I have sort of a love/hate relationship with Western movies. Whether they feature Allan “Rocky” Lane, Amanda Blake, or the famous John Wayne, Westerns across the decades have featured themes that are quintessentially American. Many of these themes – from rugged individualism to simple portrayals of good triumphing over evil – are honest depictions of cultural values for a lot of Americans. For this reason, I appreciate the genre very much. On the other hand, I have rarely found life to be as simple as these quintessentially American cinematic portrayals plot out. The genre also gives false hope and misguided perceptions of who we are as a complex nation with a complex history which requires complex thinking and self-understanding if we are to continue to guide our Republic well into the future.
           
Still, there is one motif from the Western genre that I appreciate more than most – scenes which feature the main characters heading over the horizon to whatever lies ahead. These scenes portray the uniquely American optimism that the future brings resolution to our current woes. Hope, happiness, good times, opportunity, and all good things are usually portrayed as lying just over the next horizon, no matter how many bad guys the hero must shoot to make it there! Over the next hill, mesa, or mountain lies opportunity not yet realized, problems not yet solved, and love stories not yet told. Cheesy, I know, but I have to say that this spirit of unbounded optimism often keeps me going.
           
As we enter 2022, we cross yet another horizon. Some of do this as the literal cowboys we are – tending our ranches and trying to hone our skills at roping. Others cross this horizon as teachers who are still trying to catch our students up from the developmental disruptions of the past two years. Others in our community cross this horizon at the head of our businesses, navigating new levels of inflation that we have not seen in forty years, and supply disruptions that we have not experienced since the Second World War. Others cross yet another horizon as nurses and medical staff trying to tend to a population that is perpetually anxious and angry. Whatever high noon shoot outs and bar brawls that we have been through to get to this point, here we are crossing another horizon together.
           
​As we ride off towards our next sunset, may we be guided by the words of Psalm 90, “Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil…Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands!” (Psalm 90:15 and 17, NRSV).
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

We will be celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday again this month and I am thankful for it 😉. I assume that you are familiar with the history of the first Thanksgiving celebration amongst the Pilgrims after their harvest in what is today Massachusetts in 1621. What you may be less familiar with is how Thanksgiving became a national holiday. While the tradition of observing the Thanksgiving holiday continued regionally in New England since those first years of Pilgrim colonization, it did not become a national holiday until 1863 by a declaration of President Abraham Lincoln. That’s right, in the middle of the American Civil War, the bloodiest, most seditious conflict in our nation’s history, President Lincoln responded to the moment by calling upon all citizens of our great Union to stop and give thanks to God. Kind of audacious timing when you think about it.
           
Admittedly, his call to nationalize the Thanksgiving holiday was in part political. The first European colony to survive in what is today the United States was, of course, Jamestown – a colony that was not only part of a Confederate state but near the capitol of the Confederacy. There was a desire from Lincoln and those fighting against southern sedition to remember and celebrate the United States as having its founding in the North, not the South, even though the facts were otherwise.
           
Yet, reflecting this year on the origins of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, I am most struck by the fact that this call for the entire nation to observe a day of giving thanks to God for what we have been given came in the middle of one of the most thankless moments in our nation’s history. It was out of the horror and carnage of Americans killing Americans by the thousands, the trauma of our nation tearing at the seams, the economic hardship that occurs when a country is at war with itself, that President Lincoln called upon our citizens to stop and say, “Thank you Lord for all that we have received.” Kind of wild when you think about it.
           
I don’t know about you, but I feel like it takes a lot more work to give thanks to our Creator these days compared with other times of life. Anxieties, frustrations, anger, division, sadness, all seem to be collectively higher than they have ever been in my lifetime. As I write this, we have lost over 738,000 Americans to this new virus that popped up in Wuhan two years ago this month. Staggering. Tragic. The way forward seems long, and any path out of our collective funk seems uncertain. I do not know how we will move on from this and come together again – as a church or as a nation.
           
