Spring Break to an End

It is hard to say how much pain is surrounding us. The death of Jennifer Young Tait was the last and largest of punches to the gut after carrying the weight of four year old boys with cancer, other professors with brain tumors, friends in hip surgery, basketball stars collapsing and passing with enlarged hearts, families being torn apart, uncles with failing organs, grandfathers who die of old age, moms with baby girls getting hit on ice covered streets, middle school girls with seizures, me crashing our car.... I'm forgetting some but it may perhaps be good to forget even if for the evening.

A few weeks ago I led a chapel on lamentation as part of Lent. I'd planned on the topic a month prior when the string of tragedies had only barely begun. I usually don't post my chapel talks. This one is not necessarily ground breaking in profundity. But here it is.

I'm out at a cottage on Lake Michigan for my last night. The sun has just set. I sat by a window on the second floor with the sun bearing down. I wanted to pretend it was the warmth of Mexico or Florida, but Holland MI is where I am. Despite tragedy I still taste goodness.

I've been reading and writing all week. Almost done with section three of four of my final research for my degree. With all the pain, I'm still blessed with the leisure to think and contemplate. I can sense my insides growing. A quickening. More capacity. I guess that is the best a vacation can offer.