Easter and Eastertide

Beauty Springeth Out of Nought

James Tissot, *Mary Magdalen and the Holy Women at the Tomb*

What an indescribable series of moments those were with the discovery of the empty tomb, first by the women, and then by some of the disciples. What made those moments so unexpected was the sense of emptiness that pervaded the scene after Jesus’ death on Golgotha. A few had stayed until the last. Most left, surely overwhelmed by a feeling of loss and of dark absence. He was gone. And then, so were they. Furtively moving off toward a place of hiding.

James Tissot, *The Apostles’ Hiding Place*

Then… from nothing came something. On the morning after the sabbath, surprised joy broke through fear and sadness as He who seemed no longer to be appeared amidst them. Among many promises, God had once said, “Behold, I make all things new.” This promise was now fulfilled, but not in a way that his people were expectating. Listless because of doubt, immobile due to their fears, their place of retreat strangely mirrored their Lord’s entombment.

Then, amidst the stillness of a death-prompted isolation, the followers of the Holy One experienced startling wonder, unanticipated joy, and a new sense of community. Excitement overcame their troubled conviction that all was lost. How had this come about? By reflecting on this question, we join writers of the New Testament and others by imagining how the Resurrection of Jesus not only happened to him, but how it also then happened to the disciples.

Robert Seymour Bridges was a nineteenth century physician and an esteemed poet, such that later in life he was named Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Though not well-known now, he deserves our attention for how he adapted and rendered in lyrical English verse a hymn text by the seventeenth century German theologian and hymn writer, Joachim Neander. Bridges’ version of that text is known by its first line, “All My Hope on God is Founded.”

Bridges’ poetic text is familiar to people in our own day because of the way it has been set to a twentieth century tune, MICHAEL, by Herbert Howells. Many heard this hymn when it was sung as a fitting part of an internationally televised occasion, the Committal Service for Queen Elizabeth II, in September of 2022.

“All My Hope on God is Founded” therefore represents a remarkable synthesis of a seventeenth century devotional text, Victorian poetical sensibility, and expressive twentieth century hymnology. Each of these features can be appealing, and in my perception, how they work together in this example makes for a very moving hymn that enhances contemporary eucharistic worship.

Hope, based on God’s grace and providence, provides the thematic structure for the five verses of the text as it appears in The Hymnal 1982 (of The Episcopal Church). The third verse evokes the blessings that we have received through God’s work in Creation. The text here is nuanced, evoking the role of divine wisdom, while at the same time making allusion to things we have learned through the science of astronomy. Here is verse 3 in full:

“God’s great goodness e’er endureth,
deep his wisdom, passing thought:
splendor, light, and life attend him,
beauty springeth out of nought.”

Clearly, the hymn’s words here speak of what theologians refer to as creation ex nihilo, how God created all that is from nothing rather than from something preexisting. We remember the way that God’s handiwork is portrayed in Genesis 1, especially God’s recognition that what has been created is good. Andrew Cuneo observes how, in Genesis’s opening chapter, this repeated refrain that it was good, “contains a Hebrew word which may be translated either as good or as beautiful. The feel of the whole chapter changes if one hears God proclaim that the light, the sun, the greenery, the animals are all beautiful, and mankind very beautiful.”

This helps us appreciate how Robert Bridges’ rendering of Neander’s text transposes the object of God’s appreciative regard from the attribute of goodness to that of Beauty. The beautiful splendor, light, and life that attend God then, by implication, become attributes that accrue to humankind, we who are created in God’s image and likeness.

A significant feature of New Testament theology appears in the theme of “a new creation,” signified by and inaugurated through Jesus’ Resurrection from the dead. As Paul puts it, “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Paul is here referring to death and resurrection, and the transformation we undergo through Baptism, when “what is mortal is swallowed up by life.” We can therefore say that the pattern of God’s work of Redemption mirrors that of Creation. For just as God created goodness and beauty out of nothing, God brought beautiful redemption to the world out of the emptiness of Jesus’ tomb. And as we feel joy when encountering beauty in Creation, so we find joy in God’s work of Redemption.

