Tag Archives: courage

Wake up! Rise up!

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Easter 4C, May 11, 2025.  The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Acts 9:36-43. He gave her his hand and helped her up.
Revelation 7:9-17. He will guide them to springs of the water of life.
John 10:22-30. It was winter.

O God of life, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

During Eastertide, our lectionary offers no lessons from the First Testament. The effect, I think, is to overemphasize a break between Jesus’ followers and Jesus’ religious heritage. Instead, we have passages from the Acts of the Apostles’ romantic accounts of the beginnings of Christianity, written toward the end of the first century about “the good old days.” Today it’s Peter raising Dorcas from the dead with a line that is almost exactly the same as what Jesus said to raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead: arise or wake up, come alive! In other words, Peter was ministering just like Jesus. I love line, “he gave her his hand and helped her up.” Continue reading →

Our souls tell out.

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Advent 4C, 22 December 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Micah 5:2-5a. And he shall be the one of peace.
Hebrews 10:5-10. In burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.
Luke 1:39-56. Blessed is she who believed.

O God of she who believed, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

I have always loved Mary, the mother of Jesus, the Godbearer, more than it seems a good Protestant girl should. It is Mary who draws me to the catholicity of the Episcopal Church. I’ve never understood her to be meek or mild, and I don’t know how anyone who reads Biblical accounts of her could understand her that way either. I don’t know how anyone who hears the words of the Magnificat, which are taken from the Song of Hannah in the Book of Samuel, could hear anything but a religious and political manifesto sung to overthrow tyrants and systems of oppression. Some years ago, the Rev. Nancy Rockwell, wrote an essay entitled, “No More Lying about Mary,” which captured what I have always believed about Mary: she was brave, and she was strong.

Rockwell writes, “God chose a spunky woman” to be the mother of Jesus. She points out that nothing in the text indicates Mary’s age or sexual status, just just that she is not married and has not previously delivered a child. Here’s her description: [1] 

Mary is unmarried when the angel comes. The angel’s invitation and her independent decision tell us Mary does not need permission of clergy –or her parents-– to become pregnant. Mary, wanted by God, according to the angel, for her bold, independent, adventuresome spirit, decides to bear a holy child – for a bold agenda: to bring the mighty down from their thrones; to scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts, to fill the hungry with good things and send the rich empty away. This is Mary: well-spoken, wise, gritty. Traveling alone, like every prophet before her, she sets out on her …journey, to [her kinswoman] Elizabeth’s house, to declare her agenda. There will be more journeys: to Bethlehem; to Egypt and back [according to Matthew], to Jerusalem [at least several time until Jesus was]…crucified.

After Jesus’ death, according to Christian history, Mary traveled northwest to Ephesus, where she lived out the rest of her days, in a city well-known for the professional leadership of women.

 It seems to me that Mary’s courage doesn’t imply an absence of fear. I imagine that she left Nazareth and headed for the hills driven first by a desire to get out of town and to check in with Elizabeth, whom the angel Gabriel had said was also unexpectedly pregnant. Perhaps this was before Mary was convinced that any of the news she had was good. Perhaps she wasn’t sure any of her news was good until she was greeted with joy and declared blessed by Elizabeth: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Notice the circularity of the manifesto:  the poor will become rich, and the rich will become poor. “Where is the good news in that?” the rich might wonder. Well, as soon as one becomes poor, the blessings start to flow again. The description is not of a particular cataclysmic event or end, but of the circle of life. I’ve experienced this firsthand. Perhaps you have too.

This most fantastic story is of the only two pregnant prophets to have a scene in the whole Bible, and with uninterrupted dialogue! Joseph wasn’t there, and Zechariah had lost his ability to speak. Reflecting on the scene this past week as I worked on this sermon, I felt stirred to retell a story from my young adulthood.

