Thank you for five joyful years

Thank you for five joyful years. When I became your pastor on May 17, 2021, Zion had just returned to in-person worship. Ever since, it has been a gift and an honor to serve with you.

A couple Sundays ago, before we cut the cake celebrating five years of ministry together, I shared what Pastor Paul Ostrem told me earlier that week. Pastor Paul was the assistant to the Bishop supporting Zion's Call Committee to fill the vacancy left by Pastor Karen's departure. He still remembers perfectly when I called to tell him I wanted to interview at Zion. Paul said, "I knew it was a match made in heaven."

And he would know. He knew Zion from before you called Pastor Karen. And he knew me from my two other call processes in the synod over the previous 10 years.

The day after our Sunday of celebrating, I met with my spiritual director, Marie. She helps me notice God in my life. Still in the glow of our celebration, much of that most recent spiritual direction session was spent reflecting on five years together. She said, "It's been five years of joy."

And she would know. For the last nine years, Marie and I have met monthly. And long before that, long before I was a pastor, she knew me.

What a delight to be your pastor! These have been joyful, fruitful, Spirit-full years, and I am so grateful to you and to God. Their goodness is confirmed by the witness of Paul and Marie, and I trust by yours. What a hopeful, energizing time to be part of Zion! Here's to many more joyful years together.

Thanks for marking the occasion. By way of thank you, a poem that Marie first shared with me.

Thanks be to God. -PC

A Brief For the Defense
By Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
Are not starving someplace, they are starving
Somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
Be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
Be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
At the fountain are laughing together between
The suffering they have known and the awfulness
In their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
In the village is very sick. There is laughter
Every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta
And the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
We lessen the importance of their deprivation
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
But not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
The stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
Furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
Measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
We should give thanks that the end has magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
Anchored late at night in the tiny port
Looking over to the sleeping island; the waterfront
Is three shuttered cafes and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
Comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
All the years of sorrow that are to come.