“Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.
 For there is still a vision for the appointed time.”

– Habakkuk 1:2, 2:2

Beloved of God,

For 21 months the re-Vision Task Force has been hard at work developing a Mission Vision and Strategic Plan that, if fully embraced, will help our congregation move forward with strength over the next five years. [You can read more specifics in the articles that follow below.]  As we move into the heart of the Fall schedule you’ll find throughout this October edition that we, as a congregation, have not been sitting on our hands waiting for the Task Force’s proposal to be completed!  On the contrary, we continue to pursue the mission to which God has been calling us over the past 80—soon to be 81—years.

We know very little about the personal story of the prophet Habakkuk, but we do know that he lived during a time in which threats from outside the nation (Babylon was at the height of its superpowers) and anxiety and injustice from within dominated the headlines.  Violence was ever present and pervasive. Shady dealings were par for the course.  The wealthiest took advantage of the poorest.  The nation was not living according to the core covenant pillars of loving God and neighbor.  Surely there are resonances to Habakkuk’s context in our own time.  In response to Habakkuk’s heartfelt plea the Lord directs Habakkuk to “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.”  The Lord assures the prophet: “There is still a vision for the appointed time.”  Friends, this is our appointed time.

The fresh articulation of our Mission Statement coming out of the Task Force’s work is this:

Called by grace through the Holy Spirit to be the Body of Christ,

we claim the power of God’s transforming love by cultivating faith,

walking hand-in-hand with neighbors,

and seeking just relationships with all people and all creation.

Note that it is GRACE mediated through the HOLY SPIRIT that grounds and animates this venture to which God has called us in baptism—to be the BODY OF CHRIST, a community of believers who CLAIM THE POWER of God’s transforming love not just for themselves but for the world God so loves, and who put that transforming power to work – CULTIVATING FAITH, WALKING HAND-IN-HAND WITH NEIGHBORS, and SEEKING JUST RELATIONSHIPS WITH ALL PEOPLE AND ALL CREATION.

Of course, ARTICULATING a mission vision is one thing; EMBODYING it is another.  Yet embodying is God’s whole venture in Jesus Christ—the WORD who became FLESH and pitched his tent among us.  God’s wide embrace in Jesus compels us to invite and welcome others to share in our life and mission, which is why we speak of the doors of our building swinging both ways—INWARD as we invite folks to join us on our mission in Christ, and OUTWARD as we go and serve the neighborhoods and community around us.

The specific language of our mission may change—as it must over time to attend to the challenges that each new decade brings.  But the core purpose remains.  Over the coming months each of us has the opportunity to discern what portion(s) of the mission plan we will help take on flesh and blood.  What elements of the renewed vision are calling to you?  How will you answer? 

With you on the Way, Pastor Erik

Will you let me be your servant, let me be as Christ to you?

Pray that I may have the grace to let you be my servant, too.

Richard Gillard, ELW 659

Beloved of God,

Holden Lake, a 5.5 mile hike from the Village

The two weeks I experienced at Holden Village in August were well spent.  From the get-go they were about learning, restoration, and relationships. I’m always struck by the fact that when I go there I can count crossing paths with folks whom I didn’t expect to see.  On my first evening, before I put head to pillow, I made this list of connections:  Kris—a friend who was part of the winter community with me in 1991; Jeff—a musician friend from Portland; Cindy—the spouse of a colleague I met when I started ministry in 1986; Joan—a now retired musician who our family had connected with on a previous Holden trip; Paul, a Seattle colleague who had visited Peace as a Pass the Hat speaker; Paul and Jana—a couple from Wisconsin who are friends with my brother Mark and his wife Miriam.  And that was just on day one!  When I returned later in the month with the whole family, there was a whole new set of people with significant connections waiting to be discovered.  What a gift!

With Paul and Jana Oman at Holden with one of Paul’s parable paintings.