Back in the early 1990’s, I was beginning the difficult and frightening process of coming out of the closet…as a church lady who felt called to the priesthood. Coming out as a Lesbian, even in the hostile territory south of the Mason-Dixon line, was much easier than coming out as someone imagining ordination in the Episcopal Church. Most of my straight church friends and queer unchurched friends thought I was insane. Looking back on that struggle, however, all of it seems easier than coming out of the closet as someone who has had mystical experiences, sleeping and waking.  I have never wanted people to think of me as the religious nut that I probably (okay, actually) am. Perhaps some of you have suspected it all along, but I am always reluctant to offer evidence from the pulpit.

My journey from Vice President of Human Resources for a large corporation based in Virginia to seminarian at Episcopal Divinity School in Massachusetts included some real danger and sizable emotional and financial cost. I risked everything, although I’m glad to say that I didn’t lose everything, I did lose a lot. I’m still paying for it; and I’m still benefiting from it. The love and support of other people made it possible, but what really propelled me forward during those early years was a series of vivid dreams. They were so compelling that I wrote them down; I studied them, analyzed them in therapy, and prayed with them. That’s not really the religious nut part. The things I had dreamed, however, started appearing in my waking life. Scenes and activities in my dreams that I had understood as symbolic, metaphorical but not real, started actually happening in the months and few years that followed.  I kept that mostly to myself. As I settled into life in Massachusetts, the memories of the dreams stayed with me.

In one of the dreams, I had returned to St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic parish school run by Franciscans in Joliet, Illinois, which my brother and I had attended for four years of elementary education. Back then, it wasn’t just my status as a Protestant that kept me from having a turn serving at the altar at daily Mass; Catholic girls were not allowed either. But in my dream, a guide encouraged me to journey into the sacristy and then to the altar. The invitation was thrilling, and I accepted with great joy. Then I was told that the whole improbable journey to being permitted to stand at the altar was powered by the surprise discovery of a spring of living water, a source of energy deep within, underneath the structure (the building); and I was invited to walk downstairs to see that wellspring. I awoke with a renewed sense of wonder and courage, well-being and thanksgiving.

Almost fifteen years after I had that dream, in 2007, when I had been a priest for just a few years, I traveled to Palestine and Israel with a group from Parish of the Epiphany in Winchester. Part of the pilgrimage included a stop at The Church of the Visitation at Ein Karem, in the Judean hill country. There in the courtyard is a stunning sculpture of Elizabeth greeting Mary, arms outstretched, with their pregnant bellies nearly touching. Behind the statue is a wall covered with ceramic plaques painted with the opening words of the Magnificat: “My soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”, in more than thirty languages, which makes it abundantly clear that this song applies and belongs to everyone, to the whole world.

The Church of the Visitation stands on the site traditionally identified as the location of the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah. There are Byzantine ruins of a chapel there and subsequent buildings, which have crumbled through the centuries. In 1937 the Franciscans built on top of the ruins in order to preserve the remains of previous chapels found there. When I walked into the chapel, a guide invited me to walk down several flights of stairs to see an ancient wellspring. It was the very wellspring I had seen in my dream so many years earlier. I really don’t have words to describe my shock at seeing it. I was overwhelmed and thrilled by the holy mystery of the fulfillment of what had been shown to me in a dream.

In Luke’s story of this pair of pregnant prophets, I have always heard a story of allowing God’s blessing in difficult situations, of claiming “the privilege of doing hard things,” as one vestry member has called it. I have experienced this Gospel story as giving us an example of how we might be inspired, filled with a spirit of holiness, and how our souls might enlarge or magnify the view of God in the blessed and the stressed situations of our own lives. In this story, each of us is given words to say, “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord,” and in our own languages to repeat whenever we receive an untimely blessing: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”  I also hear this as a story of coming out, as acknowledging having received inspiration and  blessing, not only bearing it, but sharing it: telling it out loud. It occurs to me even more deeply that in gestating and giving birth to inspiration, we are called to more than a private experience. We are called also to a form of coming out.