The disciples discovered new life within themselves through their encounter with and transformation by the Risen Jesus. This led them to a renewed sense of confidence that the Lord’s mission continued, and would now continue in and through them. They would have found fitting, and would have been able to sing, Robert Bridges’ words from the first verse of his hymn:

“All my hope on God is founded;
he doth still my trust renew,
me through change and chance he guideth,
only good and only true.”

And toward beauty.

Note: The full text of Robert Seymoure Bridges’ hymn text for “All My Hope in God is Founded” may be found here.

In a prior post I offered a reflection on the Committal Service for Queen Elizabeth II and noted its inclusion of the hymn, All My Hope on God is Founded. That post may be found here.

An Offering for Sunday, April 19, Easter 3 A

First edition book jacket of Walker Percy’s last novel, *The Thanatos Syndrome*

Prior homilies or sermons of mine are occasionally downloaded by readers. Noticing this, I anticipate that some of those preparing to preach (or offer a reading) on an upcoming Sunday might benefit from the perspective I have taken regarding the Lectionary readings for a particular day. I am therefore offering (when I can) a prior text that I have used for the occasion. I will try to do this on Sunday evenings or Mondays believing that there might interest in these texts being made available. When I have one prepared, I will also offer an accompanying handout (in pdf format) in case these may also be helpful.

For this coming Sunday, Easter 3 in Lectionary year A, I offer the following.

The link for it is here. The link to the handout may be found further below.

Easter 3 A 17 copy for 2026_PDF Download

Here is the link to the handout.

Easter 3 A 17 HANDOUT Vertical w Thanatos Cover_PDF Download

48 Years Ago Easter Turned My Life Downside Up

Moonrise over Athens, much as I remember it

A dusky early evening left a soft glow on the Acropolis, periodically visible as I walked from the hostel toward the church. Yet, the size and warmth of the rising full moon held my attention as its blush touched the hills, for a brief while silhouetting the pillars and pediments of the Parthenon.

It was the evening of Holy Saturday, which fell on March 25 that year. In other years the day would have been the Feast of the Annunciation, but in 1978 it was the eve of Easter Sunday. I walked the short distance to Syntagma Square, to revisit the Anglican parish I had found that morning. Now, in the approaching darkness, I was returning to make my first confession, and be baptized at the Great Easter Vigil.

How this came to be was largely due to providential grace, for I had not traveled to Greece with this particular result in mind. I was on a college year abroad, having lived and studied in Florence during the autumn. Then, after Christmas in Germany, I traveled to England for two eight week terms of study at Oxford. My plan for the year was to focus on Art History, fulfilling in part my chosen college major.

But, as in the biblical Damascus Road surprise, when first walking into the piazza around the Duomo in Florence, I experienced an unexpectedly sudden conviction: That it was time for me to surrender to the divine power I had come to recognize but had yet to affirm. Asking if there was an English-speaking congregation nearby, I was directed to St James Episcopal Church near the American Consulate. Over the next few months, and with the guidance of Fr. Edward Lee, the parish became for me a place of spiritual nurture.

The autumn course of studies for our group of visiting students in Florence was a fixed one. But my subsequent program in England allowed me the freedom to choose a personal area of focus. The exotic sounding topic of Christian Mysticism had been commended to me, and upon naming this to my Oxford program administrator, I learned that she could arrange tutorials for me with a recognized specialist in the field. What a blessing this turned out to be.

St. James Episcopal Church, Florence, Italy

And so, during a cold and wet English winter, my catechesis in the Christian Faith was suddenly deepened. My growth was fed by readings from the early desert saints, on through to the spiritual writers of the medieval period. My study experience was complemented by a different approach to worship from what I had encountered in the liturgy at St. James Episcopal Church in Florence. By chance, I discovered Pusey House and Anglo-Catholic liturgy soon after arriving in Oxford. Passing by a notice board, I saw an announcement about an upcoming sermon focused on the spirituality of Thomas Merton, whose Seven Story Mountain autobiography I had read the year before. Fr. Cheslyn Jones, the Chaplain at Pusey and a specialist in the Greek New Testament, along with the history of liturgy and spirituality, became my next catechist.

