The decision to cancel Sunday morning services on August 28 was grueling (and delayed until the latest possible moment). In the end, your Board and staff leadership listened to the myriad voices telling New Yorkers to "stay in for safety." Even those who lived close enough to walk to church, we were advised, would put themselves in harm's way due to flying debris and the possibility of falling, shattered glass. Your well-being was our first concern; thus, canceling was the only loving and reasonable decision to make.

It did present an interesting dilemma for me as a preacher. Let me explain. Last spring I announced that I would be preaching one May Sunday on the topic "The Dark Mile." I worked on the sermon for a while, but then something occurred that made me change topics. I decided to put the intended message "on hold" till August. So, I re-scheduled it for August 28. That week I continued working on it until it was written and ready.  Then came Hurricane Irene. Services had to be cancelled. All of a sudden, in baseball terms, "The Dark Mile" was 0-for-2. Something tells me not to make a third try. Maybe it's a sermon that simply needs to be unceremoniously retired.

However, I am going to let you write your own sermon on this topic. Create your own images, your own faith statements. The sermon was to have been based on Psalm 23. So, read that psalm first, then do your own reflections on the scripture lesson alongside the following story from which the intended sermon got its name................

The journalist, Richard Holt Hutton, and a friend made a journey to Lake Lochy in Scotland (reputed to be the country's most beautiful lake). As adventurers, they intentionally traveled a path no one ever chooses. It is called "the dark mile." It winds through a ravine so deep that all sunlight is obscured. Even in the day, the darkness is so deep that you can look up and see stars, as if it were midnight. The pathway is uncertain. At places, heavy vegetation hangs close overhead, sometimes hitting the faces or dripping water on the heads of those who pass. Slowly and laboriously, Hutton and his companion made their way through until at last they saw the glorious lake before them. At that moment, Hutton's friend said three things in succession: "I can see why no one chooses to walk the dark mile." "Wasn't it interesting, that when it got dark enough you could see the stars?" And, "The lake looks even more beautiful because of what we went through to get here."

Okay, have at it. You become the preacher of the sermon that never quite made it to the Marble pulpit.  Let the words of the psalm and the observations of Hutton's friend take you where God leads. Pray about and deliberate upon images and meanings unique to you and your own life's journey. And, should you write down any thoughts and feel led to share, I would love to see what came to you. I will be interested to know if and where your ideas resonate with what I had planned to say. Who knows? Maybe "The Dark Mile" as a corporate sermon (though unspoken) may ultimately become meaningful than if Irene had not passed through.

You were surrounded by my prayers during the long weekend of the storm... even, of course, as you always are.