Tag: love

Owe nothing but love

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“Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

Readings here.

We are in the winding-down phase of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. In fact, it will show up in our Sunday readings for only one more week. It has been a long journey with Paul this summer. And maybe, like me, you’ve grown a bit weary of all of this Romans talk.

But, overall, I would say that this “sermon series” experiment has been a fruitful one. It has allowed us to follow Paul’s argument from beginning to end, giving us a fuller picture of the early church, and, hopefully, a clearer understanding of Christ’s love and our own salvation.

As I mentioned in the sermon I gave at the other campus last week: “At the start of chapter 12, Paul has just completed his rigorous theology of salvation that validates the equal claim of all people to the eternal promises of God.”

Now that his readers are clear about their own salvation, they are invited to respond by following the example of Jesus and living differently than they did before. And Paul doesn’t leave them hanging. He outlines the values and behaviors that exemplify Christ-likeness.

As a writer myself, I can’t help but nerd out over Paul’s elegant framing for this section, which goes from chapter 12 to the beginning of chapter 13.

“Let love be genuine…Owe no one anything, except to love one another.”

Biblical scholar Brendan Byrne refers to this frame of love as a “bracket.” He writes that the bracketing: “enfold[s] all obligations, from the sublime to the most mundane, within the one central response of love. No domain of Christian life stands apart from this core requirement” (Sacra Pagina: Romans, 393).

“Let love be genuine.” That first sentence of chapter 12 gets to the heart of what it means to follow Jesus. The rest of the chapter describes how “genuine love” is made evident through our behaviors: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are, and so on.”

As chapter 13 begins, Paul reemphasizes the point, this time through the lens of law and duty: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

God’s laws matter, Paul says, but they matter because love matters. Paul seems to know that we humans have a tendency to hyper-focus on the list of restrictions instead of focusing on the intention behind them. The intention of God’s law is and ever will be: “love your neighbor as yourself.” If you are operating from a place of love, you will make choices that fulfill God’s ethical requirements.

Start from love, and right action will follow.

“Let love be genuine…Owe no one anything except to love one another.”

Paul has answered the question of: “How do we follow Jesus?” with a resounding call to “love.” But the question that remains for us today is: “How do we actually love like Jesus?” Not in the romantic or family sense. Not as a one-off, or simply a nice thing to do when it is convenient. But as a habit that transforms every interaction in our lives.

If you’ve driven on any Austin highways this weekend, you may have seen the latest safety message for Labor Day Weekend: “Drive safe as a labor of love.”

When I saw this message on 290, it surprised me – because it runs contrary to most public safety announcements that warn about personal consequences, like getting pulled over.

Yes, it’s clearly an attempt to make a timely safety message for “Labor” Day. But it also promotes a social ethic: Pay attention out there, because your actions impact others. It could just as easily say, “Drive safe, to love your neighbor as yourself.”

It seems like the public safety people have been reading Romans! In its simplicity, this silly roadside message drives home the cause-and-effect that Paul keeps emphasizing: Start from love – and right action will follow.

This concept came together for me when I read a section of Martin Buber’s I and Thou with friends last week.

Martin Buber, a Jewish philosopher writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, believed that relationships operate in two modes. The most common one – the mode that makes up most of our interactions and experiences throughout life – is called the “I-it” relationship. This is when we interact with one another from a well-meaning, but superficial place.

For example, you and I meet and I make a series of judgments about you based on how you look, where you grew up, your gender, age, and profession. Likewise, you judge me in the same way, painting a picture of me based on a set of identity markers and personality traits.

When we’re done interacting, we might know a whole lot about one another, but we still don’t really know one another. We have seen each other as categories of people, but we haven’t encountered the whole person underneath.

The other mode of relationships is what Buber calls the I-Thou or “I-You” relationship. In this interaction, there is a breakthrough that goes beyond the surface. It’s like our souls meet, and who we are in God’s eyes becomes clear to each of us. Buber would call this, becoming “real.”

The I-You encounter makes us so powerfully aware of God’s love that we are filled with love for all living things. Buber says that, in these flashes of knowing between two people, we are so full of divine love that it is as if we are Jesus on the cross, willing to die for the love of the world.*

We become aware, as Byrne puts it in connection to Romans: “To all – even the most difficult and unlovable – believers owe a debt of love flowing from the love with which God love[s] them…”

In this “I-You” interaction between two people, we become able to love all people without judgment or resentment.

