First Week as Rector: Hope and Tragedy

The Third Week of Easter

April 18, 2013

From the Rector    

A First Week: Hope and Tragedy

I had not yet gotten through my first official day in the office this past Monday when I took a phone call late in the afternoon: "have you heard the news?" I had not. Yet I had heard those words before. We all have. I heard them in December while I was in Connecticut to hear the horrendous news of the deaths of so many little ones and their courageous teachers in nearby Newtown - an event that shook the state and nation to our core. The bombings this past Monday at the Boston Marathon brought back a flood of memories to this nation and caused life-changing injuries and life-ending anguish.  No words, beyond the timeless and sacred words of our faith tradition, can meet such losses and even try to make sense of them to cobble together any understanding of the "whys?" we all ask during these times.

As I begin my ministry as priest, pastor and fellow Christian on a shared journey with you, I confess that chances are that there will be other phone calls and text messages in the years ahead: "have you heard the news?"  May they be rare in number. May any nightmare calls that come our way be outnumbered by joy-filled ones like: "I am a new grandparent... we are expecting our first child... my daughter got accepted into college... the lab results are clean... or I found a job after looking for far longer than I had imagined." May our hope and joy outweigh any darkness that covers us during times of tragedy, death and loss.  And yes, that is the Easter message, isn't it?   God's love trumping the shadow of death: love more powerful than the acts of those who would diminish goodness and defile life.

I look forward to my first Sunday with you on April 21. The Search Committee is graciously planning to host receptions after the two services to welcome my family and me. I thank them for one more act of service after this prolonged period of transition and search.

May our prayers this week reach the One to whom we pray and from whom all is given. May God heal those shattered by the events in Boston.  And may God remind us all always - always - that we live and rest in God's eternal presence.

Peace,

Mark B. Pendleton

Rector

Follow me on Twitter @MarkBPendleton

Christ Church in Exeter, New Hampshire