new church life: november/december 2014
reform, or race relations. Or as you
take your education and, wherever
you end up, treat your coworkers with
simple courtesy and kindness. As you
take your education and make loving
choices as a wife, a husband, a parent,
knowing that these people you are
entrusted with are like most precious
seeds in the eyes of God.
So what are you doing here? Is this
your school, is this your tradition, or is
it someone else’s? What are you doing
here?
Only you get to discover the
answer to that question. But before you
go today, consider that you may be part of a Divine plan at least as far reaching
as the life of this stone. Think about the journey of this rock. Millions and
millions of years ago it was born in the pressure and heat deep in our earth.
As the continents moved, it was gradually pushed to the surface. Through
centuries of wind and rain, it was slowly eroded and covered with earth. One
hundred years ago it was dug from a cliff by workmen we no longer remember
and painstakingly shaped by craftsmen to hold up the massive pillar of this
beautiful cathedral. What if all of this, the eons-long life-span of this piece of
granite, was all so that you could be here today?
And what if you are here today so that many generations from now,
when this stone has become cracked or forgotten, untold numbers of another
generation’s children’s children, people who will look and sound very different
from you and me, whose thoughts might be unrecognizable to us: perhaps you
are here today so that one day they can be touched in some way by the ripples
of our God’s everlasting love.
“The works of His hands,” we read, “stand fast forever and ever.” (Psalm
111:7-8) “And He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new’.”
(Revelation 21:5)
So what are you doing
here? Is this your school,
is this your tradition,
or is it someone else’s?
What are you doing
here? Only you get to
discover the answer
to that question.
The Rev. Dr. Thane P. Glenn is Chap Z[