Ecclesiology, Grace, and Redemption

Whatever we understand the church to be, that is our understanding of the nature and means of grace and redemption. Whatever we understand the nature and means of grace and redemption to be, that is our understanding of the problem at the core of human existence.

That God May Have Mercy

Of late, in daily prayers for certain people deeply occupying my heart, I find I am reduced to asking only that God may have mercy. Such prayer seems woefully indeterminate. Yet, given life as it is and my faith as it is, I can neither imagine nor articulate any other prospect. So this has come to be the substance of prayer for me.

Public Decency, Common Good

Have we as a society become so inured to coarse language that we have no inhibitions, no embarrassment, about public use and display of certain words, certain expressions? That we have little or no regard for the sensitivities, even the quality, of common life? Even more, do we who identify as followers of Jesus have no such inhibitions or embarrassment, or have such little regard for common life, for public decencies? "Edification" may or may not be a concept of much currency outside of the New Testament these days. Yet it seems to me that we who claim at least some continuity of heart and mind with the communities of the New Testament might want to consider the notion as a motivation for and measure of what we publicly express and do, with an unabashed desire to foster the quality of common life, of public decency.

Early on the First Sunday after Pentecost: Trinity Sunday

Early on this refreshed and refreshing June morning, clear and cool, the sun pours glory from the eastern horizon upon roads and buildings and fields and rocks and all manner of life. Even the long westward shadows of houses and trees seem to heighten, not lessen, the effulgence of light which we see most sharply and intensely in the things of this world, a profuse multiplicity which yet coheres in this streaming luminance. Thus met and loved in beauties, one original, one derived, are the divine and the created.

Rock Hill Cemetery, Loudoun County, Virginia

In observance of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Washington Post has been printing articles on many facets of the war. The Post collected them in an e-book called "Civil War Stories: 150th Anniversary Collection." I have been going through it. I recently read an article on African-Americans from Loudoun County, Virginia, who fought for the Union, some of whom were buried in Loudoun either during the war or afterward. This morning Karen and I drove to the southwestern part of Loudoun to explore a cemetery mentioned in the article: Rock Hill Cemetery. It is one of numerous relatively small African-American cemeteries in Loudoun, indeed in Virginia and throughout the south. Of those in Loudoun, many are terribly neglected. Rock Hill stands out for the quality of its appearance due to the efforts of Vernon Peterson. Karen and I had the great privilege of being there this morning when Vernon Peterson showed up to attend to some chores at the cemetery. We introduced ourselves, and we spent a good half hour or more talking to him and hearing stories of his life, of his family and other people in the cemetery, and of his years of tending the grounds. Now in his 80s, Peterson has been caring for the cemetery since the mid 1950s as a true "labor of love." He has many relatives in the cemetery, as well as a headstone ready for his wife and for him when they pass on. He even has two granddaughters buried there, one who died of cancer when 8 years old, and one who died as a college student in the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007. We also met a friend of his named Thomas who comes to help him from time to time. As part of our time, Mr. Peterson showed us the grave of Dennis C. Weaver, a black Union soldier from Loudoun County. He served in Company D, 1 United States Colored Infantry. Weaver was instrumental in the creation of Rock Hill Cemetery in 1889 as a resting place for blacks when they could not be buried in cemeteries reserved for whites. Vernon Peterson and Thomas, elderly African-American men from small historic communities in this part of Virginia, have lived through interesting times, and they have seen many changes in society. As they talked, it was as if we could sense deep undercurrents of the challenges they faced, as well as the joys they knew, in negotiating life in Loudoun County from the 1930s to the present. Now Vernon Peterson anxiously wonders who will care for Rock Hill Cemetery when he rests in the ground there from his labor. There is no figure on the horizon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-state-of-nova/post/black-loudoun-civil-war-vets-honored-in-new-book-from-loudoun-to-glory-by-kevin-d-grigsby/2013/03/03/624f9db8-847b-11e2-98a3-b3db6b9ac586_blog.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/will-a-rural-cemetery-live-on-after-its-longtime-caretaker-is-gone/2011/04/12/AF1Z7xeD_story.html

Kwanzan Cherry Trees Past Peak of Blooms

Such a lovely litter
do wind and trees make
as petals loose from leaves
then swirl and sweep through air
always toward earth
there to cluster and clutter
still allusive of beauty
as what is felt but unseen
lifts and scatters them
across lawn and street
where one spring morning
our feet once lightly went

A New-Sprung World

This world which was made by God,
Then unmade by us,
Is now remade by Christ,
That a new-sprung world,
In lilt of light and song,
Might surge with joy, crying "Glory!"