Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, “I am he.” – Mark 13:5

Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.  – John 18:37

Beloved of God,

November is one of those transitional months and, within the church, it is packed with meaningful events and worship opportunities, beginning with the observance of All Saints Sunday on November 4^th and ending with Christ the King or Christ Reigns Sunday, the final Sunday of the church year, on November 25^th.   In between these bookends come Veterans and New Member Sunday on November 11th and Thanksgiving Eve on November 21st.  (You can read more about each one of these opportunities for worship and special aspects associated with them in the pages below.)

During November our scripture readings anticipate the return of Christ, when his reign will come to complete fruition and all that God has intended for this universe will find fulfillment.  The Bible speaks in veiled language of “signs” that will help us know that this day is upon us, but these signs are shrouded in mystery, and history has shown that it’s best to avoid prognosticating.  Many a date chosen by someone as the definitive “day of the Lord” according to some scheme or another has come and gone.  The work of those who follow in the footsteps of Jesus continues in ways both mundane and sublime, and we know where our energies are best invested: loving God and neighbor.

Within society at large, Election Day is also a November staple.  November 6^th looms particularly large this year as voters weigh in on the first two years of the president’s term by way of congressional contests and battles over initiatives.  Mid-term elections have historically provided a mid-course correction and power shake up in Washington DC, and this year more than most there’s a lot in skin in the game for all sides of the political spectrum.   Alongside the national issues there are significant state issues to be decided.  Some, like I-1631, ask us to look further into the future than most, and to consider what kind of future we want for our planet’s inhabitants.

The standard political mantra asks voters: “Are you better off now than you were two years ago?” But we who have come to know Jesus and have been trying to follow his Way know that this old, tired question is inadequate.  Instead of focusing on self-interest we have learned to ask after the welfare of our vulnerable neighbors.  Whatever the outcomes of this particular election, the issues on our local, state, and national agendas and the deep-seated challenges that accompany them will continue to require passionate resolve if they are to be fruitfully addressed.  We all benefit when we set the bar for our leaders very high.  Remember to vote!

How can we be faithful as individuals and as a community of faith in these busy, turbulent, and challenging times? One starting point is being clear about our mission as a congregation. Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, is the center of our life together.  When we invest our energies in loving God and serving neighbor, we demonstrate to others and to ourselves just who we are and what we stand for.  Being grounded in grace allows us to set our sights outward; to venture beyond ourselves, our needs, our desires, and to thus discover what God is already up to in the world around us. Knowing this, we then join God in that good work.  If there’s any work more important than this, I don’t know what it is.

As I stood with thousands of others in vigil outside of Temple de Hirsch Sinai last week singing ancient songs of hope, I was reminded how life-giving the power of a unified community can be.  In a world full of violence, with tweets and sound bites run amok, God used that gathering to affirm LIFE, and to remind us all that HOPE and LIGHT cannot be extinguished no matter how dark the night.

Pastor Erik

“Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

– Matthew 11:28-30

Beloved of God,

October brings us into the fullness of the autumn season. But while the Earth (in the northern hemisphere at least!) is going about the business of yielding up leaves and harvests in preparation for the fallow season to come, we in the church are gearing up for meaningful ministry. Our Journey of Faith process begins this month and Confirmation classes resume.  Special Sundays are part of this month’s offerings: St. Francis/CROP Walk on Oct 7; a special meeting on Initiative 1631 on Oct 14; Offering of Letters and Quilt Sundays combine on the 21st; and Reformation Sunday comes on 28th.  Adding to this full menu are the series of annual banquets or auctions hosted by local ministries and non-profits. (You can read about all of these in the pages that follow.)  When it comes to family schedules, after school activities are ramping up, fall sports are in full swing, and schools are hosting curriculum nights and PTSA meetings—and did I mention autumn traditions like a trip to a pumpkin farm, and the hoopla (and sugar-high) that accompanies Halloween? Whew!

