“Thus says the LORD: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you perceive it?”

– Isaiah 43:18-19

Beloved of God,

We know them—people dominated by narratives from their past; narratives that hold them captive; narratives from which they are unable to extract themselves.  There may be good reasons for this.  And yet, staying stuck in old patterns exacts a price on the present, and can prevent us from seeing the promise and the possibility of an alternative future.  We know them, and at times we are them.

While I was in Minnesota recently, visiting my mother Shirley in her final days, I was simultaneously going through personal items at my parents’ home as we prepared to put the house on the market.  The first night there, I found a neat pile of items from the past that had been collected and set aside.  A few of them delighted me—the “lost” penny collection from my childhood—including two WW2 vintage aluminum pennies—which I was convinced my younger brothers had raided to buy candy at the corner store.  And the wonderful handwritten notes (in fine cursive script!) I’d received from Montana classmates after moving to Minnesota in the midst of my 4th grade year.  Those I brought home.

There were other items that didn’t make the return trip to Seattle.  Most of these consisted of letters I had written to my parents through the years, some of them during times of significant trial.  As I began reviewing them I could feel the weight of those trying times begin to bear down on me once more.  After a quick phone call to a confidant, they found their way into the recycle bin.  The relief was palpable.  I would not allow bygone events to wriggle their way into my present or my future.

The prophet Isaiah says as much to God’s people as they prepare to leave the land of their exile and head home:

“That old material that once dominated your lives?—leave it behind. I’ve got something better in store for you—in fact it’s unfolding right now, and if you pay attention you can see it!” 

This is God’s message to us all in the death and resurrection of Christ: those old narratives and conflicts, the old prisons, the personal and collective hells that have kept us captive have been breached once and for all.  God is doing a new thing, and it is marvelous in our eyes!  The future is OPEN!

Holy Week and Easter Blessings!

Pastor Erik

“Judging others makes us blind, but love gives us sight.

By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and

to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”

– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship

Beloved of God,

Their names run the gamut from the 16th century English poet John Donne to the two 18th century slaves-turned-abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth; from the 5th century’s Saint Patrick to the 20th century’s Saint Oscar Romero.  What do they have in common?  In each case, their commemoration date or feast day on the church calendar falls on a Sunday during Lent this year.  Add to these the name Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor and resister during Hitler’s 3rd Reich, and we end up with a season peopled by followers of Christ who demonstrated uncommon courage through acts of love and discipleship in the face of fear and institutional injustice.  Look for their names, their faces, and their deeds to be woven through our worship life as the season of Lent unfolds.

Each of these extraordinary persons lived out their vocations in full understanding of their need for community; and each has something to teach us about the value of community in our 21st century world—a world which, though more socially “connected” than ever, is marked by estranged relationships and the inability to talk across “enemy” lines.  The life stories of these diverse witnesses inspire us to see our own with fresh eyes.

It was the poet and pastor Donne who penned the lines:

               “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…

any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” [1]

This is the reality we seek to live each week when we gather as God’s beloved community around the Eucharistic meal.

Our family has felt the embrace of this beloved community in a profound way over the last month in the aftermath of Kai’s sledding accident.[2]  Church community, school community, neighborhood community, medical community—all of them, all of you—rallied to weave a dense layer of prayer and care around our family in the face of trauma.  We lift our hearts in gratitude to God for you—tangible emblems of God’s ever present, compassionate accompaniment.

There are many examples of ongoing trauma besetting our world.  By refusing to allow fear to control or silence them, these ordinary people named above became extraordinary witnesses, telling the truth, breaking down barriers, challenging the status quo, putting their own lives at risk while leading others to freedom.

Minutes before being assassinated while presiding at Holy Communion in San Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero told his congregation: “Those who surrender to the service of the poor through love of Christ will live like the grain of wheat that…only apparently dies. If it were not to die, it would remain a solitary grain.  The harvest comes becomes of the grain that dies… We know that every effort to improve society above all when society is so full of injustice and sin, is an effort that God blesses, that God wants, that God demands of us.” 

If Bonhoeffer is right—that judging blinds us but love gives us sight—then perhaps this Lenten season can become an opportunity for practicing less judging and more loving.  The traditional disciplines of Lent—prayer, fasting, almsgiving—sets us up beautifully to do just that, and to follow our Lord on a pilgrim’s journey that will lead us from death to life.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

[1] From MEDITATION XVII, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

[2] By God’s mercy, Kai’s healing is progressing well.

“Oh, the house of denial has thick walls and very small windows

and whoever lives there, little by little, will turn to stone.”

– Mary Oliver

 “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall…”

– Robert Frost

Beloved of God,

One of the great motivations for us to move forward with our plans to “refresh” our sanctuary and narthex with new carpet, paint, lighting, furniture, and windows, is to make our building space and facilities match the bright, vibrant and welcoming nature of our community.  Phases 1 and 2 of this project call for us to focus on spaces within the building, but conversations will inevitably lead us to evaluate the outside of our building as well—the face we project to the neighborhood and community beyond our doors.

We’ve done quite a bit in recent years—via God’s Work-Our Hands projects, patio events, raingardens and cisterns, Tiny House build, ramps, little library, solar panels, HUB work—to give neighbors a view into the priorities of this congregation that gathers at 39th and Thistle.   When we replace the westside narthex windows (Phase 2) with ones which are more energy efficient and which allow us to visually connect with the world outside our building (and visa versa), we’ll be taking another step toward seeing our mission more clearly.  That mission to “venture beyond ourselves” (Vision Statement) calls us to always be looking for ways to connect with the people and world around us; ways to join in the work God is already doing there.

