Back to School, Back to Hiroshima

Yesterday was a delightful day.  Today will be delightful too, although it's a full day on campus, so it will be a different kind of delightful.  And I've been awake since 2, so I do worry about how tired I'll be by late afternoon.

My brain started churning at 2, churning with all sorts of worries and plans.  I need to sit down with a calendar and old syllabi and make some loose plans--or maybe weekly plans--at least that's what my brain was telling me when I couldn't go back to sleep.  My brain also jumped ahead to spring, and how I might teach the Intro to Lit class, and it's much too early to be plotting those classes.

Have I done the syllabus planning for this semester, since I was awake?  No, of course not.  I did some reading and ate some cranberry orange bread.  I did some fretting about muscle loss:  not my own, but my friend who had the catastrophic stroke a few years ago, and has lost so much muscle mass that she can't sit in the wheelchair very long.  I've wondered about other people in my life who aren't getting much exercise--but certainly more than my mostly bed-bound friend.

I am remembering 2 years ago, heading down to campus for a day that would have been even fuller, with a dinner for new faculty at the end.  I remember going to orientation sessions for new faculty and wondering how much would apply to me as a person with a one year position.  And I remember feeling so jealous of people who had the luxury of more permanence.

And now I am one of those people.

Of course, today is one of those days in history that reminds me that permanence is an illusion. Today is the day when the first atomic bomb used in warfare was detonated at Hiroshima, thus launching us into this brave new world where we find ourselves.  I think of those people headed to work when the bomb detonated, those burned into the concrete, and those further away, who would spend the rest of their lives being a walking specimen of what overexposure to radiation does to a human body before they died early.

The bombs used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki were small by today's standards--but what damage they did! The effects of that bomb obliterated much of Hiroshima--and vaporized some of it. There were reports of people fused into pavement and glass--or just vanished, with a trace remaining at the pavement. The reports of the survivors who walked miles in search of help or water are grim. And many of those survivors would die of the effects of radiation in the coming years.

Through the years, I've seen many a documentary about the rush to build nuclear weapons, about the uncertainty of what would happen with those first tests and explosions--would the very atmosphere around the planet dissolve? I have yet to see any footage of scientists who wondered what might happen to civilians on the ground when these bombs exploded.

I've lived long enough to see history being made to know that the choices can be fairly ghastly. In this case, far better to develop the weapons before the Germans. I know many people who believe that the use of these bombs helped avoid more years of grueling battles in the Pacific that would have left us with even more dead--one could argue that the sacrifice of the populations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were worth the avoidance of more years of war and that loss of life.

I've also done enough reading and thinking about pacifist approaches to wonder if there might not have been another way if we had acted much earlier.

I remember during our grad school years we went to a beautiful anti-nuclear vigil on August 6 in a city park.  I remember paper cranes and seeing some of our grad school professors there.  That would have been in 1988 or 1989.  I wonder if any groups mount anti-nuclear vigils in August anymore?

It's not that the world is any more of a peaceful place these days.  In fact, in recent years, it feels like we're sliding back to a world that's much more dangerous.  Sadly, the world still needs the blessings of the origami cranes.  They're not as easy to fold as they look--that, too, makes them an appropriate metaphor.  But they are worth the effort--and peace is worth the effort too.

Delights Planned for the Last Day of Summer and an A for Paul Class

In many ways, today is my last day of summer 2026.  A year ago, I'd have been going to CPE early and then driving to Williamsburg to help my parents recover from my mom's near death pneumonia hospitalization--I am so grateful that this summer's end is more mundane.

Our transition to the school year is a gentle one.  Tomorrow we have a very full day of teacher training and meetings.  On Friday and Monday, we have one meeting per day.  I'd prefer to have both on one day and the other day free for syllabus prep, but I'm fine with the schedule.  Having more time off is a game changer--in my younger days at community colleges, I'd have been irritable at being expected to do any of this at all.  

Of course, in my younger days, I spent much more time being irked.  Now I am older and wiser and more laid back and a better shepherd of my energy, meaning I ask more questions about situations and whether or not my irritability/anger is worth the energy and time.

On this last day of summer, I'll fill my day with delights:  a morning visit with a neighborhood friend doing creative work together in her studio and an afternoon with the LWR quilting group at the local Lutheran church.  I'll do some reading and some writing.  For one day, today I won't do any teaching work:  I turned in final grades for my online classes last night, and I still have time to create syllabi before classes start on Tuesday.