​However, this was the case in 1863, too. They had no idea how they were going to figure everything out and move forward, but they did know that they could give thanks to God in the moment anyway. They did not have much to speak of, and they bore great hardship all around them, much as we are enduring in our time. Still, all was not lost, and they thanked God for that fact. I pray the same may be true for us this month, too. Happy Thanksgiving.
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

               
The church roof has been redeemed and renewed! After nine months of insurance adjustors, tarps, planning, price increases, and work delays, the roof has been re-insulated and re-shingled. We should have a dry and well-insulated church building going forward. Praise God!
              
As we were analyzing our building for the roof project, the property committee began talking about part of the Accessibility Project that the church has been discussing over the past few years. The simplest and easiest part of the wider project is to move the pastor’s study to the original sacristy (what we now use as our “counting room”) and move the church office from its current location in the narthex to the last two classrooms in the hallway by opening-up the wall between the two and creating a larger conference room/church office there. This move will allow us to open-up more fellowship space in the narthex for coffee, cookies, and conversation after worship and, just as importantly, give us space to put in an adequate ramp for wheelchairs, walkers, etc. from the narthex level of the church into the sanctuary. The short ramp into the sanctuary that we currently use is dangerously steep, difficult to navigate, and severely troubling for those who have trouble getting up the final two stairs from the narthex into our sanctuary. Removing the wall and opening-up the space where our church office and Pastor’s study currently are will give us a substantial amount of new space for fellowship after worship on Sunday mornings and give us enough space to build a far better ramp along two walls of the narthex into the sanctuary.
              
Since this is a significant change to our church property, our congregation’s constitution requires a congregational vote to proceed. We are planning to have an in-person meeting, discussion, and vote on whether or not to proceed with moving the offices on Reformation Sunday, October 31st after worship. No other business will be discussed, and we are planning to have a potluck meal in the fellowship hall following the meeting – the first meal we have shared together since the pandemic began.
              
There are some questions that have come up already in discussions about this project that I will answer ahead of time. First, is this a new idea for the Accessibility Project than what we have already discussed up to this point? No. We had always planned to move our church offices in order to allow for an adequately accessible ramp into the sanctuary, we are simply proposing that Faith Lutheran move ahead with this part of the project sooner rather than later. Second, is this a vote to add on to the church? No. We are only moving the offices and opening-up the space that already exists in our narthex. Third, where will Sunday School classes meet? Unfortunately, we have struggled to attract students and families to attend Sunday School classes the same as when they were built (almost 50 years ago!), but we have found that the fellowship hall is great for Christian education classes using a one room school-house model of learning which is more appropriate to our current numbers. For instance, we are using the basement for our 3F – Faith, Family, and Fellowship classes on Tuesday evenings and have already found that the space suits our time well. Fourth, how much will this move cost? Since we are not building anything, only renovating existing space, we estimate that the costs for this move will be between $3,000 and $5,000, and we expect to do a lot of the work utilizing volunteer labor. Gratefully, we have already had members and friends donate generous amounts to our building fund and we have more than enough money on hand to cover this project so we will not need to raise any more funds for this part of the Accessibility Project. Lastly, will we need to replace the roof again if we decide to proceed with the rest of our Accessibility Addition at a later date? No. The roof portion we just replaced will stay the same if we vote to proceed with a building addition down the road.
              
You can find the floor plan for the proposed changes to the church on the back side of this page. If you have questions, comments, or concerns before the meeting, please reach out to Pastor Seth directly at (406) 546-7323 or Gordon Granley at (406) 261-5418. Additionally, we understand that some members may be interested in participating in the discussion and vote but do not yet feel comfortable attending in-person. We are planning to hold this meeting fully in-person and will not be hosting a hybrid online/in-person meeting like we did in January. In order to vote, members must attend in-person, but we will share written comments at the meeting from members who do not feel comfortable attending in-person so that their support or critiques of the proposed move will be included in the discussion. Those comments can be submitted directly to the church office at flc@ronan.net.
              
