Author: kenwoodley3

July 7, 2024 sermon for St. Anne’s Episcopal Church

By Ken Woodley

There is no record of a dog tagging along with Jesus and the apostles, but I suspect there was a beloved canine companion somewhere along the way.

Just as we are blessed by Ranger’s presence.

One possible clue—from the Gospel of Matthew—is how immediately Jesus reacts to the Canannite woman who stands up to him, and pleads for her daughter’s healing, by replying that even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. 

Tellingly the Greek translation of the word Jesus used, and the Canaanite woman repeated, specifically means a “small dog” or a “pet dog.” Jesus did not choose the word “dog” that means an unspiritual person or unclean animal.

Jesus had probably shared more than a few crumbs with a doe-eyed tail-wagging pet dog at some point. He was too compassionate not to have done so. 

And so I like to believe that the woman’s comment took him straight back to the feel of a dog’s warm, wet and grateful tongue on the palm of his hand as the crumbs were licked up.

The clearest indication of paw prints on Jesus’s heart might be the advice he gives the twelve apostles in today’s Gospel lesson before he sends them out to spread the Good News.

“If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you,” Jesus tells them, “as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”

That wise counsel has been acted out by dogs for thousands of years. It is a well-known fact that dogs shake as a coping mechanism to relieve and reduce stress. It’s a way they calm themselves down.

That may be where we get the expression, “Shake it off,” mostly used in sports after an error or dropped pass. “Shake it off. Next play, go get ‘em.”

Pugsley, my dear departed four-legged best friend, hated baths. He’d always shake after Kim took him out of the tub, but it wasn’t to get dry. It was to calm himself down and get rid of the tension.

Our little pug, who I still miss so deeply, also hated the snow. I always shoveled out part of the front yard for him, but he would still shake vigorously when he got back inside the warm house after doing his business.

So, yes, I believe Jesus had seen more than one dog shake off a difficult experience and knew why it had done so. That physical act sent a calming get-beyond-it message to the dog’s brain. It’s over and done. Time to move on.

That is the message Jesus wanted the apostles to send themselves.

A focused, intentional and physical way to help rid themselves of the pain and disappointment—the stress—of rejection, an affirming action to keep them from losing heart along the way.

If the rejecting community took it as a sign against their hard-heartedness, fine. But I believe Jesus was thinking more about uplifting the apostles than putting down those who wouldn’t listen.

The physical dust in the Gospel of Mark is a symbol of how negative, stressful experiences can cover us with an invisible layer of painful memory, unseen but keenly felt.

There are many times in our lives when we need to shake someone’s metaphoric dust off our feet. Big or little moments of rudeness or rejection, or stressful challenges in a tension-filled day.

Even minor irritations can hurt way more than they should—like  a splinter left in the skin—if we don’t deal with them.

It can be so helpful to follow the advice of Jesus and the example of dogs and find some way to shake that “dust” off our feet.

If we don’t, then it comes home with us. It gets all over the rug, covers the furniture. It even gets on the people we live with and love. 

The irritation, stress or hurt that we haven’t shaken off affects our mood and our mood impacts everyone around us.

It begins to “dust” our soul. And theirs.

The things we don’t shake off also distract us from the many ways God is trying to open our hearts to the healing, loving and compassionately-wise presence of the Holy Spirit within us.

There are any number of ways to shake off the world’s “dust” but we have to be focused and intentional about it.  We tell ourselves, I’m going to do this to shake off the “dust.”

Then we say a thoughtful prayer, play a favorite record album or cd, go for a walk, read a treasured passage of scripture, make a bowl of popcorn, share a great big hug with someone we love.

We can even write the word “dust” on a sheet of paper, then ball that piece of paper up and throw it in the trash. I have a friend who received that precise advice from a therapist: Write down what’s hurting you, ball it up and throw it away.

Shake it off. Turn the page. 

Find whatever works for you and make that be your declaration of independence over the “dust” of the world. 

Ring your liberty bell loud and clear. Wag your tail and bark to heaven.

Because God is able to serve us far more than crumbs from the table when we do. Abundant love will fill our plate. 

Enough love to share. Enough love for Pugsley. Enough love for Ranger. Enough love for everyone in the world. But we must be careful. The dust of others isn’t the only “dust of the world.”

There is also our own. 

The dust we create that could cover others and the love we have to share. In the end, shaking off our own “dust” is the most important thing of all. That is where the revolutionary war of love is first won or lost.

July 7, 2024 sermon for St. Anne’s Episcopal Church

By Ken Woodley

There is no record of a dog tagging along with Jesus and the apostles, but I suspect there was a beloved canine companion somewhere along the way.

Just as we are blessed by Ranger’s presence.

One possible clue—from the Gospel of Matthew—is how immediately Jesus reacts to the Canannite woman who stands up to him, and pleads for her daughter’s healing, by replying that even dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.

Tellingly the Greek translation of the word Jesus used, and the Canaanite woman repeated, specifically means a “small dog” or a “pet dog.” Jesus did not choose the word “dog” that means an unspiritual person or unclean animal.

Jesus had probably shared more than a few crumbs with a doe-eyed tail-wagging pet dog at some point. He was too compassionate not to have done so.

And so I like to believe that the woman’s comment took him straight back to the feel of a dog’s warm, wet and grateful tongue on the palm of his hand as the crumbs were licked up.

The clearest indication of paw prints on Jesus’s heart might be the advice he gives the twelve apostles in today’s Gospel lesson before he sends them out to spread the Good News.

“If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you,” Jesus tells them, “as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.”

That wise counsel has been acted out by dogs for thousands of years. It is a well-known fact that dogs shake as a coping mechanism to relieve and reduce stress. It’s a way they calm themselves down.

That may be where we get the expression, “Shake it off,” mostly used in sports after an error or dropped pass. “Shake it off. Next play, go get ‘em.”

Pugsley, my dear departed four-legged best friend, hated baths. He’d always shake after Kim took him out of the tub, but it wasn’t to get dry. It was to calm himself down and get rid of the tension.

Our little pug, who I still miss so deeply, also hated the snow. I always shoveled out part of the front yard for him, but he would still shake vigorously when he got back inside the warm house after doing his business.

So, yes, I believe Jesus had seen more than one dog shake off a difficult experience and knew why it had done so. That physical act sent a calming get-beyond-it message to the dog’s brain. It’s over and done. Time to move on.

That is the message Jesus wanted the apostles to send themselves.

A focused, intentional and physical way to help rid themselves of the pain and disappointment—the stress—of rejection, an affirming action to keep them from losing heart along the way.

If the rejecting community took it as a sign against their hard-heartedness, fine. But I believe Jesus was thinking more about uplifting the apostles than putting down those who wouldn’t listen.

The physical dust in the Gospel of Mark is a symbol of how negative, stressful experiences can cover us with an invisible layer of painful memory, unseen but keenly felt.

