Joy

On the day of the service, Carl texted me at 8:00 a.m.

Make sure you watch out for ‘roos. 

There are lots of things I'm more afraid of on Australian roads than kangaroos.  Although they can cause quite a bit of damage, kangaroos are easier to avoid then the potholes the size of Chicxulub crater which appear almost overnight.  (Chicxulub is just off the Yucutan Peninsula.  It is thought that an asteroid impacted there millions of years ago almost causing the extinction of all life on earth.  We have those appear in the roads every time it rains.)

With eyes peeled I drove the speed limit while thinking about Carl Thiele’s regularization service.  Deciphering the nuances of having a regular pastor could lead in all sorts of non-necessary directions, but I thought about Carl and his own journey, of living with and through God’s call; how we all have different sensory organs with regards to God’s voice, how we experience joy and lament along the way.

I arrived at the church a little early and took in the surroundings.  Surrounded by a vast openness, a blankness in the landscape if you will, St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Rosevale looked bleak against the dripping sky.  Various mud-spattered cars and pickups were parked in the ankle deep mud outside the fence of the church.  I reached in for my umbrella and immediately left it where it was.  What difference did it make if my shirt was wet when my socks were full of mud?

Greeted by Pastor Carl and the Bishop of Queensland, Noel Noack, I settled in for the service.  Blanketed in silence, at first I was uncomfortable: my life is so full of sound that silence is unnerving.  But after a few minutes, I settled back into the painful pews and awaited the words to flow over me. 

Quiet.  Silence.  Calm.

And then they came in during the first hymn – a grandmother, three daughters (I assumed) and five granddaughters all in beautiful dresses. 

I smiled as the service progressed; the confession, the readings, the Psalm, each designed to heighten the intensity of God’s interaction with us, but what I noticed was that the length of the service also turned the dial on the little girls’ decibel levels.  They were fantastic.  Then, as Bishop Noel stood to give his address on the specificity of pastor’s calls, one of the girls stood up by the baptismal font and began to dance her little heart out.  With hands in the air, she jigged and jived, singing whatever tune was available and as her mother did the inevitable fingers to the mouth…

Shhhhhhhh!!!!

The little girl responded in words that topped them all.  “It’s okay, Mommy, I’m wearing my knickers!”

Most were intent on the sermon, but I was captured by the joy exhibited by the font, the selfless abandon of a little one done with silence, maybe even tired of incomprehensible words, and she couldn’t help but lift her hands by the Font of Life and sing… “Life is beautiful and it doesn’t even matter what I’m wearing.” 

Or not wearing for that fact.

I could use a good dance by the font remembering the saving grace in word and water of baptism.  A little more joy in life would do me good even as I dodged cows, ‘roos, peacocks(?!) and cane toads on the way home. 

Have you found the joy of the Lord lately?