​I look forward to working with you all as we discern how to move forward with this stage of the project!
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

Several people have asked me how it feels to be back in action, and I am glad to say that it has been a fairly seamless transition to return to the office. When I began my sabbatical in May, I was concerned that I might be reluctant to resume my regular duties come August, but I am grateful to report that I feel very renewed and far more up for the job than I was just a few months ago. The way forward is bright, and I look forward to seeing where God will lead us.
           
​Faith Lutheran Church will be getting going with God’s work of ministry in some familiar and in some new ways this month. We will be resuming our Adult Sunday School at 9 am on Sunday, September 12th, in the choir loft for the first time in over a year. I always appreciate our conversations and I look forward to what topic or book of the Bible we decide to study this year. However, we are going to try something different and new with our younger students for the first time this fall. Our traditional practice of having Christian education classes for elementary students on Sunday mornings before church has simply not been working well for the past several years. So, instead of teaching Christian education to our youth on Sunday mornings, we are starting up a new program called 3F – Faith, Family, and Friendship - on Tuesday evenings every week. 3F will meet in the Fellowship Hall on Tuesdays from 5:30-7pm starting September 14th. We will begin by sharing a FREE MEAL (supported by our Faith Lutheran Church Women’s group), and then learn about stories from the Bible, do crafts and games, and end the evening with music. Parents and siblings are encouraged to attend with their students in grades Kindergarten through Sixth, and students are encouraged to invite their friends along as we learn about our Christian faith together.
           
We do plan to start the Mission Valley Children’s Choir back up again this year, but Cathy Gillhouse is going on an extended trip to Europe (lucky duck!) so we will wait until she gets back. High School students are invited to be part of our 406 Church once again this fall. We will meet upstairs from 7 – 8:15 pm on Wednesday evenings, beginning Wednesday, September 15th, and everyone is encouraged to invite their friends, even if they do not attend church on their own. Lastly, after fits, starts, and pandemic disruptions, there is a group trying to re-start a Cub Scout Pack in Ronan, chartered by Faith Lutheran Church. Both boys and girls in grades Kindergarten through Fifth are welcome to participate, and the group plans to start meeting Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 6:30pm here at Faith Lutheran beginning on Thursday, September 16th. If you would like more information you can call Kara Snyder at (406) 210-3462.

We look forward to all that God has in store for us this year as a community of faith!
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

A little over a year ago, in the fall of 2019 to be exact, a group of clergy colleagues in our Flathead Cluster met for a series of deep and intentional conversations about our various congregations. The discussions focused on the cultural landscapes of our communities, strengths of each of our congregations, histories of pastoral leadership, and the various challenges that each of us and our communities face. After I shared about our congregation, highlighting the stagnation and growth that we have experienced here at Faith Lutheran over the past decade, as well as listing out the wide range of ministry responsibilities that fall into my lap, one colleague made the comment, “It looks like the pastor needs to be healthy in Ronan for the church to be healthy.” This was a small comment that struck me in a big way, inspiring me to think differently about my call to our congregation. In particular, she inspired me to think differently about our need to begin discussions around a sabbatical policy which we started at the council level and ended up passing via mailed ballot in May, 2020.

I am tired. This simple fact has been difficult for me to honest about because it has long felt selfish to focus on taking care of myself. It is a quirk of my personality that I find it easier to take care of others than to take care of myself. This tendency is usually a strength in ministry as I am professionally called upon week after week, day after day, to help others with a range of needs – from all things spiritual to the folks who knock on the pastor’s door every week asking for food and gas money. However, as my colleague so helpfully pointed out, taking care of myself is part of the work of taking care of others and taking care of the church. Faith Lutheran Church deserves a pastor who will do the healthy thing and take care of himself (or herself). There are many instances of pastors dealing with their need for rest in unhealthy and toxic ways. It is far more common than you might expect for pastors to turn bitter and angry against their members when they are not given space and time to seek rest and renewal. Other pastors descend into various forms of addiction. Others break the congregation’s trust by seeking affairs or other acts of sexual misconduct with members who are not their spouse. Others dwindle and die on the vine, metaphorically speaking, if their congregations do not give them space to recuperate and seek faithful renewal as servants of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Ministry is difficult and tiring and there are better and worse ways for churches to deal with the difficulty and exhaustion of ministry that weighs on pastors. By moving to adopt a sabbatical policy and supporting me in my need to step away from my regular duties for a few months is the better way.
           
