the Name of the Lord, *for his Name only is exalted, his splendor is over earth and heaven. He has raised up strength for his people and praise for all his loyal servants, * the children of Israel, a people who are near him. Hallelujah!

Jesus Calls Us

A Reflection for 3rd Sunday of Easter St Luke & St. Anne. Roper and Grace, Plymouth May 4, 2025 Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant/Preacher Acts 9:1-20 Revelation 5:11-14 John 21:1-19 Psalm 30 Jesus Calls Us We started off the service with the old Hymn, “Jesus Calls Us”. The words were written by Cecil Frances Alexander, a 19th Century Anglo-Irish writer and poet, and here she calls us to, and the lessons underscore, being called to a deeper relationship with God and the Creation. In the Gospel of John. This Gospel should have ended at the 20th chapter of John, for there is a colophon, a literary formula, an ending which sums everything up. But, there is this chapter added on; a new ending at the end of the ending. I think it was probably added in by an editor of the Gospel who just had to add one more story, a story of Jesus inviting his followers to bring his spirit into their daily life and work. I think it is a nice way of reminding us that the Jesus story does not end, but it continues in our lives. Or, the author's way of saying that the story of Jesus has no ending; as long as two or three are gathered in God’s name the Good News continues. 1. Jesus calls us o'er the tumult of our life's wild, restless sea; day by day his sweet voice soundeth, saying, "Christian, follow me!" In the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus calls Saul, an enemy of the Jesus movement, to totally change his whole perception of his own faith. Saul, famous for being zealous in the persecution of those who followed Jesus; now is called to be Paul, the one who becomes the chief interpreter of the meaning of the Christ. The name Saul means “asked for” as in the name of the First King of Israel, Saul, whom the people called for a King. Saul will change his name to Paul which means humble 2. As of old the apostles heard it by the Galilean lake, turned from home and toil and kindred, leaving all for Jesus' sake. Saul starts off his religious career as being a devoted Pharisee; one who is determined to obey all matters of religious dogma and practice. He sees in the Jesus movement of the Christians a neglecting and disregarding, and even a hi-jacking of the Pharisee spirit by the followers of Jesus. So, in the name of religious purity, he works overtime, using all of his strength and powers to viciously get rid of these heretics. He works so hard that he collapses. In his collapse, a power greater than his religion gives him an invitation to healing. Saul is told to place himself into the hands of Ananias, a follower of Paul’s enemy, Jesus. The healing is a new sight for Saul, a way of seeing all things in a different way; seeing things through the eyes of Jesus. The vision he receives gives Saul a whole new vision of life and it will give hima new name “Paul” which means humble, as he empties himself out for the Gospel. 3. Jesus calls us from the worship of the vain world's golden store, from each idol that would keep us, saying, "Christian, love me more!" Six decades, more than a half of a century ago, my draft board sent me a note to go get a pre-induction physical. The docs did all the things they needed to do and told me that I had a cataract and was functionally blind in one eye. It was news to me, but then I am a male and by definition, do not pay attention to my own body. I pointed out to them that during the Arab Israeli Conflicts, General Moshe Dayan only had one functioning eye. The doc pointed out that the Israeli armed forces had different standards. After different operations over the decades, I see all right, but not perfectly. It is a reminder to me that I need to pay attention, to look deeply and see what is really going on in my life and in my world. As Proverbs remind us: “There are none so blind as those who will not see.” 4. In our joys and in our sorrows, days of toil and hours of ease, still he calls, in cares and pleasures, "Christian, love me more than these!" How much of a change is it when we make a commitment to truly see? Let me give you an idea. You have heard me tell you over and over again, of my religious beliefs; but I have not told you of my political beliefs. I am what is called a “Yellow Dog Democrat”! That is a term that came from the time after Reconstruction in the South after the Civil War. They were men, only men could vote then, who said they would vote for a “Mangy Yeller Dog” before they would ever vote for a Republican.. Where am I on the political scale? I am so far to the left that I consider Bernie Sanders much too conservative. Yet, regardless of my political beliefs, I pray every day for the current President of the United States, with whom I disagree on almost everything. Prayer is not a matter of agreement but of entering into the sacred space between each one and to see each other as brothers and sisters of Christ and children of the living God. 5. Jesus calls us! By thy mercies, Savior, may we hear thy call, give our hearts to thine obedience, serve and love thee best of all.

Hope or Belief?

A Reflection for the the 2nd Sunday of Easter Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher St Mary’s Episcopal Church, Gatesville, NC April 27, 2025 Acts 5:27-32 Revelation 1:4-8 John 20:19-31 Psalm 150 Hope or Belief? Today’s Gospel lesson is the one that is the reason for the phrase “Doubting Thomas”. It is when I wonder what was in my father’s mind when I was born and as he was filling out the forms in the hospital in St. Louis gave me the name “Thomas”. The story he used to tell was that as my mother was in labor, he took a break from the waiting room and went next door to a bar where the man sitting at the stool next to him was named “Thomas”. My father liked telling stories; believing that stories should be mainly enjoyable, the bigger and taller the better, and where truth was a negotiable factor. Shakespeare must have had my father in mind when he has Hamlet say: “There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” I grew to get used to the idea of being a “doubting Thomas” and I grew to expect to ask questions and use my brain to doubt. I understand the difficulty that Thomas had, when the other disciples told him that they had seen Jesus, the dead Jesus, alive as he could be. Doubt was a good fall back to have. I found it helpful when I made a living being a counselor who understood when people felt the need to shade an elastic truth. It was helpful when I taught in a College as students had so many reasons for papers being late, with so many parents being ill or dying. When I became a Priest, I got used to hearing stories from parishioners, and indeed other clergy, which omitted certain details that they did not want to be a cause of my Priestly dissaproval. C.G Jung, the 20th Century Swiss Psychiatrist, had the concept of “Persona”, which is a mask that we humans begin developing about the time we start interacting with the world outside our home, like going to school. We develop and wear our persona as we interact with, or hide behind from, other people in our daily life. In order to really know someone, we have to get past their persona. When I met a person called Pat the month after I was ordained in 1984, I focused on her “persona”. I figured I knew everything about her the first time I attended a meeting she was running. I walked away from that crowded meeting figuring she was a waste of space and my time. Luckily, I had to attend a lot more meetings with her, and five years later we got married for 34 years of the happiest times of my life. The longer I worked as a Priest, the less important it was to be judgmental of a person who might be shading the facts of his or her life, and the more important it was to focus on the hope in each person. It is what St. Francis called, and the late Pope Francis, who died this last week. echoed in his life, is “Listening with the ear of the heart.” I am reminded of the old television show I saw in my youth, “Dragnet”. There was a character called Joe Friday, who is pure “persona”, who wanted “just the facts!” You can hear the “Persona” in his voice and see it in his face. What a sensible way to look at crime and misdemeanors. Just the facts! The story in the Gospel is the story of “Doubting Thomas” who is pure persona. Thomas is a man who looks and wants to get just the facts. He wanted the facts of Jesus’s body being dead, the nail riddled hands, the gaping wounded seared side. However, he discovers there was a deeper reality than the facts. In the 150th Psalm for today, the Psalmist says that when we enter the Presence of the Holy, we are encouraged to enter with Thanksgiving and praise. So how did each of you enter the church for today's service? Was it a look at how well the church was all fixed up, or not fixed up, to meet your standards? Did you come to the sanctuary to give or withhold your approval based on your exacting standards? Or did you come to listen with the ear of God’s heart, and see with the divine vision? When I was in Seminary, we would have daily morning prayer and a weekly Holy Eucharist and each of us would have times of Chapel duty getting everything ready for the service. Oh, how important it was to get everything right. After all, when we finally graduated and got ordained, it would be important that we would make sure the Altar Guilds in the Parishes, we might be called to after we graduated, would get it right. Getting it right! That is one of the issues in the lesson from the Acts of the Apostles. The local authorities want to have a well run community and urge the disciples not to stir up emotions. The Disciples, on the other hand, want hearts to be moved, hopes to be raised and faith to be deepened. In the same way, we ask ourselves why we do services? Are we here to make sure our religious duties are done, or are we here to give ourselves, to give prayer for our neighbors in our world and to forgive others. Hope or Belief ? First seeing her was a stab of belief, thinking; it’s all I needed to know, not allowing for any hope to grow; but it did; sneaking in like a thief. It was mixtures of some new laughter with tears as she read some of my pain, then deciding to pray for a help again, in an here and now; not the hereafter. She, of course, wanted to be perfect, but Savior’s job was beyond taking, so she had to settle in the making, stabs, showing love more respect. Trusting each other’s vision scope; years of believing in blessed hope.