One of the most significant connections was with Paul and Jana Oman.  Paul, an ELCA pastor and artist, left parish ministry in 2011 and has developed a unique ministry of painting scenes from the Bible live before congregations while at the same time he teaches about the subject.  It’s called Drawn to the Word.  As one of the presenters that week, Paul worked on large canvasses to paint several parables from Luke’s gospel while those of us who were present sat slack jawed as a new world of the text opened up before our eyes.  But it was Paul’s wife Jana with whom I first made a connection.  We were in the snack bar line waiting our turn for a Holden Scoop of ice cream when Jana heard my introduce myself to another person.  Afterward she asked me if I was related to Mark Kindem.  “Yes,” I told her, “Mark is one of my brothers.”  Jana went on to tell me how she and Paul had come to know Mark and his wife Miriam because of their connection to Mt Carmel, a family camp and retreat center in Western Minnesota.  Fun coincidence.  But it went deeper…

Some of you will recall that Mark, who is both a pastor and a pilot, was flying alone after midnight on April 29, 2024, only 10 minutes from his Bemidji home, when the engine suddenly stopped.  After trying standard procedures to get the plane started again, Mark realized he’d have to put it on the ground without power—a crash landing.  But before panic could take hold of him, he felt a presence surrounding him like a blanket, and a preternatural calm took over.  He looked left out the plane’s window and there, through a break in the clouds, were the lights of the town of Clearbrook.  He knew that town. It was there, he decided, he would go.  Mark doesn’t remember anything from that point on; doesn’t remember how he executed a perfect turn to line himself up to his new target; doesn’t remember how his landing gear caromed off the top of an industrial warehouse on the edge of town and then threaded its way below the adjacent powerlines and onto the highway; doesn’t remember crashing into the retaining wall or being life flighted to Fargo. 

Paul Oman painting of Mark Kindem’s plane, guided by Divine light.

Last summer at our family reunion Mark told the story of the crash.  And when he was done, he lifted up a painting that had been commissioned by his family unbeknownst to Mark.  The painting depicts that very moment when, miraculously, the plane skipped over the warehouse and under the powerlines, threading the needle and saving Mark’s life.  The artist of that painting, I now realized as I stood in the snack bar line, was Jana’s husband Paul.  My times at Holden served as a joyful and visceral reminder of how relationships are at the heart of our lives of faith!  The Spirit of Christ is ever drawing us closer to God and to one another. 

In this September Peace Notes you’ll find numerous opportunities for engaging with folks within and beyond our community, thus building up the body of Christ.  What gifts God brings to our lives!  What a joy to know and be known; to love and be loved!  With you on the Way, Pastor Erik

Naaman went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God;

his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

2 Kings 5:14

Dearly Beloved,

By every measure he came out on top.  He was a leader esteemed by his peers and revered by those who served under him.  A warrior whose acumen on the battlefield provoked fear in his enemies; a commander of distinction whose unswerving loyalty had earned him the trust of his king.  But in spite of all the accolades, there was one weakness he could not hide: Naaman was afflicted with leprosy. And this undeniable fact—this highly visible disease over which he had no control—threat­ened to define his life.

Leprosy and other skin maladies, in ancient as well as modern times, have long stuck fear in the hearts of those who’ve contracted them, and their families. A colleague of mine, who once served a parish on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, spoke of the history of the community of Kalaupapa, which for a century served as a colony for people with leprosy—or Hansen’s disease as we now call it. Despite the advent of new and effective treatments, he said social prejudices continued to prevail. During his tenure at Kalaupapa, church groups who came to the island to work on service projects invariably left something behind when they departed. In the dorm where they had stayed he’d invariably find a garbage sack.  Its contents?  All the clothing they’d used while they were on the island. 

It takes a great deal of effort—internal commitment combined with outward practice—to move beyond the baked-in assumptions and prejudices that are run through our veins and run through our world today and, to a greater or lesser degree, always have.  But that journey can begin with a simple step.  That’s the premise of the POTLUCK PROJECT, the brainchild of Paths to Understanding, an organization led by Pastor Terry Kyllo committed to bridging bias and building community through multifaith peace keeping.  The Potluck Project builds upon a model of community-making that Jesus himself used throughout his ministry: gathering with diverse people for a shared meal.  It was at these meals that Jesus taught about the Kin-dom of God.  It was at these meals that he challenged religious leaders not to allow MERCY to be trumped by concerns about PURITY.  It was at these meals that he coached his apprentices with stories, preparing them to carry on with his mission after he was gone.  His words, “DO THIS TO REMEMBER ME,” apply not only to the institution of the Lord’s Supper—they apply to the modus operandi Jesus used to engage the world.