At times, gathering ourselves to enter this fuller than full rhythm can feel like sliding onto the saddle of a bucking bronco—grab on tight, for you’re in for quite a ride! Given these realities, we do well to remember to breathe…to make choices that support sanity…to pace ourselves.  So as you read about the myriad opportunities embedded within this October edition of Peace Notes, I invite you to enter the stream at a pace that will be energizing rather than depleting.

Toward that end, it seems fitting that The Feast of St. Francis on October 7 serves as a doorway to all that follows.  The Francis we’ve come to know did not begin life that way.  Like many of the young men he ran with during his youth, he was more interested in partying than attending to his father’s business.  Ask Francis what he wanted to be when he grew up, his answer would have been “a knight.”  In the age of the Crusades boys were captivated by the weapons, the armor, and the lure of winning a glorious name on the battlefield, and Francis was right there among them.  But his first real taste of war put a chink in his armor, and left him wondering if he had made the right choice.  After his release he had a dream in which Christ seemed to be calling him back to the battlefield as a soldier in the pope’s army, so he procured a horse and new armor and set off for Rome.  But while he was still on his way a second dream clarified the first.  Christ was calling him back home, to a future that was yet to be revealed.  The next morning, he mounted his horse and turned it toward home.

Outside the Basilica of St. Francis in Assisi a large sculpture captures that moment of turning.  There sits Francis, the would-be knight, still arrayed in his battle armor, slumped down in his saddle, his head and that of his horse, too, drooping, their spirits dejected and downcast.  His dream of glory has died, and he is headed back to an uncertain future.  The introspection that followed changed the trajectory of his life.  He renounced his wealth and became “wedded to Lady Poverty.”  Francis has become known around the world for his humility in relying on the power of God, and for his spirit of gladness and gratitude for all of God’s creation, and for his compassion for the poor and outcast of the world.

In the aftermath of the most divisive Supreme Court battle in a generation, I could use a good dose of St. Francis. I need to hear his voice calling me back to center; pointing me to the Christ who promises rest for all this struggling, burdened world. The issues and challenges facing our families, nation and world won’t go away on October 7—but the spirit and the groundedness with which I engage them might change.  At least, that’s my hope.  And I want to meet you there, in that place.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.” And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good.  And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.”  – Genesis 1:11-13

Beloved of God,

Paleo-botanists tell us that the first seeded plants started appearing on Earth during the late Devonian Period, about 385 million years ago.  Today, seed plants are some of the most important organisms on Earth and life on land as we know it is largely shaped by the activities of seed plants. From the coniferous forests of the Cascade and Olympic Mountains, to the orchards of central Washington, to the grain fields of Eastern Washington—even our backyard gardens—it’s impossible to imagine life as we know it without these life-sustaining harvests.

According to Genesis, the abundance of Earth’s seed and fruit bearing plants and trees paved the way for more complex creatures to emerge. God’s pronouncement on all of this? TOV!  The NRSV translates this “GOOD,” but I prefer the translation proffered by a former professor of mine: WOW!

Jesus used seeds as a lively image for the reign of God: It is “as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.” (Mk 4:26) And remember the mustard seed?  There is great mystery and extraordinary potential wrapped up in these tiny packages.

The seeds for what would become Peace Evangelical Lutheran Church were sown by Pastor and Mrs. Otto Karlstrom and volunteers from Gethsemane Lutheran Church, who organized Sunday School classes in the Gatewood Hill area in the early 1920’s. They tilled the soil for what later would become the seedbed into which PLC was planted twenty years later. Forming faith continues to be a central priority for our congregation.  The seeds we sow now in the lives of our children will produce a harvest that will keep Jesus’ message of abundant life visible, alive and relevant both in our time and in succeeding generations. This is why we’re kicking off the yearlong commemoration of our congregation’s 75th Anniversary under the theme SOWN SEEDS on Rally Sunday, September 16th. On five occasions over the next 15 months we’ll be lifting up aspects of our congregation’s mission and ministry under the overarching theme: OUT OF MANY – ONE, leading to culminating events on the final weekend of November 2019.  Our theme reflects both the history of Peace, which has received significant groups of folks from other area congregations (1st Lutheran, St. James, Calvary), as well as many recent individuals, couples, and families who have moved to West Seattle from other parts of the city and nation, and have come to call Peace home. It also reminds us of what God is about in baptism—taking diverse and varied individuals and knitting us together into the one body of Christ.  How does your experience at Peace connect to this theme?  It will be fun to explore our answers to this question during the coming months.

