While I was on vacation recently, I went down to the lake to do one of my favorite things, stand-up paddle boarding. I’m so old-fashioned that I don’t carry a device for note taking, but paper and pen when I’m out and about. The nascent sermon for today and this Scripture from Revelation were on simmer in my brain while I was lowering the board from the dock to the water. And I was a little tottery when I first hopped off the ladder and onto the board, so my sermon notetaking paper fell out of my pocket and into the lake, but it dried in the hot sun–see it’s good as new, better than a device! And I could still read what I was writing:  first, I’d copied the Scripture reading. I love this verse from Revelation. Now there’s a sentence most progressive UCC ministers do not utter very often, “I love this verse from Revelation,” This verse to me sings songs of this particular summer and I hope it will sing to you as well as we ponder it together for a few moments now and as you take it with you into this week ahead.

“After this, I looked and there was a door standing open in heaven.” In the book of Revelation, the door standing open reveals to the visionary the next right thing. And when does the visionary see the next right thing? After this… That open door opens after this. That’s how it is in life, so often—the challenge, the question of balance between what we know before and what we understand after–those inevitable, exciting, and scary moments in life when we, as Martin Luther King, Jr. put it, are required to take the first step even though we cannot see the whole staircase–even though we do not have all of the information and cannot know the outcome. You and I don’t know the wisdom of after until after arrives. Before and during bring their own perspectives–plans, preparation, pushing through. After shines a light on the rest of the story.

Ponder all the ways you have progressed in fits and starts in your life, those oh-so-fun life lessons of then and now. What did you know before, or only figure out, after? Before joining AA, after the pathology results came back, before you met each other, after your folks died or you nearly did, before the turning point, after it was the last time?  Before something occurs, and when it is possible, many of us prefer to plan well for the eventualities, but sometimes the life that happens is not the one you planned for.  And yet, it seems that there is an abundance of valuable wisdom to be had, coming and going.  Before, it seemed obscure.  After, it seems clear. Eyes open, perspectives change. I learned from the preparations and the passage and the results, all along the way, and when I look back on the hardest and the best times of my life, I see clearly how much I needed both before and after. The knowledge of before is breathing and planning, and prayer and strategy and we need that preparation and what we learn in that stage. The knowledge of after is what we now call feedback, assessment, reflection, and the wisdom that experience to brings us—wisdom we cannot know until after comes. And both of them require faith to push through—in oneself, in others, and in God, however known.

In the book The Wizard of Oz, Glinda the good witch says to Dorothy ” If you had known the power of your silver shoes, you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this far country.”  Dorothy replies. “All along, I had the power? Oh, how I wish I had known that before.” Yeah, welcome to the club. But though in the BEFORE, you or I may have some ideas about the power we do or don’t have, the decision we will make or what we are made of, the truth is that we can only begin to lean into the wind and trim the sails, and prepare for the terror and the beauty of the next part of life, before… We know only in part the power we carry inside or the vulnerability we will need because we can know that only after the wicked witch and the flying monkeys and the ecstasy of our various sojourns in our own versions of the Emerald City. Before we know some things, after we know more. And the totteriness and unknown times of stepping into the unlighted future is part of the adventure.

The Tin Man in response, says, “Oh, Dorothy, had you known before, I should not have had my lovely heart, and I might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world.” Ponder those times when you stood before the open door to what was next and you made a choice or remember the times when life or death or truth or injustice or compassion or change chose you. Only after you spoke your truth, refused to hear lies, began the work, took the chance, suffered the pain, loved in that way—it was after when you knew you could love like that to infinity and beyond. It was after, when you learned that life could break your heart or bring you such joy that your whole self could be formed and reformed in just that way.

“After these things, I saw a door standing open in heaven. I heard the voice I have heard before, like a trumpet speaking to me. It said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this.'”  In the face of every challenge, when you or I stand before the next open door with the yawning precipice of the unknown underneath, when yet again, faith is required to move through to be fully oneself, to let go of expectations, to do justice, to love, to live, and finally to die, in the challenging moments ahead, the assurance of faith is that we will hear that voice we have heard before– the voice of Love and Life speaking to and through us. In this challenging moment, oh yes, now I recall we are the same people we always were. I will show you says the familiar and trustworthy voice, what must happen after this. Before, we will prepare, as best we can, and after we will know more—before and after speak and shine—remember to trust, keep the faith, hold onto hope.

Mattie Stepanek was a young boy who died when he was thirteen from a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Started speaking poetry when he was only 3, published many books of his poems called Heartsongs, was a special friend of President Jimmy Carter, and appeared on Oprah and on many other TV shows, and noted that he wanted to be remembered as a poet and a philosopher who played. The non-profit organization established in his name and still administered by his mother who also has the disease and is fighting cancer, continues to help children around the world and to spread Mattie’s message of faith and compassion. Once he wrote, “The future may seem faraway, but it is already beginning now. We all have life storms, and when we get the rough times and we recover from them, we should celebrate that we got through. No matter how bad it is, there’s always something beautiful to find. Keep all special thoughts and memories for the lifetimes to come. Share these keepsakes with others to inspire hope and build from the past a bridge to the future. Remember to play after every storm.”  May it be so in our lives, that we learn all we can of work and of play, and of powerful love, before and after. Amen.