Have you not known? Have you not heard? 

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth; who does not faint or grow weary;

whose understanding is unsearchable. God gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.

Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;

but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles,

they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

– Isaiah 40:28-31

Beloved of God,

Our approach to Rachel Lake, in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, was four miles long.  The first three followed Box Canyon Creek up valley, gradually gaining elevation from 2,800 feet at the trailhead to 3,400 at mile three—an average gain of only 200 feet per mile.  But the final mile—up the steep wall that gave Box Creek its name—had acquired a nickname of its own: the Cruel Mile.  As Kai and I began the upward slog, using our poles and any available tree, rock, or root we could grab, we became newly aware of the weight of our packs, and the reality of the 1,300 ft elevation gain ahead of us impressed itself viscerally on our minds and bodies.  This was Kai’s first backpack trip, and I’d put a good deal of effort into finding a destination that would allow him to experience the gifts the wilderness provides without exacting too steep of a price.  As my legs grew tired, I found myself inspired by Kai’s desire to keep going without complaint. “How much do you think we have left, Dad?” became Kai’s refrain every few minutes. “Oh,” I would reply, remembering our sabbatical experience, “about 200 meters.”[1] By the time we arrived at Rachel Lake we were eager to shed our gear and make camp.  By the time the sun set that evening, we were more than ready to crawl into our bags and give our bodies a rest.

When morning came, the weariness of the day before had dissipated, and after a breakfast of freeze dried eggs and sausage, our thoughts turned to the day ahead.  Another mile, and 400 feet above us, lay the Rampart Lakes, a series of smaller alpine lakes heartily endorsed by the guide book, and we set our sights there.  And Rampart Lakes did not disappoint!  But it was still early afternoon and there was plenty of day left.  What if we were to climb to the top of that saddle over there, at the south end of the basin?  And so we went.  The final 40 feet required some scrambling, but in the end we were rewarded with vistas of mountains all around, and a view all the way down to our Rachel Lake campsite far below.  Unforgettable.

Meaningful experiences, shared vistas, shape us.  They become reference points in our life together.  Sometimes, the experiences we worked hardest to obtain become the most precious to us. Not all shared experiences, of course, are worthy of being remembered.  Each of us could point to decisions, conversations, encounters, mistakes that we would gladly do over or take back if we could.  Regret, whatever its specific content, can ride roughshod over us if we let it, even to the point of overwhelming the rich and joyful moments we’ve known.  Thank goodness we have as companion on the way a God who knows how to strengthen us when we’re weak and to lift us when we’re weary—whether that weariness comes from physical exertion or from the weight of past sins!

As summer turns to fall and rhythms shift and change, we can take a cue from the autumn leaves, which teach us the art of letting go.  We have much to engage in together this month in our shared ministry at Peace; so many meaningful activities and opportunities for learning and serving and growing.  At times the calendar can become so cluttered that it feels less like a gift and more like an uphill slog!   But our Lord’s gracious accompaniment makes the journey all worthwhile.  With a spirit of joy and comradery—let the fall begin!

With you on the Way,

Pastor Erik

[1] Wherever we went on foot in Italy during our sabbatical, whether in the cities or on rural roads or trails, when we stopped to ask a local person how far we had to go to reach a particular destination, the answer was, inevitably, “About 200 meters.” This was true whether the actual distance was half that amount or several times that amount.  It became an inside family joke.

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.

If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to then, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

– James 1:17, 2:15-17

Beloved of God,

Recent events lead me to reflect on the vibrant nature of our congregation. Oddly enough, one catalyst for my reflection is our family’s recent visit to a congregation I once served.  25 year ago I served as interim pastor at Church of the Mountains, a Presbyterian congregation on the Hoopa Reservation which had been established in the 19th century.  I had rich experiences with that community, with ecumenical partners, and with the Tribe.   As we snaked our way along the winding roads leading to Hoopa, I told my kids about the two majestic Redwood trees that flanked the sidewalk leading to the front doors of the church building, trees which had been planted at the congregation’s founding. I remem­bered their great trunks and the shade they cast in the late afternoon, bringing welcome relief during 100+ degree summer days.  What greeted us when we drove up was quite different.  The two great Redwoods had been cut down.  The adjacent parsonage with its shade trees were gone—the victim of a fire some years back.  The cross on the steeple had been removed. The white clapboard church building hadn’t seen paint in who knows how many years.  The front doors were chained and paddle locked shut.  The whole property seemed abandoned and forlorn.  It was downright depressing.  The cause of all this was obvious, when I thought about it:  that congregation had ceased to play a continuing, vital role within the Hoopa community.  So, when the last of the aging members died, the congregation’s mission—its reason for existing—died with them.

