Sep 15, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, When I Became an Episcopalian - Part 3
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, When I Became an Episcopalian - Part 3
" I had been taught Evil was about satanic rituals and Ouija boards and heavy metal music and people loving someone they shouldn’t. This priest changed my understanding in one fell swoop. And then she spoke passionately of Jesus. In Los Angeles. To Episcopalians. She spoke about Jesus’ clear and consistent advocacy for the love, the humanization, the belonging of all people. And she spoke of how, while she lay in the hospital healing from her wounds, Jesus healed her heart and allowed her to choose love instead of hate as she persisted in the holy work for justice and equity.
That night I sat in this space where this Christian woman connected the spiritual and the practical with articulation, where she connected the actual issues of love and mercy and equality and violence and hatred and fear with the story of how God is working in the world and where Jesus shows up.
That Sunday I showed up. I worshiped with them for the first time."
or if you can't access the link, see it here: https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/onetimegift
Sep 08, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, When I Became an Episcopalian - Part 2
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, When I Became an Episcopalian - Part 2
Do you believe you can be yourself at church? Do you think you can be yourself in front of God? I don’t like admitting that I’ve had problems with this my whole life. I remember during the years when I was unaffiliated with church and was actively questioning if I even believed in anything. I could never bring myself to say I wasn’t Christian, because what if I died in that moment and went to Hell? What is that other than the belief that you can’t be your whole self in front of God?
That night I was at a table with people who all believed different things and said that aloud. A couple of lifelong Episcopalians who never had serious doubts. A gay Christian who loved Jesus and felt safe being himself at this church. One guy who said he wasn’t sure he bought any of it but was there to sort things out. And me – a former fundamentalist turned spiritual-but-not-religious agnostic conservative liberal Jesus lover who’d had a recent conversion experience and was just trying to understand how to be Christian again. And we were all together. It was such a mess. Thank God.
The third thing I remember is the cookies.
Sep 01, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, When I Became an Episcopalian
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, When I Became an Episcopalian
Shortly thereafter I moved to Los Angeles, which was about an hour from where I grew up, and started going to the farmer’s market on Sundays. I wanted to be a Christian, but I didn’t know how. Some people say you can be Christian on your own terms and all by yourself. Maybe they’re right. My experience has been otherwise. Community is central to this faith. It would be like saying you can be married on your own terms and all by yourself. It became clear to me that I wasn’t going to believe in Jesus all by myself. I was going to have to try to find a church that I could stand and that could stand me. I wanted my life to look like I meant it.
I decided to give the farmer’s market a break and go to church. But the idea of finding a new church was overwhelming. So I just started driving back to my hometown and taking my Grandma to our old church. The one I had left. The one I didn’t know what to do with. I knew the first Sunday that it wasn’t my place anymore. But I kept going for a couple months. I still loved the pastor there very much. And I loved my Grandma. Sometimes I’d come down the night before and do my laundry at her house. Then my clean clothes would smell like her cigarettes for a week. We’d sit in the same pew as when I was growing up. The people who remembered me seemed happy to see me. When the offering plate came around, my Grandma would slip me a $5 bill so I wouldn’t be empty-handed. She always did it without making eye contact, like we were dealing in contraband.
It wasn’t my church anymore. It wasn’t going to be. I wasn’t angry or bitter. I just didn’t belong there anymore. And one Sunday I skipped. I slept in. And I called up my buddies to see who was going to the farmer’s market. They were all sleeping in that day and I was definitely not going to go by myself. I resigned myself to a quiet morning. A few minutes later, my roommate peaked his head into my room. He and I were friendly enough but not really friends. We rarely hung out. We certainly didn’t go places together. He said, “Hey I’m thinking of going to the farmer’s market. You wanna go?”
Aug 25, 2023 |
Nourished by Ritual
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Nourished by Ritual
Do you remember the bowls you used for your breakfast cereal as a child? I do. We had these light blue hard plastic bowls with rims on them. I ate cereal every morning without fail. Somehow my kids have managed to get us to make them eggs or pancakes or waffles from time to time. When I was growing up, if we had eggs or pancakes for breakfast it was probably a holiday. Waffles were for brunch buffets. Day in and day out I ate cereal out of one of those blue bowls.
Maybe it wasn’t cereal bowls for you. Maybe you can close your eyes and immediately picture the plates and flatware you used at the dinner table, or the glass you used for juice. What is it for you? Can you see it?