There are many times in our lives when we need to shake someone’s metaphoric dust off our feet. Big or little moments of rudeness or rejection, or stressful challenges in a tension-filled day.

Even minor irritations can hurt way more than they should—like a splinter left in the skin—if we don’t deal with them.

It can be so helpful to follow the advice of Jesus and the example of dogs and find some way to shake that “dust” off our feet.

If we don’t, then it comes home with us. It gets all over the rug, covers the furniture. It even gets on the people we live with and love.

The irritation, stress or hurt that we haven’t shaken off affects our mood and our mood impacts everyone around us.

It begins to “dust” our soul. And theirs.

The things we don’t shake off also distract us from the many ways God is trying to open our hearts to the healing, loving and compassionately-wise presence of the Holy Spirit within us.

There are any number of ways to shake off the world’s “dust” but we have to be focused and intentional about it. We tell ourselves, I’m going to do this to shake off the “dust.”

Then we say a thoughtful prayer, play a favorite record album or cd, go for a walk, read a treasured passage of scripture, make a bowl of popcorn, share a great big hug with someone we love.

We can even write the word “dust” on a sheet of paper, then ball that piece of paper up and throw it in the trash. I have a friend who received that precise advice from a therapist: Write down what’s hurting you, ball it up and throw it away.

Shake it off. Turn the page.

Find whatever works for you and make that be your declaration of independence over the “dust” of the world.

Ring your liberty bell loud and clear. Wag your tail and bark to heaven.

Because God is able to serve us far more than crumbs from the table when we do. Abundant love will fill our plate.

Enough love to share. Enough love for Pugsley. Enough love for Ranger. Enough love for everyone in the world. But we must be careful. The dust of others isn’t the only “dust of the world.”

There is also our own.

The dust we create that could cover others and the love we have to share. In the end, shaking off our own “dust” is the most important thing of all. That is where the revolutionary war of love is first won or lost.

“A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was dead calm.”

—The Gospel of Mark

By Ken Woodley

I really can’t blame the disciples.

The Sea of Galilee is the lowest freshwater lake in the world and the second lowest lake of any kind on Earth.

Because it is so far below sea level and surrounded by mountains, it is notorious for the ferocity and sudden onslaught of its storms. The surrounding mountains, in fact, can focus the force of the wind in a particularly frightening way. 

Peace one moment, then the lake feels like it has gone to war against you, torpedos and depth-charges exploding all around you.

Had I been in that boat with Jesus, I would have been freaking out. No question. 

My voice would have joined the panicky chorus of the other disciples.

“Hey!” I would have shouted, shaking Jesus by the shoulders with both hands, “don’t you care that this storm threatens my very existence?!?!”

We’ve all been there, experiencing a sudden difficulty that rises up over the top of our lives and threatens to swamp and sink us.

What I wouldn’t give to be able to sleep through the sudden storms in my life and simply wake up when the passing trouble—whatever it might be—had gone.

How comforting were we able to rebuke the wind and say to the sea—and have the wind and waves listen and obey—“Peace! Be still!”

If only we could be like Jesus, I think to myself, before realizing that we do have the ability to shush the wind and end the storm.

Sort of. In a way. 

We simply need to recall one vital fact.

We just need to remember that in every circumstance Jesus is in our boat. Wherever our boat is and even if our own Sea of Galilee is acting like the scariest special effect Hollywood can muster.

And if Jesus is in our boat then we cannot sink. But even if we do sink then Jesus will raise us up.

Remembering that, of course, is not always so very easy for us. Worries about so many different things come calling and we often invite them in and make them really comfortable.

When we do that it has the very same effect as the mountains and the very low sea level of the Sea of Galilee: we focus the force of our worries until they become storming anxieties in a particularly frightening way.

We make them so strong that we can’t make them leave. They stay right where they are and take up residency in our lives. We start getting their mail and answering their phone calls.

We ask them what they want for dinner, what game they want to watch on TV. We talk to them more than we talk to our own spouses.

“Sorry, sweetheart, not right now. I’m having a really deep conversation with my anxieties.”

We are often most vulnerable when anxieties wake us up in the middle of the night and toss us with their waves.

But sometimes our anxieties over-do it: a really big wave of anxiety washes over us, nearly tossing us overboard, but that gets our attention.

We finally remember that, oh, yeah, Jesus is in our boat.  And we need to keep that thought centermost in our mind. Sometimes I will literally tell myself “Jesus is in my boat” and then focus on how real that feels inside me.

When I do, I feel a gradual, deepening peace.

I feel the wind dropping and the waves growing smaller and smaller.

Soon enough there is a gentle calm all around.

Even if the waves remain, however, I just don’t feel them as strongly.

Or fear them.

At least not until the next storm.

The skies lighten. Birds begin to sing. I feel a rainbow inside me.

The rainbow of Jesus in my boat.

Together we reach the shore that I’d been searching for and sailing towards before the storm rushed over the mountains like an army of dragons.

We reach the other side of the sea even though, physically, we haven’t moved an inch and aren’t even really in a boat.

That is because the most important journeys are deep down inside us and the storms can’t reach that far.

Only God’s love can find those deepest places.

Maybe that was what Jesus was hoping the disciples would learn for themselves that day. 

Perhaps at some point all the ruckus actually, and quite naturally, woke him up and he was only pretending to remain asleep, waiting for one of them to say: 

“Wait a minute, Jesus is in our boat and God’s love is the life-preserver of our souls.

“So let’s not be afraid. Storms will come and storms will go. But  we’re going to keep on sailing our boat, knowing that we’re never alone as we cross these sometimes troubled waters

“A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was dead calm.”

—The Gospel of Mark


By Ken Woodley

I really can’t blame the disciples.

The Sea of Galilee is the lowest freshwater lake in the world and the second lowest lake of any kind on Earth.

Because it is so far below sea level and surrounded by mountains, it is notorious for the ferocity and sudden onslaught of its storms. The surrounding mountains, in fact, can focus the force of the wind in a particularly frightening way.

Peace one moment, then the lake feels like it has gone to war against you, torpedos and depth-charges exploding all around you.

Had I been in that boat with Jesus, I would have been freaking out. No question.

My voice would have joined the panicky chorus of the other disciples.

“Hey!” I would have shouted, shaking Jesus by the shoulders with both hands, “don’t you care that this storm threatens my very existence?!?!”

We’ve all been there, experiencing a sudden difficulty that rises up over the top of our lives and threatens to swamp and sink us.

What I wouldn’t give to be able to sleep through the sudden storms in my life and simply wake up when the passing trouble—whatever it might be—had gone.

How comforting were we able to rebuke the wind and say to the sea—and have the wind and waves listen and obey—“Peace! Be still!”

If only we could be like Jesus, I think to myself, before realizing that we do have the ability to shush the wind and end the storm.

Sort of. In a way.

We simply need to recall one vital fact.

We just need to remember that in every circumstance Jesus is in our boat. Wherever our boat is and even if our own Sea of Galilee is acting like the scariest special effect Hollywood can muster.

