Dear Ones of St. Columba's,

It's the time of year when culturally we tend to celebrate the past through milestones. This Sunday at our 11am service we will celebrate and bless our high school graduates. My children will each participate in a drive through event at their school where they will get to meet their teachers in person for the first time (!!) and celebrate the accomplishment of surviving the year we just had. In a couple of weeks we will keep our own annual celebratory milestone, our annual June time St. Columba Day celebration which we tend to transfer to whichever Sunday in June works best and often marks the end of our church program year and helps us celebrate the year behind us while transitioning to the rest and sabbath of the summer ahead. 

This year, my seventh St. Columba Day as your Vicar, St. Columba Day (transferred to June 27) will mark several things: the return to our building and to in-person worship, reconnection with our community gardeners, South Sudanese siblings in Christ, and our Congolese brothers and sisters in and out of our community of faith. It will also mark the beginning of my sabbatical - a time of rest and renewal for me and my family.  

I find myself in a reflective mood, as we get closer to this date. The theme of my sabbatical is Discovering our Roots to Build Our Future - I will be doing activities and reflections on this theme during my time away and you all will be doing the same, in community together. Then we will come back together, even more ready for the years of ministry that await us. It seems appropriate that this begins in a time of year when we tend to do a similar thing - look back at all that has happened to celebrate and mark it before being sent into the future. 

I am, as I write this, participating in The College for Congregational Development in the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland. It's an odd thing, to be teaching groups of people in person again, and to have the opportunity to learn alongside new people. Whenever I teach at The College I think about you, St. Columba's. I tell stories of our life together and as I look back on pivotal moments in our development I can see how far we have come together. I always end up more in love with this community of faith after teaching and talking about you. 

Friends, each of you has made it through a very difficult and challenging time this past year. You have stayed connected, you have stayed alive, you have stayed a part of this community of faith. 

And, we have made it through this very difficult and challenging time. We have stayed connected, stayed church, and taken care of each other. It hasn't been perfect, and a lot of it hasn't been fun but I am amazed as I reflect on how the hard work and deep care we have invested in St. Columba's - going back further than my time here, and present every day of our seven years together - bore fruit for us in the worst of the pandemic months.  As we reflect together and in our time apart in the months ahead, I hope we will hold tightly to the best of who we have been, even as we let go of some things in order to discover the future ahead. 

It's important to look back in order to look forward. Let's remember this as we celebrate our high school grads - young people who were among the first kids to join youth group when I first arrived, our first class of kiddos together. They have accomplished much, and given us as a community of faith so much. We will send them into the future with faith, hope and love. 

And let's keep remembering in the weeks ahead as we say goodbye to Bonnie Wallace in worship together at her service June 19th, and celebrate each other on June 27th. 

I am so grateful for every day of the past seven years with you. I cannot wait to see what the years ahead hold for us, as we take the best parts with us into the future.

with care and gratitude,

Alissa