When someone seeking after God sits down for conversation with a spiritual companion, the listening for God is at a great depth. There is silence. The words that are spoken come out of that silence.

These days of this "residency" in the Spiritual Guidance program are precious, because I am spending them with other people called to a ministry of spiritual guidance, who are willing to enter into the silence, into the depth of God.

When time is spent in the silence, God can be heard. (God is speaking all the time, I think, but without spending daily time in the silence, the noise of our daily drowns God's voice out!)

Last night we had a free evening, and so I took the opportunity to meet my cousin, Michael, for dinner. It was precious time of depth. We shared words and tears of our difficult journeys over recent months -- my ongoing emotional recovery from the edge of death, and his journey through grief over the death of his wife, Nancy. Michael does not look at events with the same spiritual perspective as I. But this morning, in the silence, in my prayer, I was caught by this verse from the daily lectionary reading in Deuteronomy:

"[The Lord] found [Jacob] in a desert land,
and in the howling waste of the wilderness;
he encircled him, he cared for him
he kept him as the apple of his eye."

The desert land, the howling waste of the wilderness -- that is where conditions are hostile to life. That is where we cannot cover up or deny the reality of death. That is where we are in grief, or in recovery from life-threatening illness.

Think of God: finding us, encircling us, caring for us when we are in the desert, when we are in the howling waste of the wilderness. There, right there, with us. What unfailing love. What grace.

What grace to sit with that, in prayer.

Yesterday morning I drove to a retreat center in Pikesville, MD (just west of the beltway around Baltimore), and I'll be here for the next nine days. It's the second "residency" of the two-year program on Spiritual Direction with the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. (www.shalem.org)

I was awfully glad to get here! I'm talking about the drive!! Beginning at Fredericksburg, intensifying through the D.C. area, at is WORST on the beltway around Baltimore -- the TRAFFIC! Yikes!!

And to think I used to be used to this stuff, living in the urban northeast! I haven't been in this traffic for several years. To visit family, I've driven south. To do Synod work, I've driven west. Patty and I have visited NYC twice, but once was by train and the other time by plane. Thus my feeling yesterday morning: Yikes!!

Who has complained about the growth and the traffic in Williamsburg? (May I see a show of hands, please? Is there anyone who hasn't complained about this?) Lemme tell you: just drive north for a few hours. You'll realize that, with all the growth, Williamsburg is still a sleepy little town!

Ok, I confess my sinfulness. My sin of over-responsibility. My sin of thinking it all depends on me. My sin of thinking I have to "fix it."

Yesterday morning I found that there were barricades across the entrances to the Jamestown Road parking lot that we depend upon for Sunday mornings! My mind started racing with worst case scenarios. How could we operate without that parking? Would we have to cancel worship services? We had a congregational meeting scheduled! Would we have to reschedule that? According to the constitution, there must be two weeks' notice for a congregational meeting. Would we be able to assemble a quorum in the middle of July??

I called the campus police and alerted them to my concern. They were very sympathetic, and they called the director of campus parking at home. He called back and said that "Jamestown 2007" had reserved the parking lot for a special service being held at Jamestown Island; that they would be busing worshipers to the island. I explained that we depended on that lot! He said, "Oh, do you use that lot?" I said, "Since 1964." He felt badly. He explained that he's only been on the job for 10 months. He explained that he hadn't even thought about the churches across the street. He said this was a unique event. He said there would be attendants directing traffic into the lot. He said we would be welcome to use the parking garage, down Ukrops Avenue, and that the attendants directing traffic into the lot would point out where the garage is, for those who would be confused. (The garage, of course, is about a six block walk from the church!)

I closed my cell phone. Words of grace were then spoken to me. I confess my sin of not listening to them! They were spoken by that sage, Jean Kuhn. (I carried out my conversation with the parking director in the Kuhn's car on Saturday morning, as we were riding down to hear Eric Gritsch at Reformation Lutheran Church.) Jean said, "You know, I don't think you should worry about it. I think our people will just go ahead and park in the lot anyway, and the problem will take care of itself."

But I knew the problem would not take care of itself. I knew it was my responsibility to fix it! How was I to do that? I worried all afternoon and all last night.

When I got to the church this morning -- riding my bicycle! There were several empty spots at the bicycle rack! -- the attendants were already on the job, and cars were already pouring into the lot. I put on my vestments way earlier than usual, and stood out alongside Jamestown Road to offer suggestions to our folks who would obviously not be able to cope. But soon the cars pouring into the parking lot included those belonging to our members, arriving for worship! They simply followed the attendants' welcoming directions, and they found places to park, and, instead of boarding the buses for Jamestown Island, they simply walked to the church building.

Some did have to walk a longer distance than usual. But what do you know? The problem did work itself out! We successfully gathered this morning for two worship services and a congregational meeting. It hadn't been up to me to fix it at all!

