PASTOR'S PONDERINGS....May 2023.

Nine years of Pastor’s Ponderings and Newsletters—first ‘The Tower’ and now

the ‘Trinity Times.’

Nine years of worship and service with and for this Trinity United Methodist Church.

Nine years of visits and picnics, snowy winters and long summer evenings.

Nine years of Easters and Christmases. Nine years of Maundy Thursdays, All Saints

Days, and Pentecost Sundays.

Nine years of committees and baptisms and funerals and confirmations and luncheons

Nine special years with each and all of you...some who are no longer with us.

I am humbled by the honor of being your minister, your pastor, and your friend all of

these many days and weeks and years.

My moving date hasn’t been set yet, but the best guess at this point is that it will

be sometime between June 15 and June 25. Between now and then, my intention is to be

whole heartedly present to any and all of you who want a little more time with me. There

are those who have talked about becoming members ‘someday,’ and I will find out if that

can happen before I go. There are those who don’t get out much, and I will contact them

to see about visiting. An open house farewell party is being planned for early June, and

the whole building will be available for one final gathering of the community while I am

still here.

Not everyone will be able to come or even want to, but all of you will be in my

heart and in my prayers in these weeks to come. Saying ‘Farewell’ can be complicated

by unfinished business, a sour taste, a bitter memory—all of which is possible in any

nine-year relationship. But let’s remember that the word Farewell means: I pray you live

(fare) well, even as I leave. The word Goodbye indicates Goodness even in the passing

by of one from another. Adieu is the French word for ‘Go with God.’ Au revoir is another

French word that means, ‘Until we see again.’

In our Methodist world, there is always a connection that binds us one to another,

as people, as churches, as Conferences...regardless of the distance and time that passes.

In our Christian lives, we are forever connected by the love of Jesus, through our

baptism, our joint mission of sharing God’s love, through our common origin as the

children of God. I will be leaving Iron Mountain Trinity, but in some holy and blessed

way, I will always be part of who and how you are in Christ at this church.

In this Easter season, as we remember and celebrate the Resurrection Re-set of

our lives through Jesus, let’s be together a little while longer, with respect, with honor,

with love, and in holy friendship. With gratitude and love for all we have shared.

Pastor Geri

 

When we are able to build open spaces in the same way

we have learned to pile on the logs, then we can come to see how it is fuel,

and absence of the fuel together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.

A fire grows simply because the space is there, with openings in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn

can find its way.

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