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.