Saturday, March 27, 2021
Saturday in the Fifth Week of Lent
Carol Pugh
The Collect
O Lord, in your goodness you bestow abundant graces on your elect: Look with favor, we entreat you, upon those who in these Lenten days are being prepared for Holy Baptism, and grant them the help of your protection; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Readings: Ezekiel 37:21–28, John 11:45–53 & Psalm 85:1–7
When I received Rob’s request to write today’s daily reflection, my first thought was, “I can’t possibly do it – today is March 14th and we are moving to Virginia in two days!” Then I thought, “I’ll at least look at the readings before saying no.” Since you are reading this, you know that I decided to take on the assignment.
The beginning of the passage from Ezekiel really spoke to me, “I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land.” Who among us has not yearned for a sense of community and normalcy over this past year? The verse also reminded me of a trip from Williamsburg to Lynchburg nearly 45 years ago and how a conversation with God during that drive changed my life in innumerable ways. I grew up in Reading, Massachusetts but ended up going to college over 600 miles away at William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The summer between my junior and senior years I received the news that our beloved Canterbury Association chaplain, Malcolm Turnbull, was leaving Williamsburg to take on another assignment in the western part of the state. Several of my fellow Canterburians made plans to help him and his wife move. Even though I was far away in New England that summer, I wanted to be part of the crew. I don’t know how I convinced my Dad to let me make the trip, but I did. I don’t remember much from that week, other than the drive from Williamsburg to Lynchburg with Malcolm. Although I am a chatty extrovert and he is a quiet introvert, the long silences during the drive were quite comfortable. I heard the voice of God inquire, “Do you love me enough to spend the rest of your life in Virginia?” Whoa! That was asking a lot of a New Englander who had plans to return to her home state upon graduation. But I answered, “Yes,” and largely remained true to that vow for close to 40 years. One day in 2014 – totally out of the blue – I heard the same voice say, “Move back to New England if that is your heart’s desire.” That’s how we ended up in Durham, New Hampshire in the spring of 2015. During the past two years, I have sometimes wondered if I got it wrong and Mark’s health issues (multiple hip infections requiring more and more invasive surgery) were some sort of Job-like punishment for not staying put in the Old Dominion state.
It’s been a little over a year now since Mark’s last hospitalization for a hip infection and in that time the world has been turned upside down by COVID-19. Like everyone else, we have had a lot of time on our hands to think about “Life, the Universe, and Everything.” Since Mark was feeling much better than when we moved to Brooksby Village in August 2019 and has been pining for his native Virginia, we decided to move back to the Richmond area where we lived from 1990 to 2015. I must say, once the decision was made, my heart felt quite a bit lighter. The rest of the reading from Ezekiel also seems to have that same quality of lightness, both in terms of the absence of darkness and the presence of joy, “I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; and I will bless them and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary among them forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations shall know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them forevermore.”
As we move toward herd immunity via vaccination and the end of Lent, there is cause for joy and hope. In the words of the psalmist, “You have been gracious to your land, O Lord, you have restored the good fortune of Jacob. You have forgiven the iniquity of your people and blotted out all their sins.”
I’m not sure why, but my final thoughts on the readings come in the form of the great choral anthem by Ralph Vaughan Williams, “Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Refuge.” It is based on a different psalm (90) and the hymn, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” Here is a link to a recording of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxnY7gQ1h8g