Gathering Storm

It feels like its a hundred degrees, even though apparently it is only 80 something. We’re waiting for a storm to come in but it seems to be taking its own sweet time. We’re all at angles and corners. A spit part of his lunch out and so, in consequence, is sitting in front of his bowl, still. He could have gotten up without eating it all but the spitting ruined that option for him. He is moaning. E carefully hid our nice Alphabet Flash Cards, presumably for some game or other, and so she is not doing anything fun this afternoon, but is wandering around looking for the last five.

‘Look in the places where you hid them’ I’ve said 36 times.
‘Oh’ she says each time.

If she finds them maybe she’ll have some chocolate milk, but at this rate it will be tomorrow before that happens.
And the baby is hot and cranky. He’s crawling around, his hair completely on end, exhausted because he woke up at 2am and then his nap was interrupted by his siblings shouting about something.

In all this moaning and shouting, I’ve been keeping a distracted glance on the Anglican TV live stream of the consecrations in Kenya. I’ve seen pictures of the cathedral from my mother who has gotten to sing there on occasion. My parents don’t go often, I think, because traffic and crime are prohibitive (its no accident that the litany included something or other about safe driving).

I’m strengthened and encouraged by what I’ve seen, even the Kum Ba Ya (heh-reminds me of the strange experience of hearing a fancy Ivorian choir sing ‘Allelu, Allelu, Allelu, Alleluia, Gloire au Seigneur’-Praise ye the Lord, fully expected them to stand up and sit down, but they just stood, at the Basilica in Yamasoukro, but that’s another story). The storm continues to build ahead of September 30, and Lambeth and beyond, but these men (and women, shocked to see so many women clergy) are walking headlong into the thunder and lightning, their faces set.

I’m encouraged to keep going myself. I will admit. I’ve been anxious. I don’t want the whole communion to come unglued. I don’t want, potentially, to have to walk away from our church building, this house, this neighborhood (God willing, we won’t have to). I don’t want to deal, any more, with an apostate and heretical “church” flinging itself headlong into spiritual death. But I’ve got to keep walking forward, into the storm, even though I don’t want to. I’ve got to and I can, with God’s help. That Africa, and other parts of the world, in the face of slander, racism, condescension and loss should continue to chart a way forward, should continue to trust in God and do the hard work of spreading the gospel, should be able to stand up to the west and its lies, well, I can pull it together and stop moaning myself. God is in charge. He has a solution to this whole mess. He is on the other side of the storm. For heaven’s sake, he is in the storm.