Depending on who you are, Martin Buber’s philosophy is either an “aha” moment or a head-scratching moment. But I bet all of us can remember a time that we connected with someone in a way that made us aware of a presence beyond ourselves and a truth beyond our comprehension.

In fact, I have had those connections with many of you – in the smallest moments. And they give me a sense that anything is possible – and that the world can be better.

“How do we actually love like Jesus?” We pay attention to God-moments in our interactions with our neighbors: with unhoused people asking for money on the street, in the profound observations of children, in the peace of nature, with friends at a football game, or at the “passing of the peace” in church.

We stay attuned to divine love under the surface of all that is – and how it binds us together and makes us whole. Because, when we experience real and genuine love, it enables us to see the whole world through God’s eyes. And we won’t be able to help but give what we “owe” from the abundance of love we have already received.

We will become each other’s labor of love. And we will keep laboring: when we disagree, when our ego gets the best of us, when we’re tired of saying we’re sorry.

We’ll keep laboring in love. Because we know that Love is who we really are in Christ. And what could be better than being real?

Amen.

Let Love Be Genuine | Paul, The Cross, Dolly Parton

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Watch the sermon recording here.
Scripture readings here.

Today’s readings from Matthew and Romans feel like they are meant to go together. Both provide actionable guidelines for living as a Christian. In other words, they teach us about “Christian discipleship”: how to be, act, and move through the world in a way that emulates the self-sacrificial and transforming love of Jesus.

In Matthew, Jesus boils down Christian discipleship into one difficult teaching: “Jesus told his disciples, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

That command – to “take up their cross” – is not a throwaway line on the way to some other point, but central to Christian identity. The image it evokes – of total self-sacrifice – is what differentiated the first Christians from the self-preservation and bravado of the surrounding culture. And it is what inspired the first Christian martyrs to endure persecution, knowing that what looked like death to outsiders was the way to everlasting life.

But death is not the only meaning of the cross. In fact, scholar Andrew McGowan says that Jesus’ call to “take up the cross” is not primarily about the death that comes at the journey’s end, but about the path leading up to it.

Crucifixion on a cross was reserved for those deemed least significant in Roman society: enslaved people, criminals, and traitors. Carrying your cross through the streets, moving slowly through the jeering crowds, was to be put to shame. It was to be told by everyone who mattered that you didn’t matter. McGowan says “the image of “taking up the cross” refers to that journey of shame.”

For those first disciples and for us, “taking up the cross” is not about death, but about life: both the life we dare to lead when we risk shame and misunderstanding to follow Jesus and the life that awaits us on the other side of death, in eternity with him.

Taking up the cross also invites us to enter the full story of Jesus, just as he entered ours in the incarnation. We are being invited to take a walk in Jesus’ shoes. To participate in his life, not just observe it with detached sympathy. And against common sense, to find that placing ourselves in circumstances of shame and suffering brings us closer to the beating heart of God.

And this is where Romans comes in. As you’ll recall from Rev. Mike’s sermon last week, Paul has just completed his rigorous theology of salvation that validates the equal claim of all people to the eternal promises of God. Paul will spend the final chapters of his letter sharing practical advice on Christian discipleship. In other words, he will connect the dots between what we believe and how that belief is lived.

The portion we read today works as a direct response to the question we might have after Jesus’ teaching in Matthew: What does it mean to take up our cross and follow Jesus? Put another way, what does it mean to practice Christian discipleship?

Paul boils it down to one, deceptively simple teaching: “Let love be genuine.” Everything that follows in this chapter describes the impact of genuine love.

Scholar Brendan Byrne says that, up until this point in Romans, when Paul mentions love, he is referring to God’s love (Romans, Sacra Pagina). But now, Paul says, “the ball is in your court.” God’s love and mercy have been poured out on us through the saving grace of Jesus Christ and we are empowered to share it.

This is what salvation means and does. It makes us, not just recipients of divine love, but participants in it. Genuine love compels us to respond to one another’s joys and sorrows as if they were our own. And when we turn toward others in this way, we are drawn closer to the beating heart of Jesus.

This is what it means to “take up our cross”: to love so well that, when people look at us, they see Jesus.

Who reveals Jesus to you? What can you learn from them?

