When Love Shows Up: Weekly Reflections about God's Presence

WLSU, What I Learned in 2024 - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

I want to do something I don't normally do. I want to look back on this past year and name a few things I learned in 2024. I wouldn't normally do this because, frankly, who the hell am I to tell you what I've learned, as if it could be relevant to you? It's a little cocky. So when I say I learn them, please know I am guessing you probably already knew all these things yourself. So rather than learning anything from me, you get to just be proud of me for finally catching up with you!
It's also worth saying that most of the things I learned this year, I did not learn for the first time. At least I think I've thought them before. But in this last year, these four things sang out more loudly, more clearly than they ever have before. So this is more like four things I relearned. I tend to resist New Year's resolutions, but I will say as I look forward to 2025, I am hoping to hold these things a little more closely than I have in the past. So without further ado, here are four things I learned in 2024.Want to support our podcast?
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WLSU, Useless Christmas - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Usually this
time of year, as we prepare for Christmas I try to write something about how
you should go easy on yourself, about how the holidays are stressful enough
without you having to add to that with a lot of judgment and self-criticism. I
always make a point of saying how much I hate New Year's resolutions because,
one, you're going to fail at them anyway, and two, becoming a better person should
not actually be your main goal. And of course all of this rests in the reality
that God loves you no matter what, and it would do your heart some good to rest
in that a little bit.
But not this
year.
No, this
year the other shoe drops. You're not
working hard enough. You could be doing more. It's the end of the year and what
do you have to show for it? Did you really give it your all? If Jesus showed up
at your door today, how disappointed do you think he'd be on a scale of 1 to
10? Maybe you should be going all out to make Christmas perfect and set
yourself up for a new you in the new year. You understand that God would love
you more if you were just a better person, right?
Ok, fine, I don't actually believe any of those things. But I wonder what it felt like to hear that. Did you buy any of it?
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WLSU, After The Thing - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

We read these stories of memorable moments. We call them defining. In many ways they are. The miracles define the lives of those who experience them. And the curses - the illnesses, and deaths of which Jesus cures people - they are themselves definitive. The bleeding woman, the dying child, the dead man. Is this life defined? A collection of maladies and miracles, of blessings and curses - bullet points and highlights, the things found in an obituary.
But my life is filled with so many unmemorable moments - daily, hourly, I am doing things the details of which get forgotten almost immediately. It's the things that happens after the thing happens.
I have written and preached and spoken repeatedly about the day my father died. I have detailed at length my conversion experience on a seaside trail in Italy. I have gleaned my parents' divorce, my wedding day, and the birth of my children for sermon material. A collection of curses and miracles that I call definitive. But right now I am thinking about picking my kids up from school.
The days I've done this bleed into one another, my memory of them is an amalgamation. I don't remember any specific time I locked eyes with one of my children as they made their way out of the school building, any specific time they broke into a run toward me, any specific time they tried to knock me down with a hug. But it has happened so many times, so consistently, so unmemorably, that it has begun to define me.