Starting All Over Again

A Reflection for Easter Sunday Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher April 20, 2025 St. Luke/ St Anne, Roper, & Grace, Plymouth, NC Starting All Over Again Isaiah 65:17-25 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 Acts 10:34-43 John 20:1-18 The day after I graduated from college, I got married to my then girlfriend. I was not a success as a husband. When my daughter went off to college, my wife and I got a divorce. In 1989 I got married to Pat. She also had been married before. Both of us, who had failed in marriage, both of us were damaged goods: yet we decided that we would take a chance and start all over again in being married people. The odds were against us, but both of us learned from our mistakes and entered into the best 34 years of our lives. She died a couple years ago, and I am still in mourning. Part of the reason I keep showing up here is that there is an empty part of me and I need to fill up my time. Sharing the good news of God is one of the ways I can spend energy. I have not allowed myself to even think about any romance and starting over with that part of my life. However, one of the real problems with being a Preacher is that you have to be faithful to the lessons from which the spoken message of a Sermon is to take place. The Message I hear in these lessons is about urging people to start all over again. In the Hebrew Testament lesson for today, the prophet Issiah is dictating words of welcome to the people coming back from Exile. He is saying that while the exile was a result of the arrogance the people practiced, a new day is coming when the relationship between God and God’s people will be renewed. Issiah says he heard God give the promise to start all over again, God’s very self, will change to make it better for God’s people and the impossible will happen. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent-- its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord. So, option number one is to pick up the pieces and with God’s help, start all over again The Psalm for today gives the message that the past is shattered but we are free to build a whole new foundation. Go back to before the beginning, and start all over again. 22 The same stone which the builders rejected * has become the chief cornerstone. 23 This is the Lord's doing, * and it is marvelous in our eyes. 24 On this day the Lord has acted; * we will rejoice and be glad in it. So, option number two is to take the wreckage of the past and paste as much as you can together to create a new place in this world.With God’s help we are able to start all over again. In the Acts lesson, Peter says “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” He is telling the people that the Death and Resurrection of Jesus means that we can start over with God; sins are forgiven. There is no need to hold on to the past; the death and resurrection of Jesus means that the past is dead and the present calls us to live deeply in faith in a new way of living. So, option number three; it is not a matter of starting over on the same old path, but to start with that new pattern of living in this world. In the Gospel lesson from John we get the story that Mary comes to the tomb to anoint the dead body of Jesue. Except the stone has been rolled away and it looks as if the body has been stolen, Except it isn’t a plundering job. There is a clue: the face cloth that was placed on Jesus' face is still in the cave. If it was left by a grave robber, it would have been tossed on the floor of the cave. But the face cloth had been rolled up and set reverently to one side. It was not discarded, but it was given reverence. It is a sign that the body was not stolen, but the body has been changed. Jesus does not return to the old life but rather, he shows us a new dimension of what life is all about. So option four is we, like Jesus, are to die to the old life we are used to living, and be raised to a new life that connects to mysteries whose dimensions are those that are beyond our imagination. Four ways of starting over again in life. The more we read in scripture the more we are exposed to hope. If we did a full Bible study, we could find even more ways to start over. The problem for me is that I don’t want to stop mourning, I want to still hold on to the past, because I do not want to leave her behind. I still find meaning in the fact that I was loved, way beyond reason. I know my shortcomings only too well and yet she loved me. When I was a child I learned the song; “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me . Yes, Jesus loves you. The Bible tells me so.” I have to keep remembering that truth. Just a suggestion, but you might want to sing that song quietly to yourself before you go to bed at night, or when you are brushing your teeth in the morning. I am 78 years old, and have not grown out of needing to sing that song. It is a way of starting over again. If we sing the song to ourselves at night; we can start to expect dreams that tell us how we are loved by God. If we sing it to ourselves in the morning; we set ourselves up to share an act, or disposition, of love with our neighbors. We have more love showered upon us than we know what to do with. That is where I am right now; instead of feeling so empty because the object of my love is gone from my sight; I am aware I was loved beyond my imagination and beyond my ability to earn it. It was grace. In thanksgiving for all of that love given to me; it is only right that now I am free to do acts of love in return for what I have been given. Starting All Over Again There are times we want to just swallow, and feel all sorts of sorry for ourselves, fitting all our feelings in bookshelves, so that in our memories, we can wallow.. But we are not made to live in a past, wanting to cling to with all our heart, not allowing a present to take its part, so that we might have futures to last. The futures with dreams which spawn hopes; this’ll be the day it all begins, this’ll be an hour, when prayer wins, as we’re to live into a brighter dawn. The past is where the gift was given; but today’s when the hurt’s forgiven.

