Letters Archive 2024

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

“Who will celebrate Christmas correctly?”

This was a question asked by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, celebrated German pastor and theologian who stood up to Hitler and the takeover of the German church, and lost his life doing so in the waning days of WWII. When Bonhoeffer speaks, I do my best to put everything else aside and listen.

I didn’t know, though, we had to celebrate Christmas correctly. It was never right or wrong growing up and growing older. It had always been about family and carols and Christmas Eve services and candles and gifts. Right?

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

I want to be lifted up on butterfly wings.

The Rev. Dr. Mary Kuhns, Parish Associate for Pastoral Care, Presbyterian pastor, youth minister, chaplain, Associate for Justice for Women for the Presbyterian Church (USA), licensed therapist, teacher, inclusive language advocate, singer at nursing homes, lover of dogs and cars and people. Mary, who helped start the Young Adult Volunteer (YAV) Program, who sat at hospital bedsides and listened to our stories, and played the ukulele…

I could go on and on. You probably could as well. Mary died November 24th, after a somewhat brief illness and hospital stay. …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

When has the Church ever been out in front?

Right now, actually.  Each year Christianity gets a head start on the new year with Advent, our New Year, beginning at midnight this morning, exactly one month before the world catches up with its own.

So what shall we do with this month grace period?  Work harder, comes to mind.  Get better at being church?  Nice. Do more?  Surely.  Go more places?  Why not?  But honestly, these words don’t feel right and sound exhausting the more I repeat them.  Such a pace may be what the culture does, but no, not us, not right now.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

“It reminds me of when the Israelites were caught between the Egyptian army and the Red Sea . . .”

I am part of a monthly Clergy Spiritual Direction group in Albuquerque where four of us, sometimes five, share the challenges and joys of being pastors, under the care of a psychologist/spiritual director who is accustomed to lives like ours.  It has been an amazing and supportive group for more than a decade.

This past week we talked about the election and what it might mean going forward.  It was here when my colleague finished his sentence: “. . . and God told the people to keep still.”

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

These days of uncertainty have me scrambling for insights and wisdom.  A few days ago, quite by accident, I found it in some of the oldest words, if not the oldest, in Scripture:  Miriam’s Song in Exodus 15:20-21.

Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister,
took a tambourine in her hand;
and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

Let us be the church today.

I woke up in darkness this morning, after a fitful night, to the news that our world has changed.  Now I do not presume to know how you are feeling right now.  If you are fine with the election results I welcome the invitation to talk with you and the vision you voted for.  We all need to be in conversation.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

What if we took All Saints Day seriously?

Oh, I know we do already.  It is one of my favorite services as we celebrate those who have died in the past year and lift up their names in the midst of singing.  How meaningful and important this is.  We will do so tomorrow in our one worship service at 10 am. 

No, what I mean is, what if we took seriously the meaning behind All Saints Day and acted upon it?

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

My mom gave me a dime to give away.

I was five, it was Sunday morning, I was probably running late again, and as I raced out the back door to cross the alley to church, my mom gave me a dime.

“Now remember to put this in the offering plate when you get to Sunday School,” she told me.  I said I would, and I did.  Every Sunday.

Mom gave me a dime to give to the church which would then be given to someone else…

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

Jesus sends before him seventy of his followers into every town and place (Luke 10:1-12).  This is the first time in the gospels we go first.

Here’s why I would go:

My earliest memories have church in them. Magical Christmas Eve services.  Running around the church feeling it was my second home.  Sliding under the pews. Being surrounded by people who always smiled at me. …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

Blessings upon our animal companions. 

Greta was a miniature black and tan dachshund who joined the family as a six-month old when I was nine.  She had a crooked tail, never chased a stick or a ball, didn’t play with toys and spent most of her life under a blanket, along with being a steadfast companion to grandpa who wasn’t well and needed someone like her.  Thank you, Greta, for being different than your average dog and the ways you blessed grandpa’s life, and my own.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

Coca-Cola tried to bring the world together in 1971 with a commercial.

I would be surprised if you don’t remember it.  I preached a sermon on World Communion Sunday in 2013 (remember that?) and when I started to sing the song, the entire choir joined in and scarcely a beat later so did the congregation.

I’d like to teach the world to sing.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

I missed this one.