But I'm just remembering that I need to put an announcement in my onground class course shells that gives a welcome and says that more information is coming soon.  Since the shells open tomorrow, I'll do that cut and paste work today.

I'm happy that my work-for-pay still leaves me with time to see friends and do creative work of all types, along with writing and reading.  I'm grateful that my teaching life doesn't consume all my free time.  I know I say this a lot, but it's worth remembering and retreating.

It seems fitting that on one of the last evenings of summer, last night I got my grades for my summer TEEM class on Paul:  an A on each of the two papers, and an A for the class.  My teacher gave thoughtful commentary that made me feel seen and heard and understood.

I mention my reaction because last night I also got my supervisor feedback for the summer online class that I taught for SMC.  Overall, it was positive, although there is room for improvement:  more personalized feedback and more depth of feedback.  My first thought was that using names of students in grading feedback (a suggestion) would take too much time.  But it really won't take that much more time and maybe it would help students stay engaged.

I'm grateful for my return to school in late middle life for many reasons, but it's been revelatory to remember what it's like to be a student.  I used to think that A level papers don't really need much instructor feedback, but as an A student, I would feel cheated if my papers got the kinds of A level feedback that I give as a teacher.  Maybe that's too strong; I'm remembering all the times I got minimal feedback on A level papers and didn't feel cheated.  But every time I get more involved feedback, I'm grateful.  And A level students are more likely to have the time and mental space to care in a way that isn't possible for students who can't care as much because their lives are falling apart.

Meditation on Sunday's Gospel

 The readings for August 9, 2026:

1 Kings 19:9-18
Psalm 85:8-13
I will listen to what the LORD God is saying. (Ps. 85:8)
Romans 10:5-15
Matthew 14:22-33

This week’s Gospel reading reinforces the themes we found in last week’s lesson. The disciples are in the boat and Jesus walks across the water to them. They don’t recognize him; indeed, they’re terrified. When they realize who it is, Peter, always enthusiastic, asks Jesus to bid him to come, which he does. Peter walks across the water with no problem, until he realizes what he’s doing and starts to sink.

Now, most of us probably haven’t had experiences where we’ve suspended the laws of nature, but most of us can probably relate to what Peter experiences. When I first learned to type, I got to the point where I could type at a very fast speed—until I thought about what I was doing. If I just let my fingers go and didn’t look at them, if I did what I knew I could do, I’d be fine. I’ve had similar experiences in learning foreign languages and in learning to play the mandolin or the ukelele; if I play the notes without double checking both my fingers and the chord charts and music books, I find out that I really can play—still more haltingly than I would like, alas.

This story is also about God’s presence and our inability to recognize the Divine all around us, as well as our trouble accepting the miraculous. One of the narrative arcs the Bible is God’s desire to be with God’s creation, to know everybody, to be fully present in our day-to-day lives--to the extent of becoming human. And God has to go to great lengths to get our attention—bushes burst into flame, oppressive governments release the captives, loaves and fishes feed thousands, people rise from the dead, God goes so far as to take on human form—miracle after miracle, and still humans don’t understand and don’t want to accept God’s daily presence.

Even when we do let ourselves glimpse the sacred and divine, even when we experience the miraculous, how quickly we forget and let the mundane swamp us. Psychologists would probably tell us that our approach is a coping mechanism, that if we let ourselves be that open to God, we’d go insane, or at least we’d look insane to our fellow humans. I’m not sure I agree. Maybe we’d be better witnesses, better disciples.

Be on the lookout for God in your daily life. Maybe it will just be a wink from the Creator, like a tree full of butterflies. Maybe you’ll be in the presence of the full-blown miraculous, and all doubts will vanish—the tumor shrinks, the passengers escape the burning plane, the hurricane curves out to sea.

Or maybe you won't get the miracle you think you want, but the miraculous comes as you learn how to cope and you learn that coping leaves you more open to the presence of God. Watch for God, listen for God, be alert. God is there, by your side, both during the times of the miraculous as well as the mundane, in the times of catastrophe, drudgery, or luminous.

Recording of August 2, 2026 Sermon

I felt good about my sermon yesterday--it's not likely to go down as one of my best, but it's solid.  I tried to do more than just re-tell the Gospel, a problem with many sermons I've heard and one I try so hard to avoid in my own sermons.  The Gospels aren't so complicated that most people don't understand.

The recording of my sermon is here on my YouTube channel.  If you'd like to read along, I posted the manuscript in a blog post.