One of the things I’ve learned, as I reflect back on the movement for LGBTQ rights and recognition over the last decades, is that what has made all of the difference is individuals telling their stories: coming out. I believe the Episcopal Church, indeed Emmanuel Church, each one of you (whether you are here for the first time or the umpteenth time) could grow stronger and strengthen others by coming out as who and Whose you are, more and more. The song of Mary applies and belongs to everyone. And as anyone who has come out about anything knows, coming out isn’t ever a one-and-done. Once you come out, staying out becomes a lifetime practice of coming out over and over and over again.

Perhaps you remember the beautiful words of the 13th-century prophet and mystic Meister Eckhart, who wrote this:

What good is it to me
if this eternal birth of the divine Son
takes place unceasingly
but does not take place within myself?

And,
what good is it to me
if Mary is full of grace
and if I am not also full of grace?
What good is it to me
for the Creator to give birth to [a] Son
if I do not also give birth to him
in my time and my culture?

This, then, is the fullness of time:
When the Son of God
is begotten in us. 

I want to add, ‘This, then, is the fullness of time: when our souls tell out the greatness of the Lord.”

  1. The Rev. Nancy Rockwell, “No More Lying about Mary:,  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/biteintheapple/no-more-lying-about-mary.

 

Reparations

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Proper 21B. 29 September 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

Esther 7:1-6,9-10; 9:20-22. Days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.
James 5:13-20. Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise.
Mark 9:38-50. Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.

O God of beauty, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

So I will get to our hell-fire Gospel lesson in a minute, but not before I say something about Queen Esther: beautiful, brave, patient, and smart, who used her position and gifts, and risked her own life on behalf of her people. This mighty woman’s name appears more times than any other woman in the Bible, and she speaks more than any named women except for Judith. She is the ideal against which Herodius was compared  (in the Christian testament of the Bible) and was found to have utterly missed the mark when a king, intoxicated by wine and the beauty of a woman, offered to do anything she wanted. Queen Herodius coached her daughter to ask for the murder of John the Baptist. Queen Esther asked that she and all of her people be saved from a scheduled massacre. Esther’s courage, compassion, and integrity and the quality of her leadership changed her wartorn world and brought peace. 

 Esther is a great leader to have in mind when we hear this reading from the Gospel of Mark. You might recall the disciples have just been arguing amongst themselves about who is greater. Jesus has said, whoever wants to be first must be the servant of all. Now a random person has been casting out demons in Jesus’ name. Someone who isn’t even one of Jesus’ group of followers, is casting out demons in his name; and they think, that’s gotta stop. John tells Jesus, “You can’t let just anybody use your good name as their authority. You’ve got to have some standards Jesus!”

And Jesus’ response? He says, don’t stop him; whoever is not against us is for us. Once again, it’s opposite day with Jesus in Mark. (later, Matthew 12:30 has Jesus say the more familiar, “Whoever is not for me is against me.”) But according to Mark, it’s whoever is not against us is for us! Here it’s not about tests of identification or criteria for membership. The disciples may still not get it, but Jesus has actually learned something from his encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman. He has learned that God’s healing grace is bigger, deeper, and wider than previously thought . Don’t try to place restrictions on it, or on people who are delivering it. If demons are being cast out in Jesus’ name, if people are being healed in his name, if hungry and thirsty people are being offered food and drink in his name, it’s all good. Anyone working for just distribution of resources and liberation from oppression is on the same side. Invariably this raises the question, what about people who really are against us? That question must have come up for the Gospel of Matthew’s community because Jesus says, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” That’s a hard one.

But back to the Gospel of Mark. Right away, without missing a beat, Jesus reminds his disciples that they need others; they depend on those with whom they minister for the basic necessities of life. Boy, that’s also hard one isn’t it? “Whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you carry the name of the Anointed (the Christ), I swear to you, such a person certainly won’t go unrewarded!” Whoever assists you will be honored in God’s name. Here’s a lesson for any of you who’d prefer to not be on the receiving end of help from people whom you are trying to help! I know you’re out there, because I know myself and how uncomfortable I get when someone I am trying to help wants to offer me help. Jesus is teaching here about mutual ministry. Jesus is teaching here about the realm of God.