When I first began as Pastor/Head of Staff at my previous church in Cleveland way back in 1995 I preached a four-sermon series on models for the church.  I suggested that the church could be a Center for Wellbeing, a School of the Spirit, a Circle of Stories, and a Welcoming Home.  We made banners for each one and began to pattern our ministry around these themes.

I should have added A House of Prayer.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

We pray the answer every Sunday.

If you ever want to know, or anyone ever asks you to define Christianity, or what churches do, or who we are as followers of Jesus, recite the Lord’s Prayer.  It has everything we need to know.  And it may surprise you.

With the help of scholar Obery M. Hendricks and his book, The Politics of Jesus, here goes…

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

“So who is going to preach?”

This question lingered in my Honda Accord for several exits as we headed down Interstate 71 from Wooster, Ohio, to Cow Creek, Kentucky.  There were three of us in the car that fall Friday in 1980:  Jim, now a retired cardiologist, Jenny, who married me twenty years later, and me.  All seniors in college, we had volunteered to lead worship for Joe Powlas, long-time pastor, missionary, and friend who would be away that weekend from this tiny hamlet in the hollers.

So we drew straws, and I literally came up with the short stick. Yikes. …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

When I was four, I was told I couldn’t play in the church anymore.

Actually, that’s not quite true but it sure seemed like it.  The pronouncement came by way of a note I was not yet old enough to read.  My friend and I found it on the shelf in a basement closet of the Presbyterian church in Wooster, Ohio, the same shelf that we had been happily making into our secret hiding place.  Oh, we were having such fun!  Crawling up there was half the joy, and decorating it was almost as good, filling it with all kinds of knick-knacks from home.  My dad was pastor, we lived in the manse next door, and the lines between home and church were happily blurred.  Until the note.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

It’s impossible until it isn’t.

This phrase keeps hanging around in my mind and apparently doesn’t want to leave. I heard it a few days ago from Father John Dear at Ghost Ranch as he addressed the seventy-two gun violence prevention activists who gathered there. He kept us captivated by his adventures of nonviolence across the world. My, does John have stories! He talked of all the great movements which started from the ground up, movements such as labor, suffragettes, civil rights, women, LGBTQ, and so on, and each one was thought to be impossible. Until it wasn’t.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom.

We sing this Taizé song as we file from the Agape Center to the courtyard.  It is now night.  We have come from across the country to Ghost Ranch to discuss gun violence and its prevention.  It is the first gathering of its kind.  The first for people from faith communities to meet one another, to lament and learn, and plan and dream of a day when no one is killed by gun violence anymore.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!

I babbled.  Couldn’t form the words.  And after I put the phone down, I screamed.

It was 1987.  A few weeks earlier I had been in a coma for three days, a consequence of the leukemia I was fighting.  When I woke up, I couldn’t speak, literally.  It came back soon enough but it left lasting scars in my mind, voice, and soul.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

There were five good reasons I didn’t go to Princeton. Joel Skinner was the sixth.

Princeton was recruiting me as a catcher and the baseball program flew me out one weekend my senior year. On the last morning of my visit, I had breakfast with the head coach who told me he was also recruiting a catcher from California named Joel Skinner whose dad played for the Pittsburgh Pirates and later coached there.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

America has a color problem.

So do I.  I was told I was “color blind” in kindergarten.  One day we were given a white paper with the outline of three squirrels and told to color them in.  Squirrels?!  I love squirrels!  They were everywhere in Wooster, and all different colors!  So, I looked through my Crayola box and found the crayon I wanted and colored away.  I was proud of my work, kept within the lines and everything, but when Mrs. Garvin walked by my desk she looked down and shook her head.  “Harry, there are no green squirrels.  Here’s another paper, start over.”

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

The Great Transition.

Whatever you might call it, we are in it.  Our politics may be a harbinger of such a transition with the current spirited conversation between past ways of ordering society and emerging new ones.

From the beginning, literally, God has been part of such conversations, calling us to remember our ancestors while reminding us “I am making a new creation.”  How many times does Jesus start off a lesson with “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you”?

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who took a little girl by the hand and raised her up.

“I’m Harry, this is Jenny, how we can help?”

This is how I got started in gun violence prevention.  It was a Friday in 2010 when we attended a weekly luncheon of the City Club of Cleveland where Conceal Carry was being debated, a hot topic in Ohio back then.  We sat in the two remaining seats at a table in the back.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who said once that the truth will set us free.

