A Word From Our Pastor
Fall is finally here. The temperatures are beginning to cool, we can spend a little more time outside, and the changing season reminds us that life is always moving.
Fall has always been one of my favorite times of the year. That may have something to do with the fact that my birthday comes in the fall. I am approaching one of those milestone birthdays that causes you to stop and reflect a little differently.
Milestones have a way of making us look back through the book of our lives and ask some important questions: Did I do all that I wanted to do? Did I say everything that needed to be said? Did I accomplish all that I set out to accomplish? Have I become the person that I thought I would be by now?
But perhaps an even more important question is: Who am I still becoming?
Fall teaches us something about becoming. The trees do not fight to hold on to every leaf. The Earth does not apologize for entering a different season. There is a time for growth, a time for harvest, and a time for letting go so that something new can eventually emerge.
Maybe the changing season is inviting us to do the same.
St. Francis, what does this season mean for each of you? Have you asked yourself what this new season of change may require of you? What you might need to release? What you might need to learn? Where might you need to stretch, heal, forgive, dream, or begin again?
And how will you continue growing into the person the Divine has called to be?
I believe becoming is a lifetime of work. None of us have arrived. God is still shaping us, teaching us, stretching us, and calling us toward something deeper. Change may not always be comfortable, but that does not mean change is bad. Sometimes change is simply the evidence that we are still alive, still growing, and still open to the movement of the Spirit.
As we enter this new season together, my hope is that we will not simply admire the changing leaves. May we have the courage to change with them.
May we celebrate what has been. May we harvest what we have learned. And may we release what no longer gives life. And may we remain open to who God is calling us to become next.
The season is changing. And perhaps, by the grace of God, so are we.
With Love and Light,
Pastor Michael