Good evening, and welcome to St. Thomas' Parish. My name is Aaron Adkins, and I'm a parishioner and member of the Vestry here. For those of you who are new to our church or to this service, we carry on a wonderful tradition at our Sunday Taize services that began with Eleanor Roosevelt when she and her husband were members here and she delivered the first lay homily. Fortunately for me, and probably for you too, we take this opportunity to reflect on our spiritual journey, so I mercifully will not be reflecting on today's Gospel!

In this Epiphany season we've been thinking a lot about the notion of wilderness, in all its incarnations. Corporately, we find ourselves in a wilderness regarding our plans for growth as a parish, and in that journey I've seen many mirrors to the wilderness of our individual lives. They may be occupational, social, physical, mental, or if you're like me a combination of those. A few weeks ago we had a terrific retreat here with Cannon Charles LaFond who lit our road ahead with the ideas of silence, simplicity, and Sabbath. This was all serendipitous for me, as I recently had the privilege to engage on a sabbatical of sorts, where I had a lot of time for quiet reflection; a time to peel away the layers and really examine myself; time to figure out what makes me tick, what drives me, and to become more in tune with my authentic self.

We live in a tough part of the world. Examining our parish roster reveals a telling tale of a remarkable congregation - people whose professions directly touch the lives of others in meaningful ways. We're made up of leaders in government, business, education, science, military, theology, architecture, technology, think tanks, military and social aid; the performing and creative arts, and hospitality just to name a few. The efforts of our parishioners reach literally all over the world, and that's a wonderful thing that we can be proud of. The work can be grueling though - mentally, spiritually, and physically - making a relationship with God all the more important. I found challenge in my Washington career. I ran directly into the trap of replacing who I am with what I do. In my mind, my occupation defined me, but I learned through my time of silence, simplicity and Sabbath that that is no way to live or be.

One of the hats I proudly wear is of a Docent at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. I love learning about and teaching our nation's complex history...with all its triumphs and all its warts. When people visit museums they see objects, but it's Docents who bring those objects to life. When thinking about what I would share tonight, I found the perfect metaphor in a seldom thought of object in our museum: the wagon wheel.

Some 19th century Americans - many of them new immigrants to our country - found themselves in a literal, mental, and figurative wilderness during the westward expansion, and it was the wagon wheel that helped them chase their dreams of opportunity and riches. Picture, if you will, a wagon wheel. Think about its design - the hub and spokes attached to a wooden wheel banded by iron. These things were incredibly strong, and would last for hundreds of miles across the untamed prairies, mountains, deserts, streams and rivers. Their strength allowed them to move across rocky terrain and unbeaten paths. Sometimes though a spoke or two would break, but the wheel could keep turning because of the overall strength of the design, so they seldom needed replacing considering the wear they endured.

Now imagine your life as that wagon wheel. What do you place at the hub, and what do you place on the spokes? I suspect many might place family in that hub, filling in the spokes with things like friends, work, hobbies, leisure, and finances. But there are many possibilities and I suspect if you traveled around the country you might find some geographic trends. Perhaps in some places it might be fame; others it might be money; here in Washington it could be power or prestige. The trap I discovered is that all these scenarios are areas where we can fail. Sometimes we lose jobs. Some families sadly get ripped apart. Shiny things tarnish and fade. Financial markets swing and collapse. Living life with a fallible thing at your core can be crushing, because like on that wagon wheel if the hub breaks the whole wheel breaks.

Oh dear! Now what?

I'm a visual learner, so I actually drew a wheel and filled in the various spokes with the things that occupy my attention, and that's where I discovered my error: I had God on the spoke next to my relationship with this religious community. Whatever was in the center would always be something breakable until I put God there. With a God-centered life any one of those spokes can break without breaking me, because it is through God that I find direction, inspiration, comfort, and calm.

I discovered that much of what happens in life is beyond my control, and I was burning a lot of time and energy trying to control everything. In reality, from the trivial to the catastrophic the only things in life's ups and downs within in our control are our attitude, acceptance, and response. Entering into a deeper relationship with God helped me see that. With God at my core, I'm better able to love, listen, understand, persevere, challenge, hope, and forgive.

With all that in mind and with this model for living, I think of how one might discharge the tasks of their various occupations - those things that make up the spokes of our wheels - because it's not easy. How do we love, nurture and support the many people in our lives? How to we block out the relentless noise that invades our serenity? How do we filter news and information given in varying degrees of "truthiness?" How do we gauge our actions in a world that is seldom if ever black and white, but competing shades of gray? This is all part of our wilderness. But there are lessons from the bible to guide us. As one scholar put it, "In the wilderness Israel experienced privation and danger, and learned through this testing period to trust in the provision and protection of God."

I'm reminded of John Quincy Adams' closing argument to the Supreme Court in the Amistad case. In it he invoked the memory of our founding fathers, those, "eloquent statesmen...learned lawyers...and brilliant luminaries," who were by then, gone. In it he petitioned the justices to do what is right and just, praying to heaven that they would proceed to their "final account with as little of earthly frailty to answer for as those illustrious dead..." With the simplicity, silence, and Sabbath of a God-centered life, I believe Adams' desire for them - and for us today - becomes all the more likely; that "at the close of a long and virtuous career in this world, [we] be received at the portals of the next with the approving sentence - ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.'"