Who said, “What is truth?”

This is the only question I remember from the ordination exam I and other Presbyterian students took back in 1984. This Bible content exam, one of five needed to continue our journey to becoming Presbyterian pastors, was multiple choice and I only remember this question because I got it wrong, and apparently so did my classmates. We had dinner together following the exam in the Refectory at Yale Divinity School and this was the question we all discussed. Who said it? Never heard the question before. Are you sure it’s in the Bible?

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who crossed the Sea of Galilee to a foreign and inhospitable land.

This land seems closer than ever before.

You may recall last week we left Jesus and his disciples on a boat after a storm and there was a great calm following Jesus’ pronouncement “Peace, be still!”

How can I experience that peace after the Supreme Court’s recent pronouncements that have upended our understanding of democracy? How can I be still when our cherished system based on the rule of law has been, by all evidence, upended by partisan judgments not based on precedence nor the Constitution?

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who told four of his disciples they should go “across to the other side” in Mark 4:35-41, our scripture for this Sunday.

What does this mean, “the other side”?

When I hear that phrase, my mind immediately goes political and all the wrangling between sides.   Might the gospel writer have had that in mind in his day and we are supposed to reach out to those who think differently than we do?

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

May we plant a thousand seeds.

This is Wednesday, I am on my way from Ann Arbor to Cleveland Clinic for my annual checkup and I make a last second decision to exit the Ohio Turnpike and head towards Wooster, the home of my earliest memories and my college years.

I drive by fields upon fields of emerging crops.  I remember that my mom, who grew up on a farm not far from here, could tell me about every crop in every field. 

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

Vielen Dank!  Muchas Gracias!  Thank you so much!!!

Jenny and I are back from our two-month vacation and study leave filled with deep thanks for your generosity in making this possible.  It truly was a trip of a lifetime.

In the coming weeks and months, I will be sharing what I learned from our time in Australia, walking the Camino in Spain, and Germany.  But for now, here are a few insights…

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

I write you from a cafe in the city center of Greifswald, a college town in northern Germany not far from the Baltic Sea.

Justus, who some of you may remember when he lived with us as an exchange student in 2014-2015, is finishing medical school here and will be a full-fledged physician at the end of this year.  He and his family have been a big part of our family through the years and it has been wonderful to spend time with him again.

So, Australia, Spain, and now our final destination Germany. …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places!

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who walked from town to town until he finally reached Jerusalem.

Buen Camino!

This is the greeting you will hear and quickly learn to say on the Camino.  It literally means ‘good road or path’ but it transcends such a simple definition to mean a wish of wellbeing among pilgrims (peregrinos) and an offer of a helping hand along the journey.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

The Camino de Santiago.  The Way of St. James.

Like Iona, I am not sure when I first heard about this pilgrimage.  Perhaps it has been roaming around within me for years without any acknowledgment and suddenly it appeared and said it was time to go wander a bit, stretch your legs and your stamina.  And your heart.

So here we are.  When you read this, Jenny and I, and daughters Gwen and Claire, will be arriving in Madrid …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

Jet lag, church lag, and Pentecost.

Before I go there, I want you to know that Jenny and I are home for a few days to regroup before we head off to Spain and the Camino, then on to Germany as the final stop on our vacation and study leave time. I am spending these days preparing for the last of my four classes in my Trauma and Spiritual Care course and will be up in the middle of the night attending class on zoom while we are in Germany. Two all-nighters, in fact. Thank you, time zones! …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

We are in one of those far-off places.

Margaret River, a four-hour drive south of Perth, then five hours by plane from Melbourne, seventeen hours from Dallas, and another couple hours from Albuquerque, then the hour drive home to Santa Fe.  Yes, it’s a far-off place and as “far off” as I have ever been.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far off places—

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

Worship two ways.

Last Sunday morning we attended worship at a Uniting Church in downtown Perth.

The Uniting Church began in 1977 when Methodists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians came together to form a new denomination based on social justice and inclusion.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ!

Photos and some random Aussie thoughts.

Pictures down under paint 1,531.26 words (the conversion rate for 1,000) so I am sending some to you since it is such a great deal.  So is the exchange rate!

Since I wrote to you last, we said goodbye to our friends in Melbourne but not before a big party of some 30-40 old friends who attended the Uniting Church in West Brunswick when Jenny did.  …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

Australia, after eighteen years . . .