These things were not, in themselves, spectacular. They were simply there every day. They did not need to prove themselves as flawlessly designed. We don’t remember them for being particularly beautiful. We remember them because we used them over and over again for years. I can still remember placing the bowl on the coffee table in the family room then sliding down the couch onto the floor – because if I sat on the couch itself, the bowl would be too low. So I’d sit criss-cross on the floor and that blue bowl overstuffed with cereal and milk would be just below my chin, and that way I wouldn’t spill and maybe my mom wouldn’t notice I hadn’t used a placemat. I realize now I loved it there.
Aug 18, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Nourished by Training
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Nourished by Training
I was talking to a friend recently who is a pilot, and he told me that 30% of his flight training focused on emergency landing and crashing. For all the complexity of plane mechanics, navigation, the physics of flight, and the proper technique for taking off and landing, a full third of the lessons are devoted to catastrophic events.
And that makes sense. If you’re sending someone up in the air, you don’t just want them to know how things work when everything is going well, you want them to have a clear picture of what it looks like when things go wrong, so they can handle the stress of the situation. I had heard about this emergency preparedness for pilots before, funny enough, in a book about churches navigating tumultuous and changing times. The author had been having a similar conversation with a flight instructor and had asked why so much time was dedicated to emergency situations. The instructor responded, we tend to believe that in high pressure situations people have a tendency to rise to the occasion – but in reality, in moments of crisis, people revert to their training.
That really knocked me over. When the chips are down, people don’t tend to become superhuman. We tend to be ourselves. This is not a negative judgment of people, just an observation. I myself like to imagine how I would respond in an emergency. I have very little interest, however, in training for an emergency.
Aug 11, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Nourished by Giving
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Nourished by Giving
I could drop a loaf of bread off on your doorstep and ring your doorbell, and see you smile through a window, or from a bit of a distance and we could have little awkward conversations that meant I love you even when we didn’t say it.
My job is to facilitate a community that is founded on love. And most of the ways we knew how to share that love were just gone for a devastating amount of time. We are nourished by love and for a time there, many of us felt like we were starving.
I began to pray while mixing the dough together. I would say a prayer for the specific people for whom I delivered the bread. I would think of them as I removed the lid from the piping hot Dutch oven and saw how the bread had risen. I did not wait around to watch them eat it; I did not sit by my phone waiting for thank you texts. I’m not saying I didn’t care if they liked it or not. I always hoped they did of course. But I was not fed by gratitude. I was nourished by the giving.
The feeling of being able to do something for someone else is deeply fulfilling, and that is no accident. It is built into us.
Aug 04, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Nourished by Community
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Nourished by Community
A few weeks ago, a woman from out of state was visiting her daughter here in Cincinnati and they both came to church. It was very obviously the mom’s idea, but the daughter was game. I was talking with them after the service and the local daughter just asked me point blank, “So why should I come to your church?” I just laughed. Why can’t everyone be this direct? “Oh, wow,” I said, “I don’t know if you should. I can’t pretend it’s for everyone.” She appreciated that, and I asked her if she knew about The Episcopal Church and she said yes, and that she’d even checked out our website before showing up and that she liked what she saw. But she had still asked the question.
Well, I said, because we humans are built for community. We are literally made for one another. We are not meant to be alone. And we’re lonely. And we need community. And this place, I said, this place is a community that is founded on unconditional love. You can find a community that is founded on all sorts of things, on your wealth or status, on the color of your skin or your last name. You can find communities based on shared interests or neighborhoods, and all these things can combat loneliness in one way or another. But what your community is based on matters. And this place, this community is founded on the premise that you are completely and fully loved and that you belong in community just as you are.
Jul 28, 2023 |
Nourished by Love
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Nourished by Love
That’s the trick with nourishment: It is not permanent. It is not one-time only. Our need is ongoing. We must be fed again and again. This is not because we are broken or faulty – this is how we were made. Our bodies are built in such a way that they use the nourishment we are given and then need more. It’s perpetual, and in fact is a sign that we are alive and thriving.
I tell my kids I love them every day. I have one child who, when I call him over to tell him something, says, “You’re gonna say you love me.” And he’s right. I am. Every time. Because I do. And also because I do not believe once is enough. I’ve heard people say, “Well so-and-so never says it, but I know they love me.” That is not going to be the case for the people around me. I try to tell people that I love them regularly, because I do, and because I believe hearing it repeatedly matters. I don’t often think of myself as a disciplined person, but telling people I love them is one of my disciplines.