At the end of the Hilary (or winter) Term, I made the kind of plans many American students undertake hoping for spring warmth: To head as far south as cheaply possible, for what in my case would be a six week break before the Trinity Term.

I found a used tent and some economical camping supplies in local shops in Oxford, and located a round-trip bus ticket from London to Athens, offered by a discount travel bureau. This led to a remarkable pair of journeys to and from the continent, crossing between Dover and Ostend, through Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Yugoslavia, before finally arriving in Greece. Deposited on an Athenian curbside on an early afternoon, I found a local bus to the port of Piraeus. There I arranged for an overnight passage to Crete on a vintage island cargo and passenger ferry. The next morning, I bought a bus ticket to the south coast of Crete, going to a place a friend had recommended, the little seaside town of Ierapetra, near where St. Paul’s ship had sailed off the coast (Acts 27). Aside from my basic gear, I had brought along only a New Testament and a book of the sayings of the Desert Fathers for my Lenten reading. My plan to do a lot of fasting for spiritual reasons fit neatly with my need for economy.

My first couple of nights were spent in a farmer’s field, above the town and seaside. I awoke one of those mornings to a rapping on the tent pole that alarmed me, sensitive to a probable complaint about my trespassing. Instead, there was a kind man, his arms folded across his chest, cradling fresh tomatoes and cucumbers. I was very touched.

The beach along which I walked to Ierapetra on Crete

After a few days I relocated my tent to an area just above the pebbled beach, adjacent to the long shore upon which I would daily walk to the town. There I would buy a loaf of hearty brown bread, some cheese and sausage meat, as well as more tomatoes and cucumbers. These became the staples of my diet for about 5 weeks.

With just a couple of weeks to go before my return journey to England, a friend from our study program found me on Crete. He was conflicted and wrestling with a need to fly back to the States to be reconciled with his father. After a day or two, he resolved to act on his intuition, and departed on his long journey home.

A little Greek Orthodox church like the one in which I prayed on a morning of decision

Musing about his decision, I realized that I was moving toward a similar resolve, but that in my case it was a need to be reconciled with our spiritual Father. I was still fuzzy about what this might mean in concrete terms, but awoke the next morning with greater clarity. I walked into town to pray in a small Greek Orthodox church when I realized what I needed to do. That was to go back to Athens, find an English Church, and ask to be baptized. Fetching my sleeping bag from the tent and my New Testment, I booked a bus ticket back to the north shore of Crete for a return to Piraeus on the same overnight ship. It was then I learned that it was Good Friday.

The Greek inter-island ferry ship, the *Minos*, upon which I sailed overnight between Piraeus and Crete

Holy Saturday morning, the bus from Piraeus dropped me at Syntagma Square in central Athens where – very conveniently – I found St Paul’s Anglican Church. Reading the church sign with its parish notices, I learned the name of the priest, Fr. Jeremy Peake, and his telephone number. Taking the risk of calling him early on Holy Saturday morning, I surprised him with an unanticipated but what I hoped would be a welcome request: I wished to be baptized. In a wonderfully understated British way, he responded by saying, “Perhaps we should talk about that!” He then invited me to come by for coffee. When I shared with him about my months of study, and with whom I had been receiving instruction in the Christian Faith, he was reassured. Warmly, he invited me to come early to the church that evening to make my first confession, and receive Baptism at the Great Easter Vigil.

The garden area where new light of Easter was lit

The liturgy began in the darkened forecourt of the parish church, just off a main boulevard in central Athens. Amidst the busy sounds of the city around us, we gathered in silence to light the new fire with which the liturgy begins. Being my first experience of the Vigil, I was quite moved by the sequence of readings, starting with the Creation, through the Fall and the Flood, the Exodus and entrance into the Promised Land, with stories of God’s covenantal grace being extended and renewed again and again. When I was then baptized, I felt like I was on fire, an overwhelming experience of cleansing embrace and transformation. I received communion as a new member of the Body of Christ, and left the liturgy feeling like I was several feet off the ground.

