Philippians 4:4-13

Our summer songs are resolving themselves into the echoes of autumn. Here, we live, move, and have our being to the rhythm of the school year, even if we don’t teach or otherwise work with students, even if we are no longer attending the classes. Even though it is still hot, there is a change, and the melodies of fall’s beginnings are singing in the air. Some of my ministerial colleagues have a different rhythm to their lives. At their snowbird locations in south Florida where their congregations have few children or young people, the numbers of persons in the worship services may diminish by 2/3 in spring and last until the great return in late December or January. The rhythms change, depending upon where you live.

Always, in every place, in every season, there is hello and goodbye. We go out ourselves or send out our church family members into the world—the Hendersons and the Amlins and others. Children leave for college, others for a new direction or for less positive changes. We shift jobs, choosing and regretting goodbye, leave jobs to retire to hellos that feel more precious maybe, and as we age, the good-byes are multiplied and realized in new ways, the present as elusive and precious as never before.

We say hello abundantly, too. Just as a few years ago we welcomed Katherine, Barron, Baxter, and Owen, we soon will welcome more new members, new friends to come—folks we’ve not met yet, but who are out there. Maybe full of faith, maybe not, some saying what some of us used to say, “Yeah, I’ll never set foot in a church!” You know how that goes—by mysterious providence we end up together for a time and we need to get ready for them. They will be saying hello by this October or next February at the latest. This year and last so many other new  lives have swooped down out of heaven, too, Nola and Tenley, Harrison and Kirk, Koa and Leo, Alexandra, Elora and Isobel, more and more babies to whom we say hello, hello. They exist together, woven around and in between our lives, young and old, the moments of hello, good-bye, hello, the journey’s boundaries and markers.

The old phrase “traveling mercies” goes back at least as far as the late nineteenth century when travel was far more perilous than today and originally denoted a special prayer of protection for missionaries as they left on their journeys for parts unknown. Through the years and in many cultures, similar blessings, gifts, and other talismans of safety have been offered for those going out beyond the edges of our goodbyes. But as you well know, there is no such thing as a hedge of protection out there or even in here when we are together. So, if what we offer one another in hello or goodbye is not a magical protection against the future troubles of the world, then may it be that we offer our best blessing to one another today, while, as John Denver put it, the blossoms still cling to the vine. What if we offer to one another sustenance for the journey–a hope that can be trusted, our healthiest selves, our best foot forward, the most essential words or deeds, as though we only had a little time to say a precious few?  I am sad to say it, but there have been times when I’ve offered the worst of myself to those who loved me most as though there was limitless time for me to say hello again or to make reparation. What if we live in this present as completely as possible, treating others with compassion and value–even if where we are going is just to the next room? What if we learn “to look upon one another whole” as much as we can, as Adrienne Rich’s poem says–to throw off the daily ruse, the little insignificancies that offend us, to choose ways to relate to one another filled with compassion and scope, because there is just so much time to live compassionately–life is measured in hello and goodbye.

I was thinking about the things we say to new lives. When we first say hello to babies the content of our words, maybe even the words themselves are few– distilled only to what matters—I love you, you are safe now, you are not alone,  and by the time they are in their 20s or 40s, so many other words are spoken, and even less time to share. Do we remember our first and most essential words to them? Between hello and goodbye, on the long or short life journey, every day, if we see one another whole, what do we need to be certain to say to each other today? What would you tell them, the people you love, the person you are angry with, your dreaded enemy, if you knew it was your last lecture? Or theirs?

The writings of Paul, collected in the New Testament are filled with many words, dense concepts, vociferously argued points. But in this Philippians passage, ending what probably was his last letter, Paul sees the goodbye ahead and ends his letter to his friends in Philippi with what there is left to say when there is only time for what matters. The context of the letter is this: times are very hard. He is losing his eyesight. He is in prison for starting new churches. Vince…he is in prison for starting new churches. Go out there and make us proud, but surround yourself with our love, okay?!   Paul has suffered greatly and as he prepares for goodbye, he offers great gratitude to his friends and what I read as a list of traveling mercies and qualities for peaceful living that we may offer one another as daily blessing, whether we are staying or going, saying hello anew or goodbye again, in the pain or the pleasure. Here is what he says, “Rejoice, and again, I say, rejoice. I’ve learned the secret of living contentedly with plenty…I’ve learned the secret of living contentedly with nothing.  No matter what, fill your thoughts and your choices and your words with what is honorable.  Do justice. Act in ways that call forth love. Offer the gracious response. Expect your best self and that of others. I can do all that I do in the strength of the One who strengthens me. And may you find peace as the focus of your life as it centers on those things.”

I can do all through the One who strengthens me. Rely on the strength that is beyond strength that strengthens you…Quakers call that part in us “that of God.” That of God—the mystery of life in all the creation. I read that as Namaste, in hello and goodbye, I honor that of God in you and lean on the strength of that in us that unites us whether together or apart. And as a traveling blessing, when there is so much we can say to greet every new life, every new hello, so much we might say to say goodbye at the inevitable endings and all in between, say whatever is true, honorable, just, worthy of love, that of God, that brings hope and rejoicing. May that be what Isobel and all the babies hear from and see in us for as long as we are together. May those be the last words on our lips when those we love or when we ourselves go out, however known. Here is the person I will choose to be, the words I choose to speak from that of God in me to that of God in you—true things, honorable, just, loving, of integrity and good report when I agree with you, and when I do not. When I am tempted to babble out a string of words less than or more than those, may I remember that of God in you and in me. May I think on those things, speak them to you.  And that, daily, even when we are not doing anything as dramatic or dangerous as getting born or moving away, may we be that of the highest good, for each other, for this world.

The Greek word for rejoice, “chairo” also is a greeting. In effect, it can be translated hello/goodbye as Adios is used in some Latin American countries—both greeting when we meet and a last blessing when we part. Adios literally means “To God, that of God,” Namaste…   Rejoice….traveling mercies, hello, good-bye, hello. Amen.