Sermon for Sunday, August 2

August 2, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott




Matthew 14:13-21




Last week we had parables of smallness and hiddenness to tell us what the community of God is like. I concluded last week’s sermon by saying that the Kingdom of God, this community that we’re helping to create right here and right now might remain hidden for our whole lives, visible to those around us with eyes to see, but invisible to the larger world. Today’s Gospel reminds us that the Kingdom of God might in fact burst out of whatever tidy containers we thought we had devised for it.


Today’s Gospel reading begins in the middle of chapter 14, and to fully understand today’s reading, we need to know that the first 12 verses of chapter 14 tell of how John the Baptist was killed by Herod. Jesus hears about the murder and withdraws to the wilderness.


In the book of Luke, John and Jesus are cousins; in the book of Matthew, they are colleagues. We could read the book of Matthew and infer that John is Jesus’ teacher. We also see that John knows that, he, John, is the warm up act for the Messiah who is coming.


But in the book of Matthew, John the Baptist isn’t always sure that Jesus is that Messiah. In chapter 11, John who is in prison sends some of his followers to ask if Jesus is the one. Jesus responds, as he so often does, by giving a list of what he has done, a list heavy with healing.


And now John is dead, killed by the forces of government, Herod representing both Jewish rule, Jewish rule allowed by the ultimate earthly authority, the Romans. Jesus goes to a deserted place, a wilderness place. Wilderness and deserted places have deep significance in both the Gospel of Matthew and the larger Bible. Wilderness is a place outside of the reach of earthly rulers. Wilderness is a place of temptation. Wilderness is also a place of deliverance. We see all of these aspects of wilderness in today’s Gospel.


Jesus retreats to the wilderness to process what he has heard: John is dead, killed by the forces of government. We might see Jesus’ retreat as an attempt to lay low for awhile. If we thought that people didn’t know what Jesus was up to, what happens in today’s Gospel shows us otherwise.


People follow him on foot. At the end of the Gospel, we find out that 5000 men have followed him, along with women and children. It’s a town-sized crowd out there in the wilderness. In fact, most towns of that time period would have fewer people than 5000.


Jesus feels compassion for the crowds, and so he heals them. He doesn’t say, “I’m grieving because the world lost a good man today. Come back tomorrow.” He gives them what they need.


The response of the disciples might seem less compassionate, but they, too, are trying to give the people what they need: food and getting back to a safe place before night falls in the deserted place. They know how much food they have, and it’s not enough.


In contrast, Jesus tells the crowd to sit. He blesses the food and gives it to the disciples to distribute. Note how this miracle could have gone a different way and still achieved the same outcome. Jesus could have commanded food to fall from the sky, a manna from Heaven moment. He doesn’t. Jesus could have had everyone come forward and wait in long lines. He doesn’t.


He equips the disciples. He empowers them to do the work that they know needs to be done. Jesus transforms not only the food, but also the disciples, who have come to Jesus with a problem and an inadequate solution, and Jesus gives them deliverance: 12 baskets of food left over, everyone having eaten their fill. It’s a unique deliverance: God’s miracle by way of 12 pairs of human hands who go out to the people gathered on the ground.


Here we see how the Kingdom of God, God’s community, spills out of its tidy containers. John has been killed, but his prophetic mission will not end. Jesus, too, will be killed, but he has shown his disciples how to continue his work. We know that some of the people who are fed will continue to follow Jesus. They will be convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, the one for whom they have been waiting, their time in the wilderness of uncertainty coming to a close, Jesus as their new Moses.


Jesus shows how power is used in this new Kingdom of Heaven that has drawn near. He does not march on Jerusalem to avenge the death of John. He dismisses the crowds. Healed and fed, they are ready to return to the world.


Some of them are surely changed permanently. We will see that the disciples, too, are changed, although it does take them time to claim this power they’ve been given.


We, too, have this power. We’ve seen it in action in numerous ways, the way that small meals turn into nourishment for the whole community. We’ve seen it literally, with every fish fry and chili festival that we offer to our neighbors: literal meals prepared by a group of people smaller than the disciples, food that always stretches until the last ones are fed. We see this power in action in other ways too, as we carry on the work of sustaining souls, work that our ancestors began, work that is ours to continue in our own unique response when Jesus says, “You give them something to eat.”


