"Things fall apart, the center cannot hold..."
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming, 1919
"In life and in death we belong to God"
A Brief Statement of Faith, PC(USA), 1983
Sometimes in life, we feel as if nothing is holding us: not the arms of those who love us, not the world as we know it, not the foundations of our community life as a nation...
The first statement is from a poem by William Butler Yeats, written in 1919, published at a time following the horrors of World War I when things were falling apart, it seemed.
The second is from A Brief Statement of Faith, written in 1983, for the re-joining of two streams of the Presbyterian Church. After a time of generations-long division (going back to slavery and the Civil War) in the church, reconciliation happened. It happened after a lot of discussion, and arguments, and heartbreak, and compromise. But it happened.
And it happened because we are, at heart, joined in Christ because we belong to God. No matter what else happens, no matter what happens in this nation, or in our personal lives, that is a truth that cannot be made false. The mark of our baptism, though made in water, can never be washed away.
Lent begins March 1. Lent is a 40 day time of repentance, confession, and turning to God. We begin Lent by being marked with ash, in the very same place we received the waters of baptism. The ash does not "un-do" the baptism: nothing can ever do that. Rather, the ash is a reminder that we are mortal. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return, we say. A stark reminder. But our center holds, because our center is Jesus Christ.
Pastor Nancy
