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