Then Jesus admonishes them by saying, “Don’t you put stumbling blocks in the way of beginner seekers.” (That’s what little ones means in the Gospels. It could be a reference to the one casting out demons or a reference to the ones offering water; that’s not clear.) In other words, don’t scandalize people who are doing good deeds even if they are not following Jesus the way you are or you think they should. Don’t try to stop someone who is offering to care for you when you think you don’t need their help. One of the things that people who like to give often forget is that giving and receiving are as connected as breathing in and breathing out. It’s quite deadly to do one without the other for very long. 

This reading from Mark suggests just how highly we should regard a relationship with the Holy One. Jesus uses pretty strong language, indeed radical language, to say that if any part of us blocks our right-relationship with the Divine, get rid of it; it’s not worth it. It’s clear to me that the examples Jesus gives about getting rid of a body part that causes someone to trip someone else up are not to be taken literally. Judaism never advocated self harm, and Jesus’ followers did not practice it either. Jesus is using hyperbolic language to assert that whatever gets in the way of a relationship with God, let it go. It would be better to live into the realm of God without some part of ourselves, than to live in the burning trash heap outside of the city walls, a garbage dump place called Gehenna, here translated as hell. By the way, you might think, based on the pop culture notions of Christianity (assisted by our lectionary), that hell is a pretty big issue for Jesus or a pretty big issue in the New Testament. It’s not; there’s really not that much talk about Gehenna. Gehenna was a real valley outside the city of Jerusalem, where rubbish was gathered and burned; it was a metaphor for separation from God. Most of the thought and talk of hell by Christians was developed in the imaginations of later Christians after the New Testament was written. Remember that the Apostle Paul, argues eloquently that nothing whatsoever can separate us from the love of God. 

Then we hear Jesus reminding his followers about salt. Everyone will be salted with fire. (Other ancient manuscript copies of Mark say that everyone will be salted with salt.) Salt is good, and this fire is testing, refining fire. Salt is good, but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can it season? Have salt within yourselves (in this tasteless world), and keep peace in one another. That’s one of my favorite lines in the Gospel of Mark. Have salt within yourselves, Jesus said. I can think of at least eight reasons that salt would be a good thing to have within ourselves. I’ve recited these before; maybe you remember them? Here they are:

  • In Jesus’ time salt was used as currency, as a form of money.  Salt and salary come from the same root.
  • Salt has healing qualities.
  • Salt has preservative qualities. 
  • Salt has seasoning qualities; it enhances flavor.
  • Salt has cleansing or purifying qualities.
  • Salt was considered to be a portent against evil forces. People still throw salt over their left shoulder to keep the devil at bay.
  • Salt was a sign of permanence.  Eating salt with someone in Biblical times meant you were bound to them in loyalty, in a covenant of friendship.
  • Salt thrown into a kiln when pots are being fired will change and beautify the surfaces of the vessels in ways that are unpredictable and can’t be completely controlled.

Whether Jesus was thinking of just one, several, or all of these reasons, what he was saying was have value within yourselves and everyone else. Keep peace with one another. 

In the realm of God (or Love) everyone will be salted with fire. In the realm of Love, everyone will be subject to refinement with unpredictable and uncontrolled beauty! Have salt in yourselves, and keep peace with one another. Notice that Jesus is saying to the group, have value in yourselves,  plural. You are all valuable, he is reminding them, those of you in the in group, and those outside the group, all. Remember that; hold on to it; have value in yourselves, have healing and preservative qualities, have the spice of life in yourselves, have cleansing and protective qualities, have distinctive character,, and keep peace with one another. Keeping peace means more than just keeping one’s mouth shut. Take your lead from brave Queen Esther, who bravely spoke out on behalf of herself and her people. 