September is a great time to renew our relationships with each other and to reconnect with our Lord.  I’m looking forward to seeing you as September unfolds, and to discovering with you how the Spirit will engage and equip us for our continuing work of planting seeds!

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.

– Mark 6:31

Beloved of God,

We all know what if feels like to be harried; to see the accumulation of half-completed chores and unfinished projects pile up at home or at work while we try to get a handle on another day’s demands:  work, childcare, laundry, meal planning, sports, lessons, volunteer activities, exercise, emails, lawn care, and on and on.  If you’re like me you are perpetually longing for that “light at the end of the tunnel” when the desk will be cleared, the chores will be done, the “honey-do” list will be completed, and there will be space for one huge SIGH, a day to kick-back and to savor life.

In The Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye the milkman sings about how he would use that “down” time—a time he imagines would surely be his, if only he “were a rich man.” The sweetest thing of all, he croons, would be studying “the holy books with the learned men seven hours every day.” We all have dreams about how we would use our time if we only had the time.  The point, of course, is what we choose to do now with the time that we have; how we pattern our lives now, not in some imagined world that, in reality, we will never realize.

When the apostles returned from the missionary journey on which Jesus had sent them, they were full of stories and experiences they wanted to share about what they had seen and done and taught.  Mark tells us that their ministries met with some success. [6:13] Jesus was well aware of the demands of ministry, and how their enthusiasm and growth had to be matched with time away, time to unwind, to reflect, and to receive.  The journey onto which he had invited them, after all, was not a sprint but a marathon.  So, after he listened to all they had to share, he invited them to “come away and rest a while.” It is a pattern into which he invites us as well.

One of the great gifts from the tradition of our Jewish forbearers is the Sabbath.  A day each week of community supported down time, a pattern whose origin the tradition traces back to the very beginning of creation and God’s own actions. [Genesis 1].  Sabbath is a time for resting, a time for rekindling our spiritual life, reconnecting with family, giving rest to beasts of burden, being restored through a rhythm that will enable life to carry on for the long haul.  In our chronically overworked society, Sabbath time must seem to most of us like a distant dream, yet the fact is for century upon century real people in real life have practiced that tradition.  Maybe it’s time to take it back.

My own pattern has been to carve out concentrated “sabbath” time during the summer.  This year, I’m mingling my time away from the parish with opportunities to share in the ministries and unique settings provided by Camp Lutherwood and Holden Village.

Whatever your plans are these two months, I hope that you, too, will take time to heed Jesus’ call to “come away and rest for a while.”  I’ve found that it’s often during the time away that the things that have been hazy in my life, the question marks, the puzzles, become clarified.  I pray the same for you.  May God grant you refreshment this summer ~ whether you are home or away, whether we meet here at the Lord’s Table, at a mountain trailhead, or on a ferry bound for places beyond.  May God’s deep peace inhabit your soul.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

“Even the sparrow has found a home and the swallow a nest

where she may lay her young, by the side of your altars, O LORD of hosts.”

– Psalm 84:3

Beloved of God,

It was summer at Holden Village, 1991, and I was at work in the Registrar’s office when some children came in with a scrawny, featherless baby bird, which had fallen from its nest.  It was so small and vulnerable in their little hands, and irresistibly cute, of course, that immediately I started to bond with the little creature.  Our search for the bird’s nest came up empty-handed, so we decided it was up to us to do our best to care for it.  A cardboard box was acquired and grass added to make it as nest-like as possible.  But what would we feed it?  As word about the bird spread a volunteer pledged to bring fresh maggots from the woodlot each day, and so my unlikely role as surrogate parent began.  Every day as I went to work, I brought the bird with me in the box.  And every night I carried it home again.  I wasn’t at all sure what I was doing, but the daily diet of wood worms seemed to agree quite well with our young robin, and as long as this was the case, we were happy.

