Some catching up to do…

I notice (as have, I suspect, many of you) that I write less in the summer than I do in the winter.  This has been a beautiful summer with lots of sunshine and comfortable weather.  Its hard to feel motivated to write in a blog when trying to use as much energy as possible to do fun things out of doors.  Plus I am using Facebook to stay in touch with the Alaska conference United Methodist Clergy.  It is really helping me to feel like I am getting to know my new colleagues.  No small feat when you consider that thousands of miles separate our local parishes from one another!  This is not your daddy’s annual conference, okay?

Karen and I enjoyed a great get-away in celebration of 30 wonderful years of marriage… or more honestly, we celebrated being married for 30 years with almost all of it a wonderful experience!  Which in my opinion isn’t half bad either.  Some of you might remember that last winter we bought a 30th anniversary gift for each other in the form of an 18 foot skiff to use in the beautiful Kachemak bay.  We’ve been fishing and sight-seeing with our little boat and are gradually learning more about boating in this potentially dangerous bay.  The tides in this bay (see the section on boating safety) are particularly severe, and therefore pretty challenging in a small boat.  To celebrate our anniversary, we boated over to Kachemak Bay State Park and camped at Eldrige Passage.  The weather was fantastic and the sunset was perfect.  Really a nice time.  Check out the whole story on Karen’s blog.  It was pretty cool that we climbed up to Sadie Knob.

Ministry continues to go well with really neat special opportunities and experiences.  Last week a Ph.d. Astrophysicist did an astronomy lecture that has rekindled my interest in astro observing and photography.  More on that later.  It was presented by a “son of the church” who was home to visit his parents.  I couldn’t resist having us sing as one of our hymns at church last Sunday: “Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies”.  I might have been only one of a few who knew it, but I for one liked singing it in that context.

This Sunday our new Conference Director of Connectional Ministries will be with us and spend some time in conversation with the church.  This will be part of our visioning and planning process- something I believe is greatly needed here as we transition from finishing a huge building project to focusing on people ministry more and more.  Not that such a focus has been lacking, but I think it is time to go deeper into that.

I love living in Homer.  And I feel a real assurance that this is an important ministry and one to which I am authentically called.  This is not a perfect church or a perfect community.  But I think this is a very meaningful place to serve and a place where I feel much fulfillment in ministry.  I’ll conclude this post for now and add a photo below of me on Sadie Knob during yesterday’s hike.  It was really glorious.  “Glorious” is a word I find myself using a lot around here when I look off in the distance and appreciate what I am seeing.  How can anyone help but to thank God for such gifts!

Karen took this of me as I made my way to the summit. I'm the little white, tiny, figure in the center.