I promise never ever to be caught up in my overly-responsible self ever again.

(Wanna bet?)

I'm up over 1,000 miles for the year on my road bike! Not bad, considering that I lost January and started slowly and carefully in February as I my recovery took hold. Yesterday I rode 54 miles, out into Charles City County and back. The week had been a tough one, with several difficult pastoral care situations, and then the stress I was feeling over the blockaded parking lot across the street from the church. I just needed to get out there and pedal for a few hours!

Mournful news coming out of Iraq these days. The last troops of President Bush's "surge" are in place -- but across the country, violence has actually increased over where it was a few months ago.

This past Sunday, during the prayers, one of our folks offered prayer for those in Iraq who are crying out for freedom and justice. I have thought about that a lot during the days since, because the ordinary Iraqis are indeed the ones forgotten in the whole Iraq mess. Much attention is paid to our soldiers (of course!) and to Al- Qaeda fighters and to Iraqi militias fighting each other and to the politicians who are fighting among themselves. But not much notice is given to those in the general Iraqi popluation who are killed each day by Shia or Sunni with guns, who are intent upon killing those in the other sect of Islam.

Why do we not give attention to this daily loss of innocent life? Part of it is our narrow perspective, what it is that gets our attention. Here's an example. I think of the 33 killed in April at Virginia Tech. A terrible, terrible tragedy. It provoked national TV coverage that was nearly 24 hours a day for days, a presidential visit to the Tech campus, a Governor's blue ribbon commission to investigate the causes of the killings, frequent news articles in Virginia papers even now. It was indeed a terrible, terrible tragedy.

However, (and here's what I mean about perspective), in Iraq, if there is a day when only 33 non-combatant civilians are killed, that's a good day! How tragic. Does God mourn the deaths of hundreds and thousands of Iraqis less than the deaths that get our attention?

As we pray for an end to the killing of Iraqi civilians by the warring factions in that country, we join our prayers with God's prayers for peace.

Christ is risen! Alleluia!!

For my daily prayer I use a "Lutheran breviary" called For All The Saints. This morning I found some sentences that I could have quoted in yesterday morning's sermon! (I entitled the sermon "God Desires Healing." It is posted on the website.) These sentences are from Alexander Schmemann, a great Eastern Orthodox theologian of the 20th century.

Read them prayerfully. Please ignore the sexist language!

"Here is a man suffering on his bed of pain, and the church comes to him to perform the sacrament of healing. For this man, as for every person and the whole world, suffering can be the defeat, the way of a complete surrender to darkness, despair and solitude. It can be dying in the very real sense of the word. And yet it can be also the ultimate victory of a person and of Life in that person. The church does not come to restore health in this man, simply to replace medicine when medicine has exhausted its own possibilities. The church comes to take this man into the Love, the Light and the Life of Christ. It comes not merely to 'comfort' him in his sufferings, not to 'help' him, but to make him a martyr, a witness to Christ in his very sufferings. A martyr is one who behods 'the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God' (Acts 7:56). A martyr is one for whom God is not another -- and the last -- chance to stop the awful pain; God is his very life, and thus everything in his life comes to God, ascends to the fullness of Love."

And then comes this prayer, from someone named Donald Houston Stewart:

Grant Thy healing power and presence, O Lord,
Upon all who sorrow, or are distressed in spirit and mind;
Upon all anxious, defeated, and troubled souls;
Upon those everywhere who seek forgiveness and restoration,
Who hunger for enlightenment and communion with Thee;
Upon us all, bestow again the authority of Thy Holy Spirit
and the Peace of Thy communion with us.

Begotten in Thy Light, deliver us from all darkness.
Lifted by the powerful tide of Thy creative purpose,
save us from all despair and loneliness.
Pour out upon us the Power of Thy healing purpose,
so that knowing ourselves created afresh by the dominion of Thy Love, our hearts may be in our time the cradle of Thy coming again in transforming power.
Through Him who liveth and reigneth with Thee, world without end, Amen.

This is the time of year when the College hosts summer conferences and camps. It's always interesting to see the subject of those conferences. The titles are printed on the temporary signs along Jamestown Road directing conference participants to housing and parking.

This morning, bicycling to the church, I noticed a sign with an arrow pointing towards the Ludwell apartments. The sign read, simply, "Homicide."

I speculate on just what this conference may be about:

A "how to": teaching how to commit a homicide?!

Or, how to restrain yourself when you want to commit a homicide?!

Or, maybe it's a conference on writing detective fiction?!

Just back from the Virginia Synod Assembly -- a day early, so I can lead worship at St. Stephen tomorrow morning. I wish the Synod Assembly was on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday (which is the way it is in many Synods), instead of on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I don't think the Synod Assembly is a good enough reason to miss leading worship at home. (A number of other pastors practice the same civil disobedience as I do and cut out early!)

