Threshold

Threshold: The figurative use was in Old English, "border or beginning of a region or place;" + Hold, the Germanic verb "generally accepted" [OED 1989] to have meant originally "to keep, tend, watch over." (Etymonline.com)

Lent is arriving—my favourite season of the Church calendar, starting in the chilly darkness of late Winter. Arriving is often a word I consider more around Advent, but this year it feels very fitting for Lent. Many things are expected to arrive in this Lenten season... We're packing items, ever-so-slowly emptying our cabin, preparing to exit 'the village' as it is lovingly known. This place has been my home for nearly seventeen years, seven years shy of my growing up homeplace living. My parents still live in their 'starter house', and Nick and I wouldn't mind our roots going deep like that for our family as well in our first home. 

As we pack and transport various items, my ever-burgeoning womb reminds me that I'm in more than one liminal place. Moving toward arrival, but not there yet. It is unsettling to live at the threshold of a season or space, it is uncomfortable as even the familiar becomes unfamiliar. If I'm not choosing presence in the liminal it can be disorienting—but if I offer my attention to the discomfort something shifts. I find this a time of slowly saying goodbye to one season and place and gently entering into another. It is less abrupt than a long-weekend move or the (relatively) few hours of labour before baby arrives. The shift is happening in slow motion. Sometimes it's frustratingly slow and other times I remember to be grateful for this pace.

Thinking of this slow transition, I am met with an image. In my mind's eye I see a stone house with a weathered threshold at the kitchen door (the real entry point of a home)—from outside to inside. It is one step, but we feel the difference of out-of-doors to indoors keenly. When we step out, the world becomes brighter, deeper, bigger and we shrink down to size. When we step in, we are welcomed into warmth, beauty, safety, and cosiness. The threshold is a brief space, not a lingering place. It is that fascinating "liminal" space in a building or home. We are lingering at the threshold, the border, from one place to the next—from one season (renters, newlywed couple, community) to the next (homeowners, parents, a neighbourhood where we've yet to meet anyone).

The word 'threshold' also conveys the idea of tending, keeping, and watching over. We are caretakers of our time home, yard, child, and to some degree, our neighbours. We are to tend time and toils, skills and souls. We keep watch in the night in prayer. And we remember Who it is who cares for us, tending our souls, feeding our selves. Sometimes He offers me a word for the year, and often it shifts over the dance of the days. For this season of Lent I believe the Lord is offering me the words 'liminal' and 'threshold'—we'll see if they linger into Eastertide and ordinary time. But I trust God to know what I need next if I'm to move into something else this year, too.

So I breathe out a final hallelujah—amen! before Ash Wednesday, praising God in this lingering at the border, at the arriving of Lent.

Photo by Colin Watts on Unsplash

The Stripping Away

Last year I turned 40...which is ridiculous, because I'm still 22, 26, 35, 39 and all the other important ages of my adult life. I'm still making silly puns and laughing at life, looking for shapes in the clouds and listening to the evensong of robins. And now there are more and more times when my wide-eyed wonder at the world feels replaced by the gritty exhaustion of mundane reality. The poet in me feels lost and the pragmatist slides into the driver's seat.

As I entered the year I was well aware of forty being a significant number in Scripture... The rains came forty days and forty nights during the Flood. The Israelites were enslaved for forty times ten years in Egypt—then they wandered in the dessert for forty years, awaiting the death of an unfaithful generation before entering the Promised Land. Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days at the start of His prophetic time. Forty crops up in so many places—always it comes with challenges and hardships, it involves a stripping away. So, one can imagine my trepidation at turning forty last year. I could tell change was coming... Change is unknown and the unknown is scary. 

There were hard moments that Nick and I shared alone, and some we shared with others. There were some blindsiding moments, like when we found out in a group of people we were expected to move, without anyone telling us personally first. Panic, anger, and betrayal made sleeping flee in a flood of tears. Prayer and some conversations brought order, though we were still unsettled about our next steps. 

