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Dear Covenant Family,
The water gurgles from an old fountain in the corner of the cloister, a gentle reminder of baptism for those who pause at the edges to listen. Outside the monastery, tourists and locals bustle along more modern paths on a sweltering 104-degree day in central Portugal. After our cloister walk, we stopped for espresso and cold water at a sidewalk café filled with beautiful custard pastries called “Pastel de Nata”. The origin of Pastel de Nata dates to before the 18th century, when they were created by monks at the Jerónimos Monastery in the parish of Santa Maria de Belém in Lisbon. At that time, convents and monasteries used large quantities of egg-whites for starching clothes. Why not make something delicious from the leftover yolks?
Like our ancestors, we try our best not to let the good things in life go to waste. We recycle, give away and compost. We quilt and mend. We make soup from leftovers and turn lemons into lemonade. Yet sometimes in our spiritual life we don’t know what to do with the “leftovers”, all those experiences and feelings we are tempted to put out on the curb. I don’t believe God has a trash can; for a person of faith everything can be used, re-cycled and re-framed as hard-earned wisdom, helping us to understand the limits and failings of ourselves and others, building our capacity for forgiveness.
In our Monday book study this week, we talked about baptism and reflected on the symbolism of water in our lives and in the scriptures. As Rachel Held Evans writes,
Baptism reminds us that there’s no ladder to holiness to climb, no self-improvement plan to follow. It’s just death and resurrection, over and over again, day after day, as God reaches down into our deepest graves and with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead wrests us from our pride, our apathy, our fear, our prejudice, our anger, our hurt, and our despair. (Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church)
I hope you find comfort in your own baptism, in your identity as a beloved child of God. Listen for the water flowing from a fountain or faucet, the waves of Lake Erie on the shore, or the steady patter of summer rain. Remember your baptism… and be thankful.
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