On Sunday morning following the Eucharist I was invited to lunch by the kind couple who had agreed to be my sponsors for Baptism. During that wonderful meal, they explained a practice with which I was unfamiliar: Easter eggs all colored dark red, recalling a wonderful Eastertide legend associated with Mary Magdalene.

After a further week in my tent near Ierapetra, I returned to Oxford for another term of formation in the history of Christian spiritual theology. At the end of the term, I received the sacrament of Confirmation through the hands of a suffragan bishop of Winchester, at Pusey House on Pentecost Sunday.

My experience of what now seems to have been a magical series of months, forty eight years ago, comes back to me every Easter. Especially when the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25 happens to occur near Holy Week, as it did this year.

Additional note: Readers interested in the legend about St. Mary Magdalen and the red egg might like to read my earlier post on this topic, which may be found here. A further reflection of the impact of the story I share here can be seen in the opening chapter and the thematic structure of my book, Ethics After Easter.

An Offering for Sunday, April 12, Easter 2 A

Justin Matherly, *(Untitled), Fear Anxiety Joy*, 2016

For this coming Sunday, Easter 2 in Lectionary year A, I offer the following.

The link for it is here. The link to the handout may be found further below.

Easter 2 A 17_2026 PDF copy Download

Here is the link to the handout.

Easter 2 A 17 Handout copy for 2026_PDF Download

Through the Waters of Death Into New Life in Christ

Peter Koenig, *Christ as Second Moses*, *The Rainbow Resurrection*

Side Panels that accompany *Christ as Second Moses*

A perennial theme in the New Testament and in Christian reflection concerns how – in Christ – we are called to live through death into new life. When we die to our worldly attachments and their hold upon us, we open ourselves to a greater life that extends beyond this present one. As the Christ our Passover canticle from The Book of Common Prayer puts it,

Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; *
death no longer has dominion over him.
The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; *
but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So also consider yourselves dead to sin, *
and alive to God in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Peter Koenig’s painting with its side panels, centered on themes within this Easter season, expresses this motif in a particularly evocative way. Just as Moses led the people of Israel through the waters of death into a new covenant life with God, so Christ leads us through and to the same. This happens for us liturgically in the rite of Baptism. As Koenig explores this idea, he not only depicts Christ parting the waters but also shows the water emerging from the Lord’s side. This reflects John’s account of how blood and water came forth from Jesus’ side on the cross, but also suggests how water from the rock in the wilderness brought life to God’s people during Israel’s wandering toward the Promised Land. The “Thanksgiving over the Water,” in The Prayer Book Baptismal Rite articulates these ideas in a compact way:

“We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.

We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.”

Notice how, in the painting at the top, Peter Koenig portrays the crucified and risen Christ before what appears to be a darkened tomb filled with people. As we hear Isaiah quoted in Advent, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” Christ leads the way, and makes possible our journey from the darkness of death into our new covenant life with God.

The two side paintings that accompany Koenig’s Christ as Second Moses artfully yet powerfully suggest the drama within the Exodus account of Israel’s Red Sea Crossing. The chariots of Pharaoh succumb to the waters of death while Israel is safely delivered on dry ground to their Covenant encounter with God at Sinai. Another canticle from The Prayer Book puts it well:

I will sing to the Lord, for he is lofty and uplifted; *
the horse and its rider has he hurled into the sea.
The Lord is my strength and my refuge; *
the Lord has become my Savior.
This is my God and I will praise him, *
the God of my people and I will exalt him.
The Lord is a mighty warrior; *
Yahweh is his Name.
The chariots of Pharaoh and his army has he hurled into the sea; *
the finest of those who bear armor have been drowned in the Red Sea.
The fathomless deep has overwhelmed them; *
they sank into the depths like a stone.
Your right hand, O Lord, is glorious in might; *
your right hand, O Lord, has overthrown the enemy.

Most of us have the blessing of not facing the equivalent of Pharaoh’s army. But we do have an enemy. And our enemy is the darkness and death of loving self and this world, even to the point of contempt for God, when God bids us to love him, even to the point of contempt for self and this world. When we live as we pray, to the Father, through the Son, and in the Spirit, we experience new life.