An intentional, pastoral sabbatical is a new thing for our congregation (at least to my knowledge) and I expect that it will take time for some of us to understand its full benefit. To some, this time may seem more like a perk than a necessity, more of a vacation than a time of spiritual rest and renewal. For my first few years of ministry, I must admit that I used to think that it was kind of whiny and weak for pastors to say they needed time away. Yet, after years of being on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, barely getting even a full day off a week for months on end, having been stretched and pushed to adapt centuries of church practice to try to meet rapidly changing realities, and having helped lead a great number of projects around the church and parsonage to get things back on track after years of neglect, I have come to realize that pastoral work is uniquely exhausting in ways that should be dealt with differently than other jobs. While pastors have far more freedom in our schedules than other careers, it is hard to describe how difficult it is to be constantly at the ready to drop everything at a moment’s notice and show up when others need us. While this is an important part of the job, it also wears on ministers over time in ways that are hard to see or understand from the outside.
           
So, this month, on Tuesday, May 11th, I will begin an intentional sabbatical period of rest from my regular pastoral duties. I will not be leading worship, funerals, or weddings, I will be unavailable for visits, I will not be attending committee meetings, I will not be responding to emails, calls, or texts, and I will not be holding office hours. My work for this period will be to focus on taking care of myself so that I may be in the best shape possible come Thursday, August 12th when I return to my regular pastoral work. We have arranged for other preachers to fill in throughout my absence and have trained members to run the camera so our online worship can continue while I am gone. Our retired pastor, Rev. Carl Rohr, has agreed to do pastoral visits if members end up in the hospital or have other emergencies, and Cheri Rowbury has agreed to be a back-up preacher to make sure that Sunday services can happen as planned, even if the scheduled preacher falls through. Some have asked if my family and I will be traveling for the full duration of my sabbatical. The short answer is no. While we will take several trips (and finally get to spend weekends together as a family!), we will be in and out of Ronan throughout the summer. Jen will still be working for most of my time away and the kids will need someone to watch them, so I guess they are stuck with me. Additionally, Freja will be having surgery in June, so part of our sabbatical journey will be comforting her through that. We welcome your prayers for her well-being, too! I am sure you will see me around town with a degree of regularity (Ronan is not very big, after all!), and I ask you not to be offended if I do not stop and chat as much as I normally do. Additionally, if you see things are not getting done around the church like normal, (difficulties with the online service, the grass is not getting cut, things start piling up at the church, etc.) it is most likely that I have been taking care of those things behind the scenes. Feel free to jump in to make sure things get done while I am away from the office as you see a need.
           
Though I am tired, I will miss seeing you all every week. Please know that my need for a period of rest and renewal is not a failure of the church but a fulfillment of Christ’s model for ministry. After many of Jesus’ miracles – after he fed thousands, after he healed people, and even after he cast out demons - he would go off by himself to pray. Often times, the disciples were eager to get back out there and have their leader do more, preach more, heal more, (all good things!) but Jesus knew better. He modeled the healthiest leadership possible by retreating up into the mountains to pray. I intend to do the same and appreciate your support while I do so.
 
                                                                              In Christ,
                                                                            Pastor Seth

Questions arise quite often anymore about the role religion plays in public life. Many people who are not involved in a church do not see the relevance of our age-old institutions, prayers, scriptures and worship practices in our 21st century world. However, one thing is clear - the church is basically the only place that speaks theologically about events and experiences in our personal lives and the in the life of the world. Is there spiritual significance and meaning to natural disasters, wars, economic crises, etc.? Yep! Indeed there are! Is there reason and meaning behind the cycle of life and death that we all celebrate and grieve at various times in our existence? Of course! And, it is the business of the church to interpret these things. Can the church help me to understand why I am here and what is the meaning of my life? Absolutely!
               