And of course, there were lovely moments, too. Times shared with family celebrating my nephew's high school graduation, visiting friends and family for our anniversary, sharing a lot of meals with friends, going on dates, seeing moose in the wild, and cosying up reading aloud together in the chill of snowy days. 

Time for introspection and reflection shrivelled in my fortieth year, giving way to time together as a couple experiencing our first year of marriage. It's been a shift for us both, and sometimes for me it feels like a loss of my inner world and of my very self in ways. I'm being re-made, no longer a single woman but a wife, a vital component in a marriage, yet still a self. It's a process which keeps fluctuating and will change again and again as we develop new habits and patterns together.

After weeks of casual browsing, we abruptly plunged into the loan-approval/house-buying process in the autumn. Talk about challenges and treading the waters of the unknown! But there was an even more life altering part of forty... The firework spark of forty weeks, burgeoning into new life arriving this coming spring. A little wriggling, stretching, prodding lively person, pushing out my tummy skin, smooshing my stomach space, enlarging my heart. My body is no longer my own, an uncomfortable sensation physically (especially now), but emotionally and mentally as well. The freedom and breadth of life are feeling their limits more keenly... 

And yet, a door is opening as I look down the narrow galley of pain to come. Our little one is due during Holy Week: a tunnel of sorrow, pain, and stripping away for Jesus. What a time to experience the stripping away of myself—my old self—and being remade not only as a daughter of God (and my earthly parents), a sister, a friend, and the wife of Nick, but now as a mother, too. I'm becoming a new self as the Lord is growing a new person within me. 

Currently I feel like an utter failure, being so scattered in my focus between work, home renovation, cabin upkeep, appointments, the impending stress of moving away from the space I've lived in for 16+ years, and my mind, my heart, my body, my work, and my norms all shifting. I feel the most un-me I've felt since I was an insecure child. Perhaps even more than that, as I wasn't self-aware enough then to know what it was like to be me or not be me yet...

Forty has held more change and shifting than I initially foresaw or feared. I wasn't planning to jump into the tides of change with both feet, being swept into the relentless waves of peeling back layer after layer until all I feel is both raw and numb at once. Yet here I am. Myself and not myself. A squishy, messy, metamorphising self. 

Who will I be on the other side of moving, nesting, birthing, and shifting into new roles? I still want to be that wide-eyed-in-wonder lover of God and His world. One who offers hospitality. Warm and loving and quirky and quick to laugh at the absurdity of being forty and still feeling like I'm 22 and 26 and 34 and not-quite-married. And I want to be the new person God is shaping me to be as He shapes our little person in me (and re-shapes my brain, literally!). 

My Anglican soul feels this pull in a liturgy of sorts...

Do I fear the waves of hormones that come with birth? I do. 
Do I fear the rage and numbness of those hormones? I do.
Do I fear the stripping away required to be made new? I do.
Do I fear the loss of my inner world because my time has been refocused in being a mom? I do.
Do I fear getting stuck in bad habits when I want to create rhythms of Truth, Beauty, and hope for my family? I do.

Do I feel the world is broken? I do.
Do I feel the shadows deepen? I do.
Yet do I know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through? I do.
Do I wish that I could see it all made new? I do.

Is all creation groaning? It is.
Is a new creation coming? It is!
Is the glory of the Lord to be the light within our midst? It is.
Is it good that we remind ourselves of this? It is!

Does the Father truly love us? He does.
Does the Spirit move among us? He does.
And does Jesus, our Messiah hold forever those He loves? He does.
Does our God intend to dwell again with us? He does!

Is He worthy? Is He worthy?
Of all blessing and honour and glory
Is He worthy? Is He worthy?
Is He worthy of this?

He is!


