From the Rector

Dear Friends,

Many of you will have gotten the stewardship mailer for this coming year. It’s a simpler thing than we normally send as this seems a year and a time for simpler things — for less clutter and more focus.

I don’t know about you but I’m feeling like our lives are full of clutter. Not just the kind of stuff that comes in the mail or accumulates in our closets but a kind of cluttered spirit — a disjointedness from the disruptions and anxiety of the world.

I’ve been trying to sort through that clutter and focus my heart and mind on the things that truly matter. It’s hard to do amidst the distractions of the day. Yet being “trapped” in some ways has helped me refocus on important things I would have missed.

I’ve been doing the majority of Brayden’s online school with him. Karrie works during the day so I’m with him for most of his classes. To say it’s been easy would be untrue. It’s not been easy but it’s been deeply rewarding. Chances are, in a normal year, I’d have missed him learning to read his first words. I’d have missed his first halting sentences as he learns to write. I’d have missed the sparkle in his eye when he came up with the term “in-human” school as a replacement adjective for in-person school!

I’d have missed much because there was a lot of clutter before too. There’s always stuff that’s pulling us away from what matters. The great sickness in our culture is how much energy we put on things that just don’t ultimately matter and how little we put into the things that truly do. 

So, among the messiness and disruption I’m trying to rediscover a rhythm that prioritizes that which will matter for the long run — that which will give meaning long into the future for me and for those who come after me.

I suppose that’s at the heart of my stewardship message this year — what’s important to us? What will last? What will make a difference? What gives us meaning and hope?

Let’s all put our resources and energy toward those things as we all learn to refocus and ignore the clutter all around us. Let’s cultivate that which is lasting and true and beautiful together.

Yours in Christ,

Robert