Liz Wood

Dear Friends,

The big problem with nostalgia, is that it just isn’t what it used to be!

I seem to have been spending more time than usual reminiscing, recently. I can chalk it up to having a “big” birthday last year. Or to spending a few days, this month with family in England, where we talked about childhood holidays. Or to ongoing attempts to “declutter” our house and decide what to keep and to discard – do I really need the invitation to my cousin’s wedding 20 years ago? My report cards from High School? (They all said the same thing – talk less, study more!) It’s easy - especially in these somewhat restrictive pandemic days – to spend a lot of time thinking about the past – and perhaps about the paths not taken. That decision not to go back to school, to take that job, to choose one relationship over another. Memories are an important part of who we are and how we see the world. At the same time, we probably all know people who seem a little “stuck” in the past and struggle to move on.

In today’s reading from his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes:

“Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind…our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Our orientation, then, must be predominantly toward the future. Our mission to stand firm in our faith. Our focus on the return of the Savior. Each week we make three declarations - past, present, and future:

Christ has died

Christ is risen

Christ will come again.

And the first has no meaning, no relevance, without the second and third.

So, while we seek to honor the past, the practices and traditions that we love, we must seek also to pour our energy and resources into the present and the future. Our Beloved in the Desert Program does both. Our Corps members are working at local Not-for-Profits every day, touching the lives of those most in need in our community. And they use this year to discern their future path, to identify where God is calling them next.

I hope that you will join me in supporting the Beloved in the Desert program, its alumni and current corps members by remembering them in your prayers. And, as we start to recruit for the 2022-2023 program year, that God will lead young people to us, to a year of service and discernment, as we keep looking to the future.

Elizabeth Wood

Elizabeth Wood is a member of the Vestry, and the Board of Beloved in the Desert Episcopal Service Corps, amongst a number of other important ministries at our church.