Salutations!

Greetings.  Ahh, here we are in the season of resurrection.  I hope you had an Easter as wonderful as mine.  It was especially wonderful, in part, because of my work as a chaplain in a large urban medical center.  I was on-call all day on Good Friday--and it was Good Friday.  As Jesus hung on the cross, I faced mortality--and in some ways, my own mortality--working with grieving families of persons my same age, complicated situations--unresolved relationships, broken-hearted children, parents, and siblings, grief, love, anger, pain, loss, and guilt--and how to "ready-or-not" let go and begin the process of separation.  You know, death really sucks most of the time, especially for the ones left behind.  

I often encounter so much judgement mixed up in death.  Perhaps drugs are involved and judgement is made about a persons weakness--but not so much compassion given for their pain.  Unfortunately, there have been times, too, when foul play was suspected--or was it suicide?  No one is really sure, but because questions and doubts linger, the realization that relationships are still so complicated and, regardless, grief is still active and pain is still present.  And, for the family caught in the double cross-hair of grief and suspicion, could their be a more lonely exile?  

And so it was for me again this Good Friday; "let you who is without sin cast the first stone."  I say, "there are no rocks in my pocket."  I have no "crystal ball and I do not read minds" and I do not know anything other than that Jesus came to heal the broken and the sinner.  And so, I stood with these broken, hurting souls, gathered around the bed of the dying.  We read psalms and said prayers.  They told me stories of love about the person in the bed who they knew to be different in another time and space; I assured them that they would always remember and would still hear the voice of the one they loved in daily activities and in family stories...death cannot take that away.  

Two more times, in various ways, similar scenes played out.  Each time, God was there at work in God's own way.

I went home exhausted, thinking that I, too, needed a priest; knowing it was the wrong day to call anyone.  

It was Saturday night after the Great Easter Vigil, I was sharing this with a friend at church.  Oh, it felt so good to be in my own faith community, to light the new fire and to share our faith from creation and the renewal of our baptismal vows...  My friend talked about how he needed to "confess to cyberspace" in his blog; and the idea for  Sophia was born; part creative outlet, and yes, part confessional.  

Amen.