Warts and All

Numbers 16:1-7
Korah - Are We Each Holy?
6/23/12

Oh yud hey vav hey (I will be what I will be), who makes us both full to overflowing and broken open, broken-hearted, what is it to be holy amongst heartbreak and regret? Knowing we have done our part, walked our path as faithfully and fully as possible, knowing we have strayed and returned, knowing we have wronged and forgiven, been wronged and been forgiven, believed and not believed, but grown.

Here we stand on the precipice of the vision that carried us and carried you, our loving, eternal guide, through so many turns and twists, so many joys and sorrows. What are we to think? To feel in this moment of "no"? This moment of dreams denied, of hopes ungranted, of surefootedness taking us to the brink of salvation but not into it? Some of us were ready. The rest of us were not. Should we be ashamed?

Perhaps it is another lesson, another way of knowing that our past and present and our future, while all existing at once, do not get to be fully inhabited all at once. That we will live on in the way we have walked and talked and loved and godded ourselves by your hand, into those around us who will carry on the journey.

But God, why some of us and not others? It's not fair. It feels unfair. And to make this bitterness into sweet takes many tears, many words, even some blame tossed around to alleviate our disappointment. In our hearts we know we did all we could, and yet we still carried our fear and doubt. We see as we stop here that this leaving, this journey -- it was bigger than us. It will go on without us, and we are bereft, but we take comfort in our courage and our failings. You made us in your image, there is peace in that. We are chosen and not all chosen for the same tasks. There is peace in that too, once the sadness fades. But the doubts, the self-confidence, that takes time.

We thank you for the journey. The imperfectly perfect journey. We send our hopes and our children into the future, the Land of Milk and Honey. We hope they will know and honor the labor and sweetness, of work and guard and holy, of promise and redemption, of honoring your name that has led us, honored us, protected us and chosen us, and allowed us to reach this day.