Soon after we began raising him, I saw him working to stretch his growing wings, and I took to calling him STRETCH. The name stuck.  About a week after Stretch became part of our Village flock; he became a fledgling and began making short flights from one corner of the registration office to the other.  This complicated things.  He was entering a new phase, and expecting him to remain quietly in his cardboard box was not going to work. On top of that, now that he was growing up, a deeper challenge presented itself. How would he learn to find food for himself?  On the one hand, he presumably had instincts to guide him in that regard, but on the other hand, it was becoming clear that instinct alone would not guarantee his survival in this wilderness setting.

Now fully fledged, Stretch was ready to make his way in the world—only he didn’t have the right kind of modeling to make that transition successfully.  Instead of hanging out in the Registration office, he’d grown accustomed to hanging out on the balcony of our chalet, and when he spied me coming up the path toward home, he’d glide down, land at my feet, and look up at me expecting a handout.  Short of getting down on my hands and knees and poking my nose at the ground looking for worms, I had no idea how Stretch was going to learn to get food on his own!  I tried a few heart-to-heart chats with him, but to no avail.  Finally, one day, he flew off and didn’t return.  I like to think that he fell in with a good peer group of robins, and learned from them the ways of being a bird.  But I’ll never know.

In 1918 Congress passed the Migratory Bird Treaty Act to protect birds from wanton killing.  To celebrate the centennial, National Geographic Magazine is partnering with the National Audubon Society, BirdLife International, and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in declaring 2018 the Year of the Bird.  We are joining that bandwagon and focusing our three week SEASON OF CREATION this June on OUR AVIAN KIN.  Yes, you might say our congregation is “going to the birds”! 

We have an exciting line up of guest speakers for each of the three Sundays, beginning June 10th, including our own Jim Hunt, acclaimed author and naturalist Lyanda Lynn Haupt, and S’Klallam Native story teller Roger Fernandes.  In addition, we’ll have an Audubon “bird kit” on hand all three weeks to help us explore birds that are common to our part of the world.  I hope will be part of it all—and will bring a friend!

In 1962 Rachel Carson’s landmark book SILENT SPRING opened our eyes to the vulnerability of birds to DDT and other pesticides.  But more than that, it reawakened us to the interrelatedness of all species who call Earth “home” and kick-started a new attitude toward nature. Whether one is a being of the avian variety or a being of the human variety, getting connected to a community that can provide safety, nurture, guidance, and modeling is essential.  That’s something we each try to do in each of our own households, and it’s what we strive to do here at Peace.  The more we learn about that natural world that God declared “VERY GOOD,” the more we can clearly see its sacred nature.  “Even the sparrow,” the Psalmist reminds us, “has found a home and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, by the side of your altars, O LORD of hosts.”

Blessings abounding,

Pastor Erik

“Christ fights with the devil in a curious way—the devil with great numbers, cleverness, and steadfastness,

and Christ with few people, with weakness, simplicity, and contempt—and yet Christ wins.”

– Martin Luther, Table Talk

Beloved of God,

Our journey this Easter season is about conforming ourselves and our lives to Christ; living our lives following his lead.  The language we’ve heard these weeks from the Jesus of John’s gospel—LISTEN TO VOICE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD; ABIDE IN THE VINE—is Christ’s answer to the question, how do we live in this world with all its cruelty, malice, competition, and greed without being defeated and deflated?   We follow him past troubled waters; we cling to the SOURCE; we rest in, we draw our lives from, we ABIDE in, the VINE.

Simple, right?  Of course, many things that on the surface are simple to understand are hard to do.  So it is with the life to which Christ calls us.   There’s a reason we talk about “practicing” our faith—because we never achieve perfection, we never finally arrive; we’re always in the process of becoming, we’re always on the way.