So, the question that I am sure you have all been begging your pastor to answer follows: What does it mean for us, as people of God, to have to endure the COVID-19 pandemic? Is this disease a curse of some kind that God sent to punish us? Does our faith protect us from this disease, and, if not, does that mean our faith does not have power to heal? I am sure that there are many questions that follow this line of thinking, but these are just a few to get us started.
               
The shortest and simplest theological response to these types of questions is that we live in a broken world and this pandemic is just another aspect of that brokenness. In much the same way as our children are vulnerable to school shooters, a drunk driver can kill an innocent, sober family through their recklessness, or anyone of us can face a life-ending cancer diagnosis without warning, this COVID-19 pandemic is part of living in a broken world with all of our normal problems. Stuff happens, as they say using a different word than “stuff” that probably should not be published in a church newsletter, and this pandemic is stuff!
               
Still, we are left wondering about whether God sent this virus to punish us somehow and the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of our faith in protecting us against it. First off, if this virus was sent to punish us, it is pretty unclear who the “us” is. This pandemic has swept through rich and poor countries alike, infected Christians, Muslims, atheists, Hindus, and Buddhists, and exposed the strengths and weaknesses of not only the United States, but also Communist, Socialist, theocratic, and autocratic nations the same. If God is punishing us and trying to send us a message somehow, it is a very unclear message as this virus seems to show no partiality whatsoever. Epidemics in the past, like the Black Death for instance, spread much more sporadically and hit one place hard at once while sparing other areas. Not so with this novel corona virus. It is hitting all of us all at once so we would be hard pressed to discern who God is talking to if there actually is a message behind all of this.
               
Secondly, and perhaps the most pressing, what is the role of our faith in this time. I had a short conversation about this recently with Tommy Parker, a veteran who grew up in Ronan, but, tragically, lost his legs and several fingers to an IED while serving in Afghanistan. He asked me when we were at Harvest Foods how Christians (typically Pentecostals) can handle poisonous snakes as a test of their faith, but our faith is not keeping us from being infected? I did not have time to dive into a better answer while we were trying to keep our distance in the grocery aisles, but I should have said that it is precisely for trying times like these that we place our trust in God in the first place. God is not some sort of genie who focuses on wish fulfillment and makes sure that everyone can eat ice cream everyday while staying skinny and beautiful! We place our trust in God because God promises to save us from the brokenness of this world. Our faith does not vanish when life becomes challenging; our faith is revealed when trusting in a good and loving God becomes difficult.
               
​May your faith be revealed in new ways this month, just as I am sure it has been up to now.
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

School buses are criss-crossing the valley once again, taking kids to their classrooms for another year of learning. Though, I have to say, it almost feels like the summer we are leaving behind never really arrived in the first place. Sure, there were some sunny days and I saw many kids living it up on playgrounds and basketball courts these past few months, but this was by far the coldest and rainiest summer we’ve experienced since I have lived here. My wife, for one, likes her sunshine and she has reminded me many times that this summer in the Mission Valley did not deliver it for her!
                
I suppose that is how many things in life go, though – we have our expectations of the way things will turn out only to have everything end up far differently than we wanted or planned for. It could be plans for where your career would take you, who you might marry or how long you would stay with them, who your adult kids would grow up to be, or how the world would look as you aged. I have thought about that last one a fair amount this past year as I have done funerals for several people who were born in the depression years. Could they possibly have imagined what life in the 21st century would be like – with internet, driverless cars, social media, globalization, and cell phone shopping? It is pretty wild to think about how drastically the world has changed in the lifetime of one generation! Makes you rethink having expectations about the future at all, ever again.
               
