A Letter from the Rector's Desk
Dear Friends,
Epiphanies are in some ways about thresholds. If you answer the epiphany of your soul, whatever that might be, you step into something new.
Thresholds are important and sometime protected. Years ago there was a bullfrog who wanted to get into the house of a friend of mine who lived in Dover. There are plenty of places for bullfrogs to be happy aside from the inside of the Mumford’s house. But this frog wanted to be inside the house. He would wait hiding behind a planter on the patio until the backdoor opened, and then he would lunge, well, hop fast, to try and make the entry. Sometimes he succeeded. There would be words and screams about the frog. Someone would find him and out he went until the next time. He wanted to cross a threshold that was not his to cross. It was, while not sacred, not his. It was Nancy’s threshold. And she was careful about who crossed it, whatever the species.
Thresholds take us into sacred places as well as the mundane. But they always lead to something different. When the light of the star called the Magi, it was to a threshold of universal importance. It was an offering of God. Had they returned the way they came, salvation history would have had a very different story.
We have our own threshold moments. I am one who is slow to cross the threshold. I test the waters. Pray long and hard about the door that has opened. I am that way about leaving and going, whether to new opportunities or old old faithful returns. I stand and pray at the threshold before I go through.
I have friends who just charge ahead. You might be one of those.
However, as we approach a threshold, they are there and they are meant to be crossed. Thresholds are gifts. They are opportunities that God is giving us to be and do better, or different things with our lives. Epiphany is about the “ah ha” moments in our lives. Thresholds are often those moments.
The parish is facing a threshold, calling a new Rector. The Search Committee is doing a wonderful job doing the ground work. The Vestry and the Search Committee will be making a decision about a new rector in the coming months. How we cross that threshold is so very important. We need to recognize that we are going into a new era as a parish. God is calling us to go over this threshold together.
Look. Listen. Pray, this Epiphany that you might recognize the epiphany's in your life and cross those threshold’s for the new gifts that are on the other side of the door.
Blessings and love,
Pattie
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