Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Those of us in the Christian tradition must find the answer for the question posed in Yeat's final lines:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

Perhaps there is a response to Yeat's question and a way for the falcon to hear the falconer once more, not by what we see in the world, but what we see through the eye of our hearts in prayers for forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation.

As I said in my recent Lenten talk, I use the word 'reconciliation' with some reluctance, because it's such an easy term, a nice word to which no one could possibly object, until it is really taken apart ... until it's deeper meaning is really explored upon the Cross of Christ, and explored along the way of the Cross in our own lives. To move one's heart from being merely a "peace lover" to being a "peacemaker" is to follow the way of the Cross. The late Director of International Ministry at Coventry, Paul Oestreicher wrote, "It is the way of learning and teaching how to live creatively with conflict, not avoiding learning and teaching how to live creatively with conflict, not avoiding it (Jesus never did), but caring deeply for all involved in it with us, and helping people in that process to trust each other."

But that is the very thing that Chapel of the Cross and St. Paul A.M.E. have been striving for the past six years and what the Community of the Cross of Nails has been empowering for over the past sixty years. On Sunday, March 25, we will receive Rev. Joachim von Koelichen, a member of the staff of Coventry Cathedral and a university chaplain there, who will preach and present to both congregations the Coventry Cross of Nails, the symbol of being an international center of reconciliation. That will not be a reward for past work we have done, but a call to join the international family of people of faith working to heal the wounds of the world.

It is a bit ironic that, as you read these lines, a German Lutheran pastor will have presented the Cross of Nails on behalf of the English Cathedral so devastated in the wars between those two countries. It is perhaps as ironic that the Cross of Nails will have gone to two Sister Parishes, who have together witnessed the conflict of races and the triumph of hope in our long histories in Chapel Hill. Christians together of German and English descent, those of both white and black racial heritage, those of many other nations, races, and tongues can come together around the Cross of Christ in peace and fellowship ... yet share the vision and the challenge of all that must yet be done.

I ask for your prayers and support for all of that ministry of reconciliation yet to come. Pray for our sister parishes, for the Community of the Cross of Nails, and for the grace to pass the peace in our daily lives. I encourage you to attend one of the Wednesday 5:15 p.m. services for Peace and Reconciliation. I also ask for your prayers as I begin my second sabbatical after Easter Sunday. Thank you all for the privilege of serving our Lord together in this place.