And I know words aren’t everything. I know it. “I love you” can ring hollow if not backed up by action. The words can be misused, abused, twisted. If rule number one is tell them you love them, the second rule is act like it’s true. But the act of loving people cannot be a one-time event. It cannot be. Because our Gospel belief is that we are made by the God of Love, that we are made out of the abundance of God’s love, and that we are made for loving and being loved. It is the most fundamental truth of our being. And that means we need to be nourished by love. We need it again and again, day in day out.
Jul 21, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Older
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Older
Sometime in my 30’s I drove by the school for the first time in what must have been a decade, and I was so excited to feel that feeling again, or some nostalgic version of it. I almost drove right past the building. It was like they had replaced it with a half-sized replica. I kept looking for it even as I was looking right at it. And then I realized that it was right in front of me, with those tiny steps up to some simple looking doors and the quaint edifice that was definitely lovely, but certainly not imposing.
I’m sure you’ve had this experience at some point: Some thing or place changing so dramatically over time from how you remember it – changing in size, in magnitude, in meaning. It used to tower over you, and now, well, it doesn’t. And you have to adjust.
I turned 44 last week, which is a pretty inconsequential age to be, as ages go. Just good ol’ mid-forties. Middle-aged. I’m not going to take this opportunity to wax poetic on the aging process, as I know that about half of you who read this are 20, 30, 40 years older than me, and you don’t need to hear my version of the thing you’ve been dealing with for a while. It’s strange though, when I am doing Premarital Counseling with a couple and I begin to talk about “our age” and then realize we are, in fact, very different ages.
I was listening to the Beatles the other day, and I realized they were in their 20’s the entire time they were together. They were kids. Remember the Sgt. Pepper era when the Beatles all had terrible facial hair? Well of course they did: they were in their 20s! That’s when you do that! I am 4 years older than John Lennon was when he died. The Beatles, the bride and the groom, the elementary school, they haven’t changed, but you change in your relation to them.
Jun 30, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Accepting Blessing
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Accepting Blessing
My dad was not my hero. He was not perfect, invincible, unassailable or saintly to me. I had a list of complaints for this very human guy. None of that mattered in that moment. I believed the story he told me. I believed him. When I say that I chose to accept him what I actually mean is that I chose to listen to him and to believe his experience as valid and true. That he had been gay as long as he could remember. That he had tried not to be. That he had prayed endlessly, tried to be straight, tried to be what he considered faithful, and that none of it had worked. That he was done trying to be anything other than who he was. And that even though he was scared of my rejection, he was going to be himself and invite me to see the truth of that.
Looking back on it, I shake my head to think of how often Christians have made telling the truth a difficult and scary prospect. How judgmental we can be, how condemning. How sure we are of what others’ lives are supposed to look like, of what their identities should be, of who and how they should love. When I am feeling idealistic, I like to imagine a world in which Christians have earned a reputation for being gracious and loving, open and thoughtful. You know, like Jesus.
Jun 23, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, The Political Church
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, The Political Church
I don’t like that the church has become political. But then, when was the church not political? We see Jesus as one who founded a spiritual movement rather than a political one. And indeed he intentionally eschewed the partisan binaries of his time. And the language of his teachings didn’t fit neatly within the political paradigms. But to take his teachings seriously required people to reorder their whole lives, their relationship to one another, their relationship to their communities and cities, their relationship to power, and therefore their relationship to government. We saw this in the first generation of Christians. This is why they were systematically persecuted, arrested, tortured, marginalized and killed. Their beliefs were seen as threatening to the status quo. Under a government that insisted Caesar was Lord, they proclaimed Jesus is Lord. In a culture where patriotism was reserved for Rome, Paul insisted our primary citizenship is Heaven. How can we pretend that wasn’t political?
I used to take pride in the fact that the Episcopal Church was one of the few American denominations that didn’t split over the issue of slavery. I thought it was really beautiful that we found a way to call ourselves united despite differences. It was lost on me that our church accomplished this by not taking a stand against slavery. We prized the appearance of unity and the enforcement of the status quo over the proclamation of God’s liberation of all people in Jesus Christ.
This does not mean we weren’t political, by the way. It means we chose the politics of status quo even when it was evil.
Because there is no such thing as an apolitical church. It does not exist. It has never existed. The decision not to teach and preach and think and talk together about what is actually happening in our community, in our world is itself a political decision.
