From the Vicar: Carry The Best Forward

From the Vicar: Carry The Best Forward

From the Vicar: Carry The Best Forward

# From The... - Letters to the Congregation

From the Vicar: Carry The Best Forward

Dear Ones of St Columba’s,

As many of you know, I have just returned from two weeks away teaching Congregational Development. One week was in the Diocese of Maryland, the other in Port Townsend, WA for our own Diocese of Olympia. I love this work, despite the exhaustion of so much time away. One reason I love it is that each time I direct a session of The College for Congregational Development I am reminded of useful tools for our life together here at St C’s. 

This week, as we get ready for our patronal feast day celebration, I am reminded of a concept from Appreciative Inquiry. Appreciative Inquiry is a development tool that begins with the assumption that in every human organization there is something that works, and that something can be built upon to improve that organization’s health. It recognizes the importance of the past in building the future, with this principle: carry forward the best from the past. 

Carry forward the best from the past. Implicit in this statement is that the rest gets left behind. Each year on St Columba Day we mark the end of our program year and the beginning of the different routines of summer rest and re-creation. This year I am also aware we are moving into a new phase of change in our pandemic weary world, and in our pandemic weary selves. I believe this is the moment when we face the reality that there really is no going back. We will regather, our world is already moving forward, but this regathering will sometimes feel more like the hard work of rebuilding something new than the relief of returning to something familiar. 

But here is the good news: while we cannot return to the past we can carry the best of it forward with us. We can continue to feed our vulnerable neighbors as we have always done at our best. We can steward our land alongside relationships with the people we share it with. We can keep on having the hard and honest conversations, and choosing relationship over comfort. The ways we do these things will not stay the same. But this core identity is something we can carry forward, bring new folks into, and be shaped by as together we build something new. 

I hope you come to sing and pray and dance and eat with us this Sunday for St Columba day. If possible, bring some dry beans to share for the food bank: part of the best that we carry forward. It’s time to celebrate, connect, and perhaps to rest, as we move into the future together, carrying the best with us. 

With care and gratitude,

Alissa



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