The Rev. Carr Holland returns to St. Paul’s Cary on the First Sunday of Advent. Father Carr shares his thoughts on growing older and the vision of God’s judgment offered in Matthew 24:36-44.

The Rev. Carr Holland reflects on John 20:19-31 and his own father’s death: “Some years ago when my father died, there were many things that had to be tended… Death is hard, because it impacts far more than the one who dies. It alters the course of life for many.”

John 18:1-19:42
No moment in Jesus’ life stands alone. For Jesus is of God and his life flowed from the core of God, from the constant love that God holds out towards all of humankind….

The Rev. Carr Holland meditates on tragedy and Jesus’s parable of the fig tree in Luke 13:1-9: “Life can be so fragile, and we don’t notice it most of the time. Jesus indicates life’s fragility and demands an urgency on our part. That urgency shows that life itself has carved out opportunity for us to seize hold God’s graciousness, to yield to it, and to grow.”

The Rev. Carr Holland meditates on the Beatitudes (Luke 6:17-26), vulnerability, and living a meaningful life: “At Yale, there is currently a course for which there are only 60 slots annually but about 250 applicants. It came about because of a realization in the divinity school that a key question of liberal arts education was missing: what makes for a meaningful life?”

The Rev. Carr Holland discusses the Wedding at Cana and grace (John 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11): “I had this image, how some go through life and their days, perceiving they have a pound of sugar or kindness or goodness, some but a cup, and others a teaspoon. And we deal with each other from that perception.”

On the Feast of Christ the King, the Rev. Carr Holland reflects on the complexity of truth (John 18:33-37): “In the airways these days, there are a lot of floating opinions, and they present themselves as fact or truth. But seldom are they what they pretend to be. We even create alternate facts if we don’t like the facts at hand. We consider mere opinions as if they are the sum of the truth. They simplify what is complex, and we wonder why we are not satisfied — perhaps it is because we forget to look at the relationships that we hold with others and to God as the place where truth will be revealed.”

There has always, it seems, been a custom of migration.  Moving from one place to another, many have done so in order that they might find education or find work.  Some have found a spouse along the way, perhaps.  How many of us, over 30, have never left Cary, or Wake County, or North Carolina, or the USA?  …
(Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17)

The Rev. Carr Holland meditates on the sightless crowd in Mark 10:46-52: “Part of our spiritual journey is to see, not just to project on God or each other what we desire or what we want, but to see what is compassionate and tender and patient–and on that to to act. And this is miracle, extraordinary in its ordinariness. For we pause and notice each other and act in care.”

A Jewish Sabbath prayer: “Days pass and the years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles. Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing; let there be moments when Your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk. Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns unconsumed. And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness, and exclaim in wonder: How filled with awe is this place, and we did not know it!” (Gates of Prayer, 1975)

The Rev. Carr Holland reflects on John 15:1-8 and his own childhood in a segregated society: “When children ask their little questions of life and share their observations of life, they are in their own way saying ‘Help me find my root. Are these things I notice good? Do they give me life? Do they come from God or from some other place?'”