And if Jesus is in our boat then we cannot sink. But even if we do sink then Jesus will raise us up.

Remembering that, of course, is not always so very easy for us. Worries about so many different things come calling and we often invite them in and make them really comfortable.

When we do that it has the very same effect as the mountains and the very low sea level of the Sea of Galilee: we focus the force of our worries until they become storming anxieties in a particularly frightening way.

We make them so strong that we can’t make them leave. They stay right where they are and take up residency in our lives. We start getting their mail and answering their phone calls.

We ask them what they want for dinner, what game they want to watch on TV. We talk to them more than we talk to our own spouses.

“Sorry, sweetheart, not right now. I’m having a really deep conversation with my anxieties.”

We are often most vulnerable when anxieties wake us up in the middle of the night and toss us with their waves.

But sometimes our anxieties over-do it: a really big wave of anxiety washes over us, nearly tossing us overboard, but that gets our attention.

We finally remember that, oh, yeah, Jesus is in our boat. And we need to keep that thought centermost in our mind. Sometimes I will literally tell myself “Jesus is in my boat” and then focus on how real that feels inside me.

When I do, I feel a gradual, deepening peace.

I feel the wind dropping and the waves growing smaller and smaller.

Soon enough there is a gentle calm all around.
Even if the waves remain, however, I just don’t feel them as strongly.
Or fear them.

At least not until the next storm.

The skies lighten. Birds begin to sing. I feel a rainbow inside me.
The rainbow of Jesus in my boat.

Together we reach the shore that I’d been searching for and sailing towards before the storm rushed over the mountains like an army of dragons.

We reach the other side of the sea even though, physically, we haven’t moved an inch and aren’t even really in a boat.

That is because the most important journeys are deep down inside us and the storms can’t reach that far.

Only God’s love can find those deepest places.

Maybe that was what Jesus was hoping the disciples would learn for themselves that day.
Perhaps at some point all the ruckus actually, and quite naturally, woke him up and he was only pretending to remain asleep, waiting for one of them to say:
“Wait a minute, Jesus is in our boat and God’s love is the life-preserver of our souls.

“So let’s not be afraid. Storms will come and storms will go. But we’re going to keep on sailing our boat, knowing that we’re never alone as we cross these sometimes troubled waters

By Ken Woodley

“Who, me?”

The young Jeremiah’s reaction is completely understandable. He’s not even old for his prophetic learner’s permit, much less a prophets license.

God, after all, had told him this:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Those words from God are enough to make anyone’s head spin fast enough to dizzy them. Jeremiah is incredulous, as we’d all be.

“Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy,” Jeremiah replies, unaware that God doesn’t mind at all if a little child shall lead them.

God’s not-so-fast reply leaves nothing to the imagination. And it refuses, as God often does, to take “No” for an answer.

“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’;

for you shall go to all to whom I send you,

and you shall speak whatever I command you,

Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you.”

Moreover, God also lets Jeremiah know what to say when he does speak truth to power. 

“Now I have put my words in your mouth,” God tells the youthful prophet.

The real truth is that God sees far more potential in each of us than we see in ourselves. He saw more in the young Jeremiah than the boy could ever imagine. 

And God sees more in you and me than we could ever dream of.

God gives us clues to how much potential waits within us as we pray. Our prayer time opens up the channel of communication. 

Or sometimes it’s just a sudden inspiration or an idea God drops into the mailbox of our mind. 

But just as often, God speaks to us through other people who seemingly come up to us out of the blue and give us opportunities to do things we never saw ourselves doing.

God wants all of us to feel loved and valued. God wants us to have a sense of our own self-worth and as having a meaningful place in God’s world and its redemption through love and grace. 

Not in a grandiose egotistical way. But in a way that is simultaneously incredibly uplifting and beautifully humbling.

We can also have faith—whenever God tells us “I want you to do this” and we move beyond “Who, me?” to “Okay, Lord, I’ll try to climb that mountain”—that God will give us exactly what we need precisely when we need it most.

Who, me?

“Yes,” God replies, “definitely. And I will be your sherpa.”

By Ken Woodley

“Who, me?”
The young Jeremiah’s reaction is completely understandable. He’s not even old for his prophetic learner’s permit, much less a prophets license.
God, after all, had told him this:

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Those words from God are enough to make anyone’s head spin fast enough to dizzy them. Jeremiah is incredulous, as we’d all be.
“Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy,” Jeremiah replies, unaware that God doesn’t mind at all if a little child shall lead them.
God’s not-so-fast reply leaves nothing to the imagination. And it refuses, as God often does, to take “No” for an answer.

“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you,
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you.”

Moreover, God also lets Jeremiah know what to say when he does speak truth to power.

“Now I have put my words in your mouth,” God tells the youthful prophet.

The real truth is that God sees far more potential in each of us than we see in ourselves. He saw more in the young Jeremiah than the boy could ever imagine.
And God sees more in you and me than we could ever dream of.
God gives us clues to how much potential waits within us as we pray. Our prayer time opens up the channel of communication.
Or sometimes it’s just a sudden inspiration or an idea God drops into the mailbox of our mind.
But just as often, God speaks to us through other people who seemingly come up to us out of the blue and give us opportunities to do things we never saw ourselves doing.
God wants all of us to feel loved and valued. God wants us to have a sense of our own self-worth and as having a meaningful place in God’s world and its redemption through love and grace.
Not in a grandiose egotistical way. But in a way that is simultaneously incredibly uplifting and beautifully humbling.
We can also have faith—whenever God tells us “I want you to do this” and we move beyond “Who, me?” to “Okay, Lord, I’ll try to climb that mountain”—that God will give us exactly what we need precisely when we need it most.
Who, me?
“Yes,” God replies, “definitely. And I will be your sherpa.”

By Ken Woodley 

‘Hey, Lazarus, how’s your tomb?’ I can imagine some smart-alecky cynic asking that question. 

I can’t answer for Lazarus, but my tomb’s pretty much like it always is: waiting for me to climb back inside.

Back in February, I saw that Lazarus was one of two “contestants” that day in Forward Movement’s annual Lenten Madness tournament. 

The competition resembles the NCAA’s March Madness. But instead of teams there are holy individuals, some of them saints. Each night two are paired against each other. The winning vote-getter advances to the next round, the best reaching the Saintly 16, the Elate 8 and the Faithful 4.

Eventually one of them will win the ultimate prize—the Golden Halo.

“Lazarus?!?!” I scoffed, “what is Lazarus doing in this competition? He never did anything. Jesus did all the work raising him from the dead.”

My self-assured and derisive judgment of Lazarus lasted all of a few seconds when I had one of those flash insights from the Holy Spirit. Something I’d never heard preached before. Something I’d never read in any theological text.

“Oh, yes,” I knew, Lazarus definitely deserved to be in the competition. He deserved to win it. 

