I have struggled for several hours with
the question, “What do I write for the community this time?” Knowing that our time together has become
short now, what feels central to me to share with you. I reviewed all the paragraphs previously
shared and felt that revising something written near the beginning of our
journey together might be best.
Brené
Brown, social worker, researcher, and Episcopalian says, “A story is facts with
a soul.” Every Sunday, I study your
faces, wondering what stories live behind them in your experiences. What stories of joy heartache, success,
failure? What stories of God’s love
experienced in your life?
We
each bring our personal stories to this community and make them part of the St.
Andrew’s story. Both those stories get altered
by being interwoven. St. Andrew’s story
changes because of your presence and your story changes by being interwoven in
the St. Andrew’s story. No matter where
you and I go if we leave here, our stories are forever different.
Each
Sunday, we tell the story of our salvation in the readings and in the Great
Thanksgiving. We nest our personal
stories and our church story in the great charter story of our salvation in
Christ and find renewal and transformation in the bread and wine and the Spirit
and the Word—the outpourings into our hearts of God’s story of saving
love. We become part of God’s ongoing
story—the mission of God’s saving love in our world.
It
has been a privilege to be here with you.
The thought of having been with you, fills me with joy--sharing my
story, hearing your stories, and experiencing our stories being interwoven into
the tapestry we call St. Andrew’s. You
have included me in your personal stories and in the St. Andrew’s story and for
that I thank you. Wherever life takes
me, my story will be forever different and richer thanks to you.
God's Peace,
Fr. David, Interim Rector
No comments:
Post a Comment