I go to Synod Assemblies mostly out of a sense of duty. Actually, this year's Assembly was more worthwhile than most because the keynote presenter and the Bible study leader were both outstanding! That's not always the case. The business of this Assembly, as usual, was boring in the extreme. I keep thinking we could take care of it in three hours instead of three days. Of course, the highlight is seeing and talking to folks that I don't see often because of geography: colleagues and former parishioners and young adults that were in my youth event small groups when they were in high school, and two of our William and Mary students who were there. Mealtime conversations are great!

So, while I'm there, I'm visiting with colleagues, and hearing how their ministries are going in their congregations. And all of that is really interesting to me -- there are so many different situations for ministry in our Synod. But something strikes me when I'm on the way home from an Assembly. It happened again tonight. As I get east of Richmond, on I-64, I feel so glad to be getting back to Williamsburg!

There really is something in this idea of "call" for pastors. I was called to three congregations before coming to St. Stephen: in Towson, MD, Virginia Beach, and Wilmington, DE. In all of those places, while I was there, I was deeply committed to my work, and I did important work in all of those congregations. In some cases, my effect has been lasting in peoples' lives. There are people I love deeply in all three of those congregations. But I am no longer called to any of those places. I could not imagine being in those locations again. Instead, I am excited as I return to Williamsburg! I look forward to being with the St. Stephen folks in worship tomorrow morning. I would miss that if I stayed over on Sunday at the Assembly!

And so, this evening, once again my call to ministry in this place and this congregation has been validated.

He is risen! Alleluia!

The Easter lilies out in front of the church have started to bloom, each blossom trumpeting the news of the resurrection!

In our garden at home, too, the lilies are just about to bust open. Today or maybe tomorrow, I'll bet. It will be wonderful to sit on the screened porch and smell the fragrance of Easter lilies!

Speaking of the garden, a yard cat has begun spending hours around our house. I'm glad to see him/her. Several years ago I asked Ailene Bartlett, "What's the best way I can control voles?" She said, "Get a cat." Now I'm enjoying the best of both worlds: we have a needed predator in the gardens, but I don't have to take care of him/her!

It's integral to God's creation: that there be predators to control populations. Now, let's see, what might we do about the deer?? I guess it would be too extreme to introduce a couple of wolves into our neighborhoods, huh?

The bumps on my fingernails have grown out. It was sometime after I had come home from the hospital that I noticed the bumps: ridges of thickness across each fingernail. I've learned that medications can cause that, for the cartilage to grow thickly as it emerges from the cuticle. Over the months I tracked the progress of these ridges, as they grew closer to my fingertips! Now they've been snipped off by the fingernail clippers. Another sign that my illness is something that is past.

Or is it?

I've just finished Joan Didion's The Year Of Magical Thinking, the account of how her mind worked during the first year following the sudden death of her husband, John. Joan and John had returned one evening from visiting their daughter, Quintana, who was critically ill herself, on life support in an ICU. Joan and John sat down to dinner, and John died, of sudden cardiac arrest. His heart simply stopped beating.

Please do not take a single day of life for granted.

I don't think I would be so aware of that, if not for my own illness. So, in that sense, my illness is not in the past.

The Year of Magical Thinking is required reading for many different reasons. What most affected me, actually, were the passages where Joan Didion describes treatment her daughter was receiving. It brought back acute memories of enduring a number of the same procedures.

In memories such as that the past becomes present. And I've found that happening, regularly, while visiting in the hospital. Just yesterday, for instance. I was visiting a man who has a mysterious pneumonia in his lungs. The pulmonologist has done a bronchoscopy, but the results were inconclusive. Another bronchoscopy will be done, and if that's also inconclusive, the patient will be transferred to Norfolk, where there is a chest surgeon, for a lung biopsy. (Of course, the same exact sequence happened to me -- except, by the time I arrived at Norfolk General, I was too sick to survive a lung biopsy. It's even the same Williamsburg pulmonologist doing the bronchoscopies!)

And then, and then -- I was on my way out of the hospital when I saw another of our members, whose mother turned out to have been brought in cardio-pulmonary trouble. As I sat at the mother's bedside, a nurse came in to checked her pulse and blood oxygen ("pulse ox," as the medical people say), and the nurse was concerned because the oxygen level would not stay above 90%. And so, they hooked the patient up to oxygen, which caused her blood oxygen level to climb into the mid-90s. And my past became acutely present: I relived my feelings when I was dependent on oxygen in the hospital and when I got home, and as I was watching my body wean itself off of the oxygen during the weeks after I returned home from the hospital. I remember watching the numbers on the "pulse ox" reader: would it stay in the mid-90s??

Please do not take a single day of health for granted.