The above painting is Peter Koenig’s, Christ as the Second Moses, also known as The Rainbow Resurrection (used by permission of the artist). The final paragraph contains a paraphrase of St. Augustine concerning how we love God, from The City of God (Book 14, chapter 28). / I am once again pleased to share Peter Koenig’s painting and the material in this post as we prepare for Easter Sunday, and the Baptisms that may be a part of the liturgy in many churches.

Beauty and Revelation

James Tissot’s painting depicting God’s creative work is likely to strike us as childishly simplistic in its portrayal of divinity. For it quite obviously displays what we consider to be the flaw of anthropomorphism, as if the artist was naive in his approach to faith. But what if our hesitation about anthropomorphism, aside from reflecting a proper theological concern, could also become an obstacle for us? What if the mysterious implausibility of God entering into and sharing the limitations of human being keeps us from appreciating how fallen human beings can – by the same graceful Providence – share in the beautiful fullness of God?

I believe that James Tissot came to realize this: Beauty is a form of divine revelation. And, that our joy when beholding beauty is our experience of God’s love manifest to and within us.

These themes are intrinsic to our participation in Holy Week. As we can learn from observing the traditional pattern for the liturgy on Good Friday, our focus in Holy Week is upon what God has done and is doing for us. The sign of this on Good Friday is our abstention from celebrating the Eucharist, and instead we receive communion from the sacrament reserved following the Maundy Thursday liturgy on the prior evening.

For God creates, God discloses, and God provides. Through all, God reveals self. God’s revelation involves God’s self-disclosing gifts. Within the divine attributes are those of initiative and efficacy, constitutive aspects of creativity. And so, when God creates human beings in God’s own image and likeness, God not only exercises creativity but also self-revelation.

Among the ways that we resemble our Maker is one that paradoxically can become a source of frustration for us. Positively, our Creator has given us intelligence and a God-reflecting capacity for creativity, initiative, and efficacy. In addition, God has given us an inclination toward experiencing freedom and an accompanying desire for its fulfillment. Employing these gifts can lead to an ironic and negative result: They allow us the freedom wrongly to imagine that God is actually a dispensable concept, and a coping mechanism which is just a reflection of our psychological needs and a projection of ourselves.

Reflecting on these things can lead us to recognize the heart of divine humility, that it should please God to create us in God’s own image and likeness. God has given us the capacity to imagine that we are self-made, and then to function in a parody of the divine role in Creation. This happens when we fool ourselves into thinking that we are the center of the universe. Expressions of this parody include our ideas that the universe is infinite, as are our own endless possibilities within it. Yet – and this is critical – only God is infinite, and we – like the universe – are finite beings, endowed not only with divine-reflecting capacities, but also with purpose, meaning, and identities that are not of our own making.

James Tissot, *What Our Lord Saw From the Cross*, a remarkable inversion of how we so often picture the scene

As we approach Holy Week, we have the opportunity once again to be those who watch, who listen, and reflect. As we do, we remind ourselves that we are bit players in the Divine Drama, whose Author has generously written for us a script that has a curious feature, ample provision for ‘ad-libbing.’ In fact, divine generosity is so abounding that we are allowed to create sub-plots within the overall story. To the point that we forget to reference the overall plot lines shaping the whole, as well as the Author’s purposes in creating them.

One thing that God achieved in the events of the Exodus was to remind both Pharaoh, as well as Moses and the people of Israel, that God was and is sovereign over history as well as over geography, the realms of both time and place. Forgetting this ancient truth, we neglect the comfort we can gain from the doctrine of Providence, that God provides for the needs of the world as well as our own, which God knows more intimately and with greater perception than we do. We should wonder that we are left free to imagine otherwise, a fantasy in which some of us at least occasionally engage.

But the humility we are invited to recover in this latter part of Lent, and most of all in Holy Week, involves opening ourselves to a very real possibility. That God’s way of overcoming our refusal and failure to live into the potential we have been given involves the beauty of a strange and unexpected gift. Christmas reminded us of part of this gift, that God became human so that humans could become God-like, and in the best possible way. Holy Week allows us to rediscover the gift that God chose to identify so much with us that, in the ‘Son of Man,’ the Incarnate divine-human being, God passed through human death into the fullness of human life so that we might be enabled by grace to do the same.

