A Message from Pastor Davi
A week from Sunday, we’ll be welcoming Pastor Sharon home to First Congregational. It’s been a blessing to hold time with you all during Sharon’s three-month sabbatical, and I am excited to hear some of Sharon’s stories from her time away and be blessed by her learning and wisdom.
This occasion has me reflecting on what it means to return home from a journey, and I’m inviting you to join me in some reflection. In a way it’s arbitrary. For some of us, coming home is when we take that home exit off the interstate. For others, it’s when we bring the stuff in from the car, when we drop our bag inside the door, or when we finally lay down in our own beds. I’ll tell you; I caught up on church camp laundry this morning, and all the folding and tucking away felt like its own kind of homecoming.
We celebrated and blessed the beginning of Sharon’s journey on April 24. It’s been a time for us as a congregation: the wonderful gift of Pastor Phiwa’s ministry among us, prayerful discernment around church vision, hosting the NWYS overnight shelter, and so much more. But it’s also been a heavy and sacred time for all of us. The grief of another mass shooting and the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Hopeful and distressing news on the economy and national politics and covid.
I want to invite you to take a moment and step back to where you were on April 24. If your phone or your computer can show you pictures from that week, take a look. Or look back at your calendar, planner, or just your emails from that week. Take a moment and consider.
What were you worrying about three months ago that now feels unimportant? What did you not know to be hopeful about three months ago? What grief did you not yet carry? What joy did you not imagine?
Maybe it is arbitrary where a journey begins, and another ends. But maybe take a moment anyway, to consider what’s drawing to a close for you and what’s beginning. I love that thing my phone does where it reminds me of photos from a month or a year ago, but I also love knowing that God carries all of my experiences, all of my moments, all of my pains and all of my ecstasies, there in Her great and wise heart.
Here we are together, friends, preparing for another season in our life together as church, as a bunch of fools daring to become the Body of Christ. May the God of every journey continue to bless your going out and your coming in.
Davi
