For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

1 Corinthians 13:12

Some mornings I will open up a new page here at DerekMaul.blog with exactly what I want to write already half-formed in my mind. There has either been a scripture or an event or a series of photographs that have inspired me and I am ready to go.

Then there are days like today, when it is difficult to settle in on any one idea. There is so much of interest that invites commentary – both in day-to-day life here and in the wider world – but I am not sure where I need to land.

Then I think about two events from this past weekend and the way in which all the various threads of life are knitted together through our faith and – more specifically – the community of faithful people where were worship.

Group Hug:

First, Saturday’s funeral and memorial service for Connie Harrell over at Wake Forest Presbyterian Church (where Rebekah served prior to her retirement in 2021). There is a deep sense, at events like this, of being drawn into an extensive and generous group-hug, and there seems – in these moments – to be such an aching clarity regarding life. As if in the context of death, the celebration of life and eternity, everything that is unimportant is stripped away.

Then, when a smaller group of us drove out to the burial at the quiet cemetery in Bunn, the profound understanding both of finality and something more, a truth just as real as the life we experience here for these brief decades.

“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Youth Dessert-Auction:

Fast forward to Sunday back home in Tarboro, where we gathered in the fellowship hall for lunch and a “dessert auction” designed to raise funds for youth ministry events this summer.

The silliness, the laughter, the friendly out-bidding for pound cakes and cheesecakes and cookies and tiramisu followed by sharing with those who came up short, and then writing checks for way more than the amount we bid because the bottom line is supporting and encouraging all these teens and their families.

Life! The juxtaposition of two ends of the spectrum but all essentially about the same truth. And that truth is the fact that we were created for the specific purpose of community.

We belong to God, yes, and we also belong to one-another. This is why Jesus summarized all the important commandments in the context of wholehearted love, love in practice both for God and our neighbor too.

The place where all this plays out so beautifully is church.

Church does not need, by the way, to be perfect. It is simply better when we are all there, and when we take that commitment to the Good News with us into the world where we live from day to day.

So I offer this invitation, in humility and in love. Become part of this imperfect, messy, love-saturated family – where the same faith and communion that gathered to mark Connie’s transition into eternity, also laughed and encouraged and prayed and ate too much dessert with the youth the very next day.

Because this is vital, it is real, it is eternal and it is the only response to this broken world that will ever make sense.

– DEREK