WLSU, Don’t Let Go - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

11 years ago my family and I walked into a theater and watched what would become one of the most significant movies of the last several decades. Of course I'm talking about Frozen. It became the highest grossing film of that year, the highest grossing animated film up to that point, and singlehandedly re-established the cultural relevance of Disney's animated movies.
But more important than all that, Frozen brought the song "Let it Go" into the world. Everything else about Frozen's impact pales in comparison to this. "Let it Go" won an Oscar, a Grammy, and sold nearly 11million copies in one year. Even if you have never seen Frozen you have heard this song. And if you have had a child, grandchild, godchild, or are friends with anyone who has had any of these in the last decade, you know this song. It is impossible to overstate its ubiquity in our culture.
Let me step back for a moment and acknowledge the obvious. Yes, I am still a priest and this is still my religious podcast. And yes, I am an adult. And yes, in the midst of some of the most interesting and trying times in recent memory, I am here talking/writing about a Disney movie and one of its songs. Stick with me. Jesus will be here soon.
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WLSU: Work Hard. Be Kind - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Kindness is the conscious decision to humanize the person right in front of you, to at least seek to empathize with them, to insist that they matter even when you don't want them to.
The temptation to hate is so strong. I am speaking about myself here as much as I am speaking about anyone. I do not believe kindness comes naturally when we feel threatened, when we are hurting. We are in a time of upheaval and great cultural division, fear, and animosity.
Some are grieving the results of this election, and some are celebrating - and if you look at the numbers, it's a fairly equal portion of both. We cannot say that our country is united behind Donald Trump. That would be a lie. We could not have said the country was united behind Joe Biden after his election. That's not how this works in real life. We know that politicians like to speak in sweeping terms about the electorate. I think those broad declarations about us are disingenuous - wishful thinking. "America has spoken!" they will often say. Have we? Our winner-take-all mentality insists on a narrative of unity that does not reflect our experience. And our binary thinking requires good guys and bad guys for us to be able to function. This is fertile ground for hatred to grow.
We are fractured, and the breach runs deep. I am not at all sure it is reparable. We all belong to each other, but we don't act like it, and often we don't even believe it.
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WLSU, The Days After - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Well, this
is the last blog I will publish before the election. I am aware that nothing I
could say at this point would sway your vote one way or the other. I think most
of you who know me and have read my writing have your own guesses about how I
will vote. And I don't pretend that anything I've put out there has had much of
an influence on your vote. So I will not be using this platform to tell you for
whom you should vote, or even to tell you to vote at all.
But I am
thinking a lot about November 5th. I believe it is the most
consequential election of my lifetime so far. I care deeply about what happens.
And also, beyond casting my vote, I have no control over the outcome.
What I also
believe is that there will be a November 6th. And a November 7th.
And hopefully many days after that. And I believe that, regardless of the
outcome of the election, we will still all belong to each other. And we have
some work to do in order to act like that's true.
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WLSU, Believing Now - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Soon people began to arrive for the 9 o'clock service, which is our largest. They piled into our parish hall, all smiles and grace and understanding and playfulness. I was overwhelmed. This day started in disaster and was met with grace by every single person involved. There were so many opportunities for panic, sadness, or frustration - and I'm sure those feelings were felt here and there, but the overriding sense was that we have got this, that we've got each other, that we know what's important.
And I know. I know we have insurance. I know what ended up happening was a tiny little thing: A pipe had burst. There was some water damage that was not catastrophic, that would be repaired, that would be covered. And it does not compare to the damage and disaster that has befallen our siblings in Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee after the recent hurricanes. It amounted to a minor inconvenience. We are safe and sound and will be back to normal so quickly. We are a fortunate group. Even in our misfortune. We are privileged by our resources and insurance.
At the same time, our response to the trouble we faced was revelatory to me. I say revelatory, though it's worth noting it didn't reveal anything to me I didn't already know about God. But we can forget so easily how love and grace work to transform our lives. I already knew how grateful I was to have the people of this church in my life, to be a part of theirs. I already knew that they are a good-hearted, flexible, loving, understanding, and resourceful bunch. None of this was new. But it was revealed to me all over again.
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WLSU, Your Voice, Your Place - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

