AfterWords | [Insert Name] Here

A short read
by Laura Boggs

Tryon, NC, Easter 2025 — In this space, we reflect on our experiences of services at The Parish. That’s not possible for me this week—I wasn’t with you, friends, on Easter morning. But absence makes for a fond heart… and my heart was already yours.

Absence—and contrast—also informs, another wrist-turn to the kaleidoscope of knowing. On Sunday, I worshipped with voice, body, and pen-on-bulletin—at my parents’ Episcopal church in a tiny mountain town.

I grew up Episcopalian. Not only do I feel at home in high church, I found myself fiercely sentimental as I squished into a crowded pew at Holy Cross. I love it all—from the flagstone floors to the wood-vaulted ceilings, from the kids’ flowering of the cross to the inevitable handbell situation at the rear of the sanctuary, from the organ prelude to the last hymn’s last-verse descant.

Behold this gorgeous line in the hymn, “Hail Thee Festival Day”…

Daily the loveliness grows,
Adorned with the glory of blossom;
Heaven her gates now unbars,
Flinging her increase of light!

There is kneeling and standing and bowing—so many “postures”! My favorite embodied practice of all: When the Gospel story is read from halfway down the center aisle and each of us pivots to face the bridegroom and his good, good news. Like children we turn, eager: Go on, tell us a Story…

And so we heard from John, of a missing body and bewildered disciples and Mary Magdalene’s tears outside the tomb—and then that moment when the risen Christ calls her by name…

Mary.

Isn’t that the most excellent news? That Jesus calls us by name? Father Ard pointed this out during his short homily. “You all look mahvelous,” he said. (So many hats, so much seersucker!) He congratulated us for getting out of bed, putting on our finery. “Perhaps,” he said, “you also woke up this Easter morning looking to be transformed. But even better—you are being called by name. That’s right, the risen Lord knows your name.”

Laura.

Not every day is hymns and hats, though. We don’t hear our name being called; we forget who we even are. We live in ordinary time, in between something or other. A rock and a hard place. This church and that. The first half and, perhaps, a second half of faith-life— and the painful decimal points along the way.  Whether we’re wandering the wild or camping out in the desert of indifference, we get stuck. Maybe we get unstuck, but we never arrive.

Regardless of the darkness and the feelings of aloneness, the fact remains: Father, Brother, Spirit. God coming and dying and un-dying to show us what he’s really about. He knows, he sees, he loves.

Beloveds, wherever you were on Sunday—and wherever you are now as you squint into the kaleidoscope of knowing (or unknowing), may you hear your name, even if it’s only a whisper, and sense his seeing. As he looks upon you, his gaze is tender.