Standing Up Together

A Reflection for Palm Sunday St. Andrew’s Episcopal, Nags Head, N.C. April 12, 2025 Thomas E Wilson, Preacher Luke 19:28-40 Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29 Isaiah 50:4-9a Philippians 2:5-11 Luke 22:14-23:56 Standing Up Together We have just gone through a heck of a lot of scripture in this service so far and It took me a while to try to figure out what I might focus on. So, when in doubt I write a poem, and let that lead me. The poem was about when we finish the service and we stand up together to go into the world as witnesses of the Cross. In this story, there are four times the disciples stand up together. The first time is when they are with Jesus walking with him as he rides into Jerusalem, all of them praising God joyfully. We do like to follow Jesus when all is going well. The second time is when the disciples are at the table and get into an argument about “Who is the Greatest Disciple!” Like the disciples, we like to compare ourselves with others, which allows us to pass judgment on others. The third time is when the disciples all get up and run away from the government forces arresting Jesus.after Judas betrayed him and them. Like the disciples, we do like to make ourselves scarce when times get rough. The fourth time is at the place of Golgotha when they stand with the women at a distance as witnesses to the Crucifixion; and that is when we all stand up together as witnesses. As the old Gospel song goes: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord. Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.” There was nothing they could do to fix the world going wrong. Yet, there is a fifth time of standing up together and that is at the end of the service when if we are captured by love, we are unleashed into the world. Or we can just leave and beat the Methodists to lunch. In the 1970’s, before I went to Seminary, I was teaching Social Work in a college in Virginia and spending the summers in Boone, North Carolina where I was working for some summers in an Outdoor Drama and had to grow a beard for the part. My priest at the church in Boone told me that a call went out for people with Beards to pose for an artist named Ben Long who was doing a Fresco of the Last Supper on the walls of an neglected Episcopal Church at Glendale Springs in the next county over.. My white hair and beard was red at the time. A few years later when I finished my second year at Seminary, the Bishop sent me to the Episcopal churches in that county as a field placement as an assistant to the Priest, and one of my job duties was to be available to give lectures about the Fresco paintings to visitors who came to see beauty and a hope these visitors might grow in faith. I spent a great deal of that summer using insights from Ignatian Spirituality to grow deeper in my faith. Ignatius Loyola had been a soldier but when he could no longer fight, he turned to finding peace. When he was a soldier, after the battle, he would go over the battle in his mind, step by step, searching the things he did right and the things that were not helpful;.using a two step method to go deeper. When he became a man of peace, he used that two step method to go deeper in faith. The first step was to enter into God’s vision; to look at a situation where Jesus is following God’s calling to help us go deeper into our faith. Putting our egos aside, he would take the stories of Jesus and see the world from the loving vision of God. The second step was then to use imaginations to enter into each of the participants in the story, vision or dream. This particular Fresco was of the Last Supper, at the moment when Jesus is telling them that one of us would betray him. That Fresco opened up my world for me. The fresco was of dynamic tension in the space in, and between, each of the disciples at that moment. The Fresco itself was an invitation for visitors to live into a moment of decision or betrayal; decide to enter into love and follow the vision of Christ, or into betrayal for our own advantage. In the Fresco, most of the disciples are living into the moment between love or betrayal. As I posed for one of the disciples; I was acutely aware that betrayal was not a stranger to my behavior. As I posed, I thought of how much I was unworthy to be a disciple of Christ. I had, and still have, so many flaws. There were so many barriers in committing myself to God. I approved of God in the abstract, and as an anchor in the middle of a storm, but a day by day relationship was not my style. I did professional work as a therapist and as a teacher, but there was always a comfort in a professional distance. But God has this habit of elbowing God’s self into my imagination. How could, if I became a Priest, place my trust in people who might disapprove of some of my actions and turn on me, as so many clergy knew from first hand experience? Being a minister of the Gospel meant that I would be judged by my flaws; and I knew only too well that there were far too many of them. I could do lectures on what I knew, but could not then speak about any personal relationship with the divine. Prayers with God were not dialogs, but rather a series of spoken memos directed at the Ether, As I went deeper into the character that I was posing for and yet who was really me, I came to understand that the disciples were all made of equal portions of saint and schmuck. They were like me, and yet they were the ones chosen by Jesus. He knew them (and us) well and yet, he still loved them (and us) and gave them (and us) charge of his ministry on earth.That Fresco experience that summer was over, but when I went back to the college to teach, I came to a decision that I needed to make a commitment for a deeper spiritual life and a change in the way I was working at a job, and I went to seminary. My plan was to be a worker Priest, where I would be ordained and be a pastoral Counselor and stay away from Parish Work. My first job after Seminary was to be a College Chaplain. There is an old line that keeps coming back to me: “If you want to hear God laugh; tell God your plans.” Standing Up Together After the services we tend to go home, Alone in all our separate ways keeping Our visions closed until we’re sleeping, Dreaming until our imaginations roam. Into crowds of dangerous waving palms, All of us together as if we really believed, From all our mourning we’d be relieved, Replaces our dirges with hope in psalms. That what we feared might be a myth, For there’s so much challenging hope Fearing that the story was a fond trope, Which we’d package nice dreams with. Yet, death is not just the final chapter, But finding we know love’s our captor.

