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Author Archives: Neil Alan Willard
“It’s the most wonderful time . . . of the year!”
It will soon be Tax Day, which also means that members of the clergy and lots of other folks will soon be paying their estimated taxes for the first quarter of this year. My four-year-old son and I took care of that important task this afternoon.
The High Calling, in honor of this time of the year that binds most of us together, recently posted “The Work of an Accountant,” highlighting the vocation of Scott Killen of Charleston, South Carolina. Here’s a little taste of it:
In Scott’s opinion, America is “money-locked.” Those who believe the American Dream and social acceptance are secured by financial well-being often trust their accountant more than they trust their closest friends. According to Scott, people with and without money are afraid of finding themselves alone. “We trade our souls every day for money, but relationships are all we have in the end.”
You can read the rest of this mini-interview with Scott Killen here.
Posted in Faith and Work, Relationships, Stewardship
Sermon: “Thus well arrayed I need not fear . . .”
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Edina, Minnesota
The Reverend Neil Alan Willard, M.Div.
Easter Day, April 8, 2012
“And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen,
they went to the tomb.” (Mark 16:2)
The Good Friday print edition of The New York Times included an unusual article from Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. There a 17-story mausoleum, covered in bright white ceramic tiles that were imported from Spain, has slowly begun to loom over the historic buildings around it. When completed, it will hold the remains of Simón Bolívar, who led the nation’s war of independence and died in 1830. As for the modern design of this new structure [click to see photograph] and its meaning, the article notes that it:
. . . looks to many [Venezuelans] like the world’s biggest skateboard ramp. To others, it evokes a parking garage, a shopping mall, a bridal veil, a sailing ship or a drive-in movie screen. Some simply call it an outrage.
But to its creators, it is an eloquent tribute to the father of the nation, the quasi-mythical inspiration for President Hugo Chavez’s socialist revolution. . . .
The mausoleum will almost certainly be interpreted as one of the signature architectural works of Mr. Chavez’s revolution and a measure of his government’s aspirations. Some already see in it a reflection of Mr. Chavez’s ego. With Mr. Chavez battling cancer and his mortality on nearly everyone’s mind, some also wonder whether the tomb might be intended to have another human occupant someday.[1]
The reporter observed that, on the inside, “the vast space evokes a cathedral, majestic and solemn,” which fits with the last word at the end of the article from Orlando Martinez. He’s a member of the design team, who said, “This is a place of worship.”[2]
Yesterday I posted on my blog, Laughing Water, a photograph of a very different kind of resting place. Continue reading
Posted in Easter, Jesus, Paschal Triduum, Scripture, Sermons
Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Who am I?”
As I mentioned last week, today is the sixty-seventh anniversary of the execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer at the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Nazi Germany and of his words that were intended as a final message to his dear friend Bishop George Bell: “This is the end – for me the beginning of life.”
Here is Bonhoeffer’s poem “Who am I?” that was written from prison in 1944 (the translation in Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Volume 8, by Fortress Press):
Who am I? They often tell me
I step out from my cell
calm and cheerful and poised,
like a squire from his manor.Who am I? They often tell me
I speak with my guards
freely, friendly and clear,
as though I were the one in charge.Who am I? They also tell me
I bear days of calamity
serenely, smiling and proud,
like accustomed to victory.Am I really what others say of me?
Or am I only what I know of myself?
Restless, yearning, sick, like a caged bird,
struggling for life breath, as if I were being strangled,
starving for colors, for flowers, for birdsong,
thirsting for kind words, human closeness,
shaking with rage at power lust and pettiest insult,
tossed about, waiting for great things to happen,
helplessly fearing for friends so far away,
too tired and empty to pray, to think, to work,
weary and ready to take my leave of it all?Who am I? This one or the other?
Am I this one today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? Before others a hypocrite
and in my own eyes a pitiful, whimpering weakling?
Or is what remains in me like a defeated army,
Fleeing in disarray from victory already won?Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest me; O God, I am thine!
Posted in Ecclesiastical History
A Very Short Story for Easter Day
Sometimes things aren’t going so well . . .
Then a little Easter joy comes into your life . . .
And you want to share it with the rest of the world . . .
Posted in Children, Easter, Paschal Triduum
Holy Saturday: One Photograph and Many Memories
"Preparing God's Acre for the Moravian Easter Sunrise Service, 1974"
Courtesy of the Forsyth County Public Library Photograph Collection
More than a year ago, I was looking through random photographs from Forsyth County, North Carolina, and found this one. Immediately I thought that it nicely captured a moment in time that represents so much of my childhood. Taken in 1974, it shows a family cleaning a headstone and decorating a grave in God’s Acre – the term for a cemetery in the Moravian Church – to prepare for Easter Day.
I figured out that the photograph of these three individuals, representing three generations, was taken on Good Friday. And I imagined that the headstone – plain, flat, square, and marble like the rest, symbolizing equality before God – probably marked the grave of the older woman’s husband (which was true).
Two days later these three individuals would surely return with the rest of their family to attend the Moravian Easter Sunrise Service. There they would join the members of their congregation and process to the sound of brass bands playing antiphonal chorales from the church to God’s Acre, where they would joyfully proclaim their resurrection faith. I could see and hear all of it in my mind.
I learned, serendipitously, that I actually know the man in the photograph. He is the Rt. Rev. Graham Rights, who once sent me a handwritten note that I still have somewhere because of the encouragement that it gave to me as a young person.
Bishop Rights’ son, the younger brother of the girl in the photograph, is the same age as I am. We attended junior high school together and could do pretty good imitations during those years of televangelists from the 1980s. Now he’s an ordained minister in the Moravian Church like his father and his grandfather.
As I wait in the silence of this holy Sabbath, when the body of Jesus rested in the tomb, I’m grateful for these memories of a childhood that nurtured my faith.
Posted in Children, Easter, Gratitude, Paschal Triduum
