Thursday, April 5th. Maundy Thursday.
My first ever Maundy Thursday service. I am fifty years old, but I am young at heart and ready to experience all things new.
Saint Luke’s, how your beauty has broken my heart. Your priests have proved to be gentle and kind. The two I have met know my name and greet me with great love. Tonight John Badders smiled to see me. Gillian met me in the parking lot with a gentle hug.
The service was beyond words in its beauty and meaning for me. Like a great work of art hanging in a sacred space. Metaphysical claims about truth and God and existence simply have no place before such beauty.
I washed the feet of an older woman tonight. She hobbled to the front. After my feet were washed by Jordan Soupiset, my dear young friend, I knelt and let her right foot rest in my palm. As I gently sponged cool water over her feet, she closed her eyes and sang by memory the words of the song coming from the choir loft.
Clearly this woman has been coming to this service for years and years and years.
And tonight was my first time.
After I dried her foot I looked up at her. She smiled and I said, “My sister in Christ.”
Gordon