Never having risen from the dead, how could I negatively judge Lazarus? I had no idea what it took for him to partner with Jesus in this most miraculous miracle.

But in that flash of Holy Spirit-driven insight I knew that Lazarus was responsible for 50 percent of the miracle.

Jesus, remember, stood just outside the tomb and said, “Lazarus, come out.”

We can’t see into the tomb but clearly something began to happen.

Lazarus somehow heard Jesus. And, crucially, he listened. Even though he was dead. 

Most importantly, Lazarus had the faith to act. 

That was his share of the miracle.

Lazarus rose from the dead.

Jesus didn’t levitate Lazarus like some sideshow magician.

Lazarus came out of the tomb.

Jesus didn’t carry or drag him out.

Lazarus listened and believed.

And what an example he became, and remains, for all of us. 

We all have moments when Jesus is trying to get our attention and we think maybe we “hear” something in our soul but we’re entombed by something in the world around us, entombed by something that happened, or is happening, in our lives, and the words of Jesus go missing.

I know that has happened to me more times than I’d like to remember.

And because we don’t listen there is no way we can act on what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us.

We remain blind to the miraculous possibilities of what might have been all around us.

As blind as Bartimaeus.

The healing of Bartimaeus is another of the very few times we actually know the name of the person Jesus heals.

Bartimaeus, the blind man begging outside the gates of Jericho. Bartimaeus, who hears a voice and knows it is Jesus even though he cannot see him.

A blind man who can see the truth about Jesus far more clearly than so many of the people who have perfectly fine vision. Voices are raised against Bartimaeus. He is rebuked for calling out, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.”

Bartimaeus doesn’t listen to what they are shouting at him and continues pleading with Jesus, who stops and tells those around him to call Bartimaeus to come over to him.

Bartimaeus doesn’t slowly get to his feet. He jumps up, throwing his cloak aside, and runs to Jesus, who asks him a very simple, very direct question: “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Rabbi,” Bartimaeus replies, “I want to see.”

Then, as so often happens, the pleading sufferer is healed. But it’s not Jesus acting alone. It’s a partnership. It’s teamwork.

Jesus doesn’t tell Bartimaeus, “Go, I have healed you.”

No, not at all. Jesus says, “Go, your faith has healed you.”

Bartimaeus needed to do more than just hear what Jesus said.  He had to listen. And then, most important of all, Bartimaeus had to  have the faith to act upon what he had heard and listened to.

Just like Lazarus.

Hearing and listening are not the same thing. Anyone who isn’t deaf can hear. Hearing is an involuntary act. We hear things all the time. Sounds and noises all around us.

Birds singing. Sirens racing down the road.

Maybe even the voice of God.

But listening requires effort and concentration.

Bartimaeus didn’t just hear Jesus.

Like Lazarus, he listened.

And so he understood. He comprehended so deeply that his faith was fully engaged, allowing his vision to be restored.

These two stories speak directly to us because there is a bit of Lazarus and Bartimaeus in each of us.

Many of us have some kind of tomb in our lives: the tomb of anxiety, the tomb of addiction, the tomb of having been abused as a child, the tomb of loneliness, the tomb of not being able to fully believe that God really loves us just the way we are. 

There is an infinite variety of tombs and so we remain dead to the new life that is waiting just beyond the tomb’s darkness, out there with Jesus in the light.

Jesus waiting, wanting to get our attention, hoping we will hear, praying we will listen to him.

Waiting to be our partner. Wanting to be our teammate.

Waiting and wanting us to act.

Easter was four Sundays ago. Our own resurrection awaits each of us at the end of our lives. But there are other tombs for us to rise from during our lifetimes and Jesus is standing next to every one of them.

No matter how many times it takes us to finally leave that tomb forever. 

I hear him calling to me now. It’s time for me to listen.

Maybe today, I’ll keep walking into the light with Jesus and not look back into the darkness.

Maybe some day the world will, too.

                                           AMEN

By Ken Woodley

‘Hey, Lazarus, how’s your tomb?’ I can imagine some smart-alecky cynic asking that question.

I can’t answer for Lazarus, but my tomb’s pretty much like it always is: waiting for me to climb back inside.

Back in February, I saw that Lazarus was one of two “contestants” that day in Forward Movement’s annual Lenten Madness tournament.

The competition resembles the NCAA’s March Madness. But instead of teams there are holy individuals, some of them saints. Each night two are paired against each other. The winning vote-getter advances to the next round, the best reaching the Saintly 16, the Elate 8 and the Faithful 4.

Eventually one of them will win the ultimate prize—the Golden Halo.

“Lazarus?!?!” I scoffed, “what is Lazarus doing in this competition? He never did anything. Jesus did all the work raising him from the dead.”

My self-assured and derisive judgment of Lazarus lasted all of a few seconds when I had one of those flash insights from the Holy Spirit. Something I’d never heard preached before. Something I’d never read in any theological text.

“Oh, yes,” I knew, Lazarus definitely deserved to be in the competition. He deserved to win it.

Never having risen from the dead, how could I negatively judge Lazarus? I had no idea what it took for him to partner with Jesus in this most miraculous miracle.

But in that flash of Holy Spirit-driven insight I knew that Lazarus was responsible for 50 percent of the miracle.

Jesus, remember, stood just outside the tomb and said, “Lazarus, come out.”

We can’t see into the tomb but clearly something began to happen.

Lazarus somehow heard Jesus. And, crucially, he listened. Even though he was dead.

Most importantly, Lazarus had the faith to act.
That was his share of the miracle.

Lazarus rose from the dead.
Jesus didn’t levitate Lazarus like some sideshow magician.

Lazarus came out of the tomb.
Jesus didn’t carry or drag him out.

Lazarus listened and believed.
And what an example he became, and remains, for all of us.

We all have moments when Jesus is trying to get our attention and we think maybe we “hear” something in our soul but we’re entombed by something in the world around us, entombed by something that happened, or is happening, in our lives, and the words of Jesus go missing.

I know that has happened to me more times than I’d like to remember.

And because we don’t listen there is no way we can act on what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us.

We remain blind to the miraculous possibilities of what might have been all around us.

As blind as Bartimaeus.

The healing of Bartimaeus is another of the very few times we actually know the name of the person Jesus heals.

Bartimaeus, the blind man begging outside the gates of Jericho. Bartimaeus, who hears a voice and knows it is Jesus even though he cannot see him.

A blind man who can see the truth about Jesus far more clearly than so many of the people who have perfectly fine vision. Voices are raised against Bartimaeus. He is rebuked for calling out, “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.”

Bartimaeus doesn’t listen to what they are shouting at him and continues pleading with Jesus, who stops and tells those around him to call Bartimaeus to come over to him.

Bartimaeus doesn’t slowly get to his feet. He jumps up, throwing his cloak aside, and runs to Jesus, who asks him a very simple, very direct question: “What do you want me to do for you?”

“Rabbi,” Bartimaeus replies, “I want to see.”

