Karin read the joint email from the city’s schools one more time.
The principal of the secondary school wrote that they would very much like to continue the tradition of holding the end-of-year ceremony in the church, but that her speech must not contain any religious elements whatsoever. Not like last year, when she had ended by wishing the children a pleasant and blessed summer.
One word.
Blessed.
“Then why are you holding the ceremony in a church,” Karin muttered as she typed her reply, “if you want to restrict my right to say what lies closest to my heart—the very thing I have been called to say in my role as a priest?”
She smiled to herself.
She always built her sermons around the infinite love of the cosmos. She intended to do the same this time.
Karin practiced a form of spirituality that not even the Church of Sweden quite knew what to make of, but her message had always been the same: to bring people together, not divide them.
When the day arrived, she was unusually nervous.
What was expected of her and what was about to happen were not necessarily the same thing.
She reminded herself that light had always made people uneasy.
Karin welcomed everyone into the church, dressed in its summer finery. Once everyone was seated, she closed the doors and, her legs trembling slightly, climbed into the pulpit.
“When I stand here before you,” she said, “I am dazzled by your light. The inner light that shines so brightly it can sometimes be difficult to see. But I can see clearly that the future is bright because of you.”
She let her gaze wander across the room.
“You have chosen to celebrate an ending and a beginning here. You are ending a school year and stepping into a summer of unfamiliar things. You do not need to go to church to be loving, and you do not need to be here to believe in something greater than yourselves. But sometimes people need to gather in ways they otherwise would not, to acknowledge what brings us together.”
She paused.
“Light.”
The children sat quietly.
“You celebrate your birthday once a year. You come here once a year. Days like these are for letting go and replenishing yourselves. You are concluding a year of worldly learning in a place that can remind you of something larger. The cosmos dissolves boundaries.”
She smiled.
“I hope you at least catch a glimpse of your own greatness. I don’t mean followers or comments, but your inner light.”
She stepped down from the pulpit.
“To see yourselves and one another more clearly, we are going to do a simple exercise.”
Karin demonstrated with her hands.
“Stand like warriors. Follow the movements and sweep away whatever no longer serves you. What truly belongs with you will remain.”
They followed her lead.
“Now take each other’s hands. Form an unbroken chain.”
The church fell silent.
“Close your eyes if you wish. Think of something you are grateful for. Say it silently or aloud. Feel that gratitude moving through you, like a wave of light.”
Karin walked slowly through the church, between the rows.
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