I cannot keep up with all the arguments from all sides.

I have some skills in analysis of reasoning, some experience with death and grief, some ability to write. But I cannot even begin to know how to follow through with the debates all my friends are having, all the accusations and assumptions and names and “yes, but.”.

You are, we all are weary. And it shows. We are over-dramatic and under-reflective. In our reactions, we aren’t doing a very good job of discerning and then responding to the deep pain many other people are feeling. And the deep pain we are carrying.

So when Nancy looked up from the love seat and said, “I’m reading the prayer that Jesus prayed,” I stopped my own reading to listen. It’s what Jesus said to his dad the evening before he was killed. It’s kind of reporting in and relinquishing his responsibilities for people before he walked alone to his suffering.

“That they may be one,” Nancy read. It shows up more than once.

It’s kind of his last wishes, his last request, for us. He wanted the people he cared for, the people who followed him, the people he was abandoning life for, to know the same relationship with each other that he and the Father had.

That’s what Jesus asked for us, sisters and brothers. the night before he showed his love by giving up his life. His desire was that our relationship would be so rooted in relationship with God that it would not be tripped up by whether we use cream or not in our coffee when we gather in that name.

And then, of course, he came back to life to be with us always.

To help and remind and strengthen. And to love ornery people. Including the one in my mirror.

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