Then, as so often happens, the pleading sufferer is healed. But it’s not Jesus acting alone. It’s a partnership. It’s teamwork.

Jesus doesn’t tell Bartimaeus, “Go, I have healed you.”
No, not at all. Jesus says, “Go, your faith has healed you.”

Bartimaeus needed to do more than just hear what Jesus said. He had to listen. And then, most important of all, Bartimaeus had to have the faith to act upon what he had heard and listened to.

Just like Lazarus.

Hearing and listening are not the same thing. Anyone who isn’t deaf can hear. Hearing is an involuntary act. We hear things all the time. Sounds and noises all around us.

Birds singing. Sirens racing down the road.
Maybe even the voice of God.
But listening requires effort and concentration.
Bartimaeus didn’t just hear Jesus.
Like Lazarus, he listened.
And so he understood. He comprehended so deeply that his faith was fully engaged, allowing his vision to be restored.

These two stories speak directly to us because there is a bit of Lazarus and Bartimaeus in each of us.

Many of us have some kind of tomb in our lives: the tomb of anxiety, the tomb of addiction, the tomb of having been abused as a child, the tomb of loneliness, the tomb of not being able to fully believe that God really loves us just the way we are.

There is an infinite variety of tombs and so we remain dead to the new life that is waiting just beyond the tomb’s darkness, out there with Jesus in the light.

Jesus waiting, wanting to get our attention, hoping we will hear, praying we will listen to him.


Waiting to be our partner. Wanting to be our teammate.

Waiting and wanting us to act.

Easter was four Sundays ago. Our own resurrection awaits each of us at the end of our lives. But there are other tombs for us to rise from during our lifetimes and Jesus is standing next to every one of them.

No matter how many times it takes us to finally leave that tomb forever.

I hear him calling to me now. It’s time for me to listen.

Maybe today, I’ll keep walking into the light with Jesus and not look back into the darkness.

Maybe some day the world will, too.

By Ken Woodley

Happy Easter?

How happy can Easter really be for someone who has lost a loved one?

How happy was the first Easter for Thomas? He had just lost a loved one and Easter was one of the saddest days of his life.

While his best friends were giddy with astonished joy as they related the story of Jesus appearing to them in the upper room, Thomas was wrapped in sorrow.

“Peace be with you,” Jesus had told the disciples before showing them his wounds. 

Imagine their joy at spending time with the resurrected Jesus. 

But Thomas had not been with them. He’d missed out and Thomas was so unhappy that he went down in history as Doubting Thomas.

“We have seen the Lord,” his fellow disciples had told him, their faces undoubtedly split wide open by huge smiles, their eyes alight and sparkling with happiness—just as ours might be at the end of an Easter morning service, wishing happy Easter to all we see.

But how happy could Easter have possibly been for Thomas, who had lost Jesus to the hammer and nails of the crucifixion?

“Happy Easter” was just two words that meant nothing to him.

Or, worse, they rubbed salt in his wounds of sorrow.

“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe,” Thomas had replied. 

I might have spoken those same words if I had been standing in the shoes of Thomas. 

But Jesus appeared again, and this time Thomas was there. A week later, Jesus gave Thomas a chance to touch his wounds and “Happy Easter” suddenly became two words that meant everything to him.

Thomas joined his friends as resurrection witnesses, trying to convince others that Jesus had risen, that “Happy Easter” could pour its meaning into the deepest of our earthly sorrows—even into the place deep inside our heart where we mourn the loss of someone we love most dearly.

Easter matters because resurrection is promised to us all. Easter would indeed be a hollow mockery to our human hearts if it were just something experienced by Jesus alone.

If Easter was just a “Jesus event” it would be pointless. God rose from the dead? Big deal. But Easter is not just a Jesus event. Easter is a you and me event. Easter is an event our departed loved ones have already experienced for themselves. Jesus said so. Some day, we shall join them. Jesus said so.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you may also be where I am,” Jesus tells us in the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John.

There are days and nights and weeks and months when our tears of sorrow will make it hard for us to read those words but there are no tears on Earth that can wash the promise of those words away.

Can I prove it? Probably not. But doesn’t the world—don’t you and I—desperately need something far more wondrous than anything I can prove? That is precisely what God’s love has given us. But it is okay to doubt it. 

If we doubt then we are in good company. We are locked in that upper room in all of our sorrow with the disciples. And Jesus is coming to touch the mark of our deep wounds. Jesus doesn’t doubt our wounds. He knows we all have them. That is why he is on the way. 

By Ken Woodley

Happy Easter?
How happy can Easter really be for someone who has lost a loved one?
How happy was the first Easter for Thomas? He had just lost a loved one and Easter was one of the saddest days of his life.
While his best friends were giddy with astonished joy as they related the story of Jesus appearing to them in the upper room, Thomas was wrapped in sorrow.
“Peace be with you,” Jesus had told the disciples before showing them his wounds.
Imagine their joy at spending time with the resurrected Jesus.
But Thomas had not been with them. He’d missed out and Thomas was so unhappy that he went down in history as Doubting Thomas.
“We have seen the Lord,” his fellow disciples had told him, their faces undoubtedly split wide open by huge smiles, their eyes alight and sparkling with happiness—just as ours might be at the end of an Easter morning service, wishing happy Easter to all we see.
But how happy could Easter have possibly been for Thomas, who had lost Jesus to the hammer and nails of the crucifixion?
“Happy Easter” was just two words that meant nothing to him.
Or, worse, they rubbed salt in his wounds of sorrow.
“Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe,” Thomas had replied.
I might have spoken those same words if I had been standing in the shoes of Thomas.
But Jesus appeared again, and this time Thomas was there. A week later, Jesus gave Thomas a chance to touch his wounds and “Happy Easter” suddenly became two words that meant everything to him.
Thomas joined his friends as resurrection witnesses, trying to convince others that Jesus had risen, that “Happy Easter” could pour its meaning into the deepest of our earthly sorrows—even into the place deep inside our heart where we mourn the loss of someone we love most dearly.
Easter matters because resurrection is promised to us all. Easter would indeed be a hollow mockery to our human hearts if it were just something experienced by Jesus alone.
If Easter was just a “Jesus event” it would be pointless. God rose from the dead? Big deal. But Easter is not just a Jesus event. Easter is a you and me event. Easter is an event our departed loved ones have already experienced for themselves. Jesus said so. Some day, we shall join them. Jesus said so.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you may also be where I am,” Jesus tells us in the 14th chapter of the Gospel of John.
There are days and nights and weeks and months when our tears of sorrow will make it hard for us to read those words but there are no tears on Earth that can wash the promise of those words away.
Can I prove it? Probably not. But doesn’t the world—don’t you and I—desperately need something far more wondrous than anything I can prove? That is precisely what God’s love has given us. But it is okay to doubt it.
If we doubt then we are in good company. We are locked in that upper room in all of our sorrow with the disciples. And Jesus is coming to touch the mark of our deep wounds. Jesus doesn’t doubt our wounds. He knows we all have them. That is why he is on the way.