Contrast this with the scene at Peace during the last week of July:

• A steady stream of blue-shirted servants of all ages—“LIVE GENEROUSLY” their shirts declare—with the full spectrum of experience to do God’s work with their hands, bend body and mind to the task building a Tiny House. Energy is high as hammers pound nails, saws cut boards, drills bite wood, and a house rises from the patio deck.[1]
• Volunteers from within and beyond the congregation show up to be part of it. Neighbors out for walks stop to learn what’s going down. A West Seattle Blog photographer comes by to capture a moment.[2]
• As evening comes, Twelfth Night Productions players fill the Fellowship Hall with costumes, music, and dance numbers—adding their melodies to the cacophony of hammers, drills, and skill saws.
• Meanwhile, after Sunday worship the Fireside Room fills with Peace women gathering to celebrate the impending birth of Hannah and Steven’s first child. (The seventh child born to the congregation over the last 16 months.)
• A journalist and photographer from King County’s Rainwise program stop by to capture images of our blooming raingarden and to interview congregation president Michael T and myself about the process and philosophy behind our congregation’s commitment to the project and to the Green Congregation movement.
• The 75th Anniversary Task Force holds its first planning meeting for our congregation’s Diamond Jubilee in 2019.

There’s more I could add, but you get the picture. There is vitality here at Peace, flowing from our vital sense of mission!  We are indeed a Spirit blessed community!

When my friend and colleague Greg stopped by to see the build, he commented “This is the book of James in action.” (I.e. faith active in love.)  Martin Luther, zealous to prove that God’s grace trumps any works we might come up with, once famously called James the “epistle of straw.”  My response to Greg (and Luther): “We’re spinning straw into gold.” “

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” AMEN!

Projects like building a Tiny House demand a lot of energy but they also unleash a lot of energy. And there’s another layer to the learning as well.  Building an 8 by 12 foot house is an invitation to imagine what this house will mean to the person for whom this small home will be an upgrade. And to imagine what it might mean for us whose lives are filled with stuff to pare down to the smallest configuration.  It invites us to ask, what is essential?  What do we really need?

In his letter to the Colossians, portions of which we’ve been hearing these summer Sundays, St. Paul speaks of earthly things and heavenly things. “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is,” he writes.  But it’s hard to seek the things that are above when you’re homeless and longing to have a roof over your head.  So, here’s the question: this Tiny House we’re building—is that an earthly thing or a heavenly thing?

The answer, of course, is YES.  It’s both.  Indeed, it’s something that’s bringing heaven and earth together. Beneath the enthusiasm for putting hammer to nail, the development of new skills, and the smell of freshly cut wood is the deep satisfaction of knowing that we are—quite literally—doing God’s work with our hands.  We’re building something substantial and real that will make a profound difference in someone’s life; and has already made a difference in our own.  We’ll wrap up the building project this first weekend in August, and celebrate after worship on Sunday, but the Tiny House will stick around for a little while as staff members from LIHI (Low Income Housing Institute) determine where this particular Tiny House will be placed. Come by and check it out.

Pastor Erik

[1] You can view a YouTube summary of the first four days here: https://youtu.be/KCtpmK3MVZE Courtesy of Anne Churchill.

[2] You can find the West Seattle Blog article here: http://westseattleblog.com/2016/07/west-seattle-scene-peace-lutheran-builds-a-tiny-house/

 I’m going on a journey, and I’m starting today.

My head is wet, and I’m on my way.

Christ’s mark is on me, it’s on you, too;

It says he loves me, and he loves you, too.

