Day 1 (T minus 26 Hours)

I'm not exactly sure just who foot the bill for this retreat, but I need to express my gratitude as it has proven to be a wonderful pre-ordination gift. In total, its been a magnificent time of refreshment and reflection. I could describe it in multiple ways. It has been the momentary quiet between movements of a great concerto. It's been like the Selah between stanzas of the Psalms, or even the white space at the end of a chapter.

It's a bit after 11:00 AM on a crisp Pennsylvania morning and in about 20 minutes or so, my fellow Ordinands and I will be celebrating Eucharist. Lunch will follow and then, there's the trip down the road back home. For now, its time to consider once more this morning's Gospel:

LK 12:35 "Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, [36] like men waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. [37] It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them. [38] It will be good for those servants whose master finds them ready, even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night.

Enjoy your mornings.

Day 2 (T minus 46 hours)

Its a crisp November afternoon here in Fairfield Pennsylvania and in a sense, it feels like a bit of a homecoming as this was my stomping ground for seven years. In a sense, time seems to have been held in abeyance here. One hundred miles away from the ever present noise of Suburbia Majora, the silence is palpable and only occasionally punctuated by a passing automobile on the road outside. This is a far cry from the road traveled this morning. The hardwood foliage seems to have peaked here and is dimmed by a November overcast.

It was here under these skies where I came fully into manhood. We arrived in Hagerstown/Ft. Ritchie just prior to my 25th birthday and it was here that I made my stand for the Almighty and answered the call to the ministry. Its a bit unnerving to realize that that was 22 years ago!

Today I've returned along with four other Ordinands, two ladies and two gentlemen. The gentlemen, seminarians from Trinity in Pittsburgh are being ordained into the transitional deaconate, prior to the priesthood. The ladies, as in my case, will be ordained as vocational (permanent) Deacons. Fine folk one and all, and I look forward to serving shoulder to shoulder with them in the Kingdom.

It didn't take long to discern the fact that I wasn't alone in my "sanctified anxiety" in considering the just what will be transmitted through the laying on of hands here in the next several hours. I shudder to think that once upon a day, I considered ordination to be a major accomplishment. No, the collar conferred on that day will be a slave's collar. The oath I make before The Almighty is as serious (even more so) than those made during my subsequent enlistments in the armed forces. Yet I can do no other thing. I was born for this and scripture would infer that my ordination along with those of my fellow Ordinands, was foreordained in eternity past.

Its quiet here and I know that my fellows too are alone in their quiet time. I pray that they too are being nourished by the Spirit in this time of introspection and reflection.