By Ken Woodley

From blindness to sight. In a flash of light.

A world of darkness dissolves into amazing colors.

Previously, the entire world had been in your imagination—the way everything looked—fed only by what your sense of touch told you about how they might appear if you could only see them.

We can close our eyes and touch a lamp or a chair or another human being and understand their appearance—but only because we have the memory of them in our minds. Someone blind from birth would have nothing at all to go on. 

So imagine how the man felt in the Gospel of John after receiving his sight from Jesus. My imagination can’t come close to appreciating the man’s astonishing experience. 

Jesus had been walking down a road when he saw the man and declared “I am the light of the world.” Then Jesus spat on the ground and made mud with his saliva. He spread the mud on the man’s unseeing eyes and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.

Ironically, this man is able to see but many of those around him suddenly suffer from a kind of blindness. The man who was once blind can see them but they cannot see him.

“The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’” the Gospel of John tells us. “Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’”

The once-blind man insists, “I am the man” but some people simply refuse to believe him.

There is an old saying that applies to these doubters: No one is as a blind as those who refuse to see.

Jesus has worked a miracle but some people simply refuse to see it.

That got me thinking about life and my own experiences in this world. It struck me with sudden forcefulness that we, too, are sometimes blind to a miracle that Jesus or God has worked in our own lives.

And what struck me most forcefully was the realization that this blindness doesn’t always come from disbelief. Most of the time, in fact, this form of blindness comes from the fact that we have become too familiar with a miracle. We have lived with it for so long that it no longer strikes us as miraculous. We take it for granted. Like our spouse, for example. Choosing to live with someone, for better or worse, for a lifetime—and then following through with it—is not un-miraculous.

I imagine that within a handful of years, the man in the Gospel of John also came to take his sight for granted. Not intentionally. He wasn’t ungrateful for the miracle that Jesus had worked in his life. Through the years, every day he woke up and saw he sun rise made that new dawn seem gradually less and less miraculous. Every color emerging from the darkness of night was so familiar to him. 

The same thing can happen when Jesus leads us through and out of one of life’s deep, wounding pains. It seems miraculous at first but in time we take the gentle scar for granted. Or, worse, we grump about the scar, forgetting how the wound, itself, felt.

Every now and then it’s a good idea to close our eyes and remind ourselves of a miracle worked in our own lives. Then, keeping our eyes shut, give thoughtful, meditative thanks for that miracle. We might imagine Jesus by our side. We might hear him spit on the ground, and then sense him kneeling beside us, making mud with his saliva. 

We might feel his touch upon our closed eyes, the mud warmed by his caring hands.

Then, when we next open our eyes we might see the miracles in our life more clearly.

That includes the reflection in your mirror.

Jesus calls that person you see looking back at you “the light of the world.”

By Ken Woodley

From blindness to sight. In a flash of light.
A world of darkness dissolves into amazing colors.
Previously, the entire world had been in your imagination—the way everything looked—fed only by what your sense of touch told you about how they might appear if you could only see them.
We can close our eyes and touch a lamp or a chair or another human being and understand their appearance—but only because we have the memory of them in our minds. Someone blind from birth would have nothing at all to go on.
So imagine how the man felt in the Gospel of John after receiving his sight from Jesus. My imagination can’t come close to appreciating the man’s astonishing experience.
Jesus had been walking down a road when he saw the man and declared “I am the light of the world.” Then Jesus spat on the ground and made mud with his saliva. He spread the mud on the man’s unseeing eyes and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam.
Ironically, this man is able to see but many of those around him suddenly suffer from a kind of blindness. The man who was once blind can see them but they cannot see him.
“The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, ‘Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?’” the Gospel of John tells us. “Some were saying, ‘It is he.’ Others were saying, ‘No, but it is someone like him.’”
The once-blind man insists, “I am the man” but some people simply refuse to believe him.
There is an old saying that applies to these doubters: No one is as a blind as those who refuse to see.
Jesus has worked a miracle but some people simply refuse to see it.
That got me thinking about life and my own experiences in this world. It struck me with sudden forcefulness that we, too, are sometimes blind to a miracle that Jesus or God has worked in our own lives.
And what struck me most forcefully was the realization that this blindness doesn’t always come from disbelief. Most of the time, in fact, this form of blindness comes from the fact that we have become too familiar with a miracle. We have lived with it for so long that it no longer strikes us as miraculous. We take it for granted. Like our spouse, for example. Choosing to live with someone, for better or worse, for a lifetime—and then following through with it—is not un-miraculous.
I imagine that within a handful of years, the man in the Gospel of John also came to take his sight for granted. Not intentionally. He wasn’t ungrateful for the miracle that Jesus had worked in his life. Through the years, every day he woke up and saw he sun rise made that new dawn seem gradually less and less miraculous. Every color emerging from the darkness of night was so familiar to him.
The same thing can happen when Jesus leads us through and out of one of life’s deep, wounding pains. It seems miraculous at first but in time we take the gentle scar for granted. Or, worse, we grump about the scar, forgetting how the wound, itself, felt.
Every now and then it’s a good idea to close our eyes and remind ourselves of a miracle worked in our own lives. Then, keeping our eyes shut, give thoughtful, meditative thanks for that miracle. We might imagine Jesus by our side. We might hear him spit on the ground, and then sense him kneeling beside us, making mud with his saliva.
We might feel his touch upon our closed eyes, the mud warmed by his caring hands.
Then, when we next open our eyes we might see the miracles in our life more clearly.
That includes the reflection in your mirror.
Jesus calls that person you see looking back at you “the light of the world.”

By Ken Woodley

There are very few true wildernesses left in the world. At least not within easy reach of us here in Appomattox County.

Unless you count the one we hold in the palm of our hand. My smartphone makes the world around me seem more and more of a wilderness every day. I am bombarded by words, images and sounds that make me feel surrounded by madness.

Existence can feel like one huge Tower of Babble and the babbling is filled with dissonance, self-righteousness, division and hate. Love is hardly ever tweeted.

The world can make us feel like birds that have forgotten how to fly. 

I’ve felt like that. We all have.

That’s why God gave us these words and the promise they make, the promise that God will keep:

“…I will make a way in the wilderness…” 

The wildernesses most of us face in our lifetime are those occasions that make us feel lost and alone. Whether it’s the loss of a job, an illness, the death of a loved one…or a difficult memory, life is full of wilderness moments that turn our lives into a tangled maze.

Such occasions create wilderness feelings inside us and that is where we often get lost. Thankfully, God is there to help us through such times. “…I will make a way in the wilderness,” God promises me, and promises you through the prophet Isaiah.

As important as those eight words are, the words that come before them hold the key to following God out of the wilderness in which we are lost and wandering. Especially if there is something deep in our lives that we find troubling, something perhaps even years ago that still creates wilderness moments in our otherwise orderly and civilized lives.

