Moth

by Home

Today’s sermon is the turnaround at the end of the road, how nothing goes on forever, even the worst things. How everything comes undone and crashes down, eventually.

Today’s sermon is how impossible it seems after the fact, that thing that felt insurmountable. Because now you’re in the new story, and it’s time to get on.

Today’s sermon is that we have arrived here, in this new place, together. That we’re all trying to figure it out. That there are many stories, in fact, all at once, endings and beginnings overlapping, some opaque, others transparent. It’s a wonder we’re able to make sense of even one moment.

Today’s sermon is about loving what is. Those tiny hands that will grow large and strong, that lover’s kiss, your wrinkles that will only grow deeper, your scars, all the death that you know is coming.

Today’s sermon is to love all of it, to hold it lightly and love it until it tugs away, slips through your fingers, or transforms itself right there in the fleshy crook of your palm like a moth emerging from its cocoon.

Here’s what I want you to know: the future wants to overthrow the present. The future is revolution.

Today’s sermon is the necessity of discomfort, the necessity of letting go, the necessity of starting again, the necessity of truth, the necessity of love, and the unlikeliness of it all that feels like cruelty.

This piece evolved from a Wild Write with Laurie Wagner, inspired by the poem Today's Sermon by Cheryl Dumesnil.