From the Rector

My Dear Family in Christ,
 
We are drawing to the close of our Lenten journey this year:  next week is Holy Week, beginning with this Sunday, when we shall celebrate both the Liturgy of the Palms and the Passion of Our Lord.  We will then have our regular healing Masses -- Tuesday morning at 9:30 and Wednesday evening at 6:30.  And then we shall enter into the Triduum, the 3-day liturgy which begins with Maundy Thursday, includes Good Friday, and culminates in the Great Vigil of Easter.  The highest, holiest observance of the Christian year.  It is almost upon us.
 
This year, as we have sought to make our inward, spiritual journey from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, the outside world around us has swirled and roiled in even more chaos that usual.  To call our present times “unpredictable” doesn’t quite cover it.  Many of us are deeply, profoundly afraid; even those of us who are not must surely acknowledge the extraordinary levels of ambient tension and anxiety in the air.  I keep thinking of a quiet scene from Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, a scene perhaps more famous now from Peter Jackson’s film adaptation than from the original text.  But the language of the novel captures something that not even the remarkable film can fully translate…
 
The heroes of Tolkien’s epic tale are small and all but powerless.  In the scene I’m thinking of, the main character, Frodo, is learning just how dark and dire his situation and circumstances are, now that he’s been caught up in great and terrible tides of history, power, and war.  The great Wizard, Gandalf, is explaining things to Frodo.  Gandalf says:
 
‘Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.’
 
‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.
 
‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.’
 
Wise Gandalf makes it sound so simple.  But Gandalf, like his creator Tolkien, understands deeply that “simple” and “easy” are very often not the same thing.  Still, the wisdom of his response to Frodo’s admission (a confession that I strongly suspect hits close to home for many of us in the real world right now) cannot be overstated.  No matter how much we would prefer otherwise, we do not get to choose the larger circumstances within which we find ourselves.  Our first challenge, in challenging times, then, is to remember that we can still make choices, even if those choices seem to us to be small or even insignificant.
 
Many of you chose to come out last Saturday to the “Hands Off” demonstration/protest in downtown Appleton.  For those of you who weren’t there, let me tell you it was a pretty amazing experience.  I’ve read an estimate of 2,500 people turning up over the course of the couple of hours scheduled for the demonstration.  I’ve been to a couple of such gatherings in my time in Appleton, but I’ve never seen a single demonstration that was this big.  Or, moreover, that brought out so many different people, and different kinds of people -- different ages, backgrounds, looks, costumes, &c.  Fear, anxiety, uncertainty -- these things all have the side effect of isolation, of making us feel alone and cut off from support.  It was quite something to see a tangible example of the principle of unity in diversity, of e pluribus unum.  
 
And yet … the first question to arise after Saturday was, “So what did all that demonstrating accomplish?”  Well, from a short-term, pragmatic standpoint, perhaps not a whole lot.  No policies got changed on Saturday, no executive orders got rescinded, no deportees got returned, and so forth.  The status quo in the following days was, in tangible terms, not a whole lot different than it had been in the days leading up to Saturday.
 
And yet … something had happened.  Something important.  The experience of unity and solidarity extended beyond 2,500 people gathered in Appleton.  The demonstration here was but one of hundreds, maybe thousands, around the country.  I’ve seen estimates of nearly 3 million people turning out across all 50 states last weekend.  That happened.  And the fact that it happened has been reminding me of another passage from The Fellowship of the Ring.  After Gandalf explains to Frodo just how desperate the situation is, Frodo agrees to accept the near-impossible quest to save the world.  He then tries to set off on his quest without dragging all his friends into the dark tangle of destiny with him.  But his friends will not have it:
 
‘It all depends on what you want,’ put in Merry. ‘You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the Ring. We are horribly afraid – but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.’
 
Elsewhere, Gandalf has already informed Frodo that:  “There are other forces at work in the world … besides the will of evil.”  And here is what I think is one of the best examples of that truth.  We are not alone.  We are called, and brothers, sisters, family, in Christ into community with each other.  This is God’s will for us, and it is the path God offers us to human flourishing.  Tolkien, a devout Christian himself, understands this truth deeply, I think.
 
My dear friends, next week is Holy Week, and that will lead us up to the Cross and Death.  And it will lead us beyond, to the inconceivable glory that is Easter.  Though we may live in uncertain times that we wish had not come to us, we live in them together, and we face them, not as isolated, powerless individuals, but as a covenant community drawn together by the grace, compassion, love … as well as the might, majesty, dominion, and power … of Jesus Christ.  Reach out to each other; hold onto each other as Christ reaches out and holds onto us.  For Easter is coming!
 
Peace & blessings,
Christopher+

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