​So, what should we expect from our next year of church programming? (Hah, hah!) This year, we will be doing what Christians have been doing for centuries. We will worship on Sundays, preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, administer the sacraments, bear witness to the Good News to our neighbors, and do our best to pass the faith on to the next generation. Rain or shine, cold or warm, familiar world or radically different one – Jesus Christ is the same today as he was yesterday and will be forever. That is one expectation we can hang on to until the end of the age.
 
                                                                                In Christ,
                                                                              Pastor Seth

I like to think of myself as a “doer” – that is, somebody who likes to get stuff done. If there is something that needs to be done, well, let’s just get it done. Is there a problem to solve? Let’s find a solution. Is there a role that needs to be filled? I often find myself stepping in to fill the role with rarely a second thought. Things need to happen, so let’s make stuff happen.
               
I think my doer attitude has been beneficial as your pastor at Faith Lutheran. With the help of our many capable members and friends, my desire to get things done has helped us to accomplish many long overdue maintenance and upkeep tasks around the church and parsonage. Though you may not like all the changes we have made, I hope you can at least rest easy knowing that our potlucks will no longer be invaded by sewer water via the downstairs toilet! As of this month, I have now been your pastor for a full five years, and I am proud to say that the church and parsonage are in much better shape than when I arrived half a decade ago.
               
Yet, if I am being honest, my default stance as a doer can be counterproductive to the ministry. Often times, pastoral care is not about really doing anything at all, but letting the world stop for a moment. What do I mean? When you lose a loved one, for example, doing stuff can often be the least productive way to deal with your grief, at least right away. Doing things can be a way for us to avoid dealing with the difficult feelings and emotions that accompany loss, especially since it can seem like we are working through stuff when we are actually practicing avoidance. Even more so, though, in moments of grief, it is terrible for those around you (especially your pastor!) to be more focused on getting stuff done than simply stopping and being present with you in the moment. Often times, the last thing you want to be as a pastor is a doer.
               
The late Rev. Eugene Peterson captured this sentiment well in a famous quote (at least it is famous on Twitter). He wrote, “The busy pastor is a lazy pastor.” Starting out five years ago, I admit that his words were difficult for me to really take to heart. I thought to myself, What does that mean? An inactive pastor is a lazy pastor, not a busy one! A few years later, I am humbled to say that I am beginning to understand the profound truth of his words more and more. I have been called here to kneel and pray for you, to slow down and listen to the needs of others, and to busy myself with making sure that I am never too preoccupied to sit for a moment or two with anyone who could use a pastor.
               
​This summer, I am working at unbusying myself. I do not wish to be a lazy pastor, and I see that I must unbusy myself to do so. By doing the work of unbusying myself, I am following the work of our Creator who rested on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2), the third commandment given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai (Deuteronomy 5:12), and the example of our savior, Jesus Christ, who did not busy himself with making sure everyone received a miracle during his lifetime but took time to rest and pray after doing miraculous things among us. It is important to get things done, but it is holy and good that we take time to rest from our labors, too. I pray that we all can value rest just as much as we value the work that we do, and this is my prayer as a doer…
 
In Christ,
Pastor Seth

Where has the summer gone? It is August already!? I can’t believe it! Of course, this means that our annual worship and potluck will be happening this month at the National Bison Range. This is a tradition for our congregation that, as many of you have told me, goes back decades. We let it go by the wayside for a few years, but we have brought it back and I am digging it! It is good to worship out in God’s creation beneath one of western Montana’s hidden gems. I know they named Montana the “Treasure State” for all our mining activity back in the day, but I believe that natural wonders like the bison herds on our hillsides give the name new meaning in our own time. I look forward to seeing you all at the Bison Range picnic area on Sunday, August 12th at 10 am!
           
This month is also very important to me because 10 years ago, on August 17th, my wife Jen stood in front of her parents, family, friends, and even her pastor, and publicly agreed to put up with me for the rest of our lives. I couldn’t believe it! When I asked her to marry me a year before that, she responded by saying, “Your crazy!” I had always assumed that the question “Will you marry me?” was supposed to evoke a “Yes!” or “No” answer, but she used the occasion to call my sanity into question. Fortunately, she did not have me committed and our marriage has been the greatest joy of my life.
           
