Dear Parish Family,

Many of the clergy and wardens of parishes met with Bishop Carrie Wednesday to talk about how we were all doing in the wake of the election results. The bishop urged us to remember that while many people are distraught over the outcome, others are celebrating, and that our churches are likely to have both types of people in them. And while I am committed to trying to seek and serve the Christ in all people, I am aware that the people who are celebrating the election results are not the people who are feel under threat of further erosion of civil rights in our country.

So for those of you who may feeling joy, please try to understand that some people are afraid and uncertain. For those of you who are experiencing that fear, I see you. Our job as a Christian community is to be a welcome and safe space for people no matter what they are presently experiencing, knowing that it is a holy obligation to seek and serve Christ in ALL people.

I don’t always succeed at that, but I am dedicated to trying because if faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, as we read in Hebrews 11:1, then my faith should be placed in the conviction that continued steps toward a more just and beloved community will ultimately lead to the reality of that vision.

I leave you with a few lines from a prayer by one of my heroes—the Jesuit scientist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

From Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

I am most decidedly impatient. And yet I do trust in the slow work of God. We are all that slow work of God. And that’s why I believe that we can really be that beloved community where no one has to be afraid.

In resolute hope,

Pan +