Jun 16, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Growing in Understanding
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Growing in Understanding
I want to be honest and tell you that I had no real way to process my friend’s transition. I was not mad or sad. But, at least at the moment, I was not happy either. I literally did not know how I felt. I did not have the tools to process this.
Well, I suppose that is not entirely true. I did have a few things that helped me when I didn’t know what to think. I knew that I cared about my friend. I knew that I respected him. I knew that he was smart and thoughtful. And I knew that such a major medical decision must not have been made lightly. I didn’t know what I thought about his decision, but I knew what I thought about him. When you are not sure what you think or how to react to something, choosing love and respect is, in fact, a practical tool you can use.
So, I congratulated him. And, at least for the time being, I kept my questions to myself. It didn’t feel right to pepper him with curiosity that might be read as skepticism. In the meantime, he looked and sounded happy. Genuinely happy. And I liked that.
As I look back on all this I am fascinated by how interconnected understanding and language were. I did not have the language to describe my friend’s situation, and I did not have understanding either. I had not thought of gender and sexuality as separate.
May 26, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, My Daughter's Sign
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, My Daughter's Sign
I knew that sign would be more polarizing than a candidate endorsement. I also knew I believed Black Lives Matter. Maybe more than anything, I was impressed with my daughter’s audacity, and convicted by the simplicity with which she suggested it. Because I must admit I did not have the courage to imagine putting that sign in our yard. I wondered if it would cause problems with any of my parishioners. I wondered if it would bother any of my neighbors. I wondered if they’d think things about me that weren’t true. I wondered if they’d find out things about me that were true. I wondered if a sign like that would be defaced. But I was proud of my daughter. So, I said OK. Well, that’s not true. I said let me talk to your mom about it, but in my heart, I had already said OK. And my wife agreed. I still wondered all those things, and so did she. But we got the sign and we put it up right in our front yard.
Nobody has defaced it. Nobody has even commented on it, to be honest, except one guy at a nursery my wife went to. She was showing him a picture of the front of our house asking him for advice on what kinds of bushes to buy and he gave her grief about the sign, saying she was getting political by showing him the picture. My wife hates confrontation and hates signs more than I do, and here she was hearing about it from a stranger at the nursery. She was courteously resolute in her response to him, which made him feel embarrassed. She chose boxwoods and he put them in the car for her.
Now it’s been nearly 3 years. And the sign isn’t looking so good. All the other signs in the neighborhood have gone away – most of them shortly after November 2020. And here we are with our Black Lives Matter sign, a White family in a White house in a White neighborhood. And I have to make a decision. Do we take it down?
Nobody has defaced it. Nobody has even commented on it, to be honest, except one guy at a nursery my wife went to. She was showing him a picture of the front of our house asking him for advice on what kinds of bushes to buy and he gave her grief about the sign, saying she was getting political by showing him the picture. My wife hates confrontation and hates signs more than I do, and here she was hearing about it from a stranger at the nursery. She was courteously resolute in her response to him, which made him feel embarrassed. She chose boxwoods and he put them in the car for her.
Now it’s been nearly 3 years. And the sign isn’t looking so good. All the other signs in the neighborhood have gone away – most of them shortly after November 2020. And here we are with our Black Lives Matter sign, a White family in a White house in a White neighborhood. And I have to make a decision. Do we take it down?
May 19, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Inspired
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Inspired
Of course, I’m not an actor. I’m a priest. But Nicholson had a profound influence on my life. I mean, I was a good little fundamentalist Christian, so his fast-living reputation was not really for me growing up. But he had this way about him that just bowled me over. He seemed always to be utterly himself in whatever he did – even while convincingly playing fantastic characters. He was the Joker, or McMurphy, or J.J. Gittes, or Col. Jessup, or Melvin Udall, but at the same time he was Jack! And I loved that. When I was in college, my buddy Wes and I visited Hollywood and made our film lover’s pilgrimage to Grauman’s Chinese Theater. This is the spot where many famous actors have put their hand and foot prints into the cement. I got down on my knees in front of Jack’s signature and placed my hands in his handprints. They fit perfectly. Wes’ hands fit in James Stewart’s. We floated away.
It's a strange thing to call someone your inspiration when you haven’t actually followed in their footsteps. A few years back I was at a concert and I ran into a comedian named Emo Phillips. He is not terribly famous, but when I was younger I had seen a stand-up special of his that was so absurd and outlandish that it had turned my idea of comedy upside down. I walked up to him that night and introduced myself. He was very gracious. I told him that he had been a big inspiration to me growing up. “Is that so?” he asked, “what do you do?” I said I was a priest, and without missing a beat he said, “Well obviously.”