Finding Beauty in Easter Living

A book for the New Church’s Teaching Series

Visitors to this space are familiar with my fondness for the words of St. Richard of Chichester: “Day by day, dear Lord, of thee three things I pray: to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly, day by day.” The theme can be expressed more compactly: We seek to live more nearly as we pray. These words voice our desire to walk a path of beauty in life, such as we find in ‘Easter Living.’

While serving as an Assistant Professor at one of our seminaries in The Episcopal Church, I was invited by the editor of the New Churches Teaching Series to write the volume on Ethics and Moral Theology. This was the third such series of books going back to the 1950’s that seek to provide learning for persons interested in our tradition. Books in these series have addressed a wide range of areas in faith and community life pertinent to our common desire to become informed members. I wrote my book while teaching its content in the seminary, and in about 10 different parish weekend teaching events in Episcopal churches across the country, ‘field testing’ the material. My book was published in 2000, and is still in print. I wish to note that proceeds from all the books in this series were and are donated to the Anglican Theological Review, an independent journal offering the fruits of scholarship for the benefit and educational formation of those within as well as beyond the academy.

At the time of being granted tenure, a seminary trustee asked me what the title of the book implied about its content. It became evident that her concern was focused on my use of the word “after.” I was able to explain that I used the word to mean “in light of.” The book’s title is an indirect tribute to the theological vision of my doctoral supervisor, Oliver O’Donovan, then Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at the University of Oxford, whose book, Resurrection and Moral Order, has had a profound impact upon my thinking.

It may be helpful to clarify that I use the terms “Christian ethics” and “moral theology” interchangeably. However, it is worth observing that many within the wider Protestant tradition tend to prefer the term “Christian ethics,” while those within the wider Catholic tradition tend to use that of “moral theology.” Note that “ethics,” as a named field of inquiry without the religious qualifier, is generally understood as a branch of philosophy, which may or may not observably underpin theological writings relevant to this field.

I would like to highlight a number of themes evident within and or suggested by the structure my book, which I think are particularly relevant to Christians at this point of time:

Foremost, the interdependence between ethics and spirituality, which I refer to as ‘two sides of the same coin’ despite their separate spheres of concern.
The centrality of Baptism in the lives of every Christian believer, and its implications regarding the vital relationship between what we believe and how we live
Our historic Anglican dependence upon the natural world as a source of insight about the Creator’s intentions for us and for our lives. This reflects our traditional emphasis upon the Incarnation of our Lord in human embodiment. We look for the complementarity between – but do not equate nor confuse – what the Medievals called the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture, ‘written’ by the same Author, while having different even if overlapping purposes.
The distinctions that I offer between what I call “laws,” “manners,” and “moral principles.” Neglecting to distinguish among what these terms represent frequently causes confusion.

The final chapter of the book moves from elaboration of basic principles in Christian ethics/moral theology to an application of these principles by offering a methodological approach to how they might be applied with reference to a particular set of ethical questions, centering on how we approach a broad concern for all of us: “Should a Christian ever been involved in or associated with an act of violence?”

I wish to stress that this is not a book about “issues.” My goal was -and remains – an effort to recover and present the foundations of a solid Christian world view for how we might best approach any issue that may be of concern. So, this is not a book where you can turn to the index and look up such matters as capital punishment or a discussion of what might be a fair interest rate on loans. I try to remain careful about observing the important distinction between moral or ethical principles that we might share, and particular policy implementations that we then undertake to reflect or enact those principles in our common life.

For those who may be interested, I include here a précis of the structure of my book, articulated in the series of Axioms that are appended within it, as well as bullet point chapter summaries:

EAE_Axioms & Chapter Contents Amplified_for 2026 Download

Finding Identity in Who We Are Becoming

A promotional photo for *Forrest Gump*, a film exploring destiny and chance in relation to personal identity as people move through their lives

We are simultaneously two things that may seem to be in tension: We are who we are and have been, and, we are who we are becoming. The paradoxical conjunction between these statements challenges a prevalent social assumption, that personal identity is in some ways fixed.

