Friends,

For weeks now, I have been plopping down at my desk on Thursday in the final hour I have available to write this devotion to you, and all I have been able to think about is time. Is that what my life will be like from now on as I approach 40? Am I to spend the rest of my life constantly overwhelmed with the events that mark time, and asking myself, “What the hell happened?”

Today was the commencement ceremony for St. Luke’s Day School. All the Kindergarteners and many of the preschoolers will be going to a different school next year, and every year, my heart breaks a little bit more. My eldest son started in the two-year-old classroom at St. Luke’s when I had been working here for less than a year. Last year, he graduated from kindergarten and is now finishing first grade at Waynewood. Last year was the only year both of my children were at St. Luke’s, and it was so glorious and so fleeting. Two years from today, Theo will be graduating from St. Luke’s, and when I welcome the new parents the following school year, I will not be able to tell them which class my child is in, but what classes they had in the past. Three years and three days ago, I shouted out a special secret prayer in our last chapel of the year, and my prayer was not answered. The test came back with bad news.

Theo just graduated from the hippo classroom, which was the class Andy was in three years ago. Three years after my prayer was not answered, our home is very different. We are very different. We are getting healthier; that weight on our chests is slowly dissipating, and we surround ourselves with worries that we can handle. Now that the fog is lifting, we are discovering who we are three years later.

Time is a burden as it marches forward and throws you into our sanctuary to hear children sing familiar songs even when you are not ready to say goodbye, and then you remember who they were when they first arrived and realize that every day you’ve been saying goodbye to who they are in that moment. Without the progression of time, we’d be stuck in that dark place. The treatment worked, but it needed time.

John’s Gospel begins with a beautiful rant that, in my humble opinion, borders on poetry. It reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

I love this passage. The Word was there all along. Since the very beginning of creation. The Word was from God, and it was God. Then the Word becomes flesh in Jesus Christ. John starts off his Gospel by establishing that Jesus is not some new thing; instead, it is his presence with us that is new. I wonder if, before he was made flesh, he felt the steady, terrifying, healing, and exciting march of time. Did he feel it when he became flesh? Did it take time? Did seven-year-old Jesus count down the days until his birthday, like I did when days felt like months? I don’t know, but I hope so.

Was that why Jesus was always looking to get away to a deserted place? Perhaps getting away from the places that house your obligations helps us slow down time.

All of the Episcopal Churches in the area are hosting a picnic at Gist Mill this Sunday from 1:00 to 3:00. Lou DeMarco and I are teaming up to make a ton of his famous chicken salad to bring. I am also bringing games and all that stuff. Pohick is bringing their bluegrass band. It should be a good time. A couple of weeks later, on May 31, we are having the parish picnic at the Mount Vernon Pool Association right after the 10:00 am service. Both of these parks are away from the places where you hold responsibility. Come join us and see if time slows down even for a moment.

Blessings,

Nick