Over the past year I’ve been cultivating the opportunity for our congregation to join the Potluck Project. Now, at last, the first concrete steps are in place and I invite you to be part of them.  Rabbi Allison Flash of the Kol HaNeshamah Synagogue and I are committed to bringing our communities together using the model developed by Paths to Understanding, and we now have TWO DATES ON THE CALENDAR: Sunday, Sept. 14, 5:30-7:30, and Sunday, Feb. 1^st, 5:30-7:30pm.  Please mark your calendars and plan to be part of this important movement!  These planned events are the beginning of what we hope will be an expanding opportunity to bring diverse neighbors together—including folks of other faith traditions or none.  I am looking for people to join a planning team for these events, which we hope to extend beyond the first two initial gatherings.  If you are open to being part of such a team, please let me know.

Last week Marcia Olson and I paid a visit to Fatima Adam, a staff member of Hope Academy, a charter school serving Muslim children that is housed on the property formerly belonging to St. James Lutheran in White Center.  Fatima, along with her sister Asia, who I met with earlier this year, have been eager to learn about the history of St. James church and its commitment to serving the larger White Center community.  It was great to have Marcia along to share some of that history.  At the end of our time together, Fatima said something that has stuck with me: “There is a story God is telling here,” she said.  “You were part of that story.  Now we are part of it.  We don’t know long we’ll be here, but we know that God’s story will continue.” 

On Saturday, June 28, a crew of us joined Dirt Corps staff for a “God’s Work—Our Hands” event in the Longfellow Creek watershed.  Adrian, our guide, shared her knowledge about caring for trees during the hot summer, including mulching, and then we loaded buckets and wheelbarrows to put the theory into practice.  Over the course of those three hours one of the new friends I met was Aditi, an engineer working for a Seattle based company who recently moved here from her home in Bangalore, India.  As we spread mulch with our rakes in a copse of cedar trees, we fell into a conversation about water, watersheds, and how water plays such a huge role in both Christian and Hindu spiritual traditions.  It felt as if our conversation could go on for hours.  I told Aditi about how our congregation has focused energy on water stewardship; about our Season of Creation—connecting the dots between our lives of faith and the natural world; I mentioned Camp Lutherwood, where the summer theme is WATER OF LIFE; and I told her about the Potluck Project and its goal of bringing people of diverse traditions together for genuine encounters as human beings.  Our serendipitous encounter had the aroma of the Spirit about it.  My fervent hope is that future Potluck Project gatherings will include people like Aditi, along with Muslim and Jewish community members and other neighbors for an encounter full of discovery and common ground.

When Naaman the Syrian–at the advice not of his king but rather of his wife’s servant girl–crossed into enemy territory to seek healing from the prophet Elisha, he entered both literally and figuratively into a watershed moment.  Initially reluctant, he finally agreed to follow the order Elisha had given and washed in the Jordan River seven times.  And rising from the river the final time he looked at himself and saw that his skin was restored.  So deeply moved was Naaman that he insisted on bringing two donkey loads of soil from Jordan’s watershed back home with him so that he would remain forever connected to the place where his healing took place.  Naaman’s encounter with Elisha, and the watershed of Grace his experienced, changed his life forever. 

What is the antidote to all the efforts in our country being aimed toward instilling fear, dividing communities, sending people into exile, and limit­ing basic human rights?  Surely the antidote isn’t another slew of Instagram posts or Facebook rants. The antidote, I believe, begins with ordinary people gathering physically around a shared meal, learning one another’s stories and listening for clues about the larger story that God is telling.  A story of healing, of mercy, of peace.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik 

When you send forth your Spirit, we are renewed!  We are renewed!  – Psalm 104

Children of the Spirit!

It’s easy to be discouraged when we get caught in a pattern of “doom scrolling” through the 24/7 news cycle, shaking our heads at the latest political news and finding our limbic brain hijacked by what we see and read there.  For political party strategists of every stripe, “reactionary mode” is exactly where they’d like us to stay—at least long enough to motivate us to “click” the donation button before we move on.  I’m trying to limit my intake of news beyond a certain time each day, lest my dream life assume the same “gloom and doom” character that dominates our civic landscape. 

As we get ready to celebrate Pentecost Sunday, I wonder if our ancestors in the faith might have something to teach us about how to deal with all the eruptions and disruptions we experience around us?  After all, the first generation of Jewish Christians lived with all the hard realities of Empire.  It was not an easy existence with the ever present threat of violence hanging in the air, the crushing weight of Roman taxes, the uncertainty about the future, the contempt for both their Jewish roots and their emerging faith centered in Jesus as Messiah.  He, their teacher and now risen Lord, had offered them a Way to be in the world; a Way that did not look to the Empire for authentication but was rather an antidote to Empirical might; a Way that welcomed and included those who were sidelined, devalued, and disenfranchised; a Way that opened the door to community with others—including (most radically) non-Jewish neighbors. 