To see it all made new, to be made new, I must pass through the narrow confines God has set before me. They are my birth canal, birthing me out into a world that is bright and loud and feels anything-but-cosy at times. Like a baby who has to leave the warm, dark, safe womb and learn everything about the world and existence little-by-little, I'll be learning little-by-little how to be the who God is re-making me. I'm thankful that God doesn't expect me to start by running. He starts me with a snack and a nap, with rolling over and crawling, with pulling up and taking a step, long before I'm able to run in the stride of being the new creation He is making.

Is He worthy of all blessing and glory and honour? He is!

_____

Call and response and some above lyrics by: Andrew Peterson and Ben Shive

Quiet Your Heart: Breathe

Who knew standing in a steamy bathroom post-shower and listening to a lullaby in the mid-morning could be a spiritual experience? In the natural light filtered through the shower curtain the Divine met me where I was. . . Tired. 

Tired of signing paperwork and making phone calls; of learning, learning, learning all I can about loans, escrow, and house-buying; of shopping for flooring, appliances, and furniture; of learning about blood types, figuring out lists of all natural nursery items, what foods to eat and avoid; and of turning in my hours and thinking of all the to-do lists from work, the bank, the birth centre, our new house, and our current cabin. 

My brain and body are fatigued from all the stimuli. And I feel like I've been shortchanging the little person growing inside my womb, totally unprepared for their arrival, as we try to buy a house for them to grow up in. 

Enter a cosy bathroom, after a much-needed shower spent listening to part of a book about pregnancy and natural birth. Stopping after the most recent chapter, I turned on a playlist of lullabies by JJ Heller. A couple of weekends ago I pulled up the list, remembering enjoying it some months ago. I found myself crying over shredded zucchini and raisins while making muffins. Today I found myself tearing up and taking some deep, needed breaths to ground my body and connect with the little body inside. . . And the One who made them both. 

We pray together every evening, and often there are things I'm bringing to the Lord during the day. . . But today I badly needed to whisper out my fears. What if I'm not there for long to be a hand for our child to hold? What if something happens to me or Nick? How will the other spouse keep up the mortgage and parent? What if there's something wrong with baby or they develop some horrible disease?  

Normally I'm not a 'catastrophiser', but sometimes all the stress builds and builds and I finally realise it's there in the form of unspoken, unnamed fears. To-do lists I can check off, e-mails I can reply to, and I can always learn new things. But I can't always keep those nagging fears at bay. Oftentimes I don't even realise they've taken up residence in my heart or the back of my mind. They're what wake me up when I'm tired and want to still be sleeping under the cover of darkness. Somehow at that moment, though I start praying, I can't stop tossing and turning.

Yet when I pause in a moment of reconnecting with myself, my Creator, and the little person He has created in me, I can name those fears. I can hand them to the Lord, asking Him to direct the course of my life, of my marriage, of our parenting journey, and of our little one's story. My next breath isn't guaranteed, nor am I sure of a long life ahead. I never have been sure of those things—I simply expect the breaths and the days to go on and on. There's no way for me to know the number of either. Rather, I know that God will care for me, for my husband, and for my baby in the way we each need.  

When I first listened to the lullaby playlist, tears welled up as I thought of singing them over baby, wanting to root them in trust and my love for them.  But as I breathed out my fears, I began to hear the songs from my Heavenly Father to His tired, weak, fearful child who needed to be reminded that I can trust in His love for me and those I love.

Quiet your heart
It's just a dream
Go back to sleep

I'll be right here
I'll stay awake as long as you need me
To slay all the dragons
And keep out the monsters
I'm watching over you

My love is a light
Driving away all of your fear
So don't be afraid
Remember I made a promise to keep you safe

You'll have your own battles to fight
When you are older
You'll find yourself frozen inside

But always remember

If you feel alone
Facing the giants
And you don't know
What to do

My love is a light
Driving away all of your fear
So don't be afraid
Remember I made a promise to keep you safe

~ JJ Heller, I'll Keep You Safe

I sit beside the fire and think of times there were before. . .