– Kenneth Larkin, ELW #446

Beloved of God,

Our crew is heading south to Los Angeles this month, compelled by the wedding of our nephew Jacob and his fiancé Maryel.  It’ll be our first family road trip to California and an opportunity to visit friends and family along the way—as well as take in the sights like the Magic Kingdom.  On our return trip the four of us will camp in the Redwoods, swim in Northwestern California rivers, and spend time with people and places I first met 30 years ago in my first Call as Pastor Director of Lutheran Ministry with Native Americans.  Reconnecting with these places and people and introducing Kai and Naomi to them is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time.

I’ll never forget the first week of my new job.  I was attending a conference hosted by Humboldt State University that gathered together local tribal leaders, US Forest Service executives, environmentalists, and forestry professors from the university.  The topic was natural resources—approaches to developing and using them—and the fault lines of cultural perspectives that emerged were profound.  As we broke for lunch on the first day, I ended up at the same table as a Karuk elder who would become a significant mentor for me during my years of ministry there.  Our encounter was the first of many Spirit-driven events that took place during my five years of service in Indian Country.  I am forever grateful for the teachers, mentors, and companions God sent my way—both from Native communities and the church community—who extended and deepened my “education” in ways no seminary training could.

In a “parish” spread over 10,000 square miles, I worked with tribal communities—the Karuk, Hupa, Yurok, Tolowa, Wiyotte in particular—and a dozen Lutheran congregations, in a ministry of word and witness, advocacy and service. Along the way I discovered that my most profound learning often emerged when I was forced to confront the assumptions and limitations behind my own ways of thinking.  Looking at reality through the eyes of others challenged my assumptions about how and where and what God was up to.  Along the way, I discovered a new vocabulary to fit the new experiences that I was having, and came to appreciate the myriad ways God’s presence was embodied among peoples and within landscapes that were different from those I had known.  It was a journey I hope never to forget.

And the journey continues.  The earliest name given to the disciple community which gathered around Jesus was “people of the Way.” Our sisters and brothers of Calvary Lutheran marked the end of their journey as a congregation in a final festive sendoff June 26th.  That service marked the end of their formal life as a congregation, and the end of Pastor Paul Winterstein’s active years of service.  But it did not mark the end of their journey with God!  They remain “people of the Way.”  Their journey, which began in the waters of baptism, continues—through this life and into the next.  Some Calvary folk have indicated their desire to make Peace their new home base.  What a joy it will be to welcome them into our life and mission!  Others will take more time to discern where God is leading them now.  One thing we can be sure of, Christ’s mark abides on them and he will be with them, wherever the next stages of the faith journey takes them.

Whatever paths you travel this summer, claim God’s love for the journey, remember Christ’s mark on you, and stay wet!

Pastor Erik

 “In his beautiful canticle, Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us. This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irre­sponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.”

– Pope Francis, Laudato Si‘: On Care for Our Common Home

Beloved of God,

The record-breaking warmth we’ve experienced this spring has accelerated the growth and flowering of our region. Some of us have enjoyed the extra days of shorts and t-shirts, while others have pined for the cooler springtimes we remember.  Our experience here in the Northwest is by no means unique.  All over the globe temperatures are rising.  Climate change is upon us, and that’s no hoax.[1]  With it come consequences in every sector of life.  One simple example:  As prices for air conditioning drop and the demand in developing countries grows, a new estimate suggests that 700 million air conditioners are expected to be installed by 2030, and 1.6 billion by 2050. The average air conditioning unit in American homes releases about two tons of carbon dioxide each year.  Do the math. [2]  Seattleites start complaining when temperatures approach 80 degrees—imagine living in Phalodi, India, where a new record high of +123.8 degrees was recently set![3]  As temperatures rise, who can begrudge people who live in unbearable conditions the option of buying air conditioning?  (Understand, it’s only those who can afford to purchase their way to comfort who will benefit; for the vast numbers of people living in abject poverty around the world such choices remain elusive.)

It’s easy to get lost in the statistics. As people of faith we need a place to be grounded as, together, we face the truth about what human actions and choices have done to place our planet home in peril and build strategies to turn the boat around.  Those strategies have to be about more than buying stock in air conditioning companies.