Nikki Felton

A Reflection on the Occasion of a Service in Honor of Nicola JoAlice Harrell “Nicki” Felton St Mary’s Episcopal Church, Gatesville, April 12, 2025 Thomas Wilson, Officiant Wisdom 3:1-5,9 Psalm 23 2 Corinthians 4:16--5:9 John 14:1-6 Thank you for being here today. You all knew Nicki much better than I do. I met her about three years ago when my wife and I would come to this church and I would do a fill in service about once a month. We always got a big kick out of being here; the people were all so incredibly nice. The last time we, my wife and I, were here was when a covered dish supper followed the service and as we got ready to drive away back to the Outer Banks, the Senior Warden, a wonderful man, he still is, came running out to our car loaded down with all sorts of good food to take home with us. We did not know this would be our last time here as my wife’s illness got so much worse and I stopped filling in at churches in order to stay with her, until she died months later. I associate this church with lovely faith and simple kindness. When I talked with the family this week, they told me of the many kindnesses you shared with them during Nikki’s illness. They told stories about how strong she was in helping her friends, neighbors and family before she got ill. Especially the family. They reminded me how she found so much to laugh about and so much of herself to share. They also acknowledged that she was the “Boss” of that household and the heart. She may have been the Boss of the House, and not of her mother, but she did have a Boss, we call the Good Shepherd. Keep them in your prayers. I will because I knew my wife was the Boss of my house and the heart. One of the things I was well aware of was the difference between a house and a home. A house is a building in which you need tools like hammers, screwdrivers, plungers and brooms to take care of. A home is where you go to when you need love, and hope, and forgiveness, and fights to clear the air, and places to welcome strangers who become family and friends, and places to remember the past, and places to work and hope for the future. It is a place where you can go and have the last word. That was one of the things that Nikki used it for; it was her house and ghosts would not be allowed to have voice to say the last word. Robert Frost wrote a poem called “Death of A Hired Hand’ where the characters reflect to each other: ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.’ ‘I should have called it Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’ The reading from the Wisdom of Solomon reminds us that Nikki is now fully in the hands of God, so her soul can rest and find peace in her forever house, and the 23rd Psalm underscores that she can rest without having one more darn thing to take care of. When Jesus was preparing his disciples for his death telling them that his own death is not the end of the story. Tomorrow, when you go to church, it will be Palm Sunday and you will probably have as the Gospel lesson that in His Father’s House there are many dwelling places for all who love him. The message to hold on to this day, that Day before Palm Sunday, is that Easter is coming. Try all you like, but nothing will stop New Life, nothing will stop forgiveness, nothing will stop hope, nothing will stop the people in our hearts from receiving our love..

Looking At Sinners

A Reflection for the 5th Sunday of Lent Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher April 6, 2025 Grace, Plymouth and St Mark/St. Anne, Roper Isaiah 43:16-21 Philippians 3:4b-14 John 12:1-8 Psalm 126 LOOKING AT SINNERS The opening line from the Collect for today is, “Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners:” Usually the church likes to take a look at Saints for the edification of its members, but today we will look at Sinners. I am not going to pass out any mirrors, but a Sinner is someone who commits a sin. On line, I came across a list of 82 behaviors considered to be identified as sins by passages in the New Testament. The list was in Alphabetical Order from Adultery to Wrath. On the list were three just before wrath and they contained the only three on the list I had not committed; Woman cutting her hair short—1 Corinthians 1:14-15 Woman with her Head uncovered—1 Corinthians 11:5-16 Woman speaking or teaching in public—1 Timothy 2:11-15; 1 Corinthians 11:33-37 Mathematically my batting average of purity percentage of my time without being involved in sin is 0.036 % purity. We like to think that saints are people who have no faults and always keep themselves pure; Saints like Paul for example. Paul always wrote to people to remind them of their behavior. In the translation of his letter to the Phillippians today he writes :”For his (The Christ’s) sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him,” “Rubbish”, isn’t that a wonderful word. So precise and yet gentile. Except, that is not what the original Greek says at all. The word in Greek is “skubala”, one of my favorite swear words, a word I discovered in my Greek class in Seminary, that I would mutter ‘skubala “under my breath whenever I was frustrated with something or another, The Greek word, the one Paul would have written in his letter is σκύβαλον (skubalon), In English, it is a four letter word starting with a letter “s” meaning human excrement. It is one of those very rude words that are not supposed to be said by Pious folk. Paul said it because he was angry that people are missing the point. But Christians don’t like people to get angry, usually we feel better if they just sulk quietly. Paul’s translators want not to offend people, so they add watered down words, so the little old ladies, male and female, of all ages, would not be exposed to anger. Because Christians are supposed to be nice, and especially well behaved and not associate with people who are sinning. . Jesus had that problem in the Gospel lesson for today. And here he was, the Holy One and this woman, to whom he is not married with, or related to, is kneeling at his feet, pouring a small fortune of oil to anoint and wash his feet and dry them with her hair. This is way beyond appropriate; as Judas points out. But Mary is one of those people who is often not well-behaved. We have seen her in an earlier incident when Jesus is visiting their house, where she leaves her sister Martha to do all the work while she sits at Jesus’ feet to listen along with the men. She just does know her place; because she loves Jesus unreservedly. I remember being a Rector of one church where it was a habit for a number of the women being upset with other women members of the church who were not doing the work that was expected of them in the dinners, and bazaars. They also quietly disapproved of and resented people who went way overboard. Paul’s sin of using a swear word in church would have been seen as on the same level of Mary’s going way overboard with welcoming Jesus. Paul and Mary are both committing the sin of having their heart go faster than their brain out of love for God. Mary’s action reminds me of the old Sam Cooke song of 68 years ago; some of you might remember the song “You Send Me” I know, I know, I know, you send me I know you send me Whoa, you you you you send me Honest you do What a wonderful sin to have! To have the power to overwhelm someone with your passion, with your love.. When we do something out of love rather than duty; we live into the moment when we are surrounded by Grace, hope and thanksgiving. I should have sung that song to my wife every day in our marriage, but I was so self conscious because I knew that I couldn't sing worth a damn. In a polite society of following all the rules, sometimes we have to apologize for slipping free of our leash of self-control, and allow ourselves to sing along with Sam or swear along with Paul. I remember when I was a Rector of a Church about 30 years ago, and I wanted every little thing to go “right” in a service, because I was supposed to be in control. One Sunday; suddenly, as I finished my sermon and was about to go into the Creed, there was this very loud woman’s voice coming from a back pew, joyously proclaiming that Tom Wilson was the best preacher in that city and county. I knew her as a parishioner and was well aware that she had times when she would have a slippery.hold on her mental faculties. She was trying to bless me, but I was so embarrassed that she had chosen me. She was outside of my control. George H.W. Bush was President at that time, although I am a Dirty Dog Democrat, I would have preferred she had said something nice about the then resident of the White House instead of me. You may ask yourself if my response would have been different if it were a man who stood up. It probably would, I tend to give women a lot more slack than I give men, I came across a quote from 20th Century French writer, Marguerite Duras, who had more than a few lovers in her life: "You have to be very fond of men. Very, very fond. You have to be very fond of them to love them. Otherwise they're simply unbearable.” In the Hebrew Testament passage for today, the Prophet is seeing the people in Exile coming back to Jerusalem after being set free to return. He sees God providing water in the wilderness for the exiles, so they would have the strength to return. Years later, I am able to look back at that moment when the woman stood up at the back of the church and I bless her for wanting to make me feel better. I think the Holy part of her was trying to provide me with some spiritual water on my journey. Today, a little bit later in the service, we will do the prayers of the people and then we exchange the Peace of the Lord with one another, even the ones, or especially the ones, those sinners who we need to forgive.. Looking At Sinners There are those embarrassing moments, That we wish we could better control, Like having a better behavior patrol Trying to keep into line our opponents. What about, if we took some jeopardy Using the exchange of peace touching Almost enemies, the past declutching The engines of all our wrath’s energy. To take the moment to boldly forgive. Before resentment is allowed to rest, In our sulking and so resentful chest, Now making decisions to clearly live, Sending our precious anger fleeing. With love as the center of our being,