Dear Aaron,  

Today is Labour Day. The end of summer in some ways. And the start of Semester all those years ago. I remember riding down in a Summit van with you and Elizabeth, and Noelle... All of us carefree and loving life.

Today the September breeze is rustling through the trees, the nuthatches are calling their repetitive little sound, and there are Colorado peaches and homegrown zucchini on my kitchen counter. The weather is autumnal, reminding me the seasons are starting to shift (so thankful!), yet there is much life bursting out in flavours and sounds and colours. The persistent scrub oak saplings out the kitchen window are nearly bleached yellow with the sun shining through them. There are strawberries waiting for me to make them into preserves, to go alongside the fried apple preserves I made last night.

Today is Labour Day, mellow with sunshine and life—and full of memories. Seven years ago on Labour Day it was your last day under the sunshine. And though time and marriage have shifted many things in me, it does not mean I don't grieve. That I don't think of you every day. Especially today. 

This year I started the Hobbit journey a little early and am nearly to "The Breaking of the Fellowship," though it is only the beginning of September... Though I'm familiar with Bilbo's poem from the Fellowship, I didn't realise how fitting it would be for today until I reread it this morning: 

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;
 
Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.
 
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.
 
I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.
 
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

"I think . . . Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were," in so many ways sums up much of our time at Semester. Though there were also "still so many things [we had] never seen," we got to see so many amazing things together. And for that, I'm grateful. 

The Lord is kind, my friend. I wish you had been able to fight the good fight and continue in the Land of the living, knowing His goodness through your own eyes. I wonder what songs and stories and poems you would have dreamed up... I hope you're saving all of those you're working on now to share with us when we get to the Kingdom.

"I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for returning feet and voices at the door."

Story Me the Stars

{A Reflection on Genesis 15}

 

Adonai brought me outside,

opened a window in time 

and said:

"Story me the stars—

tell me their days,

their sacred season dance."

We walked, robed in silence

and He probed:

"Story me your children

yet to come,

the ones you think

I haven't given,

who will stand here

in a sacred season—

I will hear their cry

under these heavens,

like I hear you now."

"Amen, LORD," I whispered—

my eyes opened to see grace

as my dwelling place,

dwelling deep in His eyes.

I believed...

though no baby of mine

yet cried under the tent

of the starry sky.

*Photo from the Negev, Israel

Won't You Stay with Me?

Dear Aaron,

Once I asked a friend who lost her sister to cancer, "Does it ever get easier?" Her gentle answer was that grief changes, sometimes mellowing, sometimes roaring up at you. I've found that grief is only "easier" if you ignore it and dive into something else...to the exclusion of deep soul reflection.

Perhaps it's only natural that I miss you extra in December and January... The end of Semester and around your birthday. The end of Semester was so traumatising—losing our community to go back to people who didn't understand how much we had all changed... Going back to greyness—both in external and internal landscape—where there was nothing in particular to work towards or hope for. You, Reese, Chelsea, and to a degree Stephen were my lights in dark places when all other lights had gone out. In each of you was the light of the Messiah, spilling out onto anyone in your paths. I'm so thankful for that Light in the greyness; for your steady friendship those handful of years.

As we descend into the darkness of the Advent season, and the physical darkness of Winter, I can't help thinking of the Christmas you visited me in Indiana. It was exhausting, you were a bit flighty at times, and it is one of the sweetest memories I have. When you read Tolkien to me while sitting on the floor in my old room. You, lounging on the woodpile and reading. Walking in the frigid cold and trying to sort out our sore souls, our loves, our hopes... Both of our hopes were dashed, and somehow I missed what could have grown into more with you. Now that I'm married, I don't grieve that loss so strongly, but I wonder what course our lives would have taken if things had been different. They aren't different, though...and so, I miss you.

One day this autumn the song below came across my playlist. Without warning, grief spilled out of my heart and eyes. All I could think of was you...

