a prophetic voice-

Death has come unexpectedly so many times in my life...intruding... insinuating itself...no, even more than that... abruptly slicing into the fiber, the essence, of everyday life and wounding me- and so many others- to the very core. Death is the great interrupter, doing so with no apology, with no apparent concern for its life-changing implications, for the pain it inflicts or the emptiness it brings or the way it overturns all that is known and safe and comfortable. Death wanders down the halls of hospitals and hospices, to be sure. But it also lurks in the dark and lonely and unexpected corridors of the mind. It reaches out its icy tendrils to grasp and hold the unsuspecting adventurer. It hides along roadways and behind highway overpasses, unseen and unexpected by travelers. Death, it seems, would like to believe that in its intrusion into our lives, it has the last, the final word. And, indeed, if this earthly plane is all one knows, all one b...

A difficult week...there's no other way to put it. Beginning with a memorial service for the son of a dear woman in my congregation -the third son this woman has lost- just after returning from a restful but emotional retreat in the NC mountains...followed by a Tuesday e-mail from a dear high school friend, telling me of the accidental death of the husband of another classmate (A freak accident, actually- he was felling a tree and it hit him, killing him instantly)...to Thursday evening's totally unexpected death due to a massive stroke of a precious friend and fellow pilgrim, Suzanne Goddard... to yesterday's arrival of her lovely and very personal Christmas card (she had been at the post office doing her Christmas mailing when the symptoms began). And today, I am wrung out...physically, emotionally, and, yes, spiritually. On Sunday, for the memorial service, I used at the text for my brief homily, Psalm 22, which begins, My God, my God, why have you forsa...