Circles:

A Reflection for the 4th Sunday in Lent St. Luke/ St Anne’s Roper and Grace, Plymouth March 30, 2025 Thomas E Wilson, Guest Celebrant and Preacher Joshua 5:9-12 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 Psalm 32 Circles First of all I would like to thank you for allowing me to come back, since I double booked the last time I was scheduled to come here as your guest Preacher and Celebrant. I had double booked to cover for another Priest. In April and May, I will continue the circle of being your guest here on the 1st and 3rd Sundays, but I will not be with you in June since I will be doing the yearly circle of checking in with my daughter and grandsons in Colorado. In July I will be filling in daily for the Priest in Nags Head who will be on his sabbatical. Circles; one of the things I noticed about the lessons for today is the image of circles. In the Hebrew Testament lesson from the Book of Joshua. Jacob, the Wandering Aramaen, is remembered: he had left the land of Promise during the time of famine and went down with his family to join his son, Joseph, to begin a new life there. It was meant to be a short visit. But they overstayed their welcome when, as the writers explain, “there came to pass a Pharaoh, who knew not Joseph”. That Pharaoh saw not the descendants of Joseph who saved Egypt from famine, but now saw only a group of foreign immigrants ripe for exploitation. Moses taught the Egyptians soon that there was a price to pay for exploiting. The Hebrew people were allowed to leave bondage in Egypt, wandering in the wilderness until they were able to cross the River Jordan and return to their Promised land again.. They had returned to the beginning, the circle was completed. They set up an altar, a circle of stones, and called the place Gilgal; the word “Gilgal” in Hebrew means “Circle”. No longer will they eat the tasteless manna of the wilderness, but are able to return to eat the fruit of the crops of the land which they had eaten before their bondage in Egypt. They will now think of building places of worship and returning to Holy places. The Circle of Exile was over. In the Epistle for today, Paul writes to the Corinthians, who spend a heck of a lot of time squabbling with each other. He invites them to take a circle back to God’s love and forgiveness. They are reminded that there is a circle in God’s love, for they came from God’s love and God in Christ is reconciling all of them to the heart of God, in this life and even beyond. Even beyond; I am reminded of that 1907 song that Johnny Cash updated and used to sing Will the circle be unbroken By and by Lord, by and by There's a better home awaiting In the sky Lord, in the sky Paul’s view of a church was a circle of people who belonged to each other and then learned how to believe with each other. He would have approved of a thought written by Dianna Butler Bass. “Instead of believing, behaving and belonging, we need to reverse the order to belonging, behaving and believing. Jesus did not begin with questions of belief. Instead, Jesus ‘ public ministry began when he formed a community," The Gospel gives us another story of the Circle of belonging. Jesus tells a story in the Gospel lesson for today, about which is often given the Title of “The Prodigal Son”. That is the name given by people who want to focus on sin. But what I like to call “The Loving Father” because I like to focus on love. I have a daughter, who I will visit in June, who is in her mid fifties and has two grown up sons. In her, and their, growing up, they did some stupid things, but I never stopped loving them. When you love your children, you can get really annoyed with their actions, but you never really stop loving them. I was one of four children of my parents and they taught me, by example, that there was nothing I could ever do that would stop their love for me. There were more than a few times I would get punished, but love was never withdrawn. No matter what I did, the circle always returned to love. Where are the circles in your life? We all have them and, sometimes, we just neglect to notice the opportunity to complete the circles. Marion Woodman, a Jungian Psychologist, author, poet and mystic, commented on how we miss having connecting circles with other people, and even with our own body and soul. She wrote. Many people can listen to their cat more intelligently than they can listen to their own despised body. Because they attend to their cat in a cherishing way it returns their love. Their body, however, may have to let out an earth shattering scream in order to be heard at all. (To which I would note, sometimes we have to wait for our soul to scream at us before we pay attention.) The churches I find I like visiting the most, are the churches where people greet each other when they come in. They touch and laugh and ask about each other. And they also listen to the answers. They are welcoming back each other into the circle which is the church of people who love, and know they need, Jesus. In contrast, I spend a heck of a lot of time in buildings where grumpy people arrive to attend a meeting where they are supposed to listen and behave and recite the proper responses in the ceremony; getting a weekly dose of religion. They are not spending energy forming a circle, but they are visiting to punch their religion ticket, which they were told could benefit them after they die. Circles are what we do to make life worthwhile in the present moment, ticket punching is for.what we fear we will need after we die There is a phrase used in the religious business: “Conduct a service.” The implication is that we clergy are the conductors, who collect the money and punch the ticket for those on the religious ride. I prefer the words “Preside over” the service. People who come are the ones doing the service. You people do not come alone; you bring those who are in your hearts. My hope is you come in order to be in a holy space to say special words about people you are in a circle with. People with whom you love, or live with, or carry in your hearts, even when they are annoying.. The father in the Gospel lesson probably went to the synagogue every week to be in a circle to help hold his absent son up in prayer for God to fill his heavy heart, and for heavenly protection for his absent son. I imagine the father would leave the service, and on the way home, he would stop and look down the road hoping to catch a glimpse of the circle being healed with his son’s return. And then, one day it happens; he sees the youngest son coming down the road and he runs towards him and is all over him like a cheap suit. The past is gone and the circle is complete. Circles are when you come to your real self. Or when you return home from being away. Today when I go back home, my dog will wake up and acknowledge that I had been gone and now it is time for me to take him for a walk. He is an old dog and used to that circle. I remember the summer of 1966, when I had finished my Sophomore Year at Chapel Hill, I got an acting job working at an Outdoor Drama down in Florida and had not come home since Christmas Break and now was to be gone for almost the whole summer. My girlfriend at the time, who spent the summer with me, whom my parents had never met, but had heard about, drove me home from Florida to New York, two days of travel. When she pulled in the driveway, my parents ran out to hug me, my mother cried for joy. My father, the Southern Gentleman, welcomed her, while my mother was polite to this woman in her son’s life. She was then aware that the child circle had been completed and a new circle had already begun.. There is a circle of being aware that we come from God when we are born and we return to God when we die. That is part of my faith and I believe it, most of the time. I look like I arrive alone when I come to your services, but there is someone whom you have not met, but who is with me every minute I am here, whom I married in 1989. I am here with my wife, Pat, in my heart. The first years after I retired she would come with me to the churches in which I would fill in, or do Interim Work, and we would stop for lunch on the way home. When she got weaker, I stopped doing fill-ins. She died almost two years ago, but she is with me in the space between each breath I take and each word I say. She is still part of my circle every day of my life. It is not that I don’t accept her death. I do, but she is still part of my circle in this life. I know I am not the only one who brings the spirits into their own circles, whom we cannot see with our eyes, but whom we know in faith. Will the circle be unbroken By and by Lord, by and by There's a better home awaiting In the sky Lord, in the sky CIRCLES Thinking about the circles in my life. Like walking to and back from school Walking there and fearing the cruel Moments caught in failure or strife, Then when much older in the church, Not always sure I believed that day, Or moment, on what I’d say to pray, Or what Holy sign for me to search. Then on the walk back home to see, Beauties which I could now behold, Reaching me, try to hearten my soul. Now, from all my failures I was free, When in imagining holding my wife Into arms embrace of meaning in life.