“Do not remember the former things,” God urges us, “or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

Those are words that provide us with an internal and eternal map through our wilderness moments and through the violently crazy world around us. They are words that blaze a trail to what is, in truth, a “promised land” that God offers us all, one that abounds with love and grace.

Don’t dwell on hurts and pains and sorrows, God is telling us. Don’t believe the babble all around you. God can speak through the static of a twittering world.

So, have faith in that new thing that God is about to do. 

Like the leaves that will soon be budding on the trees and the daffodils dotting the landscape, what God promises will spring up. It can spring up now in the deepest part of ourselves that the wilderness cannot reach, the place that only God can find.

God is marking the trail through our trials and tribulations. Journey with faith in that guiding love and grace. It has the power to actually transform the wilderness, itself, giving us rivers in the desert and love so magnificent and huge that no tweet, text or email could ever contain or defeat it.

Then, like birds who’ve remembered how to fly, we can gather ourselves and keep on going to where the Holy Spirit guides our wings.

So, take that smartphone and Google “Amazing Grace.” 

Or, instead:

Be still. Be quiet. And listen to the melody God is singing inside you.

By Ken Woodley
There are very few true wildernesses left in the world. At least not within easy reach of us here in Appomattox County.
Unless you count the one we hold in the palm of our hand. My smartphone makes the world around me seem more and more of a wilderness every day. I am bombarded by words, images and sounds that make me feel surrounded by madness.
Existence can feel like one huge Tower of Babble and the babbling is filled with dissonance, self-righteousness, division and hate. Love is hardly ever tweeted.
The world can make us feel like birds that have forgotten how to fly.
I’ve felt like that. We all have.
That’s why God gave us these words and the promise they make, the promise that God will keep:
“…I will make a way in the wilderness…”
The wildernesses most of us face in our lifetime are those occasions that make us feel lost and alone. Whether it’s the loss of a job, an illness, the death of a loved one…or a difficult memory, life is full of wilderness moments that turn our lives into a tangled maze.
Such occasions create wilderness feelings inside us and that is where we often get lost. Thankfully, God is there to help us through such times. “…I will make a way in the wilderness,” God promises me, and promises you through the prophet Isaiah.
As important as those eight words are, the words that come before them hold the key to following God out of the wilderness in which we are lost and wandering. Especially if there is something deep in our lives that we find troubling, something perhaps even years ago that still creates wilderness moments in our otherwise orderly and civilized lives.
“Do not remember the former things,” God urges us, “or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
Those are words that provide us with an internal and eternal map through our wilderness moments and through the violently crazy world around us. They are words that blaze a trail to what is, in truth, a “promised land” that God offers us all, one that abounds with love and grace.
Don’t dwell on hurts and pains and sorrows, God is telling us. Don’t believe the babble all around you. God can speak through the static of a twittering world.
So, have faith in that new thing that God is about to do.
Like the leaves that will soon be budding on the trees and the daffodils dotting the landscape, what God promises will spring up. It can spring up now in the deepest part of ourselves that the wilderness cannot reach, the place that only God can find.
God is marking the trail through our trials and tribulations. Journey with faith in that guiding love and grace. It has the power to actually transform the wilderness, itself, giving us rivers in the desert and love so magnificent and huge that no tweet, text or email could ever contain or defeat it.
Then, like birds who’ve remembered how to fly, we can gather ourselves and keep on going to where the Holy Spirit guides our wings.
So, take that smartphone and Google “Amazing Grace.”
Or, instead:
Be still. Be quiet. And listen to the melody God is singing inside you.

By Ken Woodley

What a transcendent moment for Peter, James and John.

Jesus leads them up a high mountain, the Gospel of Matthew tells us, and is suddenly transfigured, right before their eyes. His face shines like the sun and his clothes are a dazzling white. Then Moses and Elijah appear and the apostles next hear the voice of God. Clearly, something extraordinary was happening. 

Though they are unlikely to replicate the experience of Peter, James and John, transcendent moments also await us upon our own “holy mountain”—the places where we feel most connected to God’s holy spirit and the presence of Jesus Christ. Where we experience a spiritual understanding or revelation, an answer to prayer.

Nurturing and cultivating these moments is essential. Peter, James and John had to follow Jesus up the mountain. We do, too. By regularly and consistently setting aside time for God—quieting ourselves with prayerful meditation—we offer an invitation that, we will come to realize, has already been accepted.

Don’t assume that God is distant. Expect God to be there beside you. Talk to God—silently or aloud. Write God a note or a letter and slip it into your Bible. Read it to God every morning or evening. Pray about those words during the day. When that letter has been answered, if something is else troubling you, write God another one.

The Holy Spirit will deliver an answer. We’ll sense God or Jesus telling us something. We can feel a nudge in our soul or, as Peter describes it, “the morning star” rising in our hearts: the peace that passes all understanding.

No, it is not always the answer that we expect or, perhaps, even want. But there are bends in the road around which only God knows what is waiting. God is with us on the way to that bend in the road, and God will remain with us afterwards after that bend has become the next straight stretch of our lives. Jesus will too.

So, let’s go climb our “holy mountain” with Jesus and see what we find there, discover what happens. Right now. Right where we are. We don’t need to go anywhere because the “holy mountain” most worth climbing is the one deep inside us, that special place in our soul where we are revealed as our deepest selves.

There, with Christ, we are transfigured.

No, our face may not shine like the sun, and our clothes won’t become dazzlingly white, but we will feel the voice of God telling us that we, too, are beloved. And that love transfigures our inner landscape, transforms the topography of our soul. 

The feeling that we have heard God’s answering voice, and the spirit of Jesus, may only last a second, but the echoes go on and on and they are worth holding onto like a strong and sturdy hiking stick.

Our own transfiguration is a journey that sometimes feels long.

Walk on.

Persevere.

You are not alone.

Your prayer is being answered.

Step by step.

