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Pastor's message
Spring/Summer 2010
Dear Friends,
I begin with deep gratitude and words of thanks for your kindness and expressions of sympathy and comfort you have shared so beautifully and abundatnly with me and my mother on the occasion of my father, Herbert O’Leary’s death in late March. The first Sunday I was with you following the news was Passion Sunday. It couldn’t have been more fitting if it had been planned! Hearing the unfolding of Jesus’s ‘holy week’ and his passion and death that morning embraced my grieving heart mercifully and connected me to you my water family in a depth I had not known before. No other place could have lent so much healing and hope. Thank you. I also felt as if I had been initiated into a club of empathy, “Children without Parents.” I have been with many of you in the dying days of your parents, often leading the celebration of their lives and while I have always felt privileged and blessed to do so, Dad’s death has added a depth and dimension of understanding and experience that I trust will serve you well. My father served as a navy sailor in the Pacific during WW II. It was a honor for him, and shaped so much of his adult life. His ashes have been scattered in the deep blue ocean near Hawaii.
The following poem was printed in the program at his Celebration Life on his birthday, April 15. It seemed fitting for a sailor, but all the moreso for anyone facing the reality of death of a loved one and the sorrow of loss of physical presence and perhaps even fading memories. May it offer you hope as it did my family.
I am standing on the seashore,
A ship sails in the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says: She is gone.
Gone!
Gone where?
Gone from my sight that is all.
She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars,
as she was when I saw her
And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me,
not in her.
And just at the moment when someone at my side says,
She is gone.
There are others who are watching her coming,
and other voices take up a glad shout:
Here she comes.
That is dying - A horizon and just the limit of our sight.
Lift us up, Oh Lord, that we may see further.
- Bishop Brent 1862-1926
Live gently, Love greatly,
peace,
Pastor Debbie
Bishop Mark S. Hanson's Recent Statements
June 28, 2010
Sisters and brothers in Christ,
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is both heartbreaking and infuriating. It causes deep sorrow, both for the initial loss of human life and for the deep and lasting damage to an ecology that provides life and livelihoods for so many of God's creatures. At the same time we grieve that the natural beauty of this region, a sign of God's marvelous creativity, has been defiled.
Moving to indignation and anger over the neglect and carelessness that led to this disaster, both in private industry and in government regulation, is understandable. However, to do so without recognizing the responsibility we all share -- as consumers of petroleum products, as investors in an economy that makes intensive and insistent energy demands, and as citizens responsible for the care of creation -- lacks credibility and integrity. An honest accounting of what happened (and what failed to happen) must include our own repentance.
Nonetheless, God remains faithful in restoring the creation and human community. Among the voices that despair and condemn, we have a witness of hope to proclaim.
First, God, who made the creation and made it good, has not abandoned it. Day after day God sustains life in this world, and the powerful vitality of God's creation, though defiled, is not destroyed. The life-giving power of God's creative goodness remains at work, even in the Gulf of Mexico. The Spirit will continue to renew the face of the earth (Psalm 104:30, as we just sang at Pentecost). All who care for the earth and work for the restoration of its vitality can be confident that they are not pursuing a lost cause. They serve in concert with God's own creative and renewing power.
Moreover, the human family need not drown in a flood of suspicion and recrimination that is more toxic and more lasting than the oil that floods the Gulf can ever be. The cleansing waters of baptism in Christ -- who died not for the righteous, but for the unrighteous -- bring forgiveness and reconciliation with God. In this reconciled life with God we have the freedom to move beyond mutual condemnations and hostility to give a powerful witness of a reconciled community that lives in service of the creation and the neighbor. By refusing to surrender to the toxicity of recrimination, we can convince others that they can join us safely in the life and service of this community.
Responding to a challenge of this size and complexity will call upon countless insights and skills, embodied in hundreds of occupations and trades, and upon the collective strength and will of us all. God's Holy Spirit has abundantly blessed the human community with the gifts needed to do this work. We can do it with sober confidence, good will and even joy.
There are times for mourning and for repentance, as well as for reconciliation and commitment to the creation's care. They come at different moments for different people. As you serve in your communities, I commend to you resources for worship, study and action that express the hope of Christians who see God's creative goodness, Jesus' forgiving reconciliation and the Spirit's abundant gifts for service. This is a moment when the human community needs to hear a word of true hope, and we have one to speak.
The Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made. - Psalm 145:8-9
In God's grace,
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson
Presiding Bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
A complete list of the Presiding Bishop's messages may be found at http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Office-of-the-Presiding-Bishop/Messages-and-Statements.aspx.
This page updated 07/08/2010.
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