Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ. “It’s not your fault.” It was some twenty years ago, and I had just told my therapist, rather off-handedly, that I had caused my cancer. I had read somewhere (or did I make it up?) that Type A personalities were more apt to have heart attacks and Type Bs, like me, get cancer. The theory is a bit hazy now, but it somehow helped me make some sense of all that was happening to me at the time.

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Each Friday through August Pastor Harry will be writing on Growing the Beloved Community to stimulate ideas and discussion on how we might live into this vision.

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

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us that all life is sacred and spiritual.

Look, hmm, toss.  That became my cadence year after year upon receiving a missive in the mail from the Ignatian Spirituality Institute.  I would look at it, wonder what in the world Ignatian meant, then toss it in recycling.  Look, hmm, toss.

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Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who opened his arms and welcomed children to come to him. Infants and children and youth.  Oh my, what a Trinity!  Add their parents and we have four gospels teaching us how to love, cherish, listen to, and support young families. So, get your scorecard out (you may need it!) and I will explain the changes happening on the third floor and the reasons for them.  After weeks of discussions with various parties affected by the changes, the following was approved unanimously by the session...

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Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who wept over the death of a friend, and who I imagine is weeping still over how we continue to treat one another. June is Pride Month, and it couldn’t come fast enough. On Wednesday the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination with around 50,000 churches and 16 million members, voted overwhelmingly to oust two churches because they had women pastors...

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Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who began a movement to change the world. Since then, Christianity has changed and grown and diversified.  Lately, though, I hear more about Christian Nationalism and strident views than I do about a religion based on a compassionate God who loves the world and everyone in it. So, I wrote something this morning that I have been thinking about for a long time.  I share it with you first...

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Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who often looked to the prophet Isaiah who spoke of turning swords into plowshares and imagined a world without weapons. Now Farmington, yet another community rocked by gun violence. What’s more, I just learned the shootings happened very close to the Farmington Presbyterian Church whose building and parking lot are still cordoned off.

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Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, the one whom others asked if anything good could come out of Nazareth. Now, I am wondering, might anything good come out of Nashville? We’ve heard too many names of individuals and cities falling victim to gun violence, resembling the cadence of a litany too difficult to finish, name after name, day after day, year after year. Almost unbearable . . ., no, it is unbearable, to imagine the pain and loss this lengthening litany represents. We now include Louisville with yesterday’s shooting at a downtown bank...

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Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who is leading us through Holy Week. While the world seems fixated today on New York City and the arraignment of a former President, Jesus is in Jerusalem confronting the powers and principalities of the world. It is far too easy, and done without much thought, to jump directly from the excitement of Palm Sunday (though what a beautiful day on the Plaza as we gathered with the Cathedral Basilica and Church of the Holy Faith!) to the joy of Easter.  Rather, we are called to follow Jesus, day by day, not look away, and stay close.

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Dear Saints in Santa Fe and other far-off places, Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who wept at the site and sight of death. Another shooting, this time in Nashville.  And this time we heard our name:  Presbyterian. It doesn’t matter if it happened at a school run by another denomination, this time the Presbyterian Church of America, the name is ours, the tragedy is ours.  We are connected.  We are part of the same family, the same country, the same world.  The victims are related to us.  The children are ours.  The grief is ours.

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