That word enfranchised might seem out of place in a spiritual conversation. It's a word we find in the political realm. We sometimes forget that political matters have spiritual elements and spiritual matters affect our politics. Enfranchisement in our current context is mostly about voting, but the primary thrust of the word is that a person's presence and dignity is acknowledged as part of the larger community. They are not shut out. They are not kept quiet. This is what Jesus is doing in his healing. When he calls the woman daughter, he is publicly incorporating her into the shared life of her people. She is enfranchised, and that is spiritual and political at the same time.
I cannot unequivocally tell you that Jesus likes democracy. It never comes up in his teaching. What I can tell you is that Jesus is serious about leveling the playing field, about every person's life mattering. He is serious about giving voice and dignity to the people he meets. The values Jesus embodies are, I believe, consistent with what we value about democracy. Everyone has a voice. Everyone has a place in the conversation. Nobody left out.
I do not live in a democracy. I live in Ohio.
Ohio, a place I have come to love very much, is one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. You're welcome to do a Google image search of our districts if you are a fan of visual comedy. But for context I will tell you this: Ohio is 42% Republican and 40% Democrat, with 18% stating no affiliation. If people all voted on party lines and that 18% miraculously all voted Republican, you might feasibly expect our representation to be 60% Republican, 40% Democrat. In reality, 75% of our representatives are Republican. 75%. Our districts - which have been ruled unconstitutional but somehow still stand - are intentionally designed to engineer a one party supermajority.
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WLSU, Unwelcome Beliefs - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

When we wrote that line, about 7 years ago, I thought I knew what we meant by "every". In my mind, I was thinking primarily about Republicans and Democrats, and a good mix of independents that included moderates, libertarian types, and some socialists for good measure. This was the scope of my thinking, and I thought that was pretty broad. That was everyone.
It feels naïve now. Sunny, even. It's not that I didn't realize other ideologies and perspectives existed - it's that I assumed the rest to be so extreme as not to need to be acknowledged or discussed. But in the intervening years, Christian Nationalism has emerged as an apparently acceptable perspective. Many legislators openly and comfortably proclaim themselves as Christian Nationalists. Shockingly, frighteningly, it is not a disqualifying proclamation.
It should be.
Christian Nationalism is antithetical both to America and to Christianity.
Christian Nationalism insists on creating legislation based on one particular interpretation of religious belief. That is patently unamerican. Our country has in its founding documents a refusal to establish a state religion. You will sometimes hear adherents to Christian Nationalism try to sidestep this by talking about "Christian values" as the backbone of America's creation. This is also patently false. For all its faults, our country's desire to exist as a place free from religious coercion is imaginative, noble, and courageous.
America is not a Christian nation. We were not founded by Christians, but by a mixture of Christians, Deists, Atheists, Agnostics, and Unitarians. Our founding documents are not Christian. While some of the values they promote may be compatible with Christian thought, they are not themselves inherently Christian. Pretending otherwise is just that: Make-believe.
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WLSU, Permission to Disagree - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

"So are
there other Republicans at the church?" he asked me. And I laughed.
I laughed
because it was a great question, asked directly, and without a hint of irony or
cynicism. My breakfast companion was sitting across from me at a local diner
when he asked this question. He is getting to know Church of the Redeemer, but he's
been an Episcopalian for his whole life - maybe longer. And as a Republican, he
knows the drill. There are, for the record, plenty of Republicans at Redeemer,
and in the Episcopal Church. 39% of Episcopalians, to be precise, identify as
Republican. Not a small number. But compared to, say evangelical Christians,
56% of which identify as Republican, Episcopal culture simply feels a little
more politically liberal. Plus, Cincinnati is a Democratic leaning city in a
Republican leaning state. So that skews our congregation's numbers a bit as
well.
I laughed
because, it was a lovely, vulnerable question. We live in such a heated and
politically divided time. And I won't even bemoan that. I think it makes sense
that things are heated and divided. I don't like it. But I think I get it. To
many people - myself included - it feels as if the soul of our country is currently
on the line, and how we navigate these next few years will be profoundly
decisive. At the same time, we are getting more and more accustomed to living
in self-selected bubbles based on common interest or affinity. So if he's
getting to know Redeemer, he wants to know if it's a bubble. And that is a
vulnerable question, because he's sitting there over his eggs benedict asking,
"Is there a place for me?" It takes courage to wonder that aloud, and it filled
my heart with love.
I laughed, because,
and I told him this immediately, not two minutes earlier, another Republican parishioner
had just texted me to congratulate me on my 8th anniversary of
ministry at Redeemer. "See?" I joked, "Republicans!"
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