Pastor’s Corner

Daylight is decreasing and cold weather and snow is just  around the corner. November is a month where the  beautiful changing colors of autumn give way to the  reality of winter. It is a time when harvest season has  ended, and we prepare for the gray days which are to  come. We change our clocks and sunlight becomes ever  more precious. It is the final month of our liturgical  calendar and precedes the joyous precession of  Christmas. We may feel inclined to look forward to the  hallowed Advent season just around the corner, but I  hope that we would appreciate the beauty that this  transitional month would offer us.  

Summer abundance gives way to winter scarcity. While  we as modern people do not have to bury and store our  nuts like peoples past, we would do well to recall the  importance of this rhythm. In the modern era we are  removed from the sacred habits of coexisting with the  land. We can eat bananas year-round and have tacos on  any Tuesday we wish. Yet, something has been lost the  farther we have been removed from living with the  land. We have forgotten that consumption has an end.  We have lost the art of preserving, recycling, and using  every ounce of our resources available. While we  currently seem to possess the luxury of waste, this is  ultimately a mirage. Overconsumption impacts  someone somewhere. Trash piles floating in the ocean  and filling beaches show that we cannot easily hide our  transgressions. Though we may have forgotten this  winter rhythm of preserving and preparing, creation has  not. November reminds us that we cannot take more  than the land gives. As a part of our Christian faith, we  are called to be stewards of the land and live in  harmony with the world around us. As we prepare for  winter, how can we live in harmony with the land?  What practices of sustainability and recycling can we  embody?  

Thanksgiving is a holiday that has epitomized our  current distance from the land. We consume and  consume and consume. Whereas the thanksgiving feast  would have been a treat at the beginning of a season of  famine, it is just another opportunity for us to be  gluttonous. While we may say what we are faithful for  on Thanksgiving Thursday, advertisements encourage  us to look at all the deals available to us on Black Friday. A holiday for giving thanks to the land, to our neighbor, and to our God has become a holiday to worship the mechanisms of endless consumption and ceaseless wants. As Christians we must be wary of these structures of sin; we must be different. Instead of spending money on things we do not need, we could spend our dollars supporting local service organizations. We could fast in preparation of the feast prepared for us on Thanksgiving. We could invite people over to our homes who might be spending the holiday alone. While the spirit of Thanksgiving and the month of November may have alluded us, our faith gives us the tools to recall the riches of this season. November can be a month where we can experience peace, joy, and love, but are first called to walk away from the temptation of more.

Pastor Andrew