In Luke’s gospel the risen Christ spends 40 days among the disciple community preparing them for what comes next— the outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit.  During those days Jesus teaches them why everything he told them while he was with them had to be fulfilled…his suffering, his death, his rising.  All of it was a prelude so that the life-changing message and power of forgiveness would be poised to make its way around the world.  “You-all are the first to hear it, the first to see it, and you’ll be the first to tell it,” he told them.  “I’ve chosen you to be my witnesses, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Definitely a commencement vibe to his speech, don’t you agree?)

The overriding spirit characterizing his waiting community was that of JOY.  In the midst of all the challenges they faced, all the demands of Empire, all their existential struggles, they refused to be DIS-couraged—for their risen Lord was in their midst—first in the flesh and now through the Spirit.  I think it’s time for us to seize that JOY and claim it for ourselves!

They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. – Revelation 7:16-17

Easter people!

The recent loss of my older brother Peter to cancer has me contemplating life’s gifts and liabilities.  He is the first of my seven siblings to leave this embodied life behind for the “life of the world to come.”  How many other siblings will I lose before my name is called?  I’m not looking forward to finding out.  Yet, in the midst of this time of grief I’ve been blessed with many memories from the 68 years we shared together.  Like the time we played on the same Little League team in Havre, Montana, squinting into the bright plains sun on a field that, instead of green grass, featured brown hardpan with weeds springing up from the cracks. Or the times when our quarreling voices reached fever pitch and Mother would banish us to the garage to “work things out” by ourselves.  Or the time we clandestinely set off forbidden firecrackers in the dirt hills behind our neighbor’s backyard—and in the process accidentally ignited a grass fire that left us panicked—a fire we, fortunately, were able to put out. 

My brother Peter

But the times I hold most dear are the ones when we played football together—he the quarterback and I the receiver.  He’d use his finger to draw up plays on the front of his T-shirt—post routes, flag routes, button hooks—and I’d run them; a pattern we continued again and again over the years.  Peter liked calling the plays, liked being in charge—and he was good at it.  By his senior year in high school he was the starting quarterback for the Albert Lea Central High “Tigers.”  When he later went to Law School it was the obvious choice. Not only because he’d been polishing his arguing skills at home his entire life—but because his clients would know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that he, their advocate—their quarterback—would seize upon the best legal strategy, execute it skillfully, and carry the team to victory.

When it comes to matters of life and death, who do you unfailingly count on?

When Barbara Brown Taylor was asked how she was approaching another season of Lent and resurrection, she responded:[1]

“When you’re in your mid-70s, you’re going to funerals a lot.  So resurrection in a season where so many close ones and Earth herself is in a kind of permanent crucifixion—it helps…to pull the hopefulness in close and attach it to something I can do today, small as it can be. Fill the bird feeders. Make somebody’s day better instead of worse.

“There’s huge surrender in resurrection.  Am I willing to go down to the dust with faith that consists entirely of saying, ‘I trust the one that takes me from there’?  And if it takes me back into carbon molecules and puts me in a bird bone, that’s good enough for me.  A lot of Lent and Easter is about not getting the cup you want, and it’s about drinking the cup.  It’s about trusting your friends to finish what you started, and maybe you have less time that you thought to get done what you wanted to get done.”

Peter was originally diagnosed with lung disease in 2005 and given a two-year prognosis.  By the grace of God he lived another 20 years; long enough to watch his and Gabrielle’s four children, Jacob, Lars, Anneliese, and Soren, finish high school and college, choose careers, find life partners, get married, and begin having children.  Peter had 4 “bonus” years after receiving a double lung transplant on Reformation Sunday in 2020.  Through all the doctor visits, the anti-rejection medications, and all the rest he endured, he didn’t complain.  He found reasons to be thankful.  He continued his professional work as an advocate until the final days of his life, often representing clients who had been taken advantage of by the corporations or organizations for whom they worked.  Throughout all of this, Peter spoke time and again about trusting God with his life.  Did he want more than the 69½ years he got?  Of course; don’t we all?  But he was at peace with trusting that his Lord would unfailingly accompany him to where the springs of the water of life flow; to that new heaven and earth where all tears will be wiped away.