Medicate, meditate, swear your soul to Jesus

Throw a punch, fall in love, give yourself a reason

Don't wanna drive another mile wonderin' if you're breathin'

So, won't you stay, won't you stay, won't you stay with me?

It seems like there just weren't enough reasons left... You had fallen in love once, if not twice, and that didn't work out. Maybe you threw some punches. You spent time meditating on Scripture and music and good books...you even had medication. And I know that your soul was and is sworn to Jesus. Jesus is enough to make all wrongs right in His time.

So, the words I wish I could have told you and had you really hear are these:

Oh, you're spiralin' again

The moment right before it ends, 

you're most afraid of

But, don't you cancel any plans

'Cause I won't let you get the chance 

to never make them. . . 

 

Don't let this darkness fool you 

All lights turned off can be turned on

I'll drive, I'll drive all night

I'll call your mom

Oh, dear, don't be discouraged

I've been exactly where you are

I'll drive, I'll drive all night

I'll call your mom

I have called your mom—many times—and it has been a help to us both. But I just. miss. you. You were the one who had changed because of Semester. You are the one I shared life experiences and memories with. And I wish I could see who you could have become. You could have filled books with poems and the air with songs. For now, they reverberate, hanging in the air...invisible, just unheard. So close, but impossibly far—the curtain of death hanging between us. 

Oh friend... The darkness may have fooled you for a moment, but the light turned off can be turned on. The Light of Jesus never goes out...and it spilled out of you into dark places. The Light goes on and on, lighting up lives you never knew—but one day you will.

In many ways you have and will always stay with me. For that, I'm deeply grateful. <3

Call Your Mom — Songwriters: Todd Sherman Clark / Noah Kahan

Wedding!

 For a long time I didn't expect to get married... 

...But on Hobbit Day, I married the man I love. 💕    

           

               

         

So many friends and family travelled from all over to celebrate with us (and help with all those last minute things)... It went so fast! But it was beautiful.

 

 

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow

Praise Him all creatures here below

Praise Him above ye Heavenly Host

Praise, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost

Come, Dance in Joy and Sit with Sorrow

How is it September? In just two weeks I get to marry my sweet man! 2024 has been a full year—for me, a mostly happy year. A quiet year on my blog and in my journal. I'm often too busy or tired to reflect. . .or too happy to write from the depths of my soul. Too happy? Shouldn't our great joys be just as deep as (or deeper than) our great pain?

Recently I've thought that perhaps there are so many sad songs because sorrow is achingly personal. Sadness is so raw that we must process it in writing, in poetry, in song. And our happiness is much more 'in the moment'—to be lived here and now. The immediacy of our delight and wonder is what makes it (in part) so wonderful. It's not something we sit around pondering, it's something we live. It's what makes all those memories we treasure and ponder over when we've lost something or someone. 

But the truth remains that I resonate with sad songs much more than with happy ones. In fact, I prefer sad songs and minor chords. One of my friends once told me they had experienced too much trauma and sadness to listen to sad songs... And my response was, I've experienced enough loss, sorrow, and abandonment to know how deeply I need sad songs. 

You don't write the blues because you've lived a cheery life. Writing, playing, or just listening to music is one of the best ways to process our emotions. Swelling joy, patriotism, sadness, regret, nostalgia, longing, and even the hope of good to come can be felt in music. We feel it in sweeping scores in films. We find a camaraderie with others when we share a love for the same musician. Sometimes we are the closest to our truest selves late at night, listening through a stream of songs alone, absorbing the music and lyrics.  

After reflecting, I find that I write more, feel more deeply, slow down, and am quieter when I'm sad. And when I'm happy, my blog and my journal stare at me as I cuddle up with Nick for a movie night or head out the door to spend time with friends... As I live the life I've been given and make the memories that are so precious to me. 