Keeping peace, shalom, is much deeper, more profound than keeping quiet. Keeping peace is definitely not at the expense of valuing oneself or one’s community. And it’s not valuing oneself or one’s community so much that we cannot work for peace. It’s both/and, as we like to say. It’s carrying the tension of knowing that each one is so beautiful and so valuable, this community is so beautiful and so valuable, that conflicts that arise must be resolved. Being at peace is not about avoiding conflicts, it’s about resolving conflicts that inevitably arise in community and between communities. What I hear Jesus saying is: in the realm of God everyone is beautiful in unpredictable ways. Seek and you will find that beauty hiding in plain sight.

I was thinking about this on Friday when I signed my name to a public statement confessing the sin of racism and calling for atonement, repair, and reconciliation from predominantly white churches in metropolitan Boston. Faith leaders were signing as individuals, not on behalf of our congregations, but it’s easy enough to find out for whom I am working. The lead organizers, The Rev. Kevin Peterson and the Rev. John Gibbons, told us that we were doing something that had never been done:  an interfaith group of white faith leaders signing a confession and call, witnessed by an interfaith group of black faith leaders. Will it stir up conflict? Yes, it already has. Will it make a big difference or a little difference? I don’t know yet, but for me, it was the right thing to do. For me, it was a step forward in building and repairing relationships that will be essential to engaging more deeply in the work of reparations in the City, of holding the salt and passing the peace. I urge you to also take steps forward in the work of building and repairing relationships in the City of Boston and beyond.

 

 

Doing the Next Brave & Compassionate Thing

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Proper 12B, 28 July 2024. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • 2 Samuel 11:1-15.  As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.
  • Ephesians 3:14-21.  That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
  • John 6:1-21. Ego eimi mey phobeisthe.

O God of mercy, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today we hear the two stories that were left out of last week’s Gospel lesson from Mark. For some reason, the lectionary assigns the Gospel reading for today from John’s version. If you’d like a homework assignment, read all six feeding stories in the four Gospels side by side! Given how very different the four Gospels are, the versions of these stories are remarkably similar. Mark’s version is characteristically a little rougher, John’s is more polished. Mark’s Jesus is in the thick of conflict and confusion all along; for John, Jesus’ feet never really touched the ground. The story of Jesus feeding a huge, hungry crowd is one of the most significant stories about Jesus. It’s rare that a miracle story appears in all four Gospels. I still think that the lectionary should have stuck with Mark this week, though, because it’s complicated and confusing to mix and match Gospel stories. It means shifting gears rather wildly from one literary world to another, each with different assumptions, strategies, purposes, and even audiences. [1] Some may wonder whether the repetition and similarities of the feeding stories make them more likely memory and less likely metaphor. I don’t know; but for me, the stories are equally powerful either as memory or metaphor.  Continue reading →

How Sorrow Turns to Joy

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Easter 3A, 23 April 2023. The Very Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

  • Acts 2:14a, 36-47. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away.
  • 1 Peter 1:17-23.  Love one another deeply (or constantly) from the heart.
  • Luke 24:13-35. Were not our hearts burning within us?

O God of our aching and burning hearts, may we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may and cost what it will.

In today’s Gospel portion, we heard the Easter story of two on the road to Emmaus – one named Cleopas and the other is unnamed, which allows me to understand that the other was a woman. It’s a beautiful account of the art of resurrection, about how, even when we doubt it, we don’t understand it, we can’t imagine it, and we certainly are not looking for it, we might come to recognize that the Risen Lord can be walking along with us when we are overcome with grief and deeply afraid. The Risen Lord can be right in front of us without our knowing it. The Risen Lord can be in the midst of us when we share our food. Before I go further down this Road to Emmaus, however, I must go back to our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Continue reading →

On the Fear of Stepping into Ourselves

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All year long, I have navigated resistance that seems to get heavier by the day, at times feels like depression; shape-shifts as needs be; takes on oh-so-many elusive forms; mutters in my ear that I can’t do it, that I shouldn’t do it, and even questions what is the point of doing it; finds excuses, blames others, drains me of all willpower to go forth. Resistance!