The Gathering Hymn we sang at his memorial was the same one we sang at his and Gabrielle’s wedding: JOYFUL, JOYFUL WE ADORE THEE, based on Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Here’s verse three:

Thou art giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blest. Well-spring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest!  Thou our Father, Christ our brother, all who live in love are thine; teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine!

The refrain of the Easter season is clear: I will not leave you orphaned, says Jesus.  Not even death can separate us, for I am with you always—to the end of the age.  That’s a refrain followers of the risen One keep on singing—with gusto!—even in the face of death.

With Resurrection Joy, 

Pastor Erik

[1] Sojourners.  April 2025 edition, p. 27

“Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”  – Isaiah 6:5

Beloved of God,

When Isaiah heard the voice of God calling his name one day in the Temple, he began looking for a way out.  After all, who was he—a man of unclean lips—to take on a Divine vocation as a prophetic spokesman for God?  Isaiah wasn’t alone in looking for a way around God’s call.  Moses tried to use a speech impediment as his excuse for not answering God’s call.[1] For Jeremiah the excuse was age.  “I’m too young to serve as a spokesman for the Almighty.”[2] Gideon came from the very least family of the weakest clan of a beleaguered people —and couldn’t imagine how he could possibly be of any use to God.[3] Isaiah, likewise, was eager to find a way far from the line of fire.  But none of these leaders were finally able to elude God’s call to servanthood. Each of them thought their personal limitations were too big to be overcome.  And in each case, God provided what was needed in order for them to succeed.  They each became instruments of God’s purposes in spite of their limitations. God’s strength was made perfect in their weakness. The point?  God can take whatever raw material we provide and fashion it into an instrument that’ll keep working under the most challenging conditions imaginable.  And the challenges of living faithfully as citizens of God’s “kin-dom” and as citizens of our country are reaching new depths these days.

On February 1, in a widely distributed post on X (formerly Twitter), Lutheran organizations like Global Refuge (formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service) and Lutheran Services in America were denigratingly characterized as “money laundering operation(s).”  This baseless and slanderous accusation was amplified by Elon Musk who commented that the DOGE team is “rapidly shutting down these illegal payments.”  In a follow-up communication, Presiding ELCA Bishop Elizabeth Eaton pointed out the baseless and defamatory nature of these comments. “Neither claim,” she said “was accompanied by proof to support the false and dangerous notion that Lutherans use religion to launder money or that grants to support the work of Lutheran organizations for decades are in any way illegal.  The Lutheran organizations targeted by name in these false claims on X have done the same work for 85 years—beginning during World War 2—in serving legally admitted refugees and immigrants.”  Bishop Eaton concludes: “The ELCA remains committed to our core mission of feeding people who are hungry, caring for those who are sick, and advocating for justice, peace, and the dignity of all people. This has been the calling of the church for over 2,000 years, and that will not change.”  Bravo, Bishop Eaton!  All of us who serve Christ’s church during this extraordinary time are being summoned by the gospel to stand together against the threats that would impede the church’s mission and imperil the rule of law, and Constitutional democracy.  The time is at hand.

Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany who was initially sympathetic with many Nazi ideas. But after Hitler came to power in 1933, he became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church and as a result spent eight years in Nazi prisons and concentration camps.[4] On June 8, 2023, the 37th anniversary of my ordination, I visited the cell where Niemöller was imprisoned at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin. After the war, Niemöller spoke openly about his own early complicity in Nazism and his eventual change of heart. His powerful words about guilt and responsibility still resonate today.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

– Rev. Martin Niemöller, German Lutheran Pastor, commenting on the Nazi period

By the time Isaiah’s encounter with God ended, his reluctant “Woe is me!” had become a resounding “Here am I—send me!” Newly cleansed and empowered, Isaiah assumed the prophet’s mantle.  What he and those he mentored proclaimed in God’s name has withstood the test of time.  Jesus turned to Isaiah to encapsulate what his mission was about—and those words are still relevant today.

What ministry at the intersection of Faith and World is God calling you to engage?  How can we together faithfully pursue the mission to which Christ is calling us in these times?  We cannot run away from this moment.  We must embrace it.

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

[1] See Exodus 4:1-17

[2] See Jeremiah 1:4-10

[3] See Judges 6-8

[4] For more information, see the Holocaust Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists