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

WLSU, No Self Improvement - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

There's a moment in The Lord of the Rings where a character stops to consider how he feels, and then describes himself as "stretched thin - like butter scraped over too much bread." That's it. That's what I feel like. It's not quite burnout. I'm not looking out the window for something else to do. Rather, my body and spirit are tired, and have been and keep being, and I am looking for rest and renewal.
One thing I can tell you about being butter scraped over too much bread is that sometimes when everything is going well, you're not able to feel the joy and excitement of it. You can intellectually recognize that things are great, but not have the capacity to appreciate that reality.
Another thing that happens is a bandwidth problem. During the height (or depth) of the pandemic, there was a point when both my wife and I were working from home, and all three kids were home with us. The oldest two were attending school remotely on their computers, and the youngest was too young even for school and spent a lot of time on a screen. I'm not going to bother trying to explain or defend that. Anyway, when we were all online at the same time, we would sometimes have a bandwidth issue - our internet would be overloaded and everything would slow down. Since the pandemic, I have noticed myself having bandwidth issues. My internal processing is overwhelmed and everything slows down. If you've been around me, maybe you've noticed that and maybe you haven't. I notice it. Butter over too much bread.
I sometimes have difficulty admitting that I feel this way. First, it's never fun to acknowledge you're not operating at 100%. We're programmed to think of that as weakness, and to think of weakness as bad. But also, I worry that the people in my church community - the people with whom I share much of my life - will think I'm saying I'm not happy doing the work. And I'm definitely not saying that.Want to support our podcast?Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

WLSU, Repentance at the Gym - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Today at the gym I overheard a conversation. I did not mean to. I was not eavesdropping. Well not at first anyway. In my defense the person working out next to me was talking at normal volume on their phone. She was not using, as it's called in elementary school, her inside voice. And because I had misplaced my headphones, I could only mind my own business for so long. Even without knowing the context of the conversation, I heard pain. Then I heard her say these words to the person on the other end of the line:
"Are you willing just to acknowledge your part in what went wrong, to be accountable and then move on?"
I was taken aback by the direct and simple nature of the question. We don't often hear people speak this plainly. I actually stopped listening at that point, both because I was trying to lift a very heavy thing, and also because this stranger's question sent me deep within myself. It was as if she had asked me the question just as directly and simply. Phil, are you willing just to acknowledge your part in what went wrong, to be accountable and then move on?
I delicately put the heavy thing on the ground, and then silently prayed for this person on her phone. I'm very religious, after all. I prayed with thanksgiving for her courage - because saying that to anyone takes courage. Then I prayed for, I guess you'd call it a happy ending, a resolution or reconciliation or whatever those two needed. I put the weights back on the rack, walked off and finished my workout. But that question stuck with me.
Want to support our podcast?Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

WLSU, Cancelled - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

This canceling business is not uncontroversial. It's also not new, even if the lingo is.
I remember back in 2003 when the Country music trio then-named The Dixie Chicks responded to the US invasion of Iraq by telling a London audience, they were ashamed that our President was from their home state of Texas. The backlash was intense and immediate - with radio stations refusing to play their music and their music sales dropping dramatically. They even received death threats.
So did the Beatles, of course, back in 1966, when during an interview John Lennon remarked that his band was currently more popular than Jesus. Aside from the death threats, some Christian groups organized public bonfires of Beatles records and paraphernalia. The Beatles considered ending their US tour early for their own safety.
And then there was St. Paul, and even Jesus. Jesus, in describing conflict resolution at one point instructs his followers that if someone inside the community sins egregiously and is unwilling to apologize and atone, they should be treated like "a Gentile or a tax collector". Which is to say they should be treated as outsiders.
Maybe Jesus was an early proponent of cancel culture.
Want to support our podcast?Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

WLSU, Prosperity and Adversity - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

