August 17, 2017 – Take Off Your Shoes

Prelude to a wedding

August 17, 2017 Rev. Marie Noelle Duquette

My youngest son wrote this essay in college, about 4 years ago. I am posting it today, with his permission, in honor of his wedding

I notice connections between people, events, movies, music, writings, the spoken word, that seem independent of one another. I write and speak about these connections because I have been created for this work and it has the potential to draw people together and transform rough places into plains of peace. I am a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; a writer whose muse is active and insistent; a lover of new experiences; a dreamer of old. I am fueled by both music and silence; I appreciate truths that can only be conveyed in whispers, if in any language at all. I have more friends than I deserve, a big fat french family I adore, and a lovely apartment with a fireplace in front of which I am now leading virtual worship. My most palpable experience of God's presence took place in a chapel in Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. In that place, where every great world religion was depicted by both name and symbol, a miracle took shape in 2005 that continues to inform my faith today. I believe the key to world peace is our willingness to understand one another and take the risks required to do that. My two sons are some of God's finest work; they are a blessing to me and to the world. I thank God for every single day of this wonder we know as life. And I thank you, for stopping by to take off your shoes and step into the shoes of those whose stories I am privileged to tell.

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