Who do you say that I am?

See The Edge of the Enclosure
Proper 16 A
http://www.edgeofenclosure.org

keys of the kingdom in a letter S, Lorenzo Monaco, 1395-98, detail

San Antonio, Texas
Mid- 1970’s.

I raged. I paced. I muttered under my breath and aloud. I sat in the back pew of church with a dark cloud over my head. I left. I came back. I muttered some more.

What kind of a Christian can’t fit Christ into the landscape? I had no problem with Jesus, the rabbi, walking “the dusty roads of Galilee.” But after the crucifixion? Resurrection appearances, ascension, the Christ of the Church, the Cosmic Christ? No. I don’t think so.

And yet. And yet. Something drew me to Christianity. To church. To community. To prayer, now getting quite intense. To study – already closing in on a masters degree in spirituality after two M. Div programs I didn’t finish because of moving and motherhood.

I met the Divine Presence in solitude and silence. In dark, loving, holy nothingness. Without words, images, agenda.

I stole those moments. I used to pray after dropping the children off at day care and the church nursery school. I had, say, twenty minutes to meditate in silence in the sanctuary before taking off to the north side of San Antonio to go to class.