Like many of you, I spent much of last week mourning the death of a modern-day saint, Dolly Parton. While I didn’t follow her career closely, I was always delighted to see clips of her interviews and guest appearances. As a singer myself, I have always admired her soprano voice that was both soaring and sweet, and the way she wore her heart on her sleeve, in her art and in her life.

This week, a group of us got to talking about what made her so universally beloved. Online eulogies crossed political, cultural, and generational lines. Even those who didn’t share her beliefs proclaimed their love for her. One atheist online commented that they were willing to believe in Heaven since that was the only place suitable for Dolly Parton.

Undoubtedly, Dolly Parton was human. As a public figure, there is much we will never know about her private life, but we can assume she had hard days just like the rest of us.

But, I think Parton had such an impact on people because the central ethic of her life was “genuine love.” She loved migrant workers and gay people and Republicans and Democrats. She loved poor Appalachians and rich, coastal elites, and everyone up, down, and in between.

When people got mad at her, she never retaliated. She simply apologized. And she didn’t entertain manufactured conflict. She was steady in her beliefs and her behavior. She lived her values. She carried her cross.

Which is to say, Dolly Parton loved so well that, when people looked at her, they seemed to see Jesus. They were able to love themselves and, in turn, love others, because she radiated so much resurrection light.

When we talk about Christian discipleship, it is easy for us to boil it down to a list of behaviors. Metrics by which we measure our progress in some kind of punishing Christian fitness program.

But Paul’s words are not a checklist. And carrying our cross is not about proving to anyone that we are worthy of salvation. Carrying our cross is an invitation to participate fully in the life of Jesus. To live and love as God intended, wearing our hearts on our sleeve.

Because it is here that we find abundant life: in laughter and weeping, in humility and vulnerability, in forgiving, in letting go. In admitting our faults so that we can love faulty people. In choosing each other when the world would try to make us enemies.

Living in love is risky. People will take advantage of us. People won’t understand. We might lose respect, or security, or friends. There will be times that we don’t want to keep trying. Where our patience wears thin and self-preservation wins over our good intentions.

There will be times that we resist it, because it feels like one more act of self-denial will make us lose ourselves. But, if Dolly Parton taught us anything, it’s that living in “genuine love” is not a process of disappearing for the sake of others, but of becoming more yourself. As Rev. Mike put it last week: “become what you already are.” Because, when we stop trying to fit in with everyone else and start trying to be like Jesus, we find that we are finally free. We have been loved into who we were meant to be.

Our cross is a weighty one. But, when we dare to take it up, we will find that it is not a burden, but more like a weighted blanket. Our cross is a holy paradox: signaling death and yet revealing resurrection.

The jeering crowds around us will tell us we’re walking toward our own grave. But we know better. We walk in love, and we’re more alive than we’ve ever been. Amen.

Reconciled, Forgiven, Freed | Christ the King Sermon

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Readings here

Today is “Christ the King” Sunday. And that means it is the last Sunday of the church year. Next week, we will start our three-year scripture cycle over again, with Year A, and we will enter into the season of Advent.

The tone will shift, and we will look forward, with renewed urgency, to the coming of Christ: both the Christ-child that we celebrate at Christmas, and the risen Christ, who promises to bring about the “restoration” of the world.

On this last Sunday of the Christian year, as we prepare for the chaos, longing, and joy that Christmas brings, it is good to remember that Christ is king, which means that “perfection” is his job – not ours. Jesus holds everything together, when our best laid plans seem to be falling apart. He calls us to let go of what burdens us, so we can join with him at the banquet he prepares for us.

Over the past 40 or so years, it has become increasingly unpopular to use kingly metaphors when referring to God or Jesus. Though our scriptures are full of references to the triune God as Counselor, King, and Almighty One – and though God’s relationship with his people hinges so often on his authority – some of our newest liturgies remove these references.

In some of the liturgies of our church, words like “Lord” have been changed to “Savior” or, simply, “God.” Kingdom has been changed to “reign.” Some of the most faithful people I know refer to the Kingdom of God as the “kin-dom of God,” deemphasizing the hierarchy between God and humankind and emphasizing humanity as equal members of the family of God.

None of this is necessarily a bad thing…

For one, these edits are pretty subtle – they don’t necessarily change very much in the context of a single prayer or turn of phrase. In some cases, they bring renewed meaning to well-worn statements of faith by signaling that God’s domain is more generous and expansive than those of worldly rulers. And, in a world run by tyrants and would-be tyrants, it is reasonable to be wary of using hierarchical language associated more with violence than benevolence.

