On Sunday April 12th I will preach at my growing-up church.

I will preach in a space that echoes yet the voice of my father who was preacher, prophet and shepherd in that place.

Present in worship will be my siblings and my mother and the gift of my children.

Also present in worship will be people whose hearts sound in my ministry yet:  Sunday school teachers and singers and huggers and life long companions in faith.

I am a-tremble.

Robbinsdale UCC is celebrating 125 years of ministry.  They are inviting some of their far-flungs back to preach.  Certainly I am such a one.

I feel so many things.  I feel such gratitude to the Body of Christ at Robbinsdale UCC. They taught me the messy love of Christian community.  I feel the loss of my father and the spectacular ways he preached and stumbled and lived and loved.  I feel tenderness toward my mother who was help-meet for my father and template for grace for so many.  I feel wonder at the ways I get to live family with my siblings;  we know things without needing words to name them.

Certainly the power of resurrection is real.

On April 12th, I’m trusting the Holy to speak resurrection through a very human gratitude-wracked woman.

It will be good to be in my father’s house.