While we’ve been moving forward with our facility plan, the news cycle in the greater world has been dominated by conversation about the need—or not—for a wall along the U.S. Mexico border.  Poet Mary Oliver, who died last month, reminds us that walls not only separate people and things, they damage the souls of those who erect them. (See excerpt of her poem above.)  The next line of her poem reads: “In those years I did everything I could do and I did it in the dark— I mean without understanding.” Entrenched positions put blinders on us from which there is no escape.

During this Season of Light we are called to follow Christ beyond our personal or corporate entrenchments. To remind us how difficult this can be, as February begins we hear the story of Jesus’ sermon in this hometown of Nazareth. At first, the community seems to welcome his message – proclaiming liberty to captives and letting the oppressed go free sounds perfectly fine to them.  But the ensuing conversation devolves into an argument about insiders and outsiders and the next thing you know, the hometown crowd is ready to throw Jesus over the cliff!

St. Paul, who planted many congregations throughout the Mediterranean world and who struggled to help them grasp the implications of being grafted into Christ, spoke powerfully about the importance of reconciliation, which at its heart is about breaking down barriers so relationships can be restored. In Ephesians he writes: “For Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups (Jew and Gentile) into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.”  And in 2 Corinthians Paul testifies to the God “who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”

In his poem, Mending Wall, Robert Frost takes us with him as he and his neighbor go through their annual process of “setting the wall between us” which weather, man, and beast have breached. In the middle of this exercise, Frost wonders aloud why they do it.  “Good fences make good neighbors,” comes his neighbor’s reply.  And Frost challenges: “Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn’t it where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.  Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out, and to whom I was like to give offence.  Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, that wants it down.”  In the end, Frost concludes of his neighbor, “He moves in darkness as it seems to me, not of woods only and the shade of trees.”

A good deal of the opposition Jesus experienced in his ministry—including in his hometown—had to do with how he pushed the presumed boundaries of God’s circle of care outward, so that it encompassed those whom law and tradition had walled out.  When at his crucifixion the curtains of the Temple are torn in two from top to bottom—the last wall between God and humanity is breached.  But we human beings are good at building and maintaining walls and fences.  And so the work of erecting them in locations both new and old continues ad nauseam.

Yet, however much we find ourselves tilting toward the task of erecting or reinforcing barriers that would divide, Jesus shows us—and great poets remind us—not to mindlessly accept the convention of wall building, but to bend will and body instead to the task of their dismantling.

Peace,

Pastor Erik

Dr. Eldon Olson, retired pastor and member of Peace, is the author of this month’s Pastor’s Pen column.

“Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come!”

I was staying for few days at our Seminary in Oakland, California several years ago and happened to be there for the first weeks of Advent. On the first day of Advent, instead of the regular morning Matins service, the entire Seminary community met in the chapel to ‘stir up’ the ingredients of Christmas Fruit Cake – the old-fashioned kind with all sorts of fruits, candies, nuts, and spices. They observed this annual ritual of fruit-cake production since each of the opening prayers for Sunday worship for the weeks of Advent begins with the petition “Stir Up!” (“Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come!”, “Stir up our hearts, O Lord!”,  “Stir up the wills of your faithful people!”, and again “Stir up your power and come!”).  Although I’m not a big fan of fruitcake, the ritual of beginning Advent with a festive community appeal to “stir up” left a lasting impression.

The phrase “stir up” could have at least two nuances. On the one hand, it could mean to get organized, to start up a momentum, an impulse that gets things going. This suggests some sort of collection, gathering, or assembly – something that calls otherwise unfocused and diverse people to get their collective act together. This is certainly part of Advent’s message – it’s time to awaken to a new year, a new collective attention to the season of beginning, birthing, or new life. Wake up! Come together! Pay Attention! Those of you who would prefer to slumber through winter’s hibernations,  “Stir up!”

John the Baptizer, who enters our Sunday texts as Advent begins, brings the more jarring meaning to the call to ‘stir up!”.  His intention is to provoke a revolution, incite a reformation, instigate a rebellion.  “Stir up!”  “Repent!” shouted to a crowd to arouse them to action.  When this message is conveyed by the strange figure of John it is a loud harangue by a long-haired and unwashed prophetic character.  Clad in hippie-type tatters of animal skins, the call isn’t simply to come together for a new beginning – it’s much more provocative.  It’s more like Paul Revere, riding through the night with news that a rebellion is upon us – not just another new beginning, but a cataclysmic event that will set your world on its edge.  With this announcement, our collective consciousness will never be the same again.  Whatever is coming will be momentous!

Another Biblical image for this is the rather strange image of time itself having gotten filled up – “in the fullness of time.”  Literally, it’s that Time itself is now pregnant!  The clock isn’t just monotonously ticking off its usual hours and days so we can be lulled by the predictability of its tick-tock – the very clock is about to explode!  Those who use this image even designate the struggles of this Advent moment as the “labor pains” of the coming delivery.  You’ve heard about the consistency of seven days a week, seven days of creation – well, you’re about to witness the eighth day, a day no one has ever imagined before.  Or another image – the tiny seed that no one notices is about to burst into a huge tree that can shelter every bird in creation!

How do you begin to describe something that’s beyond human imagining?  How do you wrap your head around a new creation, populated by a new humanity, subject to a new structuring of human behaviors and relationships? That’s the challenge of Advent!  It’s mind boggling! Our normal response to news of such complexity or magnitude might well be to become overwhelmed.  But the appeal to “stir up” comes to us each year with the nuanced response – be excited and alert to the promises of a coming Messiah, and be bothered by the illusions and evils this Messiah comes to dispel.

But wake up! Or better yet, “Stir up!”

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.