September 13, 2024
The Rhythms of Life
Inspiration and respiration, inhale and exhale. Diastole and systole, blood in and blood out. Out with some, in with some. The rhythms of our bodily existence speak of input and output, and it is so obvious we experience it without thinking of it. But, upon reflection, I would suggest that these rhythms are a great image for the rhythms of our lives beyond the biological. They speak of my life right now, maybe yours as well.
This Sunday, Mae Cannon, an ordained minister in the Covenant Church currently serving as Executive Director with Churches forMiddle East Peace, will be our guest preacher. Hers will be an important voice in our community in this time in our nation’s and the Middle East’s history. But as with all guest preachers, she is with us for a short duration. So as we worship this Sunday, let us consider the long-term implications of Rev. Cannon’s meditations on the scriptures for our community.
In contrast, this past week two of my daughters have returned to live with Susan and me for a season, Kari from Manhattan and Kelsey from London, in anticipation of the birth of their sister Kate’s first child, This is also Susan and my first grandchild. Adult children return for a short time and move on, while a new child comes into our lives in ways that will have lasting impact on all our lives. Still our family will move, come and go, in ways we do not yet know.
We welcome and say goodbye all the time. Most of the time it doesn’t attract much attention. Except when it does. Sometimes we have a significant history with a person, and then they are gone. Their absence leaves a hole. And that absence hurts, especially when they do not come back.
Such was our experience this past week. Darryl Johnson has been known by many of you for years, for some of you a lifetime. For me, I knew Darryl for 3 ½ years. Many of you knew Darryl when he was young and healthy, some of us never knew him outside the challenges of late-stage Parkinson’s. We have all been saying goodbye to Darryl for some time, his presence among us was less frequent and then stopped. Those who visited Darryl saw the increasing effects of Parkinson’s on him. It has been a long, and sometimes difficult, goodbye.
And now Darryl has died. And as natural as the rhythms of in and out, gathering and departing may be, they are sometimes naturally painful. The quality of a “hello” will often determine the pain of the “goodbye.” I invite you in your prayers to consider those long-lasting gifts Darryl has given you, given us—the quality of the hello, even as you grieve Darryl’s absence with us—the pain of the goodbye. Yet let us celebrate the gift of new life, the gift the defeat of Parkinson’s, the gift of Darryl being in the presence of his God through the redeeming and resurrecting work of Christ. For Christians, this is also a natural rhythm; the natural rhythm of our faith.
Thanks be to God.
With love in Christ for you all,
~ Pastor Todd