Signing in again after a long absence

This space has gone empty for some years while I've been blogging as the rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Bellingham, Washington.  I'm returning to this space now, as I'm nearly retired from that position.  Some in that congregation encouraged me to continue writing, and I will.  I'm honored by their attention to what I preached and wrote during my 12 years with that wonderful congregation.   I was privileged to be with people who were thoughtful and kind, who held Christian beliefs in charity with their neighbors, and who put up with my imperfections.

I'm now entering the experience with my wife of being grandparents.  Our step-grandchildren, the wonderful Samantha and Abe, were recently joined by Lukas (Luke), my daughter's first-born child, and it's our joy to finally be with them all for a time in the Green Mountains of Vermont as fall begins to show.

We left the choking smoke of the West to come here, and I felt grateful to be able to escape, when so many cannot.  Down in my native Portland, my family and friends were choking on the terrible air.  Now, the reports from there are of rain and breezes.  I hope and pray for more of that pattern.

This has been a terrible year in so many respects for us all.  COVID-19 hit suddenly in March.  I remember thinking that we'd be in a couple of weeks or so of quarantine and then it might be over.  Soon I learned, with all of us, that this was not to be so.  To borrow language I heard back then, we had not entered a blizzard from which we could quickly dig out, but a winter.  The winter continues.

At the same time we Americans are in a time of deep division.  I feel this quite personally, as you probably do.  The division is as deep as it can be. 

I'm taking some rest from my role in leadership.  I feel the need of the rest.  But I still think about all these things, and I try to have some kind of conversation with God about these things.  I try to find hope each day.  That involves some silence, some reflecting upon Scripture - especially the Psalms - or some holy writing.  That could be a religious work; but at the same time it could be something like Dick Proennecke's memoir of his time homesteading in Alaska.  In that work I enjoy reading about this man's devoted attention to the world around him and the joy he took from everything he did, whether making sourdough biscuits or chopping and carving notches for his cabin.

Yesterday my wife and I took the hike up Stowe Pinnacle here in Vermont.  It was a crisp and clear day for the hike up through leafy green maples and ash.  At the rocky summit we could see hints of color beginning to show in the thick deciduous forests that stretch from that peak as far as the horizon in every direction.

At the summit, we saw two golden retrievers with a party of four hikers.  Eventually the party of four hikers were gone back down the trail, but the retrievers remained as you see them pictured above, basking in the sun on the highest rock on the summit.

I was reclining on a rock a little distance away when one of the dogs came right up to where I was and sat on his haunches next to me.  Perhaps he smelled the lunch in the pack under my head.  He let me scratch his neck for awhile, and then he followed his nose elsewhere.

Before leaving we asked a hiker if she knew whose dogs these were.  She said they belonged to some people who live nearby, who let them wander.  The dogs frequent the summit of Stowe Pinnacle, where they greet many people as they greeted me.

I don't know what meaning to assign to this experience in the midst of the present troubles and anxieties.  I will only say that the experience of a hike with my spouse, of sharing a beautiful view with other hikers, of being greeted by a friendly beast, of eating a peanut butter sandwich and a some carrot sticks and apple slices in that place gave me a feeling of rest.  In this day I felt the essential goodness of creation, a sense of the manifold mystery of our life in this beautiful earth which is the gift of a Creator whose creation is ongoing.  I felt renewal.  I felt hope.  There is work to be done to cooperate with God in our time, to stand for what is right, to do what we can to pursue justice and mercy. But there are days for rest, and I got one, and for that I'm thankful.