In a recent article written for The Living Church, the Reverend Barbara White speaks to this point:

In a world of developed democracies, which is nevertheless beset by dictators, oligarchs, and those who want to be, it makes sense to wonder if kingship is the most relevant metaphor for Christ’s relationship to the world and to humanity. There is also the uncomfortable fact that the term “Christ Is King” has been recently highjacked by alt-right antisemites on social media—which should be…condemned by all who bear the name of Christ…

In this day and age, it is good to be careful with our language. And it is reasonable for us to worry about what it signals to declare Christ as King when there are people out there suggesting that Christ’s kingship is some kind of political maneuver that means that people that look and think “like them” should be in charge.

But, anyone who calls Christ King while encouraging more division, more judgment, and more self-righteousness is missing the point entirely. Because, by naming Christ as our King, we should be seeking, not to uphold, but to destroy the hierarchies and boundaries that divide people. We are all made equal under the banner of Christ our King.

In today’s Gospel reading, we encounter the final moments before Jesus’ death on the cross. Smug bystanders mock and ridicule Jesus for claiming that he is the Son of God and the Messiah, the “anointed” one. They have placed a sign over his head that reads: “King of the Jews.” It is intended as a clear denial of his kingship – after all, this so-called Savior is dying.

Meanwhile, from his lofty height on the cross, Jesus looks down and asks for their forgiveness: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

In that moment, one of the criminals on the cross next to Jesus receives a spark of understanding: Jesus is not only innocent, he really is the Savior spoken of in the prophecies.

So, he asks for all he thinks he can ask for, as a guilty man: “remember me.” And Jesus gives him all that he can give: eternity: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Jesus is a king who turns everything on its head: his throne is a cross and his law is forgiveness.

Here on the cross, there is a profound reversal of expectations. The bottom falls out of earthly power structures held up by self-interest, self-righteousness, and control. And now, the full sweep of humanity falls into the arms of Christ: reconciled, forgiven, and freed.

This moment on the cross reveals the true character of Christ’s kingdom: No one is too far gone. No one is beyond forgiveness. And the scorned and abandoned are the first to enter paradise.

When the criminal recognizes Christ as king, he can finally let go of his own will to power. He releases his protective pride and accepts the compassion Jesus shows him. He dares to reveal his deepest hope – that he will not be forgotten. And when he asks, he receives more than he could imagine.

His story can be a lesson for all of us. When we accept Christ as king, we no longer have to hold onto our own wills to power – motivated by shame, longing, regret, and fear – because we know we are held by a savior who loves us more than his own life.

In a time when association with kings and kingdoms is perhaps more fraught than it has been since the American Revolution, we must reclaim the concept of Christ as King. We do this by placing it within the broad message of the Gospel, which reveals that Christ is fundamentally different from the rulers of this world.

He does not rule through control or fear, but by endlessly expanding freedom and joy, in a single-minded path to reconciliation. He is Love, embodied, calling us by name, finding us when we’re lost, and forgiving us even when we don’t ask for it. He makes it possible for us to be a “kin-dom,” a family made up of people who aren’t related and might have hardly anything in common, besides being so deeply loved by Jesus. By reconciling us to himself, we can find peace with one another.

Christ is King, which means we can lay down their weapons, our burdens, and our pride and let Christ do what he does best: make a way to paradise, for everyone. Amen.

An Act of God: Pentecost Sermon

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Readings available here

Today is the day of Pentecost.  

The story we just read in Acts reveals a chaotic scene:  

Jesus has ascended into Heaven, and the disciples are hunkered in a house, not sure what to do next. Suddenly, violent wind and flames of fire invade every room. 

Down below, in the streets, Jews from all over the Greco-Roman world are gathered in the capital city for the Feast of Weeks,  This is a time to bless the wheat harvest, and remember God’s gift of the Ten Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sanai. 

The ruckus in the house seems to have compelled the disciples over the threshold and out into the street. There, the crowd meets them with alarm.  

Something strange is happening.  The disciples, who should be speaking their native Aramaic, are somehow understood by festival goers from all over the Greco-Roman world.  The chosen people of God – torn apart by centuries of displacement and war – are brought back together in this moment, united in common understanding. 

United, also, in confusion. Desperate to make meaning of the event, many in the crowd dismiss the disciples, as we might have done:  

“They are filled with new wine,” they said.  

