Pastor Dee’s Letter, Echoes, May 2011

It’s May!!!  Hooray Hooray! I love this time of the year.  It is a time for emergence from winter!  We start seeing bulbs and crocus peak through the dry ground with color and life.  The days seem warmer and longer.  Snow is long gone for the season (we hope-rain is welcome from now on).  The bears emerge from their hibernating dens.  The elk have finally lost their gnarly coats to nice clean new ones.  We have emerged from the tomb of death and darkness to proclaim, Alleluia Christ is Risen Indeed!! 

It is a season of beginnings.  We have young adults who will walk across their respective High Schools and step out on new adventures.  I get to celebrate this year to earn my doctorate after several years of study at SFTS.  We have newly elected officers who will be taking on the reins of leadership.  We have a new adventure to explore together on a field trip working live with wolves in their environment.  And we are approaching a new adventure as a congregation together.

As we move into the summer months, we are entering a new season of this community.  Your pastor will be traveling and exploring how essential play is for our spiritual lives.  But this is not just something Dee is doing.  You have an amazing Sabbatical Team, who has been working hard to ensure that this experience is something we share together.  From Book discussions, to special movie nights, hikes, field trips, and blog discussions, they have covered every possible area for us to be sharing this experience together in a variety of ways.  There are so many activities and opportunities; I do hope you will join in participating with us all.

What I have learned about experiencing new adventures is that we all have different feelings.  And the more plans that are in place flow of moving into something new is an easing into possibilities.  So I have been working very, very hard to ensure that every possible need you might have is taken care of during this time.  I am committed that this is not just a time for Dee; but as a community together we are renewed, refreshed, and rejuvenated in our exploration of creative play and spirituality.

As you already know this year we have added to our staff our new intern, Heather Cameron, who will be providing pastoral care during this time.  Heather brings to us vast and compassionate experience to support each of you in my absence.  We have clustered together a pastoral pool of ministers in Denver to support her in any way she might need.  We have an amazing array of preachers that I promise, will knock your socks off with powerful messages during this time (more to come, write-ups on each on in the summer issue).  We have made arrangements for you to have a Pastor-in Residence, Rev. Laurie Furr-Vancini (dear friend of Katie Robb).  She is visiting from Florida and will be with you during the month of July.  She will be attending and participating in the life of our community, just in case you might need anything.  We have staff needs covered and session will be supported by quality moderators during this time.  All of this is covered in monies we received from the Lilly Grant we received.  If you are missing out on all this information, check into signing up for the blog!

Dear community, it is a time of new beginnings, and how we step into the unknown is all up to us, it is our own choice.  We have a summer of adventure planned and I am excited to see what unfolds in our discoveries.  My hope is that we can start into this experience holding hands together, a little anxious, a lot celebratory, and being open to what God has in store for us. 

Blessings,

Dee

ECHOES

Inspire . . . Inform . . . Invite