Another observation to consider: We can no longer be who we were, years ago, nor who we thought we might someday become. For we are no longer who we were then, and surely not the person who we thought we might want to be as we matured.

But who we are now is the person we are becoming.

A trustworthy maxim from my field of ethics provides a reliable insight: practice shapes character. And character shapes practice. What we do shapes who we are (and who we are becoming), just as who we are shapes what we are likely to do. And a good definition of character is “a disposition to act in particular ways.” Our character is shaped by what we do, and what we do continues to shape our character.

Sally Fields and a youth playing the roles of Forrest Gump and his mama

Or, as Forrest Gump’s mama famously said, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Whatever truth may be found in another old saying (“character is destiny”), who we are becoming is not in some way predetermined. We are in large part shapers of ourselves, even while we may feel like we are being shaped by events and or by other people. Yet, from the Beginning, God has been the Great Shaper of all things, even of us. As our Redeemer, through Baptism, God changes us and gives us a new life centered on the graced possibility of redemptive transformation.

In formal terms, the ideas I am exploring here involve dialectical relationships, such as we find between act and character, and between us and others. In these relationships, there is always a two-way, dynamic process of interaction between these various entities, whether we are speaking of God, ourselves, others, and or the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Within all this, we experience a lifelong quest for a better sense of our identity. It is too easy, though often tempting, to try and resolve this quest in terms of external factors, such as who we imagine ourselves to be in the eyes and thoughts of other people. To be directed in our ideas and actions by what we think may be expected of us, or by what other people hope for us, usually comes at the expense of the influence of the Great Shaper, the One who reveals to us our true meaning and the purpose of our life journeys. Our primary dialectical relationship is with our Creator and Redeemer, our grounding guide for who we are meant to be, and become.

For these reasons, it is good to resist the typical kinds of “I am… “ statements so current in popular culture – statements like “I am a Democrat, or a Republican,” or “I am an introvert, or an extrovert.” A more helpful kind of self-definition springs from statements based on what we tend to do. For example, instead of the prior statements, it would help us to say things like, “I tend to vote in the following ways…,” or “I tend to respond to social situations by preferring to…” Consistent with these views, I resist self-definition in similar “I am” terms when it comes to how I measure when using Myers-Briggs related personal inventory instruments. This is, in part, because of their foundation upon Jungian thought, which anticipates how we as human beings have the opportunity to grow and change over time, especially in the direction of our ‘shadow’ strengths or areas of challenge.

I continue to value an insight offered by a former teaching colleague. In a conference he once said, “People don’t actually ‘learn from experience;’ they learn from reflecting on experience.” We experience and do things; we reflect on both, and we learn as we continue to think about what we encounter, and choose to do.” In the process, we are becoming who we are now.

Who am I becoming in relation to what I am doing now? This is a helpful Lenten question in light of our preparation for Easter living.

“… She Is Still Out There…”

James Tissot, *The Resucitation of Lazarus*

(Note: At the time of publication, what has happened to Nancy, the mother of Samantha Guthrie, is still unclear.)

The beginning of Lent offers us a stark reminder of our mortality, and of our ’nothingness’ apart from God’s Grace. This may lead some of us to be mindful of the death that we fear, or the deaths of loved ones whom we mourn. Our observance of ‘a holy Lent’ provides a season when we can grow in our assurance of the New Life we are given in and through Christ. This happens through our Baptism into his death and Resurrection. The Easter season that lies ahead has much to say about this, which is one reason we might devote ourselves to particular disciplines of preparation during these Forty Days.

I want to approach this theme in light of the recent widespread publicity given to the abduction of Nancy, the mother of Samantha Guthrie. This tragedy has focused a great deal of attention on some words that she and her siblings have used with reference to their mother: “We believe she is still out there.” This cautious statement has been oft-repeated by law officers and the news media.

We hear these words in the context of learning that Samantha Guthrie has been a member of St. Philip in the Hills Episcopal Church, in Tucson, where a prayer vigil was offered on behalf of her mother. Samantha has also written a book in which she expresses her Christian faith, a fact also evident in some of her recent public communications.