I'm Just Passing Through

A Reflection for 2nd Sunday of Lent Thomas E Wilson, Guest Presenter March 16th, 2025 Church of the Holy Trinity, Hertford Genesis 15:1-12,17-18 Philippians 3:17-4:1 Luke 13:31-35 Psalm 27 “I’m Just Passing Through.” There is a play by W. Somerset Maughan, called Sheppey, which is the name of the main character and of the Island from which that character hopes to return to escape death. It has a scene in which the character of Death comes to visit Sheppey before Sheppey is able to run away and hide from death. Death makes a speech based on an ancient Middle Eastern Story. That speech was lifted by novelist John O’Hara, for his Novel Appointment In Samarra. This is the speech given by Death Death replies: "There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, “Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.” The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?” “That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra." I am not a big fan of dying myself. Edward Albee, a playwright who wrote Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? “, a play I did the summer before I went to seminary, once said: "I take pretty good care of myself, and I have no enthusiasm whatsoever about dying. I think it's a terrible waste of time, and I don't want to participate in it." I thought of these plays when eight days ago, I was at a deanery meeting about the search for good candidates for an election of the next Bishop in this Diocese. Years ago, I had been on the search committee for the present Bishop, and I kept my mouth tightly closed during this discussion, so I would not look as if I wanted to serve. I have to tell you how relieved I was not to be on this committee to search for his replacement. I wanted nothing to do with church politics. I like church and I am proud of the over four decades of work I did as a Curate and Chaplain at one Church and Rector at three other churches and fill-in at others.. I was honored to be a Pastor, Preacher, Teacher and Celebrant, but I was not fond of doing administrative work. Almost seven years ago when I was about to turn 72, the mandatory retirement age of a Parish Priest came and I was so happy that I did not have to do any more Church Budgets, Pledge Drives and Committee Meetings any more. Yes, it was work that needed to be done and I was good at it, but it was so good to see that work in my rear view mirror. While I did some full time Interim Work to help a Parish search for a new Rector and had to do administrative work, I was so glad when they hired a Rector, so I could be set free from offices. Now, to keep me off the streets, I do some fill-in work of preaching, pastoring and celebrating, like I am doing today. One of the problems is that I almost messed up being here because I had double booked, but your Warden, and my friend, Frank straightened me out. This summer I will do a short term Interim for that Priest who will be doing some Sabbatical work, so I will have to spend some time in an office. I owe this Priest a lot, he is the Pastor of the church I attend and pledge when I am not filling in at other churches like today. This Priest is the one who visited my wife when she was going through Hospice at home and dying. She liked him because he was young and cute and had a good heart and listened well. He visited me when she died, and he presided at my wife’s funeral almost two years ago; he was there for me and my family. He is one of the few people I trust enough to cry in front of. I owe him a great deal. In 1989, my wife and I got married in the church I was serving in Virginia and we started the journey of faithfully passing through life together; and in so many ways it was a dance. Now, there is no one I take care of, besides myself and my dog. My daughter is hinting for me to move out to Colorado where she can watch over the old man. While I think I am in good health, I am increasingly aware that now I am at a stage of my life where I am just passing through alone until I have my appointment at Samara, whenever and wherever it will be. And as I pointed out a few minutes ago, there seems to be times when I double book. “Passing through”; it is a theme in the lessons for today.. We begin with the “Passing Through” of Abram. God calls him from Ur of the Chaldees and Abram will spend the rest of his life passing through. Just before this lesson, Abram has come out of Egypt and now in this lesson Abram is told, he will continue his life “passing through”, but his descendents will one day claim the promise and occupy the land west of the Jordan as the gift from the loving God. For Abraham, passing through is the way he is able to go deeper in his relationship with God and a deeper understanding of himself. Paul, in the Epistle, writes to the people in Philippi, where the people who belong to the church live in houses. Yet, while they stay in one physical place, they are just “passing through”, for they must go deeper into their hearts and souls, until they come to rest in the Risen Christ. Paul may visit them, but he trusts that the lay leaders and members will be the ministers of God’s love to each other. Every member of the community treasures the moments that they spend together, but they fully understand that they are all just passing through until they rest in Christ. In the Gospel lesson for today, the people tell Jesus that he should find a place to hide away from the wrath of the religious and political authorities. Jesus tells them that he is just passing through, for he has an appointment in his heart with his death in Jerusalem. Each step he takes is a step into a deeper understanding of what his life and death means. Passing through is not about strolling through, but about living each day working to make ourselves better people and the world a better place. Henri Nouwen wrote in “You Are The Beloved: “Whenever contrary to the world’s vindictiveness, we love our enemy, we exhibit something of the perfect love of God. Whenever we forgive instead of getting angry at one another, bless instead of cursing one another, tend to one another’s wounds instead of rubbing salt into them, hearten instead of discouraging one another, give hope instead of driving one another to despair, hug instead of harassing one another, welcome instead of cold-shouldering one another, thank instead of criticizing one another, praise instead of maligning one another...in short, whenever we opt for and not against one another, we make God’s unconditional love visible; we are diminishing violence and giving birth to a new community.” But there are so many of the places to pass through where I still have appointments in my heart. I want to visit the Shwedagon Pagoda in what used to be called Burma and climb the stairs to revere the sacred hairs of the Buddha; one holy step at a time. I read an article about that Temple that reflected that Western consultants wanted to put in escalators and elevators for the pilgrims to visit the holy shrines quickly and easily, because they reasoned that the point of a pilgrimage is the end product. But the Eastern view, which is truly Christian, is that each step on a spiritual journey is a Liturgical step, an act of worship. Passing through faithfully is what worship is about. Each time I show up here, we do a service, we pass through a liturgical service. The point of the service is not about getting rewarded with a piece of bread and a sip of wine, but about slowing ourselves down, to live faithfully into each moment of mindfully passing through the Holy dance we have with each other.. I’m Just Passing Through Looking if Samara is on my calendar, Next week, or next month, or decade, Maybe getting an appointment made, To meet at the Temple in Myanmar Climbing the steps at the Shwedagon, Each step being a Holy step landing On Holy Ground, full understanding To fill in the places where I’ve gone. Same’s true as a Holy Trinity broker When breathing in Holy with others, Seeing them as sisters and brothers, And wine as ways to be more sober. Passing through is a way of dancing Faithfully, while we live enhancing.