Jenny and I have been in Australia for more than a week now, arriving without incident or delay after a 25-hour trip, from take-off in Albuquerque to touch-down in Melbourne.

In some ways it is the same Australia we last saw eighteen years ago…. 

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who rose again this year.

One mother of a junior high student made an appointment with me not long after I arrived at my first church in 1984, walked in, sat down, and asked if I was serious.  No, it was probably more like whether I was out of my mind. …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who has had a tumultuous week.

What Mary saw.

There was a moment of recognition and relief as Mary Magdalene stood before Jesus.  A single point in time, didn’t last long, perhaps just a lifetime or so.

We might imagine what Mary saw before that moment. …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who rode into Jerusalem at the start of Passover.

No one knew what it meant at the time.

The crowd waved their branches and loved this peculiar spectacle and the more shouting they heard the louder they shouted.  Save us! Save us!  As if a poor man on a donkey could do any such thing.

The Scribes scoffed …

The Pharisees were amused …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

Christian.  Athletic.  Easy-going.

These were the three words listed next to my photograph in the College of Wooster’s Freshman Directory back in the fall of 1977, affectionately known at the “Baby Book.”  Little did I know that we would be saddled ever since with the words we chose to describe ourselves.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

“It went by so fast.”

These were some of the last words my mom said before Parkinson’s took away her ability to speak, and then eventually her life.  I still remember her eyes when she said them, looking at me with some astonishment that her life was almost over, a life that was so well spent…

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

Dreams often baffle me and alarm me, and sometimes they open a way forward.

With the start of spring training my mind has turned once again to baseball, and memories of my playing days start to spill in.  I share with you, then, that for 35 years since my last at bat in college I would have recurring dreams of realizing I have one more year of eligibility…

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.

“These are the most radical, political, revolutionary words ever uttered.”

The words spoken on the pitcher’s mound in the spring of 1979 were not these.  I was a catcher for the College of Wooster baseball team, we were playing Wittenberg University and, at that point in the season we had the best record in all of college baseball, 30-1.  …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who holds compassion for all God’s creation.

A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.

These words by poet Carl Sandburg have stayed in my mind, word for word, for some forty years and they come back to me every time I think of our new Infant Care Center on the third floor. …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who often needed to get away from the pressing crowds.

A little history of my upcoming sabbatical after Easter, now termed a vacation and study leave.

Every seven years, pastors in the Presbytery of Santa are entitled to a 3–4-month sabbatical for rest and restoration.  For me the seven-year mark was 2019 …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who turns our daily lives into a calling.

“I liked your song.”

That’s all that came out.  I wanted to say how Groundhog Day has been such an important movie in my life, how my wife Jenny and I started dating on Groundhog Day in 1981 and we have made watching it a tradition, and how brilliant and funny your story is, so thank you for all of that….

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who Gandhi said was “the most active resister known perhaps to history.”

I have been an enthusiastic advocate of nonviolence all my life.

No, wait, hold on, that’s not right.  In my earliest days (with many photographs as proof), I was smitten with all things cowboy—guns and boots and hats and kerchiefs.  How I wanted a horse as well but for some reason mom and dad said no.  Horseless, then, I could be seen shooting my fair share of bad guys and didn’t think a thing of it.  I was on my way, like most boys I knew at the time, to a life of guns and violence, albeit all fake but still a big part of my life perspective.

Then it all changed. …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

 Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who calls us to turn toward a new realm of justice, compassion, and nonviolence, which is as close as your hand (Mark 1:15).

 “There are 2400 members in this church and 3,000 opinions.”

These are the first words I remember hearing as I began my ministry some forty years ago, spoken by the Senior Pastor as I arrived fresh from seminary.  About the same time my pastor father gave me advice I can’t seem to shake: “My main job in ministry has been to keep the saints from killing each other.”  I still chuckle at this one.

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, whose life and teachings set people free.

Anybody here seen my old friend Abraham?  Can you tell me where he’s gone?

Most likely you have already started singing the tune, moving through the verses that mournfully and wistfully sing of Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, the latter three assassinated within a span of 4 ½ years.

A flood of emotion washes over me and my eyes well up with tears every time I hear it.  Every time.  …

Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who was baptized by John.

May 10, 1959.

I came across my baby book a while back.  It is called “Log O’ Life” with a torch and light rays on the front cover made of leather and every part of my first few years of life inside. …