For Christians, our loved ones are always ‘still out there.’ I want to offer some reflection on this phrasing, and explore what the Guthries’ quoted words may mean in terms of Christian belief.

Despite a common notion we sometimes encounter in popular culture, people who die do not become ‘angels.’ Nevertheless, traditional Christian faith teaches us that angels are like us in reflecting a divine attribute, personhood. For we believe in One God in Three Persons (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). This is the mystery of the holy Trinitarian nature of God, in whose image and likeness all persons have been created. From our knowledge of God, and our experience of ourselves, we know that an integral feature of personhood is being in relationship with other persons.

Yet, unlike angels, we are embodied, and remain embodied regardless of our transformation through the resurrection of the dead at the end of our mortal, physical, lives.

Since the time of the New Testament, Christians have spoken about this transformation into a new form of embodiment by employing various metaphors. In view of this, at our demise, we do not become like a drop of water returning to the sea, or move from a personal identity based on our differentiation from others into an unconscious and undifferentiated state of life. As if – at death – we will somehow be dissolved into a greater realm of ‘Spirit.’

By our Baptism into the death and Resurrection of Jesus, we become named members of His Body, the one Body of Christ. This is the Church in its essence, which comprises the communion of all the Baptized, whether they are ‘on this side of the veil’ or have gone before us to the next life. Thus, though we (as Anglicans) do not pray to saints, we pray with them as the Holy Spirit enables this activity within us. Those presently alive in this life and those who have ‘gone before us’ – are both ‘here’ and ‘there,’ in a shared living stream of ongoing prayer and fellowship.

An oft-neglected article of traditional Christian faith is that of the Ascension of our Lord, directly tied to his Resurrection from the dead. In our faith, Christ did not ‘go up’ alone, but carried with him our human nature. This enabled our own transition – with him – into the next life. When we die, by Grace we move into a greater experience of nearness with our Lord, who is already with us, and in us. Therefore, we do not cease ‘to be’ at death. And we are taught not to fear physical death in view of our belief in the significance of our Baptism into Christ’s death and Resurrection. By virtue of this Ascension-fortified faith, we have assurance about our continuing fellowship with those who have died “in the Lord.”

In view of these fundamental aspects of Christian believing, we can recognize how Nancy Guthrie continues to be among us, and always will be, regardless of what may have happened to her in the recent tragic circumstances now so familiar to us. For as Jesus is quoted as saying, in John 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”

Note: I present these reflections without implying that my words here have negative implications regarding those who do not share our faith nor our baptismal identity. As for people whose faith (or lack of it) is known to God alone, we need to remind ourselves that, in God’s Providential wisdom, the divine will for those who do not identify as Christian remains a mystery to us.

Entering The Easter Joy of Our Lord

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A prayer appointed for the closing moments of the Good Friday liturgy provides words with which we commit ourselves to God, and pray for the grace of a holy life. We pray this prayer “with all who have departed this world and have died in the peace of Christ.” The liturgy provides this prayer so that, having made our commitment, and request for grace, “we may be accounted worthy to enter into the fullness of the joy of our Lord.”

Through Baptism, through dying and rising again in Christ, we have already entered into the joy of our Lord. This is the joy that our Lord so freely shares with all who are open to receiving it. A notable aspect of the first disciples’ response to encountering the Risen Lord, was joy. He brought joy to those who had despaired, or doubted, or even had given up hope. He brought joy to Peter who had denied him three times. He brings the same joy to us.

To experience the joy of the Lord, we don’t need to wait until we pass beyond this life, through the veil, into what lies before us. What we await is the fullness of joy when, finally, we behold him, unburdened from the cares and allure of this world as these occupy our attention now. In Jesus’ Resurrection, and through our participation in his Risen Life, we see further dimensions of the New Creation that already is.

Through Grace, joy is now ours. Rightly, and by faith, we anticipate entering the fullness of the joy of the Lord. As a Robert Lentz icon of Thomas Aquinas reminds us, joy is more than a feeling; for “joy is the noblest human act.”

Toward Beauty

In Art, Faith and Life ~ STEPHEN HOLMGREN