On the final page of his RULE, St. Benedict calls upon monastics to, “with Christ’s help, keep this little rule that we have written for beginners.” Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister, in her commentary on The Rule of Benedict, writes:

“Benedict does not believe that the simple reading or study of spiritual literature is sufficient. He tells us to keep this Rule, its values, its concepts, its insights.  It is not what we read, he implies; it what we become that counts.”

Every major religious tradition, says Chittister, calls for a change of heart, a change of life, “rather than for simply an analysis of its literature.” The Jewish Hasidim, for instance, tell the story of the disciple who said to the teacher,

“Teacher, I have gone completely through the Torah. What must I do now?” 

               The teacher replied, “Oh, my friend, the question is not, Have you gone through the Torah?

               The question is, Has the Torah gone through you?”[1]

Habits shape us from the inside out—for good or for ill. We need a community to help us dwell in habits that shape us toward the good, that help us discover and remain connected to the voice of the Good Shepherd and to the image of God within us, especially during those times when we sheep are surrounded and vastly outnumbered by wolves.  We follow Christ, we abide in the Vine, because in spite of our weakness in the face of all that the world throws at us, Christ wins.  This is the meaning of the cross and resurrection.  Christ finds us even in our failure—in our godforsakeness—and grafts us back on himself; leads us home.  We are never beyond the reach of the Risen One!  Death has no power over us when we abide with him.  Yes, we lose our way; life prunes us.  Yet even then, the experience of being “cut back” is an invitation to dwell ever more deeply in the Vine.

We often speak about habits during the season of Lent.  But the Easter season is also a time for cultivating habits that will keep us tuned to the Shepherd’s voice; connected to the Vine.  The most foundational of these habits is coming to the Eucharistic Table, for there the fruit of the Vine is poured out, tasted, consumed—becomes part of our very being.  What more powerful witness is there to abiding in the Vine than sharing in the fruit of his life for us and with us—and finding the life we share tilted once more toward him, that is to say, toward our neighbor?

Pastor Erik

[1] Joan Chittister. The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century.  (New York: Crossroad, 2010) pages 302, 303.

“Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified.

He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 

But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee;

there you will see him, just as he told you.”

– Mark 16:6-7

Beloved of God,

The final steps of our wilderness journey lead us, with a handful of faithful women, to the edge of a rock-hewn tomb.   This is not how it’s supposed to end!   Our leader, dead.  Our hopes and dreams, crushed.

But then—do our eyes deceive us?—the stone has been rolled away! And a messenger announces the news:

“You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here.”

Mark captures this intersection of defeat, surprise, and alarm so powerfully in this “unfinished” ending to his gospel. (Mark 16:1-8)  Resisting the temptation to neatly tie loose ends together, Mark affirms the truth that the reality of Jesus’ empty tomb takes sorting out.  The church has been about that sorting ever since Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome made their journey that morning to anoint his body.  We never cease asking the questions – What does it mean that the tomb is empty? What does it mean that Christ was raised from death?  One thing is certain—it cannot mean business as usual.  It cannot mean that we go about our lives as if his resurrection never happened.

Something fundamental is at stake in how we answer the questions raised by the empty tomb—and answer them not with words alone, but with our lives.  Let’s keep sorting it out together, as we meet the risen One at Table and Font, as we go about embodying Christ’s work of reconciling and healing the whole universe.  Christ is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

Pastor Erik

“Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,

it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

– John 12:24

Beloved of God,

This journey of Lent is a journey through wilderness territory, and this year we’re hearing about some contemporary experiences of wilderness that are prominent within our culture.  Oh, how deeply our world stands in need of healing!  (If it feels like a bit of a slog, imagine Israel doing this not for 40 days but for 40 YEARS!)