I have felt guilty for not writing more, because writing does truly help me process both the good and the sorrowful. The happy and the horrific. And let's be real, we live in a very broken, fallen world that is full of tragic news, of fear, of deep pain. I want to remain present to myself and my emotions, both glad and hard. There is so much life to be lived, experienced, pondered... And lately I find myself doing that pondering aloud with Nick or Kasey or my family a lot more than with my journal. I process the pain aloud in prayer in my kitchen or on my porch or on a walk... And in the arms of this man who is not afraid to cry in front of me, to cry with me, and maybe even to cry for me. 

Sorrow Will Remain Faithful to Itself

Dear Aaron,

I often find that someone else has said (or sung) much better what my heart wants to express but I can't tame into words... You are ever in my heart, my friend.

__

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;

And though this loss has wounded others too,

No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.


____

“For Grief” by John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings (Doubleday, 2008).

Granola, Roots, Reality, and Creeds

I jokingly asked my sister how she felt about me becoming 'granola'—washing my scalp with honey and making my own toothpaste with four simple (safe) ingredients. The more I hear about what ends up in our food (even in the flesh of produce, which should be 'clean' but is poisoned), the more granola I become. My sister's reply was that she was fine with my granola-ism, as long as I wasn't becoming [politically] liberal. 

My working hypothesis is that everyone who loves and serves God should be both conservative and liberal...not in the realm of politics, but in many areas of life: 

Be a liberal giver of time and money and love. 

Conserve water and electricity and land. 

Liberally feed your neighbour—feast in times of joy, and in times when joy seems too far away to recall. 

I'd like to say we should be conservative when it comes to how often we give our opinions and complain... But the thing is, while it's fine to have varying opinions, absolute truth still exists and should be our standard—and the Bible talks about doing everything without arguing or complaining.

Something I've been thinking about in recent months is discerning truth from lies, knowing a genuine, untainted product from something cheap, imitation, or poisoned. It seems harder and harder to find candles, clothes, toys, furniture, textiles, or even food made from sturdy, real things—things untainted by plastics, poison, heavy metal, toxins, etc. I can't just go to a different store to find clothes made out of real fibres—woven, pieced, and stitched by someone who was not forced into labour as a child or as a religious/political slave. Even if I could somehow sew my own clothes (trust me, no one wants to see how that disaster would go), where is the fabric coming from? It feels impossible to find solid, real things in our ever-shifting world.

The same goes for those in governments, agencies, big tech, big pharma, media, education, etc. It seems that their native tongue too often is lies—to the point that they can't stop themselves from believing their own deception. Who can we trust? Are the people we trust in giving us the whole truth, or just the portion of information they want us to see to paint a certain image of a person or our world? It all feels surreal.

So I find myself coming back to what I know is true and real and beautiful: Jesus the Messiah is King and Lord. Of all of creation itself. Of individuals. Of His Kingdom in Heaven which is breaking into Earth... Jesus is real—the Son of God the Father, co-equal in power and majesty with Him and with the Holy Spirit. When we say the Nicene Creed at church every week it is a moment of time that transcends clock time, rooting me and those all around me into reality. There is real wood. Real earth. Real flesh. Real blood. Real Truth. Realest of real Life. 

It's been a long while since I've practised the spiritual disciplines, and my soul feels it. I need solitude. I need simplicity. I need quiet. I need prayer. I need to meditate on Scripture—to savour it, not just to hear it and have it snatched away by the cares of each day.

Ephesians tells us to dig our roots down deep into the soil of God's love, being filled with the fullness of the Father:

"...that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17-19 ESV)

Let us be rooted and built up in Truth. To rest in the Real. To cultivate depth. Let us meditate on God and who He is...

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, 

Maker of Heaven and Earth, 

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, 

the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,  

begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.

Through Him all things were made.

Who for us men, and for our salvation He came down from Heaven,

And was incarnate by the Holy Spirit through the Virgin Mary,

And was made man.

For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate; 

He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day He rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; 

He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 

He will come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead, 

and His kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life, 

Who proceeds from the Father and the Son. 

Who with the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.  

—Amen.