Dear Ones of St. Columba's,

Just two weeks ago I was in a red rock canyon without wifi or cell phone reception, as far away from the proverbial everything as a vicar can possibly get. This is an annual practice of mine: every year around the first week of October I join nine or ten other clergy people on a hike. This year was our sixth year going on what I call "The Big Hike." It was our third visit to the South West of the USA: in 2018 we hiked the Paria Canyon in Utah/Arizona, last year we hiked the Grand Canyon Backcountry and this year we explored the Escalante River, which is part of the Escalante National Monument. 

Whenever I have been to the southwest, either for these trips or for other reasons, I am struck by just how different the landscape is. Red rock walls and towers, brown silty rivers, warmth that lasts well into October: all of these are so different (usually) than our green and blue world here in the Pacific Northwest. And, this week of hiking each year is often the only time all year when I am truly and deeply untethered from the phone, the internet, the pressures of constant connection that define our world these days. 

I love it.

And I always find myself ruminating on how simply being in a place is formative. 

I am a different person because two weeks ago my body was surrounded by the Escalante river canyon. Not only because I hiked in the river and fell in quicksand and slept under a breathtaking sky of so many stars. But also simply because I was there, and my brain absorbed being there. That experience of stepping in and through that place shaped me a little. Maybe even a lot. I didn't need to take pictures, or even make specific memories, in order for this to be true.

I think something similar to this is true about where we worship. Like where we choose to hike, where we choose to be on Sunday mornings shapes us. It shapes us if we are super involved, and it shapes us if we simply attend and worship. Being in this particular place, with these particular people, singing the songs that we particularly sing and praying prayers with each other and the rest of the Anglican communion - all this shapes our brains, our hearts, and our souls. I think this shaping is a good thing. I know that, for me, the rhythm of weekly worship combined with the experience of living in the St. Columba's community has turned my heart and mind more toward justice and hope and love, in the midst of the weird and difficult journey of being human in this world. 

Thank you for being part of forming me, each other, and St. C's.

with care and gratitude,

Alissa