By Ken Woodley

What a transcendent moment for Peter, James and John.
Jesus leads them up a high mountain, the Gospel of Matthew tells us, and is suddenly transfigured, right before their eyes. His face shines like the sun and his clothes are a dazzling white. Then Moses and Elijah appear and the apostles next hear the voice of God. Clearly, something extraordinary was happening.
Though they are unlikely to replicate the experience of Peter, James and John, transcendent moments also await us upon our own “holy mountain”—the places where we feel most connected to God’s holy spirit and the presence of Jesus Christ. Where we experience a spiritual understanding or revelation, an answer to prayer.
Nurturing and cultivating these moments is essential. Peter, James and John had to follow Jesus up the mountain. We do, too. By regularly and consistently setting aside time for God—quieting ourselves with prayerful meditation—we offer an invitation that, we will come to realize, has already been accepted.
Don’t assume that God is distant. Expect God to be there beside you. Talk to God—silently or aloud. Write God a note or a letter and slip it into your Bible. Read it to God every morning or evening. Pray about those words during the day. When that letter has been answered, if something is else troubling you, write God another one.
The Holy Spirit will deliver an answer. We’ll sense God or Jesus telling us something. We can feel a nudge in our soul or, as Peter describes it, “the morning star” rising in our hearts: the peace that passes all understanding.
No, it is not always the answer that we expect or, perhaps, even want. But there are bends in the road around which only God knows what is waiting. God is with us on the way to that bend in the road, and God will remain with us afterwards after that bend has become the next straight stretch of our lives. Jesus will too.
So, let’s go climb our “holy mountain” with Jesus and see what we find there, discover what happens. Right now. Right where we are. We don’t need to go anywhere because the “holy mountain” most worth climbing is the one deep inside us, that special place in our soul where we are revealed as our deepest selves.
There, with Christ, we are transfigured.
No, our face may not shine like the sun, and our clothes won’t become dazzlingly white, but we will feel the voice of God telling us that we, too, are beloved. And that love transfigures our inner landscape, transforms the topography of our soul.
The feeling that we have heard God’s answering voice, and the spirit of Jesus, may only last a second, but the echoes go on and on and they are worth holding onto like a strong and sturdy hiking stick.
Our own transfiguration is a journey that sometimes feels long.
Walk on.
Persevere.
You are not alone.
Your prayer is being answered.
Step by step.

By Ken Woodley

“In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went to a deserted place, and there he prayed.”

—the Gospel of Mark


I remember being a child in Nazareth,
sitting on the flat roof of our house under a night sky
so filled with stars
that I thought the darkness would turn itself inside out.

But there is more darkness in the world than is found in the night sky
and I prayed that one day, no matter what,
the light would turn all of that other darkness inside out.

That is still my prayer, God.

But I also prayed that the light would somehow turn me inside out, too.
And then one day you did.
The light of your love turned me upside down and inside out.
It still does.
Astonishing me.
Especially when I need it most.

And so here I am in this deserted place,
under the star-pricked sky,
feeling almost like a child in school
who has precisely followed his teacher’s instructions:
Make an imaginary night sky
by poking small holes in dark construction paper
to let the flashlight shine through from behind
like midnight constellations.

Almost.
Because I am the child
who chose to tear away the dark paper
and let in all of the light, instead,
forever shining your love into the souls
of those who’ve gone away now
with their healing and their scars,
leaving me weary but warily exhilarated
at the luminous possibilities of it all,
brushing the hammers and the nails aside
—even though they always return—
and living the life you dreamed I would,
feeling the corner of your smile widening inside me,

and a joy deeper than rumbling laughter
reflected in the moonlight sailing on the waves below.

By Ken Woodley

Imagine how it must have felt to have been healed by Jesus.

In person and face-to-face.

To feel his words.

His hands.

His love.

It may, at least at first, felt somewhat disconcerting. After years of infirmity, you are suddenly cast away from that which hounded you for so long. Perhaps it felt a little like this:

Suddenly all of the dissonance is gone.

But I cannot hear a thing.

Nothing at all.

Without the dissonance there isn’t a single solitary sound. 

Nothing … but … this … other … thing.

This other thing that is not dissonance.

How can that be?

The dissonance said that it was here forever and then, just like that, it was gone.

I stumbled and fell, unbalanced without the dissonance, deafened by this new sensation of a world no longer shouting at me.

No dissonance to guide me.

No hope of escape from this new …

This new what?!?!?

The sky seems to fall.

Seems to kneel and touch my face.

Reaching out as far as it can to caress my cheek.

As if heaven, itself, is brushing my face with its lips.

Redeeming me, healing me, with a kiss.

Why would heaven ever want to kiss me, of all people?

The dissonance said that heaven never would.

Why would heaven ever care?

The dissonance swore that heaven never would.

And what did heaven do with all of the dissonance that used to fill my ears with its chaos?

The dissonance swore that it was the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

So help me God.

So … help me what?

Why would God ever care?

The dissonance screamed that God never would.

Why would God ever want to brush my face with a kiss of even the smallest caring show of affection?

The dissonance promised that God never would.

But maybe—just perhaps—the dissonance wasn’t telling the truth. Not the whole truth. Nor any of the truth.

Because there it is.

Again and again and again.

A sudden harmony.

A harmony that wraps me up so entirely and so wonderfully that it makes me feel as if I were the only thing that it ever wanted.

A harmony that sings for me with such wondrous melodies that I am deafened.

So deafened that this time I hear everything that the dissonance was trying to cover up with its noise.

All of my senses listen.

I hear everything that I see within the light inside your eyes.

I hear everything that I feel in your healing touch upon my skin.

And all that is in the ember warmth of your voice speaking words that I never thought I’d hear.

Now, imagine hearing him speak those words to you today.

Deep inside you, he is.

By Ken Woodley

Imagine how it must have felt to have been healed by Jesus.
In person and face-to-face.
To feel his words.
His hands.
His love.
It may, at least at first, felt somewhat disconcerting. After years of infirmity, you are suddenly cast away from that which hounded you for so long. Perhaps it felt a little like this:
Suddenly all of the dissonance is gone.
But I cannot hear a thing.
Nothing at all.
Without the dissonance there isn’t a single solitary sound.
Nothing … but … this … other … thing.
This other thing that is not dissonance.
How can that be?
The dissonance said that it was here forever and then, just like that, it was gone.
I stumbled and fell, unbalanced without the dissonance, deafened by this new sensation of a world no longer shouting at me.
No dissonance to guide me.
No hope of escape from this new …
This new what?!?!?
The sky seems to fall.
Seems to kneel and touch my face.
Reaching out as far as it can to caress my cheek.
As if heaven, itself, is brushing my face with its lips.
Redeeming me, healing me, with a kiss.
Why would heaven ever want to kiss me, of all people?
The dissonance said that heaven never would.
Why would heaven ever care?
The dissonance swore that heaven never would.
And what did heaven do with all of the dissonance that used to fill my ears with its chaos?
The dissonance swore that it was the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
So help me God.
So … help me what?
Why would God ever care?
The dissonance screamed that God never would.
Why would God ever want to brush my face with a kiss of even the smallest caring show of affection?
The dissonance promised that God never would.
But maybe—just perhaps—the dissonance wasn’t telling the truth. Not the whole truth. Nor any of the truth.
Because there it is.
Again and again and again.
A sudden harmony.
A harmony that wraps me up so entirely and so wonderfully that it makes me feel as if I were the only thing that it ever wanted.
A harmony that sings for me with such wondrous melodies that I am deafened.
So deafened that this time I hear everything that the dissonance was trying to cover up with its noise.
All of my senses listen.
I hear everything that I see within the light inside your eyes.
I hear everything that I feel in your healing touch upon my skin.
And all that is in the ember warmth of your voice speaking words that I never thought I’d hear.

Now, imagine hearing him speak those words to you today.
Deep inside you, he is.