The sermon I didn’t deliver today

I stood at the pulpit this morning with notes in hand, eyes on the empty pews, and then—nothing. Not a word. Just the hum of the heater and the way light slanted through the stained glass like it was trying to say something I couldn’t catch. I sat down instead. Wrote this instead: three paragraphs about doubt as a kind of prayer, about how silence isn’t failure when you’re just learning how to listen. It felt truer than anything I’ve said in years. Maybe that’s the real service.