From the Exodus to the Prophets, Jesus to the early church, from Dorothy Day to Martin Luther King, Jr., people of faith have listened to calls from the Sacred One and wondered if they in any way would survive that through which they were being led.  And in some ways they did not, and in other ways they were more than they were before they began the sojourn.

    Whether following a calling outward or inward, a tangible trip to some place or the inner searchings done in one's 'prayer closet', there is truth that we will not emerge the same.  Something always dies and something else is reborn.  That is the witness of the scriptures and the inheritance of our tradition.

    It is why we use water in baptism (why the Orthodox symbol of immersing infants in water says much more loudly what we proclaim), the reminder that something is immersed and something else emerges and we have no control over what is shaken loose and what is connected. It is something to which we submit.

    A spiritual community must always be about this rhythm of offering, of  wondering what will survive and what will emerge, of knowing it will face that from which it will not survive intact.

    I think about this as I prepare for my upcoming sabbatical.  I am taking to heart the words of T.S. Elliot in "Little Giddings", "You are not here to verify, instruct yourself or inform curiosity or carry report.  You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid."  It is counter cultural not to go and 'collect trinkets', symbols of saying 'I was there', 'have notched this experience'- the proverbial, 'been there, done that'.  It seems consumption can  certainly affect the places we go.  What does it take to go simply to be present for what is there?  I hope to find out- Taize, Coventry, Belgium/my father's battle ground, the Louvre- what spirits are awaiting to tell me what only they can?  What will need to be broken in me, what will not survive, be burned away?  What will emerge that only this sojourn can generate?

    I think about this as we prepare for the upcoming Lambeth gathering of Anglican Bishops in July.  Who is going there 'to die'?  Perhaps many wonder if they will survive, but not necessarily in the manner of the forebearers listed above.  I pray for all the bishops that they may see this as a pilgrimage to 'Jerusalem', a place where they indeed will not survive intact, yet may be reborn in a way none could countenance.  I trust there are many who are indeed going with this deep sense.  For them we can be deeply grateful.  I encourage your regular prayers for all bishops.  I pray that in this we may be reborn as a communion.

    I think about this as we go about our common life at All Souls.  Where are we being called in such a way that survival, spiritual, emotional, is a real question?  Where might we be going, what path, through which we will indeed not emerge the same?  That is our water mark, this survival question, that tells us if it is a journey of Jesus.

    As I prepare to leave I am flooded with many emotions- immense gratitude for you all, for your faithfulness, for your generosity of spirit, for your wishes regarding this time away; as well for how each of us will not be the same in several months.  Some things will have been lost, let go, and others will have emerged.  How will we look?

    I am also filled with an awe, a wondering, of what is before us.  Which circles back to baptism, "Give them a sense of awe and wonder in all your works."  May these months be a time not of verifying, making quick and certain report, but of simply kneeling where prayer has been valid.  For pilgrims have gone this way before and their spirits await us.  May we gather with them and listen.

Todd  Donatelli