Changing Likeness

Last Sunday of Epiphany Reflection St. Luke’s/St Anne’s, Roper, Grace, Plymouth March 2, 2025 Thomas E Wilson, Guest Preacher Changing Likeness Exodus 34:29-35 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2 Luke 9:28-43a Psalm 99 This is the Last Sunday of the Season of Epiphany. The word “Epiphany” means a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature of something. The “Oh Wow, that is what is really going on!” It is like when you hear a joke and you don’t get it- until a couple hours later, and then you start to laugh. It is not that you are stupid; it is just you didn’t get it at the punchline; you needed to work it out. Epiphany is the season right after Christmas and in the Bible most of the people in the story don’t understand the meaning of the birth of Jesus and they have to work it out for themselves, in order to work on going deeper in the time of Lent to prepare for a life of resurrection. Let me give you an example of an epiphany. It’s Christmas and your old maiden Aunt sends you a sweater. You look at it and you say; “Well; (putting on a smile) That’s nice”.You write the thank you note and you put the sweater away. But then one day in January, it gets cold and your mother says; “It’s cold, why don’t you put on the sweater my sister gave you. “ You sigh, and then as it gets even colder, you break down and dig up the sweater. And you put it on. And, it feels so good, not to be shivering. The longer you wear it, the more you like not being cold, the more you think kindly of you aunt. Then your mother takes a picture of you smiling wearing that sweater and sends it to your aunt. Epiphany is the time when we start to have some idea of the gifts in our lives. Especially what this gift of Jesus is all about and how do we faithfully live into it.. This is the Last Sunday of Epiphany, so that means that this Wednesday is the beginning of the Season of Lent. Lent is a time when we look at our lives and realize how blessed we have been, and we make a decision that we can start seeing about how we might make a difference in the world we live in. Is there someone who we need to help? Is there some difference we need to make in this world? Jesus makes his way into Lent to fulfill his destiny in Jerusalem. We all have a destiny. One of the themes for today, seems to me, is about how we are changed when we have an encounter with the Holy. In the Hebrew Testament lesson, Moses is changed physiscally; his face is shining because he had a conversation with God. In the Psalm, people tremble because they have heard God is present and God has a loving concern for Justice to be done. In the Epistle, Paul writes to the Corinthians:”And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; “ In the Gospel lessonm Peter, James and John see Jesus transfigured; he becomes a Holy light shining in the darkness, as he is talking with Moses and Elijah. The disciples want to stay on the mountain and make a living off building a shrine. But Jesus is telling them that the hard work is to done, not on Mountain Tops - but in the embracing of the crosses in our, and others’, lives. There can be no Easter, unless we first embrace our crosses, giving ourselves away. Changing likenesses! Likenesses are the personas we have; what we allow people to see. What we spend our energy projecting to the rest of the world. What are the likenesses that you have had and used in your life? I had an older brother, Paul, who was a year and four days older than I was. He was tall dark and handsome, I was shorter, red haired and dumpy. He was cool and an extrovert. I was socially awkward and an introvert. For years, I wanted to be him, but I could never pull it off. . Going away to college was one of the best things that happened to me, because I did not have to compete against him, I started to learn who I was and learned how to better live into my likeness, instead of trying to fit into his. When I graduated from college, I became a Social Worker, then a therapist and then a Professor. I was doing all right, but I came to realize there was a spiritual dimension that was being negleced in my work with people. I went to seminary to explore what it was to help people, and myself, deal with a life as a Person of Spirit. You are here, in this place, for many reasons, but my hope is that you have come because you have found your need to grow deeper in spirit, and you join with other people who are doing the same thing. When you are here, take a look at some of the other people and see if you can help them claim their spirit, or if they can hele you claim God’s spirit, shining through you. Changing Likeness Day in, night out, searching for light. A light to shine into our deepest time, to help make sense, reason or rhyme, of a hopeful meaning in darkest night. Turning to see persons in nereby pews, questing for what might be hints of soul, allowed to escape and try to score a goal, by touching other livea with good news: that life is not something to be borne as a heavy burden each day and night, but as precious gift to hold on tight, then given away before time to mourn. For lives are too short to hide away, a joy of love that can be ours today.

