Rolling On

On Thursday the LSTC community met for the last chapel service of the school year.

We gathered outside, on the grassy courtyard lawn, grateful for the return of springtime, and gave thanks for our baptism. As many have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Allelluia! Then we took off our shoes, and walked inside through the baptismal pool, getting good and wet on our way into the sanctuary.

As I dipped my own feet into the storied waters, my heart flooded with memories. If was as if they were surging up from the very water itself. I remembered my first end-of-the-year chapel service, when as a first-year I watched graduating seniors walk through these same waters, shedding a tear or two, smiling, laughing, crying, embracing. I remembered the last service before I left campus for internship and study abroad, a different sort of service: a commendation of the dying for one of our professors who was facing a terminal illness. When we walked through the waters that time, tears falling, she stood at the end of the pool to greet us, arms open, as we emerged, dripping wet. Now, a week from graduation, I walk through the water again, one last time, remembering, remembering everything.

Professor Satterlee says the gospel is like a river, and that’s what it’s been for me here at LSTC, flowing through classes and classmates and everything in between. Now that river sends me out again, sends us all out, down new tributaries, to new people and new places, where, dripping wet, we’ll live out the gospel anew.

At the end of the service, we gathered around the cross, joined hands, were blessed with one more reminder of who and whose we are, and were sent out, finally, into the wide, wide world. Then we sang another song – guide my feet, Lord – and danced ourselves right out the doors.