My preference would be to see evidence of God's presence when things are going my way, and evidence of God's absence when things are not. And I know I am not alone in this: Many people find themselves questioning the existence (or at least the efficacy) of God specifically when they see the mess we are in as a planet. The reasoning seems to go, "What kind of a God would allow all of this?" And when things are going right? "Oh, God is blessing me."
It's worth remembering that all of Jesus' disciples died horrible deaths; that St. Paul was jailed repeatedly, stoned, and executed; that Job, who is most famous for his faithfulness, lost every one of his children, his home, and all his livestock in one day; that Moses died in the wilderness, never setting foot in the Promised Land. It's also worth remembering that none of these stories are told as tragedies: Every life is described as part of a larger redemptive reality at work in the world, played out in both the prosperity and the adversity of the faithful.
The truth is that pretty much every single book of the Bible was written for, by, and about people who were in tough situations - living in exile, surviving under oppressive rule, being persecuted, their lives threatened, their religion made illegal, their lifespans brief and rife with danger, famine, and pestilence.
Sometimes - especially when I'm in my head - I see things going wrong as evidence that there is no God; or that if there is a God, maybe they're impotent, or uncaring. Yet the words of hope that have most shaped my life come from people whose lives were objectively much worse, much more difficult than mine has ever been. Faith, it seems, may be more fertile in suffering than prosperity.
Want to support our podcast?Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

WLSU, Love and Death - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

We Christians believe in eternal life. Yet we still manage so often to think and speak of those who have died in the past tense. But Jim is a poet. And though he wasn't reading a poem here, it takes a poet's heart to lay bare the beautiful forgotten truth in such simple terms. A man standing mere feet from the ashes of his friend's body and speaking of him in the present tense.
The words for what I came to understand that day did now show up immediately. But now I have them. When someone dies we do not stop loving them. Our love is not past tense. And it's not just grief or nostalgia or sentimental memories. It is love in the present tense. It is love that still manages to shape us. We continue to be transformed by love after their death. And I believe I know why. Our loved ones who died are still loving us. They are in eternal life. Right now. They are alive in Christ - not as a metaphor, but as a bare fact. They are in the present tense. Their love is in the present tense. And so is ours.
Our love remains. And when I say our love remains, I am not saying it remains as a stubborn insistence to hold onto what was. No, our love remains because it is alive and active and we continue to share it with the dead who live in the present tense.
Want to support our podcast?
Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

WLSU, Audacity and Humility - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

In my first parish job, my rector told me it takes audacity and humility to be a priest. He said it take audacity to actually believe that the God who made all things has called you to preach and administer sacraments, to speak in God's name. Who do we think we are? And it takes humility, he continued, because once you're called you have to get out of the way of the Holy Spirit.
13 years into this work and I think he was right. I also think that this combination of audacity and humility is not something that is confined to priesthood. It seems to me that it takes audacity and humility simply to be Christian. It takes audacity to believe that there is a God who made every single thing in all of the history of the vast creation and that this God knows and loves you. It also takes humility to be a Christian, because you are admitting that you cannot do this life all on your own, that you need help, that there is something out there that is bigger and stronger and smarter than you, that you may be beloved, but so is everyone else. The audacity and humility of a Christian life.
What I did not know, and could not know early on in my ministry, is that this tension between audacity and humility would be messy and uncertain, and that it would reveal itself in all aspects of the work. I thought, for instance, that I would spend my entire ministry above the fray of politics.
For most of my priesthood I have not considered myself a political preacher. We all know preachers with that label. In the Episcopal Church we usually code them as social justice preachers, but we know what we mean: We mean people who bring a political perspective to the pulpit. I actively sought to avoid politics in my preaching and teaching until just a few years ago.
Jesus changed my mind.
Want to support our podcast?Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

WLSU, Loving Kindness - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Kindness is not a Hallmark card. It is not a cloying call for a so-called return to the civility of the good old days that never really existed. Kindness is ferocious and powerful. Kindness is salvation.
To devote myself to kindness is to recognize the beauty and belonging of every person on this earth. Kindness is the practical application of acknowledging that each person is made in the image of God. Kindness is what it means to love my neighbor as myself.
Sometimes I forget the truth, and I start to think that kindness is weak. But kindness is strength, because kindness insists that the person to whom I am speaking carries holiness within them, bears the image of God. And to believe this is true takes strength and to act like it's true takes courage. Because if I'm honest, I don't always think someone has the image of God within them. I don't always believe that a person is connected to God. I can believe in monsters just like anybody.
Hatred, spite, and demonization is dehumanization - the misguided belief that someone does not belong to God, was not made by God, is not magnificently loved by God. To let hatred have a voice is a direct decision to give in to the darkness of the powers that seek to corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.
The skeptic in me immediately points to the times Jesus says things that I see as harsh or brash. I can then say Jesus isn't always kind, so why should I be? But when I pay attention to the words of Jesus, I see that every single one of them insists that the person to whom he is speaking belongs to God. Jesus' words, even the rough ones, are kind because they acknowledge the inherent humanity and dignity of their recipients. Jesus does not think of anyone or speak of anyone as trash - not even his enemies. When Jesus critiques, when Jesus stands up and speaks out, when Jesus is angry, it comes from his conviction that the person in front of him is fully human. Jesus carries within him a deep yearning for even his enemy to see their own humanity and live into it.
I cannot blame Jesus for the times I don't want to be kind.