We see a collective response to Jesus in the ways that our larger church in the world supports the sick and the hungry. We see the ways that small acts lead to larger abundance which leads to all sorts of transformations. As we get ready to return to school, I’m thinking about how Lutherans have so often been at the forefront of education, putting small sums of money together to create church camps and daycare centers and schools for everyone from pre-K to college and graduate work. Many of these institutions have lasted for several generations, some in Europe for hundreds of years.


God’s work in the world might be like a seed or a grain of yeast or a treasure in a field, hidden to all but those closest to it. Our work in the kingdom of God might seem small to us, but even a small meal in the hands of God, can feed over 5000 souls. And for those of us who identify more with the crowd longing for healing and food and something we can’t even articulate as we chase Jesus into a deserted place, today’s Gospel reminds us that wilderness time often results in a closer relationship with God.


Jesus comes to liberate us from all that tries to constrain us. Jesus tells what the Kingdom of God is like in parables, and today he shows us those parables in action. What is the Kingdom of Heaven like? It’s like a small group of people who see what needs to be done. It’s like a small group of people who are sure they don’t have enough resources, but onward they go, person to person, sharing what they have. What is the Kingdom of God like? Five thousand men, along with women and children, fed to bursting, with baskets of left overs. It’s a foretaste of the feast to come, and a taste of the Heaven that we can have right here, right now.

The Hinge Festival of Lammas

Early August is a hinge point in the calendar. In some ways, it's not as obvious a hinge as the autumnal equinox or the summer solstice; in fact, it's the time directly between those two hinges--we're as far away from the start of summer as we are from the start of autumn. But in some ways, it's just as significant a point of seasonal shift.

If we lived in medieval England, we would be celebrating the festival of Lammas, a festival that celebrates first harvests with loaves of bread standing in for that first harvest.  There might be processions to bakeries, to bless them and to bless the bakers.  

It would be a festival that celebrates abundance, the abundance that comes later in a cooler climate.  Of course, we here in Appalachia are celebrating that abundance too; the summer vegetables are still going strong with beautiful tomatoes at the farmer's market.  Yet across the region, apple orchards are opening today.

We may have slogged through summer long enough that we may feel that nothing will ever change--it will be hot and humid forever. The light hasn't changed significantly, the way it will in a month or two. But we are losing more daylight each day as we hurtle towards a different season. Students aren't in school yet, but the time draws closer. Most of us aren't agricultural people anymore, but if we were, we'd be seeing crops in their final ripening. Harvest would be coming soon.

Now is a good time to take an accounting. Have we been planning some summer festivities that we haven't gotten to do yet? Now is the time. Do we need to adjust our trajectories for the rest of the year? Let us make some plans.

Celtic Wisdom: The Last Days of July

 ELCA Stewardship specialist Tim Brown made this Facebook post today:

In the heat of waning July days, the ancient Celts would ready themselves for the August festivals and the beginning of the harvest.

They would take these final days to spend intentional time resonating with the world around them, relaxing in the earth and seeking out sacred spots to bless and in which to be blessed.

You might say this ancient practice is a precursor to our ideas of "vacation" these days. Summer rest is not something we invented, Beloved, but inherited through the long echoes of phenomenological rhythms that pulse throughout the looping threads of time.

Celtic author Mara Freeman notes three ways to honor the earth in these last July days that fall on the cusp of transition.

First, you can give thanks. Find a quiet spot in nature, breath deeply, listen carefully, and be grateful for what is around you. She notes that "a sacred site does not have to be famous or located in a distant country. It can also be a quiet, secret place you have found in the woods or, if you live in the city, a favorite old tree in a local park." (from Kindling the Celtic Spirit)

Secondly, do some clean up. Whether it is in your backyard, along a well-hiked stream, your local park, or even just bush pruning around the house, caring for nature is an act of sacrifice to the very Earth who will, in the coming months, sacrifice fruit for us. Pruning, by the way, is necessary for many plants, and should be done with the plant in mind, and should not primarily be about how your yard looks from the street.

Finally, take a pilgrimage. Journey to a place where the Earth has been damaged or is in danger of being defiled, calling attention to it. Whether it is the pipeline in the Dakotas, over-fishing off the coasts, or even unwelcome infringement on a natural prairie in your little pocket of creation, walking there, seeing what is happening with your own eyes, and calling attention to it is an act of power and grace. Or, as one theologian puts it, "an actively mobilized process of bearing witness to woundedness and to the mysterious possibilities of the sacred."

In these acts, the whole Earth becomes an altar upon which our attention, our love, and our gratitude is sacrificed. These acts have rippled throughout the cosmos from our ancient parents until today.

How will you add to the wave?