Sermon On The Plain

Reflection for the 6th Sunday after Epiphany. Thomas E Wilson Guest Pastor St. Luke/St. Anne, Roper and Grace, Plymouth February 16, 2025 Jeremiah 17:5-10 1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Luke 6:17-26 Psalm 1 Sermon on the Plain In the Gospel of Matthew there is a section called the Beatitudes, where Jesus gathers a large group of followers on a Mountain and tells them what it means to follow him in Blessings and Woes. Matthew sees Jesus as the new lawgiver, remembering Moses, the revered law giver of the past, setting down the law on Mount Sinai. The writer of the Gospel of Luke has a similar story which remembers Jesus the day he comes down from a mountain and gathers his followers on a plain. This story sees Jesus not as a lawgiver but a giver of Grace; addressing a group of followers on a plain, blessing the space between them as they are all in this together. So which is the true story; the mount or the plain? And the answer of course is “Yes!”. Chances are that these collections of Blessings and Woes were part of a collection of Jesus sayings that were remembered by different communities of faith and were part of their worship for decades, before they were written down in the Gospel formats.They are reminders that there is joy in following Jesus and yet, there will be hard times as well when Grace will be hard to find. For decades the Christian communities held on to hope in the promise and for centuries we are part of those who hold on to hope in that promise. This belief in a power greater than oneself is also the theme of the first lesson for today from Jeremiah, who sees the exiles returning from Babylon to the ruins of Jerusalem . He urged them not to hope for a return to the past for Jerusalem; it is time to begin a whole new way of living, a hope in someone greater than themselves. He warns “ Cursed are they who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength. whose hearts turn away from the Lord.” This hope is echoed in Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians who urges them to find the hope that there is a power in the resurrection that gives them strength to make it through each day. He writes:”If for this life only that we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people to be pitied, But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” I am reminded of the Wedding ceremony where a couple makes a series of promises about being together for better or worse. When I would do premarital counseling with couples, I would have them tell me about how they were able to resolve difficulties. Relationships are never free from strife. There is a need for rhem, and indeed us,to have a belief in a power greater than themselves that can help them find love, even in the rough times. There are times in each of our lives when we just want to give up. I know something about that. About 22 months ago in June of 2023, my wife of 34 years died. I was not sure I wanted to keep on living. Both of us had worked hard on keeping the marriage together; we had both known divorce and how to give up; but we did not want to let go of each other’s love and forgiveness. She is no longer here to remind me that I was loved, and she can no longer hear me say how much she is loved. I am lucky for my daughter, my step daughter and stepson, and our friends and many of my former parishioners and neighbors who keep reminding me of what a treasure she was. It is one of the reasons I don’t want to move, because I need people who knew and honored her, to feed and honor my memory of her. I have no idea of what the future holds for me, or for you; but we have to live each day, one day at a time. Let us all give thanks for the memories as we are walking into a future we cannot control..Yet, we have the promise that like the exiles returning to Jerusalem, like the apostle Paul holding on to hope, like the crowds on the plain listening to the words of strength from Jesus; all of them to face each blessed new day that we are given in this life. It is the time for us to ask; where are we called to be? We are called to be there for our neighbors. Frederick Buechner in his “Spiritual Gifts” wrote “ The place Calls you to be is the place where your deepest gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet!” Today, where are each of us called to be?

Splashing Out Of The Womb

Reflection for 1st Sunday after the Epiphany Grace, Plymouth, and St. Luke/St. Anne, Roper, NC January 12, 2025 Thomas Wilson, Guest Celebrant Isaiah 43:1-7 Acts 8:14-17 Luke 3:15-17, 21-22 Psalm 29 Splashing Out of the Womb Most of us in the room have had the same first impression of life when we were born; the water breaks over us and we came splashing out of the womb and had to adjust to being thrust into and to seeing a whole different world. If I had been paying better attention, I could better describe was it was like for me in that hospital in St. Louis, Missouri 78 years, and a little less than a month ago. The closest I am reminded is of the words of William Butler Yeats in his poem Easter 1916, when he tried to capture the breath taking wonder of Irish Freedom from the British and the horror attending the time of struggle locked in the heart, and the times of plain stupidity that each nation will have woven into even the moments of high ideals; “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” To be born is to enter into being fully human, one way or another, splashing out of the womb. Last month we celebrated Jesus splashing out of the womb of Mary, his mother, in a the stall of a stable in Bethlehem because there was no room for this refugee family in the inn. Yet Kings came from far off lands to kneel before him in that place. At the same time, the forces of evil were gathering to try to destroy this child's message of peace on earth good will to all, but “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” In today's Gospel lesson, Jesus comes out of East Nowhere Nazareth, walking to make a call on his cousin John down by the Jordan and a good guess is about 60 miles distance. When I go to the Y in the mornings, I get on an Elliptical and it takes me about a half an hour to cover two miles; it would take me about 30 hours to cover the distance that Jesus is walking, but between Nazareth and the Jordan is not a smooth flat walk. Lets assume he is in great shape, he is about 30, and he doesn't stop to talk with people, or to have meals with travelers, which from what we think we know about Jesus, seems highly unlikely; he can do it in three days. He makes this trip because he is called to follow a destiny. If he had stayed in Nazareth, he would have been a busy carpenter, because there were Roman dominated cities, especially three miles away, Sepphoris, a thriving center of Herod Antipas's rule. Father and son could have made a very good living. But Jesus was leaving that all behind him, because his spirit was calling him to leave. “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” This is an important trip for him as he tries to figure out what is his meaning in life. His name was Jesus, which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Yeshua ,which is Joshua in English. Joshua had come to the River Jordan and according to the Bible, the Priests under Joshua leads the ark into the River and the waters part and the Ark of the Covenant crosses the River without getting wet. Jesus enters into the water, the blessed water of the Jordan which marks the boundary of the Promised Land. Except this time, Jesus gets sopping wet. He comes, not as his namesake as a powerful conqueror but as a soggy, splashing supplicant. “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” Joshua came to destroy the hated cities of the enemies. Jesus comes to bring love to the homes of his enemies. He comes with a faith that all will be redeemed, even death itself. He walks into his fate trusting the words of the Prophet Isaiah in the first lesson for today: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;” Maybe, as he goes under the waters, is he strengthened when he remembers what the Psalmist sang that he is not alone; ”The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;the God of glory thunders; * the Lord is upon the mighty waters.“ All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” I remember a day over a half a century ago. I was waiting in the hospital. My wife had just delivered a baby and I was waiting to see her. A Nurse came by and saw my name tag and asked if I wanted to see my daughter. I looked in the basket and I fell in love. She was a mess, because she had just come splashing out of the womb; and nobody looks good after that experience. I went back to see my wife and I lied and said that the baby was beautiful. In a few minutes, another nurse brought the baby to my wife's room and my daughter was all cleaned up and now she was physically beautiful. “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” My daughter is my child and she inherited a lot of my good, and not so good, traits. Her children , my grandsons, are almost all grown up, one has graduated from college and the other is a Junior at another college. Some of my most desirable, and some of my less desirable of the Wilson traits, are part of their DNAs as well. And every time I see them, I reflect: “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is born.” This last week, I attended the church that Tommy, the young man who had ministered with you so faithfully was honored for his faithful service as the Associate Rector of that church. He had been chosen to be the new Rector, the fourth Rector of the church that I had served for as the second Rector for about a decade and a half. I did not want to leave but I was reaching the mandatory retirement age of a Rector. I poured my heart into that church and I loved the time there. They had a problem with someone to fill an opening and asked me if I was available to do the Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. I jumped at the chance, loving every minute of it . This Sunday is his first Sunday as Rector, it will be the Splashing Out of the Womb for him as their new Rector; and my fervent hope is that they will love him so much that they will never be tempted to compare him to me. “All is changed, changed utterly/ A terrible beauty is being born.” What is happening with you? Life is not static. What had changed? What is changing? What terrible beauty is in the process of being born for, and in, you?