May 12, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Where is God
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Where is God
Where is God when things are terrible? Where is God when I pray for the healing of a loved one and they get sicker? Where is God when I pray for their healing and they die instead? Where is God when people are being torn apart by AR-15 bullets?
Where is God?
I ask this question a lot, and I get asked it a lot. A friend who is really going through it recently asked me, and followed up by saying they were not asking rhetorically. It’s not a new question. Some biblical scholars believe that the Book of Job is the earliest story in our Scriptures. Which means not only is “Where is God?” not a new question – it might be the oldest question anyone who believed in God ever asked. And it’s important to remember that “Where is God?” is asked most frequently by people who believe in God, because we often think it’s a question rooted either in faithlessness or cynicism. But in my experience it is one of the most faithful questions anyone can ask.
Where is God?
I need to tell you that I will not answer this question in anything like a satisfactory way. So please know that going forward. Just the same, my first answer is that God is with us. This is the stated belief of the Christian – even when we don’t understand, even when we question, even when we doubt, even when we are furious with God. God is with us. When I was growing up, the spectacular Bette Midler sang, “God is watching us from a distance.” It was beautiful and it was believable, but it was also not true – at least not according to the Christian narrative. We say that God is here right now.
May 05, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Raise Your Hand
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Raise Your Hand
The first time I ever got kicked out of class was for arguing with my teacher. I was in 5th grade and Mr. Ahlers said that dinosaurs never existed. This was actually not the point of whatever he was teaching – it just came out while he was talking about something else: A very casual denial of dinosaurs. I raised my hand. He called on me. “I’m sorry, did you say there were no dinosaurs?” That’s right, he said, and when I asked him why he said that he said they weren’t in the Bible.
I attended a private Christian school, so Mr. Ahlers was allowed to say this, but I had never actually heard it before. I didn’t know one could just believe there were no dinosaurs. You should know at this point that I was not a science-oriented kid. I did not like educational programming – and to this day I still try not to learn anything while watching TV if I can help it. I have a son who memorizes animal and dinosaur facts and I love that about him, but that has never been me. But still, as a ten-year-old I had heard of dinosaur fossils and bones. Which is why I immediately asked him what about the fossils and bones.
Mr. Ahlers said that God had put those in the ground. I asked why God would do that and he said in order to test our faith. I expressed incredulity. He doubled down, “What? Don’t you think God could create fossils and bones and put them in the ground to test us?” To which I responded, “Of course I think he could do that, I just don’t think God would be such a jerk.” And that, my friends, was when I was kicked out of class.
I attended a private Christian school, so Mr. Ahlers was allowed to say this, but I had never actually heard it before. I didn’t know one could just believe there were no dinosaurs. You should know at this point that I was not a science-oriented kid. I did not like educational programming – and to this day I still try not to learn anything while watching TV if I can help it. I have a son who memorizes animal and dinosaur facts and I love that about him, but that has never been me. But still, as a ten-year-old I had heard of dinosaur fossils and bones. Which is why I immediately asked him what about the fossils and bones.
Mr. Ahlers said that God had put those in the ground. I asked why God would do that and he said in order to test our faith. I expressed incredulity. He doubled down, “What? Don’t you think God could create fossils and bones and put them in the ground to test us?” To which I responded, “Of course I think he could do that, I just don’t think God would be such a jerk.” And that, my friends, was when I was kicked out of class.
Apr 28, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Listening for Love
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Listening for Love
First a word on anger: Anger is not anti-love. And it is a misguided understanding of love that makes us equate anger with hatred. As I wrote last year, God gets angry. And God is Love. Our Scriptures paint a consistent picture of a God who gets angry when they see people in positions of power marginalize and oppress the powerless in God’s name. God’s anger is not arbitrary but is inflamed by injustice and inhumanity. And God’s anger is not hate. It is an extension of love.
My parishioner’s expression of anger was an expression of love and an act of courage. And it reminded me of all the times I had sat on my thumbs and kept myself from confronting friends or family when they dehumanized others, because I didn’t want to rock the boat. I didn’t want to be unpleasant myself.
When we deny ourselves the natural emotion of anger as a response to injustice, marginalization, or dehumanization, we are denying the voice of God that stirs within us. And when I deem a woman’s anger unattractive, unseemly, undesired, I am denying the presence of that same God that dwells within them.
