The north wind is blowing...

“But still the clever north wind was not satisfied. It spoke of towns yet to be visited, friends in need yet to be discovered, battles yet to be fought…”   — The movie Chocolat, 2000

    Most often in life, the Holy Spirit does not appear as a blinding flash of light.  Rarely does it work

like it did when Jesus barreled over the future Apostle Paul on the highway into Damascus with a flash-bang, knocked him off his donkey, struck him blind, and then gave him a new purpose in life.  No, for most of us it is just that quiet sense of a new wind blowing through our lives.  That is how the Holy Spirit is often described in Scripture... as wind.  Sometimes it is the hurricane-force winds of Pentecost, but most times, it is just the soft, gentle blowing breeze outside of Elijah’s cave.  It is a feeling hard to pin down, a yearning, a gentle nudging.

     Now, after twenty-four years journeying with you, the wind is blowing again in my life.  Decisions such as retirement are difficult, especially when you are a person like me who is even intimidated by the towering shelves of butter at my grocery store — there are just too many options.  But I do think sometimes we hesitate to make a choice because we worry too much about making the exact right one.  While there are always obviously bad choices in life, and we have been given brains and wisdom to think about the pros and cons, still, it seems more likely we have ten or more perfectly good choices branching out from any given moment.  Some choices may be better, some worse, but all are equally blessed by God.  It is my impression God may nudge us with the Spirit, but then is curious… which way will we choose?

     With my retirement this Easter, the wind is nudging me into a new phase of my life where I plan to focus on two things I love:  Playing cello and writing.  I have kept this blog since 2009, but have been terrible about updating it in the past few years.  I hope to change that now that I will have more time.  You can follow my latest scribblings here, which will certainly not all be about church stuff.

     There are no words to express my love and admiration for all of you.  You gave me a spiritual home here at Trinity over two decades ago, and we have walked together beside still waters and, at times, through troubled ones.  After a long pastorate, the Church asks priests to step away from their churches for at least a year both to give the new person a chance and to help us let go.  But I’m not leaving Reno.  As Jonathan Livingston Seagull once said, the whole point of our faith is we are overcoming time and space.  And when you do that, all that is left is here and now.  And in the middle of here and now, don’t you think we will probably run into each other once or twice?  Love each other.  Be kind.  Keep the faith.  And what blessing is mine to give, I leave with you.