Pope Francis, in his encyclical Laudato Si‘: On Care for Our Common Home, gets at the heart of the matter. A group of us from Peace and Calvary, in addition to other friends, participated in a study of Pope Francis’ circular letter earlier this spring.  One of the outcomes of that study was an urgent desire to affirm what the Pope said and to place our own stake in the ground.  As a result, a letter to Pope Francis authored by study participants has been written.  (You can read an excerpt in the pages that follow.  To read the complete 3 page letter, follow this LINK).  A tree honoring the spirit behind his encyclical will be planted on Peace property on June 5th—the first of four Sundays in this year’s Season of Creation.

In his book, LENS TO THE NATURAL WORLD: Reflections on Dinosaurs, Galaxies, and God, Ken Olson, a retired ELCA pastor and paleontologist, uses analogies to help us comprehend how we human beings fit within the scope of Earth’s long history.

“One could represent [earth’s] 4.6 billion years with a line fifteen miles long. In that scheme, the last 6,000 years from ancient Mesopotamia to the present, which brackets what we usually call “civilization,” would be represented by just the last single inch.  In vertical scale, if the history of the earth were a cliff a mile high, all of historic time would occupy just the uppermost 10th of an inch, and a single lifetime less than the thickness of the finest hair.”

These analogies seek to help us grasp that is essentially ungraspable—the immense expanse of deep time that forms the backdrop to this universe in which we find ourselves, and the infinitesimal portion of time our species has been alive by comparison. Yet, in spite of our brief existence, we homo sapiens have had an outsized impact on the health of the planet’s natural systems.  There are many factors that have led to the reality now confronting us.  Myopic greed and runaway hubris are two of them.  In the words of Pope Francis:

“We have come to see ourselves as [Earth’s] lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. The Earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she ‘groans in travail.’”

Many studies document the impacts of human choices on Earth’s health, but Pope Francis’ letter frames the impacts in ways we can both intellectually grasp and viscerally feel. I encourage you to read Laudato Si‘. (Follow this LINK to the Vatican website.)  More than that, I invite you to join the conversation taking place at Peace, and to come to worship during the month of June as we once again celebrate the Season of Creation.  Our worship themes this year revolve around the FOUR ELEMENTS: EARTH, AIR, FIRE, WATER, and will incorporate excerpts from Laudato Si’. When you come on June 5th, be prepared to get your hands dirty! After all, putting our hands in soil is a sacred activity! The sacred, fecund soil (Hebrew: adamah) from which God first fashioned the first Earth-people (Hebrew: adam) will be the focal point of our activity during worship, so dress casually.

It is in our worship life where God promises to meet us, re-grounding us in God’s intentions for us and for this world. In Christ’s Meal gifts of grain and grape become sacred emblems of Christ’s presence in our midst. Our eating and drinking unites us with Christ and reconnects us to the Earth from which these sacred gifts come.  In sharing this food we become what we eat: the body of Christ for the world.

The letter to Pope Francis includes a reference to the ELCA Social Statement “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope, and Justice” (1993), which states:

“Humans, in service to God, have special roles on behalf of the whole of creation. Made in the image of God, we are called to care for the earth as God cares for the earth.”

The letter to Francis goes on to conclude thus:

“Despite current differences in theology and politics, there is no excuse for waiting to cooperate. These environmental and social crises we face need immediate and frank discussion, cooperation, and action.  Let this now be a rock on which we can stand together as brothers and sisters in order to level the playing field between rich and poor, embrace the best scientific research, and work toward a cultural change of consciousness which can lead to renewed care for our common home.”

Faith is a verb. As people of faith we are called to practice what we preach, to live what we profess, trusting that the Triune God is with us in the midst of the muddle; breathing life into us at every turn, as God once breathed life into our first ancestors.

Pastor Erik

[1] Some prefer the term “climate breakdown” as a more accurate description of the realities at hand.

[2] http://www.wnyc.org/story/uptick-air-conditioners-impacts-climate-change

[3] http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/20/asia/india-record-temperature/index.html