As I sit on my front porch and type this letter, I sense fall all around me: afternoon sunlight hitting my face and hands through the now sparse leaves of our river birch, maple leaves releasing like feathers dancing across the sky, crumbled leaves crunching under my feet, and the cooler crisp air wafting across my face. It all reminds me of the poem, The Sacrament of Letting Go, by Macrina (you can read it on page 3). Trees as they drop their colorful leaves can teach us to trust the seasons of our lives. They can tutor us in the sacrament of letting go. They can help us trust and embrace the paschal mystery, of dying and rising. I love how the sunrise and sunset help the tree open to trust that “her vulnerability; her dependence and need; her emptiness; her readiness to receive; were giving her a new kind of beauty.”
As I have help lead in this time of transition at ELPC with the Pastoral Nominating Committee, the Session, and our staff, I have wondered what we might be being invited to let go of and surrender. What multi-colored leaves have provided nourishment and shade for ELPC for a time, but now need to fall to the ground and die, composting for something new to arise? I wonder what new life and beauty might emerge. It is difficult to let go, to surrender, to let beautiful and life-giving things go; it is hard to wait in vulnerability, dependence, need and emptiness, simply open to receive. And yet this is where I sense we are, and it is good!
As we gather in the coming month to talk about our various ministries, our budget, our areas of service as deacons and elders, our dreams and visions for the coming years of ELPC, I encourage us to ponder and wonder together what leaves are falling to the ground. Where might we hear an invitation to embrace the sacrament of letting go? How can we open ourselves to the sacrament of letting go? What branches are no longer producing fruit that the gardener might need to cut off? And what branches are producing fruit, but need to be pruned so that they will be even more fruitful (John 15:2)? How might God be inviting us to simply stand and wait for refilling? What does it feel like to stand in vulnerability and emptiness and receive the tenderness of the sunrise and sunset? I for one am excited about this season and sense in many of you an openness to change, renewal, and newness. Amidst the falling leaves, where do you sense the potential for new life emerging? Can you look at the falling leaves and see their beauty and give thanks for their life and at the same time imagine a future that is fresh, different, and even more fruitful than the past? I hope that as you walk past the almost barren trees this month that the Spirit will give you strength to stand in our own “vigil of trust” and prophetic imagination to see the new life emerging in our own sacrament of letting go in the life of ELPC. May it be so!
—Pastor BJ