While within the three year lectionary cycle this is the year of Mark, during Lent and Easter we get generous doses of John.  On the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Sundays in Lent when we hear from John, Jesus gives us three different metaphors for talking about what his work is about.  (1)  He is about the deconstruction and reconstruction of access to God; (2) he is God’s love offering to the world who bring the promise of life eternal; (3) he is God’s seed which must die in order to fulfill its true purpose.  By giving us these images, Jesus is inviting us to use our theological imagination to see where God is at work engaging and transforming wilderness into Promised Land.  Whatever our particular experience of wilderness may be, Christ is there working to transform it, bringing new life.  In order to do so, something first has to die.

Ten years ago, on one of the last bits of land ringing the Polar Sea, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened for business.  Its mission: to house backup copies of all the world’s food crops – 2 billion seeds in all—and to protect those seeds for thousands of years into the future.  Built on the island of Spitsbergen, the vault lies under hundreds of feet of permafrost and Arctic rock, so that even in the worst-case scenario of global warming, the seeds will remain frozen naturally for up to 200 years. Part of an unprecedented effort to protect our planet’s rapidly diminishing biodiversity, the first deposits into the vault contained 268,000 distinct seed samples–each from a different farm or field in the world.  Together, they represent the most comprehensive and diverse collection of food crop seeds being held anywhere.[1]  If seed crops are lost due to natural disasters, war or simply a lack of resources, the seed collections from Svalbard will be available to reestablish those crops, to help maintain plant diversity and, ultimately, to feed the world.

We human beings do everything we can, using all the technology we can, to extend life, and often with mixed re­sults. But the voice of Jesus in Lent declares: “Unless a grain falls into the earth and dies, it cannot bear fruit.” Jesus says this soon after entering Jerusalem for the final time with his disciples to celebrate Passover.  Enemies both within and beyond his inner circle are scheming for his arrest, and every move he makes is under suspicion.  It’s in this context that Jesus lifts up an image from the fields to tell those with him about the nature and necessity of what’s about to hap­pen, about his own impending death. “Unless I die,” Jesus seems to say, “my life, my way, my testimony, cannot bear fruit.” More simply, “The life I offer the world can only arise from my death.”

The millions of seeds cached in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will never fulfill their purpose or potential while they’re sequestered away there in sealed, moisture-proof pouches.  It’s only when catastrophe comes, and those seeds are brought out from the permafrost and buried in the earth that they will fulfill their true purpose—because only then will they germinate, only then will they sprout, only then will they grow to produce new fruit, new seed, a new harvest, to keep humanity alive.  As we journey with Jesus to the cross and empty tomb, our calling is to put our trust in God’s logic, God’s way, which in this case is akin to nature’s way.  By journeying together, we can support each other in that process.  That gift of community, of consolation, of companionship, is a gift that keeps us going in the hardest of times.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

[1] For more about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, visit their official website: http://www.nordgen.org/sgsv/

“Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves.

And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white.”

– Mark 9:2-3

“And immediately [after his baptism] the Spirit drove him out into the wilderness.”

– Mark 1:12-13

Beloved of God,

From the mountaintop to the wilderness. That’s our trajectory this month.  The season of Epiphany culminates with brilliant light on the Mount of Transfiguration as Jesus holds council with Moses and Elijah while Peter, James and John try to make sense of what they’re experiencing.

Some things are more challenging than others to put into words—and this seems especially true when numinous moments break into ordinary time and we find ourselves awestruck, disoriented, or overwhelmed.  These experiences are often fleeting, leaving us wondering whether what we experienced really did happen, or if it was that extra glass of wine or something else that lay behind the otherworldly encounter.

In his book, Convictions, in the chapter entitled God is Real and is a Mystery, New Testament scholar Marcus Borg—perhaps best known for theological approaches to the Christian faith that challenge traditional ways of understanding God and Jesus—shares a mystical experience he had later in life while flying on a plane from Tel Aviv to New York.  The experience, he recounts, lasted about 40 minutes, the longest and most intense experience of this kind in his life.  Suddenly, he recounts, the light in the plane changed and became golden, and everything was filled with exquisite beauty.  Under the influence of this spiritual moment Borg saw that everyone looked wondrous—even the man pacing the aisle who was perhaps the ugliest man Borg had ever seen—even he was transformed in that golden light.

