Fox, watching

 1. Drove to church early this morning and saw a fox., standing on the sidewalk watching the cars go by. Slowed down, looked back. Definitely a fox. 

2. Movie recommendation (or not, you decide): I watched "Drive My Car" on Friday night. A meditation on seeing and being seen, grieving and failing to grieve, telling stories, telling lies, telling truth, talking about suffering, all of it infused with Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." It's a few minutes short of three hours, in Japanese with subtitles, so it's a commitment. I had to rewind one important part because I nodded off. But I am still thinking about it.

3. Because one of the truths in "Drive My Car" was that humans are terrifyingly vulnerable, a truth echoed in a depressing quote from James Agee in a sermon given this afternoon at a Bach Cantata Vespers service. 

4. Yes, we had lots of Easter trumpets this afternoon and the confident assertion that the Shepherd of the Sheep has arisen ("Surrexit pastor bonus"). And in the cantata (BWV 67, Hold in Remembrance Jesus Christ) a graying baritone calming the anxious orchestra as the Vox Christi: "Peace be with you." 

5. I don't know. This might be all. That's it. That's the blog. It's a hard and lonely world.

6. And yet, a question in the sermon: When did you become you? One answer (maybe it was the answer) was in baptism, and maybe in every subsequent baptism you've witnessed, or subsequent trips to the communion table, opportunities to claim an identity, to be seen. I'm not sure how that works exactly -- something about being present in the presence of God. And being present affirms the presence of God.

7. Side note, Part of me was recalled to a younger me today by the opportunity to do some story-telling in the Sunday School hour, during a traveling retelling of the Passion Story. I was assigned the Garden of Gethsemane part of the script. I had words to read, but told the story rather than read it. Takes me back to 2nd grade where we acted out Bible stories all the time. Except I seldom got a chance to act.  I was invariably the narrator—through the ten plagues and the Exodus and the forty years in the wilderness, through the entire Passion story. 

8. Probably should have picked up a pen and the notebook/journal I keep and written this all out there, in wandering, questioning fashion. And then closed the cover on the questions, so I wouldn't have to come up with an ending.

9. Thankfully, today is ending. The sun has broken through the clouds in the west after a day of rain. The prayers have been said for Ukraine, for peace, for those who are sick, for those who mourn. We've given thanks with an "Alleluia" for those who've gone before us in Christ. We're getting ready for Monday. In Chekhovian fashion, we prepare to go on ... This, too, would be something about who we are, what we share. It's hard to be human, but it's a grand project. Imagine that fox, watching.