In other words, they’re drunk. 

And then, perhaps the biggest surprise of all:  The timid, bumbling Peter, who denied Christ three times at the crucifixion, steps forward, without fear, and begins proclaiming the Gospel. 

Wind and fire, and wild chaos in the street. Pentecost had the trappings of a natural disaster.  But instead, it was an act of God.

orange flames of fire go out into dark night
Photo by Francesco Paggiaro on Pexels.com

The after-effects of this spiritual storm were like nothing the world had seen before. Within months, Christian communities started cropping up everywhere.  And they certainly weren’t drunk, but they were acting pretty strange.  

They were caring for rich and poor, tending to the sick, sharing in communion, giving their money away, and even dying for the Truth. And they were spreading infectious joy along the way. 

These first Christians were changing people’s lives, because their own lives had changed. They had become fearless. 

That day, the church was born. And the Holy Spirit has been keeping us on our toes ever since. 

— 

A funny thing about preaching is that you start to mentally file away stories in case you need to use them in a sermon someday. 

As I was going through my mental files this week for a story about Pentecost, various natural disasters kept coming to mind. 

Here’s one: In 1997, my little Indiana town was readying itself for a tornado. My parents tucked my sister and me into sleeping bags, and lowered us into the crawl space through an opening in the coat closet.  The tornado hit a street over, and we were spared. 

Here’s another one: In 2005, my coastal Florida town was supposed to get hit with five hurricanes, but all of them diverted at the last minute.  The high school senior t-shirt that year read: “I survived 2005.” 

Then, last week, my friend’s daughter was driving home when a tornado ripped through her apartment complex in Houston. She said that the wind came like a solid wall, going 80 miles per hour. My friend’s daughter and granddaughter escaped, unscathed. 

I’m thankful for my brain for trying to help. But none of these stories even come close to paralleling the after-effects of Pentecost. 

These aren’t the kinds of cataclysms that set new things into motion. They are simply natural disasters. A bad thing you try to avoid. 

It seems that, when I try to think of moments of profound disruption in my life, my head doesn’t jump to positive transformation.  Instead, it jumps to stories of survival.  These stories are about safety, near-misses,  and that final, heaving sigh of relief.  

The best thing I can say for them is that they hint at “the calm after the storm,” which is maybe something like “peace.”  But, given the liveliness of Pentecost, it doesn’t seem like the Holy Spirit came to bring us peace… 

In the musical, Rent, which takes place in the context of the AIDS epidemic, one line that has always stuck with me is:  “The opposite of war isn’t peace; it’s creation.” 

I think Pentecost reveals the Truth of that statement. While there is an alternative to the brokenness and discord we see all around us, it isn’t the temporary relief of “the calm after the storm” – it’s the new creation.  It’s new life, bubbling over, spreading out, and unstoppable. 

In the Pentecost story, we finally see how the saving love of Christ is not only available to all, but actively growing and putting its tendrils out into the world. 

  • The Spirit of God calls to each of us in our own language, and from our own experience. We are known. 
  • The Advocate calls us home to Jesus, and to one another. We are loved. 
  • The Divine Wind burns away the chaff in our hearts. We are becoming fearless. 

Like Peter, once afraid to speak, we are emboldened to rush out into the world and proclaim the Good News: Love is here, for everyone! Love, trivialized in pop songs and scorned by politicians, is not a trivial thing after all.  Like wildfire, if given a chance to spark, it will cover the world.  

It’s not a natural disaster, but a creative act of God. 

As theologian Will Willimon puts it, Pentecost reminds us that the Spirit is not “an exotic phenomenon of mainly interior and purely personal significance…the Spirit is the power which enables the church to ‘go public’ with its good news, to attract a crowd and…to have something to say worth hearing” (Interpretation Commentary on Acts, 33). 

In all this, Pentecost offers us revolutionary hope.  

But hope is hard to hold onto.  

  • It is more sensible to decide that survival is all we can hope for. 
  • It is more expedient to resign ourselves to “good enough.” 
  • In the face of the world’s grief, and our own, it is more comforting to stay hunkered down inside that house in Jerusalem. 

But, our Scriptures testify that we are Pentecost People. We are possessed with the Holy Spirit, who calls us to be sober, but strange: caring for rich and poor, tending to the sick, sharing in communion, giving our money away, dying, and living, in the Truth.  

