Pastor’s Page

Blessed friends,

It is not always easy to make a commitment.  In fact, our most natural inclination is to be suspect of making a commitment to anything that may be greater than our ability to see it through to its end.  Some commitments come to us by choice.  Some just come.

On the way to the office I drive by a small pond and marsh that is home to a pair of swans.  Sitting atop her nest, the mother swan has not left her perch in what seems, to my brief view, as days at a time.  At first the scene brings to mind beauty, nurturing love, a wistful reverie of how care is built into the nature of things.  As it turns out, both female and male swans share in the duties atop the nest, incubating the eggs.

But the more I have driven by this industrious couple, attending to their next generation’s needs, I have come to the thought that this scene is much more about commitment than anything else.  They say that swans mate for life, which is one kind of commitment to admire—the kind of commitment that begins not as a head thing, but deep in the soul to be connected to another that is like and unlike one’s self.  The other kind of commitment is to what life brings you.

I don’t know if those birds took a cygnet training class, or learned how to finance their waterfront home, or have made plans for their retirement, but I, as a casual observer, can attest to the fact they sure are committed.  Those birds are atop that nest on warm, sunny days, cold, dark nights, and in stormy rain.  They are there on my way to worship on Sunday morning, and on my way home from choir practice on Thursday nights.

Their life together is a refuge, a resting place, for the lives of those to come.  When Christ was on the Cross he came to the full realization of the destiny of his commitments he made with his life.  In his time of his greatest suffering, what came from his soul was the words of the psalmist, “Into your hand I commit my spirit…”

With days spent with gladness and laughing, with days of sorrow and sighing, to us and all our fellow creatures of the air, field and sea, our strength fails and our bones waste away.  That’s commitment.  We have no other course but to go all the way to the end.  In that journey however, our souls start with small beginnings, and take flight to the greater world beyond our first moments.

While our Lord knew the distress of the soul, to be handed over to enemies, to waste away from grief and shame, to long for a steadfast love and a broad place to set his feet upon, he revealed to us that our greatest commitment is to life itself.  “Into your hands”, he says.  Our Lord’s Spirit goes with God, who is faithful, who is a rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save, a woven nest to hide in, a destination that never leaves us from within our spirits.

I want to say to those swans if I could speak in an aviary way, or to all my friends and family and church community for that matter, your commitment counts!  The psalmist sings out, “Love the Lord all you his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful!  Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord!”

Good things are in store for minding the store with love and care and commitment!  Hang in there!

With love and blessings,

Pastor Ken