Last night our family went to hear the St. Olaf Choir at Benaroya Hall.  Entwined throughout the program were texts and music—ancient and modern—which wove the same golden thread and sublime conviction into a seamless whole.  There was a setting of St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun, powerfully embroidered by violist Charles Gray; and a song based on the words of Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í faith, testifying to God’s “most mighty grace…infused into all created things,” and calling us to reconcile differences and “with perfect unity and peace, to abide beneath the shadow of the Tree of His care and loving-kindness.”  I experienced what I can only name a deep resonance and solace throughout the evening, and particularly so with the setting of William Blake’s poem, Can I see Another’s Woe? [1]

Can I see another’s woe, and not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another’s grief, and not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear, and not feel my sorrow’s share?

Can a father see his child weep, nor be with sorrow fill’d?

Can a mother sit and hear an infant groan an infant fear?

No, No! never can it be! Never, never can it be!

And can he who smiles on all hear the wren with sorrows small,

Hear the small bird’s grief and care, hear the woes that infants bear,

And not sit beside the nest, pouring pity in their breast;

And not sit the cradle near, weeping tear on infant’s tear;

And not sit both night and day, wiping all our tears away?

O, no! never can it Be! Never, never can it be!

He doth give his joy to all; he becomes an infant small;

He becomes a man of woe; he doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not though canst sigh a sigh and thy maker is not by;

Think not thou cast weep a tear and thy maker is not near.

O! he gives to us his joy that our grief he may destroy;

Till our grief is fled and gone he doth sit by us and moan.

The God to whom the choir testified is a compassionate companion to the suffering; a LOVE-infused Lord who blesses us and all creation with unfathomable grace; a beautiful Savior. This God not only rightly evokes our songs of GLORY and PRAISE; this God invites us to take up the song in our own lives.  This God beckons us beyond petty arguments and turf mongering to a place where forgiveness reigns; a place of mysterious, wondrous light which illumines the Other whom we encounter across the table, across the street, and within our own selves, revealing all to be Beloved.

The artistry of the choir allowed this union of text and melody to touch us in the audience in profound ways.  At the end of the concert, after a long ovation, the choir’s conductor Anton Armstrong spoke heart to heart with us about the universal language of music and its power to unite people of every race, tongue, political affiliation, and creed.  His message, and the gift we received last night, is that music breaks down barriers; it grounds us in unity and civility. “If we could go to Washington DC and teach those politicians how to sing together,” he said, “the world would change.”

I heartily agree. In the words of Henry Van Dyke,

“Music, in thee we float, and lose the lonely note

Of self in thy celestial ordered strain,

Until at last we find

The life to love resigned

In harmony of joy restored again;

And songs that cheered our mortal days

Break on the coast of light in endless hymns of praise.”[2]

Experiences such as these remind us that beneath all the surface issues which dominate our days, our agendas, and our conflicts is an abiding light, and pulsing heart that names us BELOVED and calls us into community with all living things.

Lent begins on February 14th this year—Valentine’s Day.  I like the pairing.  It calls us to carry this heartfelt conviction with us as we move with Jesus from that Mount of Transfiguration into the Wilderness of Lent.  Lent is a season for returning to our basic covenant with God of baptism, and entering into disciplined patterns that lead us, by the Spirit’s guidance, back to the one who is the ground of our being.  This year our Green Team is offering a new approach to the old rhythm of fasting during Lent—a CARBON FAST.  We human beings have begun to awaken to the deeply negative and consequential impacts our patterns of consumption are having on creation, and our responsibility to address those impacts with faithful actions.  Perhaps LENT this year can be a time when the LOVE associated with Valentine’s Day is expanded beyond human relationships to encompass more of God’s beloved creation.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

[1] The piece mingles melodies written by J. S. Bach and Martin Luther, in a setting by John Muehleisen.

[2] To Music. Choral setting by David Conte.