When we deny ourselves the natural emotion of anger as a response to injustice, marginalization, or dehumanization, we are denying the voice of God that stirs within us. And when I deem a woman’s anger unattractive, unseemly, undesired, I am denying the presence of that same God that dwells within them.
Apr 21, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, Unprovable
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, Unprovable
I have a dear friend from college who belongs to a different religious tradition. Though we believe different things and practice different religions, we’ve always liked each other, in part I think, because we respected that the other took their faith seriously. It’s been over 20 years and we are still talking about our faith with each other, and recently we were talking about the difficulty of being faithful in this hard world. He asked me if there was anything that kept me coming back, and I said, “Well, I mean, I heard God speak.” His response was similar: I love that that happened to you. I wish it would happen to me.
I don’t know why these things have happened to me, and not everyone else. Those who have confessed to similar experiences have been comforting in the moment, but it’s the people who have not had them that rattle me. Because I know these people and I am not better or smarter or stronger or more faithful than them.
What’s more, it’s this sort of inconsistency to which skeptics point when they are saying why they don’t believe: Any person can add 1 to 1 and get 2. Anyone can put water in a freezer and make it into ice. Anyone can recognize life is life and death is death. These things are consistent and reproducible. But you say God spoke to you and nobody else heard it? And you can’t make God speak again by going the same place and doing the same thing? Unprovable. You say you spoke with a deceased relative in a dream? Unreasonable.
It is strange what we feel the need to prove.
When we think about why someone loves us, we feel the need to prove we’ve earned it. We haven’t. You can’t earn love. But we want to prove it just the same.
Apr 07, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, The Phone Call
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, The Phone Call
When I woke up I felt peace. And then I never told anyone this happened. Because I was not interested in sounding unhinged. And I’m still not interested in that, so I still rarely share this story, and certainly am not sure how I feel about telling you here. I feel compelled to tell you that I do not normally hear voices, claim clairvoyance, or converse with the dead – though I’m not opposed to any of these things. My dad was also neither the first nor the last person I loved who died – though he’s certainly the one to whom I’m the closest. He’s the one I know and love the best.
I find it interesting that there are multiple occasions in Scriptures when mystical, divine things happen in the midst of dreams. It’s like God is deliberately leaving room for plausible deniability. Did Joseph really have those visions of himself as ruler, or was he just being cocky? Did Abraham really enter into a covenant with the Almighty, or was that just a story he told to justify his far-fetched hopes? Did Jacob really wrestle with God or was that just a metaphor for psychological struggle? Did Phil’s dad really call him on that dream phone to say goodbye, or was this just a way to cope with unspeakable grief?
Everyone outside of the dream is free to believe it is a flight of fancy. But in the sacred stories, the dreamer wakes up transformed and convicted.
I find it interesting that there are multiple occasions in Scriptures when mystical, divine things happen in the midst of dreams. It’s like God is deliberately leaving room for plausible deniability. Did Joseph really have those visions of himself as ruler, or was he just being cocky? Did Abraham really enter into a covenant with the Almighty, or was that just a story he told to justify his far-fetched hopes? Did Jacob really wrestle with God or was that just a metaphor for psychological struggle? Did Phil’s dad really call him on that dream phone to say goodbye, or was this just a way to cope with unspeakable grief?
Everyone outside of the dream is free to believe it is a flight of fancy. But in the sacred stories, the dreamer wakes up transformed and convicted.
Mar 24, 2023 |
Rector's Blog, When God Feels Like It
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
Rector's Blog, When God Feels Like It
We don’t get to conjure or control the manner in which God shows up. God is not a parlor trick. God has agency. God has a say. And whether we understand that or not says more about us than it does about God.
None of this is meant cynically or hopelessly. Quite the opposite. I believe we are made for relationship with God. And healthy relationships aren’t one-sided. In a good relationship, I don’t get to just decide when and in what manner my friend shows up. In a good relationship, I am pushed to recognize the otherness of the person about whom I care – and to respect it. Why would this not be true about God? Why do I think God has to be here for me in exactly the way that makes me comfortable? In what world is that a healthy relationship?
We Christians often seem obsessed with proving God’s existence. But if the God in whom we believe actually exists, they don’t seem terribly obsessed with proving their own existence. God seems content to show up in inexplicable ways and places, and then just as content as a silent observer.
