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Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit
There is a tradition in my family that the first words out of your mouth with everyone you meet should be “Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit.” In pre-internet days, we thought our mother originated it, but we have learned that a version of that tradition lives in many cultures across the world.
Nowadays my sister and I compete to be the first one to say it in a text or with a gif. That kicks off a quick, two or three part exchange and it is usually all we ever say to each other in a year. My kids, to whom I speak much more often, send quirky versions, sometimes dark, sometimes hilarious, sometimes Manga, sometimes hand drawn. It’s a delightful reminder that we are all out there, even if not close together
The letters of the apostle Paul are very much the same thing. They reach out across distances that seem much more vast, take more energy and time to travel and in ways that are much less sure of delivery, just to say, “I love you, I am thinking of you, I want the best for you.”
The letters of Paul commonly begin and end with a note of gratitude for the people receiving them, thanking God for them. And they report on what Paul and his friends have been doing. Often, Paul’s letters are replies to letters asking for advice about troubles among the people he met in these various places. Sometimes they are diagnostic, sometimes they are advice, sometimes they are praise. But always, always, they are an expression of continued concern, caring and commitment to the communities Paul planted and to the people he met there.
Whenever I visit a congregation in our diocese, or meet a new person or gather with a body of some kind, I ask myself what St. Paul would write about them, what he would think of the pervasive kinship experienced at his namesake church in White Shield, of the joy felt in a youth gathering at St John the Divine, of the cheerful chattiness of the ladies hosting in the kitchen of St. George’s.
Like the church in the 1st Century, the church in the 21st Century has its work cut out for it. There are more parallels than could be imagined. But among them are the hints of glory and the glimpses of the in-breaking of the Spirit that give us confidence that the God who has been faithful for 2,000 years continues to work in us to bring us closer and closer to God’s dream realized “on earth as it is in heaven.”
And so I say to you all now … Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit.
You remain in my prayers,
+Shay
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