WLSU, More Than That - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

In November of 1984 my parents threw an Election Night party. I still remember the little elephants on the cocktail napkins. I was five years old and understood nothing about politics, but I knew that Ronald Reagan was president, that he was about to be for four more years, and that this was both inevitable and very good. It is odd now to think of the outcome of a presidential election being a foregone conclusion, but it was. In 1984, Reagan carried all but one state and the District of Columbia in what is still the largest electoral landslide in modern history.
Moments like this implanted within me not only a strong political identity, but also a sense of clarity and certainty: My family's guy was the good guy, he led the right team, he would win obviously and convincingly, and we would celebrate.
When my dad came out of the closet as gay in 1992, he remained a Republican - as he would until his death in 2006. When questioned over the years about his political loyalty he would point out, correctly, that neither major party had at the time a pro-gay platform, that it was Democrat Bill Clinton who signed into law the Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask Don't Tell policies, and that since he wasn't going to get any real recognition from either party, he might as well vote for the candidate that best represented his other beliefs.
His gay friends in particular were not persuaded by this argument. For what it was worth, neither was I. I was not interested in complexity - or compromise. I have always been a more difficult and idealistic person than he was. So I was excited in high school when my likewise contrarian brother introduced me to libertarianism.Want to support our podcast?Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

WLSU, A Nation of Prophets - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

This is where the prophet comes in.
The prophet, you see, is like a voice in the wilderness of complacency, greed, and vanity who tells us what God sees when looking at the world we're building.
Put in those terms, maybe we're not a nation of priests these days. Maybe we're a nation of prophets: A culture of people who feel as if God is compelling each and every one of us to speak our minds at all costs. The advent of social media has created not just the opportunity, but the pressure to make sure we have opinions and that we share them widely. At least in this country, there is far more emphasis on stating your values than on embodying them.
I don't say this to demonize social media: It can be such a powerful connector and community builder, and the relationships we build there are not fake. They are real and they matter. But it is a radical change in the way we communicate and we are just at the beginning of understanding how it is changing us. The same platform that allows us to share photos and memories with distant loved ones also supplies us with false conspiracy theories and helps us to organize insurrections. That's a lot for us to digest.
Likewise, I don't mean to denigrate the prophetic voice. We need people in our lives who will speak hard truths, who will point both to our failings and to the hope of our shared future. But the prophet's lone responsibility is to tell the truth. The prophet does not have stick around and make the change happen. A nation of prophets may write trenchant and forceful words.Sometimes we may even predict the future. But if we're not intentional, we may find our focus shifting to people knowing what we believe, where we stand, what we think or know about any given issue.Want to support our podcast?Give Here https://redeemercincy.tpsdb.com/Give/podcast

WLSU- Until You Love Them - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Growing up, I was not tall, or athletic, or particularly handsome. But I was quick: I thought quickly and I spoke quickly. And I remember actually thinking I may not be the fastest or the strongest but I can outtalk these people. Yes I understand how arrogant that sounds. I was a bit of an arrogant kid. Or at least I was a kid who tried to appear confident and tried to find confidence wherever I could, and that ended up looking a lot like arrogance from time to time.
I remember how important a witty comeback was to me. Or how important it was to win an argument. To be right. This was how I could be strong, I thought. I could say the clever thing, the cutting thing. I could say the smart thing - which I would often confuse with saying the right thing or the good thing.
I have always been unspeakably drawn to being clever and sounding witty, even when it wasn't kind. In my childhood home, you could get away with saying mean things if they were funny enough. And I have always wanted to be right. Once as a teenager I was arguing with my dad, because of course I was, and he said, "Philip at some point you'll have to decide, do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?" To which I shot back, "Both. I want to be happy about being right." Another clever comeback: It emerged from my mouth so quickly that, I realize now, I had no actual time to contemplate his point, to digest it to possibly be transformed by it.
I want to tell you that it took me a long time to learn to hold my tongue, but that would imply that I've learned it. It's closer to reality to say I am still learning.