She was right, though, to boldly claim that our journey together would be full of craziness. Ten years-ago when we stood before the congregation and promised our lives to one another there was no way that we could have known what this decade would entail. We did not know that Jen would have a terrible time finding work in one of the most hirable professions because the greed of the world’s biggest bankers rocked our generation of graduates the hardest in 80 years. We did not know that we would be moving to Iowa for seminary, Wyoming for internship, and had no idea that ten years later I would be writing this from the small town of Ronan, Montana. (I had never even heard of Ronan ten years ago!) I had no idea then that I would write a book, Jen would surprise me with a trip to Greece, or how much our two beautiful children would one day love to pee in their kiddy pool! I suppose that is the beauty of marriage – you don’t know where the journey will lead until you travel life’s paths together.
           
One of the readings we used for our wedding service was the popular passage from 1 Corinthians 13. “Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful…” I have always loved this passage because it lays out the virtuous aspects of what love entails and what it does not. I especially like the last verse of this passage: “Now faith, hope, and love abide; and the greatest of these three is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). These words of Paul speak truth through the ages. There is much that can get us worked up, worried and afraid, but, at the end of the day, the love that we share with others is what really gives our lives meaning and purpose. A life lived in love of others, is a life worth living – the life that God wants for all of us.

In Christ,
Pastor Seth

“I lift my eyes up to the hills – from where will my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.”
(Psalm 121:1-2)
 
I am a little ashamed to admit this, but when I moved to Ronan it took me about a year and a half before I could clearly see the Sheep’s Head in the Mission Mountains. Everyone around here seemed to refer to McDonald Peak with the assumption that everybody else could clearly see the image of a sheep’s head pointed toward the sky in the beautiful mountains that watch over us day and night. I didn’t doubt that there truly was this image up there somewhere but I just could not see it for myself. Like the image of the man on the moon or finding where Waldo is, some people just see these kinds of things quicker than others I guess. Thankfully, the outline of the image was finally pointed out to me so I can now see for myself what so many others have told me about.

The imprint of God’s creative work in our world is kind of similar. It is there, all around us. Nothing exists which was not first, somehow, spoken into being by our Creator. Some of us know and recognize that God is the source of all that exists while others fail to see it for themselves. Try as we might, we just can’t see the image of God in the world that God made. Like seeing the Sheep’s Head, some people can clearly see the work of God in the world right away while others will always struggle to associate the creation with its Creator.

As the snow is beginning to melt off of our mountains, the nose of the Sheep’s Head will be clearly contrasted once again. There are times during the year when this contrast is clear, making it easy to point out to newcomers in our valley the various details of this image on our mountain. Other times of year, though, when the whole range is engulfed in snow for instance, the image of the Sheep’s Head is hardly clear at all. If you didn’t know it was there in the first place you would probably scoff at those talking about a sheep on the mountain, even if somebody pointed it out. This is kind of how it goes for us who believe that God is real and present in creation. There are seasons in our lives when the imprint of God’s work among us is clear as day, making it easy to talk about the presence of God in our world. There are other seasons of life when the work of God in our lives is hard to see for ourselves. Like Sheep’s Head in winter, we trust that our Lord is moving all around us but seeing God’s work for ourselves becomes more difficult. We may clearly rejoice with God when we meet the one we will marry, land our dream job, or see our first-born children emerge with life in their lungs. Yet, for many, it is harder to claim that God is moving in our midst when we lose those we love, struggle to get by from month to month, or fail in any other number of ways.

We here in the Mission Valley know that the image of the Sheep’s Head on our mountains will clearly come into view again, no matter how long our winters are. Though the snow will obscure our view for a time, the peaks will clear up soon. Likewise, God’s love for us will always be revealed in time. It may be hard to see for a season, but the view will always open up again – revealing a pleasantly familiar view of our beloved Creator year after year.

In Christ,
Pastor Seth