Pastor's Message

For March 2010

Thoughts I’d Like To Share ........

I believe every person has their own walk of faith.

Someone can share with me, and I with them, personal experiences of anguish and joy but I can never really know or experience the qualities of life that are foundational to another person’s faith especially when my own faith walk is continuing to unfold and lead me to new understandings of who I am as a person of faith.  I can guess and speculate as to what has brought another person to where they “are” but even that is unfair to them.  They are entitled to the solemnity and deeply spiritual nature of their journey.

I believe that our walks of faith often unfold so quietly and imperceptibly that we are totally unaware.  Others may see it but we may not.  What might be shared with us can be difficult to understand and incorporate into our journey but it is valuable none-the-less. At some point it we will reflect upon it, pass it through our discernment process and let it take root as it may. In this I believe   the miracle and mystery of all we call God is at work in our lives. I am brazen enough to also believe that this work is seen in those who have nothing but disdain for faith. 

We cannot force a person to have a walk of faith nor can we strong-arm them along their way.  Certainly, our way cannot be their way.  In the same manner we experience discovery so do others.  A similar test or challenge or joy will be met in our uniquely different ways.  We speak of the diversity of life – in matters of faith this is a universal truth!

I believe a dynamic power emerges when faith journeys share the same path.  Without voice or expression strength, encouragement, affirmation, assurance, purpose, hope all become manifest.  The simple knowing that we do not journey alone bolsters us along our way.  More importantly, the knowing that what we face, struggle with or celebrate is well known to others gives a most welcome confidence.  To look around and see that others bear burdens so heavy they, too, have a hard time walking; to sense that they, like you, might feel their burdens are just too heavy to bear at all; to see in their eyes the anguish of soul that blinds the vision of the new day is in a strange way -heartening!  This opens us; I like to think, to the healing of God and to the loving care, kinship and prayers of the fellowship of those with whom we walk.

Our walks of faith mingle and share the same path every time we gather for worship.  Within the sacred place we call our church we find refuge from the dizzying nature of the world and respite from our burdens. In our gathering there is a sharing of the spiritual nature of our walk.  Foundational to all we say and do while there are the hidden dynamics of our many journeys.  Just by being present each with the other we gain so much!  Isn’t it incredible that the presence of hidden, unvoiced struggle produces healing grace!  Our gathering produces a synergy that transforms life and faith!   

I believe that we are, as theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin suggests, spiritual beings on a human journey.  Uniquely spiritual in our own right and dynamically spiritual when we are together as a people of faith, we, I believe, share in manifesting the presence and power of all we know God to be. 

Embrace your walk of faith, dear friends.  There are many who journey with you, their unspoken words and gentle smile will tell you they have an idea of your burden - the burden you both share.

 Rev. L. Walter

(page updated  3/3/10