Continue reading →

Silent Appreciation

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One thing I am coming to learn is to not be afraid of hearing the word no. Even if I feel certain someone will say no, when it comes to inviting someone to participate, I am learning to ask anyway. Not only because it is nice to be included and thought of even when you don’t plan on participating, but also sometimes the answer is yes! This week I made it my mission to go out of my comfort zone and ask people to join my artmaking even if I feel certain they will say no.  While I did get many no’s at common art on Wednesday, I also got so many more yes’s than usual because I put myself out there and was okay with hearing no. This has become a theme throughout my time at common art. I find whenever I push myself to ask anyway, I am so happily surprised by people’s willingness to join in.

Continue reading →

A Shade Braver

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Proper 28B.  14 November 2021. The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz

1 Samuel 1:4-20. The Lord remembered her.
Hebrews 10:11-25. Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds.
Mark 13:1-8.  This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.

O Eternity, O Word of Thunder, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

We are nearing the end of our liturgical year. This is the last we’ll hear from the Gospel of Mark for another three years. It’s highly ironic to me to pray the beautiful words of the opening collect about scripture (to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest) on a day when our appointed Gospel lesson is the beginning of the apocalypse in Mark. Episcopalians generally don’t like dwelling on the fact that we have apocalyptic scripture. We don’t know what to make of it, and we’d rather not have to try.  Next Sunday, which is the last Sunday in our liturgical year, we will hear a passage from the Passion narrative of Gospel of John. It is a jarring lectionary move; you’ll have to keep your knees bent slightly so that you don’t topple over! Continue reading →

Enduring Mercy & Forgiveness

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Proper 22A
October 4, 2020

Exodus 20:1-4,7-9, 12-20. So that you do not sin
Philippians 2:1-13. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call in Christ Jesus
Matthew 21:33-46. Listen to another parable

O God of mercy and forgiveness, may we have the wisdom, the strength, and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth – come when it may and cost what it will.

I have a little exercise for you. Many of us are out of shape from not being able to sing together, so I’m going to say some opening words of various hymns and see if you can complete the first line –do it at home if you’re joining us by livestream. Those of you at home can even sing your parts! If I say: “Amazing grace,” you’d know that the next words are: “how sweet the sound.” If I say: “The Church’s one foundation,” you’d say: “is Jesus Christ her Lord.” If I say: “O God our help in ages past,” you’d say: “our hope for years to come.” If I say: “Immortal invisible,” you’d say: “God only wise.” If I say: “This is the day that the Lord has made,” you’d say:, “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” One more time: “This is the day that the Lord has made. (Let us rejoice and be glad in it.)”
Continue reading →

Courage & Compassion

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Third Sunday of Easter
April 26, 2020

Acts 2:14a, 36-47 For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away.
1 Peter 1:17-23 …Love one another deeply from the heart.
Luke 24:13-35 Were not our hearts burning within us?
O God of our aching and burning hearts, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Three weeks into Eastertide, we are still hearing stories of the first day after the Sabbath, the day when the women found the tomb where Jesus had been laid to be empty. It’s a different Gospel from the last two weeks, and the stories are different. In Luke, Jesus’ first appeared not to Mary Magdalene, but to two of his followers who were headed out of Jerusalem to a place called Emmaus – one was named Cleopas. The other, a woman, I imagine….what was her name? Oh, it doesn’t say. Well, anyway. It’s a beautiful account of the art of resurrection, about how, even when we don’t understand it, we can’t imagine it, and we certainly are not looking for it, we can come to recognize that the Risen Lord can be walking along with us; the Risen Lord can be right in front of us without our knowing it, opening our eyes to the scriptures and opening our hearts to thanksgiving for shared meals. When they hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the eleven, they heard that the Risen Lord had also appeared to Simon (presumably Simon Peter), but there’s no story about that.
Continue reading →