These letters from Pastor Harry and church leaders explore the challenges we face as people of faith in a complicated and fearful world, not unlike the world that Paul faced, and not unlike the world that Dr. King faced down.
These letters are distributed to the congregation via our email newsletter. To sign up for our eNews, contact our Office Manager.
January 18, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
Been to the Mountaintop.
Yes, when I was five. It was my first time being up so high and looking down, something small town Ohio did not offer. But a trip to California changed that in the summer of 1964 when Dad began his doctoral program at San Francisco Seminary. One evening at dusk my family and I drove up to Mt. Tamalpais when the sun was dropping behind the Pacific.
We looked south upon the flickering lights of San Francisco. I was mesmerized. I had never seen that kind of beauty before. Mom held the family instamatic camera, the one with the bulb on the top that afforded you four flashes, twisting as one click went to the next till it was used up.
Worried that she had waited too long to capture the moment as the light-speckled valley below was turning dark, she asked, “Do you think it would help if I used the flash?” I thought it was a pretty good idea, being five, but my dad and brothers laughed and soon we were all laughing at the thought that a little camera could light up the entire Bay area.
I still think it’s a good idea.
As Monday approaches when we observe both Martin Luther King, Jr. and the inauguration I recall King’s final speech delivered the day before he was assassinated. He spoke to an audience in Memphis and described how far the Civil Rights movement had come but that there was still more work to do.
At the end of his speech, King described the scene in Deuteronomy 34 where Moses had led the Israelites through the Wilderness and now, atop Mount Nebo, God showed him the Promised Land below. King said he had caught a glimpse of the Promised Land—a future where all people were free, where injustice had ended, and a racial divide no longer separated people so all people would finally be treated as equals, with dignity and respect. It is the Bible’s vision of justice and unity and King found hope in that.
We are still far from that vision today. As new leadership takes office this week the question remains how far away is that vision and when will we ever see it? Moses never did, he died right there on the mountain. King never did. He was killed by an assassin’s bullet the next day.
But when I was five I had been to the mountaintop. I thought I was seeing the Promised Land. There was no reason not to believe that then, that a small flash of light, of compassion, of inclusion, of equality, could illuminate the whole world.
I still hold out hope that it will.
Grace and peace,
Harry
Recent Letters
January 11, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
Six stone jars filled with water.
I am jarred by the news of the fires in Los Angeles. My old home and church are on the line between an evacuation order and a warning. It might depend on the way the wind is blowing on whether or not my old home and neighborhood is spared or will remain only in my memories. An old friend who sang at my installation service in 2012 told me a few hours ago that he has never been more terrified as he looks out from his front yard in Encino to a raging fire 1 ½ miles away.
January 4, 2025
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
“Love the person in front of you.”
Jimmy Carter accompanied a Hispanic pastor friend on a pastoral visit years ago and as they were walking down the sidewalk, Carter asked his friend how he did it, so moved was he by what he just experienced. It’s simple, the pastor said, “love the person in front of you.”
Is there a better phrase for the Christian life? Are there better words to describe what Jesus did in his ministry? Might these words accompany us in the new year?
December 28, 2024
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
The Star stopped.
In the long history of the world this has never happened, until chapter 2 in Matthew’s gospel mentions it not once but twice. I had never seen the once and certainly not the twice.
So what is going on here? Some ideas…
December 21, 2024
Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places:
Greetings in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ!
Well, so that is that.
These words are tucked in the middle of a poem by British-American poet W. H. Auden (1907-1973) written in the early days of World War II. They refer to the day after Christmas and how we get right back to our lives and leave Christmas behind and Baby Jesus still in the manger. The poem continues.
As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed
To do more than entertain it as an agreeable
Possibility, once again we have sent Him [Christ] away . . .
December 14, 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?
December 7, 2024
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. …
November 30, 2024
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.
November 23, 2024
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.”
November 16, 2024
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.