Saturday morning, six o'clock

Saturday morning

Six o'clock

a night full of restless turning

weird dreams

from everything about football

to totally transforming the church

and electric cars

but also thoughts about life

and death

about my friend Duke

whose funeral service I will lead today

about families

and love

 

and God

 

about God on the cross

in Jesus

saying in effect

 

"This is how evil is transformed into good!

I am going to take the worst thing and turn it into the best thing,

so you will never be victimized, destroyed or helpless again!

I am giving you the victory over all death"

 

and I am reminded

even as my coffee cools

and the cat at my feet complains

and I look anxiously towards this day

 

that because God is God

and did what God did

I can know that making my life count is not about moral achievement (thank God)

or attaining some sort of standard

or being enough, by my efforts,

 by trying harder,

 

but that my life counts

just as Duke's life counted

and Scott's life counted

and Dan's life counted

because of Christ

God's perfection abiding in each of us

I know that none of us needs, any longer

 to seek perfection from our own efforts

but only the perfection that comes from faith and is from God

that life is about the mystery

the secret

Christ in us

Connecting with  the wholeness that is God

a mutual indwelling

 

It is about the divine union

love connecting with love

love flowing like the life giving sap in the vine

 

and nothing less

and nothing more

maybe it will be a good Saturday after all