Friends,

As part of my wife’s master’s program, she read a study that measured people’s access to information and how informed they were. The first part of the results was not surprising. If you don’t have access to information, you were ignorant. The second part was quite surprising. The category of people with the most access to information showed similar levels of ignorance as those with the most limited access. I remember her telling me about the study and how interesting she thought it was. I hope I am not miss-remembering it too badly, but I believe I have the basics of it right. Regardless, how I remember the story has always resonated with me. It is when I am being bombarded with information, that I often feel the most powerless and the least composed. For me, this has been one of those weeks.

Friends,

As people of the resurrection, we have a complicated relationship with death and endings in general. Eternal life is a gift, and so is the precious life that we are given. Leaving one for the other was never meant to be easy, uncomplicated or overly embraced. Eventually all things come to an end, and we can mourn all sorts of things, even when new life is already sprouting. It’s ok to be excited and sad all at the same time.

You all got that last’s week’s article was completely produced by AI, right? I was trying to be all cute and I got ChatGPT to write a poem about me using AI to write my devotion while away. I even got it to generate an image of me on vacation, which I really hope you realized wasn’t me! I didn’t realize I was so vain until I saw what it thought I look like, plus fedoras are not quite my style.

Our trip to England and Wales was wonderful, exhausting, and spiritually edifying. We got to do fun touristy things, but our main goal was to go wedding for people we love, and to visit old friends. It was wholesome.

Friends,

I love my family so much, and I am going to take a moment to brag on my brother and mother.

My brother and sister have exactly no interest in going to Church, but they generally live a more Christian life than me. Their capacity to love and do something about it is remarkable. My brother has always gravitated to people that most others avoid or even feel active distain for. In High School he often skipped lunch because he was giving his food away to friends who were very sketchy and very hungry. One person was downright scary, but my brother seemingly had a compulsion to understand that scariness, and what he found was someone that experience too little care, lacked resources, and found ways of surviving that sometimes… oftentimes meant doing sketchy things. This isn’t a “their scariness was just a façade and deep down these were just innocent kids in need of love” sort of story. They were kids in need of love, but the scariness was very much real. My brother’s drive to befriend these kids was remarkable, and the way he did so through being their friend and not a just a privileged kid with extra food, makes me suspect this is how Christ would have shown them love.

I write this on Maundy Thursday, and at the earliest you will read this on Good Friday. If you didn’t go to the Maundy Thursday service this year, then make it a point to go in 364 days at the next one! I love this service so much, and for me, it is when the roller coaster to Easter really gets going.

With all the excitement happening this week I completely neglected the Wednesday noon healing service, which is not uncommon. Generally, we only have three or four people that attend the service, and I rarely get an opportunity to mediate on the scripture, let alone read it all, before the service begins. Considering I find little to no correlation between my sermon preparation and the quality of my sermons, so going into a service blind no longer frightens me. Actually, I find it quite freeing and often notice new things and explore new topics that I would have ignored if I had the time to think about it too much. This Wednesday, I felt like I heard a portion of Paul’s letter to the Hebrews anew, which reads:

Friends,

  I hope you looked at this past Tuesday’s mid-week message, because it contained an announcement about a new transparency ministry. According to the blurb the purpose of the ministry was to take some of the mystery out of the business of doing Church, and this goal would be accomplished by having a live stream of our parish administrator (Sue Bentley) working at her desk. It even included a nine-minute segment of Sue answering e-mails…riveting stuff. At the end there was a link where you could sign up to watch the stream whenever and wherever you like. Of course, the link took you to the April Fools page on Wikipedia. I thought this was hilarious, and I hope you did too.

I am consistently embarrassed by the stupid things that I once embodied, and one day I will be embarrassed by the stupid things that I currently hold dear. Ghosts of past hurts and embarrassments once haunted me nightly leading to poor sleep and frustration, but in recent years I have held a more friendly attitude toward these ghosts. If you have them as I do, you should learn to trust your ghosts, because they are often telling you something true of the past. The very fact that they are painful, embarrassing or uncomfortable is evidence that you have grown. Ghosts are uncomfortable, but generally that are a good sign.

Friends,

Last Wednesday I flew to Northwest Arkansas to visit my sister, and I got back on Monday. This trip came about when we found out that my brother was going through an unexpected and unfortunate transition in his life. He knew that he was to be in limbo this past weekend, so he reached out to my sister and I saying he needed a trip as a distraction. I do not think my brother has ever asked me for anything, so this came as a shock. He knows that I am there for him and we are all very close, he is just the sort of person who is content sleeping in a mud puddle (literally), and is never in want. My sister and I were more than happy to oblige, and for four full days we stayed in an airbnb in downtown Fayetteville Arkansas and ate decadently. I mean like, 15 different restaurants and a surprise pop-up tiki bar speakeasy in the basement of an art gallery that was surprisingly luxurious sort of decadent, and I didn’t even realize tiki bars could be fancy, let alone be in Northwest Arkansas.

  There is something about proximity that enhances empathy. Maybe we should strive to have our feelings act in more equitable ways, and though we may try to achieve this, I think we are simply made to be more in tune to the joys and struggles of those nearby. Whether this is good or bad, it is what it is.