Around this house, we don’t say “bless you!” when we sneeze. We rarely say “uh-oh” if something spills or slips. If a certain little boy sees you sneeze, drop something or even trip and fall, he has taken to saying “Re-take!”
This started because of a video message we sent to a favorite babysitter recently. We were filming him singing happy birthday and he was trying so hard to get it right. Our little production was humming along perfectly until he had a major sneeze in the middle of it. To keeping him from weeping, I said, “Re-take!” with a camera still rolling. And the tradition was born.
As he watches this video of his very own self over and over (what, you DON’T watch videos of yourself over and over?) the story has cemented. You mess up, the only proper response is: Re-take! Your perfect, practiced performance gets interrupted by something you didn’t expect?
Re-take.
This is what I think Church is about. Looking out for one another and remembering to say, “re-take.” Even if the words sound something like “bless you,” the hope behind them is that we are offered and can offer forgiveness, resurrection and peace. We are reminded that second chances and re-starts are available to us. And the reminder comes from someone near to us, unfazed by our blunders, maybe laughing but still shouting, “Re-take!”
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Deep waters, flames, and fears have come before. They will probably come again. But the narrative I want my child to have, and the narrative I hope to voice continually for myself and for my family is this: Fear doesn’t win. We are strong. And just in case we’re not brave enough, we will be brave for each other.
Palm Branches
They held palm branches. Little hands, raised high among the gathered people held symbols of peace and protest. We wanted them to walk. We sang along as they enacted the gospel story. Palm Sunday tradition had them marching and laying their branches at the foot of a reasonably-sized cross. The children of our church waving palm branches. We read the scripture about people who marched with palms. “When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, ‘Who is this?’” A city in turmoil reaches my heart today. One week ago, I was meeting on Zoom with my team, who calls Nashville home. My friend Eileen got a text from her daughter and froze. “It’s a school shooting.” Silence fell. A pause that held the question we parents ask these days: Did this latest shooting reach my child? She breathed and we realized, not this one. A school nearby, down the road. We learned that another team member has family in The Covenant School. They escaped, not physically harmed. Fear, anxiety, and grief washed through us. Within hours, my social media feeds filled with ads for bullet-proof notebooks and classroom walls that transform into bunkers. Bullet-proof barriers for sale, the commodification of our nightmares. The market is ready to respond. Stock prices on guns shoot up, while I stifle an honest Lenten confession: I want the power to protect my family. I need something in my hand so no harm can touch my children. One week later, a walk out is planned. At 10:13 am, the time the school shooting began, thousands of students across Nashville walked out....