The Spirit calls us to defy the status quo, by living as though hope is our birthright. 

And, we can live in hope, because we know that Pentecost is True. Because, 2,000 years later, 7,000 miles from Jerusalem, living on a continent the disciples didn’t even know existed,  we are worshipping God and sharing in Christ’s communion. 

The Holy Spirit set the world on fire. 

And we, Christ’s disciples, are the still here, carrying – within us and among us – the flame of love that lights up the world. 

(The Paschal Candle is blown out.) 

Amen. 

3 years

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marriage anniversaryToday is Daniel’s and my 3 year wedding anniversary. I know our marriage is still young, but 3 years passed quickly. I’m glad our relationship has been (mostly) healthy and that we’ve weathered the storms of graduating, new jobs, grad school, spiritual/quarter life crisis, lost friendships, and moving to another state together. We forgot to plan anything special, but I’m sure we’ll find a way to celebrate in the next few weeks.

Below is the wedding video our photographer surprised us with a few weeks after the wedding. I post it every anniversary because I love it.

 

I’m saddened to have already witnessed so many young marriages disintegrate. I know there are a number of reasons (most quite legitimate) why marriages don’t work out, but I feel really lucky that Daniel and I are still just as compatible as ever. I think a lot of people get mushy gushy on the internet and gloss over the day-to-day nature of marriage. They pretend that everything is perfect and sunshiney and beautiful when it’s really just daily living with someone you chose to commit yourself to. Daniel’s and my marriage is strong, but it isn’t perfect and never will be; that’s part of being human. He’s going to roll his eyes that I wrote this post and I’m going to act sulky and complain that he doesn’t find commemorating our anniversaries as important as I do. That’s part of the ebb and flow of our relationship – it’s part of the daily act – and it’s pretty entertaining.

at home: heirloom marriage certificate

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We carried home a nice assortment of family heirlooms after a visit to Daniel’s grandparents’ house last summer, including the 1913 wedding certificate of Daniel’s great grandparents.

Dated January 15, 1913, it’s the oldest personal historical item we own. I love everything about it: lovers on a calm sea at sunset, the little cherub, floralia galore, and pretty type. I don’t think Daniel met Porter or Emma Wise, so it’s lovely and a bit eerie to have this connection to them. It’s also nice – in our own, still new marriage – to feel connected to a couple who married over 100 years ago.

We keep it on display in the bedroom in a simple frame with gallery quality UV glass to deter additional fading over time.

century old marriage certificate heirloom 1913 art antique marriage certificate bedroom we5Family heirlooms have great nostalgic and historical value, even in an age when the new and innovative compete for our attention.

the storm

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tornado dream

I was warming up for police training at a church recreational center on Virginia’s coast. There were nearly 100 of us there, all dressed in gray and navy, doing jumping jacks and anticipating the events of the day.

The sky was overcast through the large, south-facing windows, built high into the wall of the gymnasium. Someone shouted. The wind picked up in a cacophonous symphony of howls and rustling sand. My eyes grew wide in terror: an enormous tornado was headed toward the building. We sat down, some huddled together, myself apart from the group, knowing that following a safety procedure at this point was futile.

The tornado passed the building then, barring our view of the coastline for a few minutes. From the windows in the northern wall, I saw a girl in a red cape running, but it was too late. She was swept up as the winds racked and swayed the tall grass between our building and the church sanctuary. It tore through the sanctuary, demolishing the eastern wall.

I knew that it was bound to head inland, toward Daniel. I texted him:

“I hope you survive. It’s headed your way. Know that I love you very much.”

As I hit send, the howling I’d endured for close to a half hour stopped suddenly, giving way to eerie silence. The stillness was interrupted only by the sound of my heart beating furiously, high on adrenaline.

And then I woke up, convinced my dream had been prophetic, convinced the end was nigh. After several minutes of lying there, overheated and frozen in fear, I woke up Daniel, told him I was afraid, and snuggled into his side, thankful for him, thankful we were both together and alive.

*photo found here

2 years

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Untitled from Lindsey Vinson on Vimeo.

Daniel and I got married just over 2 years ago. I wrote a much lengthier anniversary post over at my old blog, someone’s water lily, but I forgot to share my favorite collection of images! Our wedding photographer, Lindsey Pemberton, made a stop-motion style video using photographs she captured throughout the course of the day. I didn’t know it would come together so beautifully and I never tire of watching it or sharing it.