Grace Cathedral Choral Evensong
I bring you greetings on behalf of Bishop Marc Andrus. And together with him, I give thanks for the 100-plus year ministry of St. Dorothy’s Rest. My thanks are professional—I have the pleasure of working with Katie Evenbeck and her outstanding team—and also personal. Let me start with the latter. I am godparent to twins who are growing up spending their summers at SDR. One of them is a handful—well, as a parent I have to confess that every child is a handful—but Steven has some learning differences and lets just say that he’s not the easiest charge for a camp counselor.
In fact, his first summer at St. Dorothy’s Rest, Steven was actually sent home from camp for hitting another camper. Which is the policy of zero tolerance of physical violence that is appropriate for St. Dorothy’s. But here’s the important part of the story, which is fundamentally not a story of failure but of transformation. Steven was so chagrined about not being about to stay at camp that he worked especially hard all year to get his highly reactive emotions under control.
Not to do better in school, not to make life easier for his long-suffering sister or his parents, but just so that he could come back to camp. Which he has done with delight and social success for about five years since. Summer at St. Dorothy’s is Steven’s favorite time and place, and his parents frequently let the promise of a week at camp help him remember why its important to treat others gently.
Our readings this evening speak to fear, and specifically to the fear of uncontrolled and incontrollable nature. Which includes the wind and the sea and the creatures who inhabit it. For the Hebrew people the sea symbolized chaos. But its important to remember that nature also includes humanity. In both positive and negative ways. Historically, we have projected our fears of uncontrolled nature onto marginalized people, minorities and woman and children in particular. We sometimes refer to struggling children like Steven as wild.
What our lessons remind is that the wilderness we fear most—in nature and in the human condition—is already under the sovereignty of God. However, ours is not a God who coerces nature into submission. Rather, ours is the God who is present within in nature and fully impacting and impacted by it. Ours is the God who welcomes and encompasses the wild child, the sick child, the whole uncontrolled mess of our humanity. Ours is the God who is in the boat with us, literally and figuratively, in the midst of whatever great storm rages around us, and who speaks peace to the wind and sea.
But this same God, who is so compassionately present with us in Jesus, is likewise unafraid of letting nature bear the message of our need to repent, which is of course the lesson Jonah learned in the belly of the whale. And its also the lesson we now need to learn from the changing climate, rising seas and our dry and thirsty state. Nature is not malevolent towards humanity, but neither can we perpetually coerce it into serving our needs to consume ever more. We, like Jonah, need to take in the lessons of the predicament we find ourselves in the midst of, and take up the challenge of healing and restoring the environment that is our unique calling.
And in order to repent and be transformed, we first need to notice that we—like Jesus and Jonah—are in nature, and are of nature. For that, sacred natural places like the 580 acres of St. Dorothy’s Rest, are our diocesan teachers. From St. Dorothy’s we re-learn the fundamental lesson—which our ancestors taught us from the first chapter of Genesis—that creation is good. That nature’s message to we who are weary we who are wild is “welcome.”
Welcome is also the message which St. Dorothy’s faithfully echoes to children who are wondering about the earth they have inherited, and likewise to hospital camp children who are waiting for healing. Welcome, all 400 of you who went to 9 camp sessions last summer. So along with our bishop and our St. Dorothy’s colleagues, I thank you for your support. And if you do not yet know or support St. Dorothy’s Rest, my message to you is “welcome” too. Come to St. Dorothy’s and dwell in God’s good creation, let yourself be transformed, and hear anew the voice of the one who speaks peace.
Another winner.
Nice!