Pastor's E-Letter

Pastor's E-Letter

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What Can We Learn from Forest Fires?

It was the summer of 1998, and wildfires were raging across numerous counties on the East coast of Florida. We lived in Jacksonville at the time and the fires did not reach us. But I remember not being able to run for several weeks because of the smoke that reached as far as Jacksonville. It has come to be known as the Florida Firestorm and around 500,000 acres were burned. Or course, we have seen too many more recent examples of dangerous and devastating fires out West over the last couple of years. The loss of life and property in such fires can be immense.
 
But one of the things I’ve always marveled at is the ability of forests to renew themselves in the wake of such fires. I remember a year or so after the fires, driving down I-95 and seeing the growth already occurring. It was amazing to watch new life emerge from the ashes. I did some reading yesterday and this process of regeneration is complicated by climate change. Yet, even amidst those complications, plant life seems to adapt. It reminds me of the classic line from the movie Jurassic Park, (I raised boys. I lived with these movies for years!) “Life finds a way.”
 
That image of life emerging from ashes is our theme for our Lent/Easter message series this year, “Hope: Journey from Ashes to Life”. We began this journey on Wednesday evening as we gathered, either online or in-person for Ash Wednesday worship, to be marked with the ashes of our mortality, our frailty, our brokenness with the sign of the cross. As Allee said in her message, it may seem like the last thing we need to do is face our mortality or think about sacrificing anything after the year we have all experienced. But the invitation to Lenten reflection, with its penitential mood and emphasis on sacrifice, is never intended to be an invitation to self-loathing or despair over the state of our lives. It is an invitation to simply be honest with ourselves about the things that keep us from the fullness of life that Christ came that we might experience. It is an invitation to be real about our dust, our pain, our brokenness, and the ways we sometimes break ourselves or others. That’s what the emphasis on prayer and fasting is about. We seek to remove some of the things that distract us from honesty, from looking and listening to the whispers of the Spirit. As we listen, we can trust that the Spirit will reveal to us not only our frailty and failings but also our belovedness, our beauty, and the goodness that lies within us that we are tempted to miss.
 
The truth is that we could not bear to make this journey if it were not for the fact that we make it knowing that we are God’s beloved. We are cherished beyond measure and God wants us to know the fullness of that love and grace and to remove any barriers in our lives to that grace. We enter the season of Lent trusting in the grace of Christ that will meet us along the way. We enter the season of Lent knowing that while owning our dust is never easy, it will lead to life, to healing, to hope for the fullness of life God intends for us to know. We enter Lent knowing that though we will face a cross, there is resurrection life on the other side. We make the journey in hope and with hope, trusting the power of God to accompany us, transforming our dust and ashes into something new, something good, something beautiful.
 
I hope you will choose to make this Lenten journey whether you are worshipping online or in-person throughout the season. Our “Lent-at-Home” bags are intended to help you engage this season with prayer and reflection on scripture for each day of Lent. Our weekly video devotions will also follow this devotional guide and the gospel lessons that we will use each Sunday in Lent are included on the Saturday readings each week. If you haven’t received your “Lent at Home” bag, you may pick one up during office hours any day next week or on Sunday after worship. We will also be working to deliver them to as many homes as possible over the next week. If you would like to help with delivery, contact
 
On a personal note, I will be kicking off my Lenten journey this weekend with a 3-day, silent retreat for prayer and reflection at the Ignatius House just outside of Atlanta. It’s been too long since I’ve engaged in an extended period of silence and I’m looking forward to letting the dust settle and listening to the whispers of the Spirit in my own heart. In the meantime, you will have the joy of welcoming Rev. Rick Jones back to Suntree UMC as he preaches in Traditional worship. (Gathering folks – you get to hear Pastor Allee at 9:30 and can still hear Pastor Rick at 11:00!) We are excited to welcome Rick back to Suntree for a Sunday!
 
Finally, on another personal note, I want to invite you to join me in saying a huge “thank you” to Lia Page for her many years of faithful service to our children and families here at Suntree. Lia is stepping away from her position as Director of Children’s Ministries to take a new position at Holy Trinity Episcopal School. While we are sad to see her go, we are excited for her as she begins a new journey in her career. And the good news is that Lia will still be worshipping and serving with us here at Suntree UMC.
 
Have a great weekend and may God bless you this Lent as you make the journey of hope, from ashes to life.
 
Grace and Peace, 
Annette 

Choosing to Love

“It (love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” - I Corinthians 13:7-8 
 
There are certain scriptures that are what I call my “go-to” scriptures – words that serve as anchors for me. I return to these words over and over when I’m struggling and when I need to be reminded, grounded, anchored in certain fundamental truths. I Corinthians 13, especially verses 4-8, and even more precisely, the verses above serve as one of those go-to scriptures. I’ve shared before that I came across those words as a young 18-year-old struggling with a painful situation in my life. As I read these words, it was like they leaped off the page and were seared into my heart and my brain. Suddenly it was clear to me that love is a choice – an act of the will. And when we make that choice, when we decide to love, we decide to love no matter what. We decide to bear all things. We choose to believe and hope and endure all things. When we do that, when we choose to love, love indeed never ends. 
 
I signed an anniversary card this week for Bob and Nancy Stair who will celebrate their 73rd wedding anniversary this Sunday, Valentine’s Day.Bob and Nancy didn’t manage to stay married for 73 years without making the intentional choice to love – and, in that love, to bear, believe, hope, and endure all kinds of things! A 73-year marriage is a thing of beauty – a thing to celebrate and marvel over. But such relationships don’t just happen. Relationships endure as a result of choosing to love, and to stay “in love”, day in and day out, in big ways and small ways. 
 
Love is always an intentional choice. That is true whether we are talking about loving relationships in a marriage, in our families, friendships, or our relationships with one another in the church. Loving one another for better or worse, through thick and thin, is never easy. It will always involve choosing to bear with one another – to hang in there when we disappoint one another or let one another down. It will always involve choosing to believe the best about one another, even when we don’t act our best. It will always involve choosing to hope, trusting that our relationships can endure, even when they are tested and strained. 
 
Here at Suntree UMC, our vision is to be a community that seeks to love God, love each other, and love our neighbors in extraordinary ways. It’s a tall order. It is a daunting vision because the kind of extraordinary love we hope to exhibit reflects the extraordinary, unconditional love that God has for us and that we see lived in human flesh and blood in Jesus Christ. As we talked about last week – it reflects the love that exists between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that we are drawn into and enabled to reflect. It is a love that unites us in relationship with one another and in mission and service to the world in the name of Christ. 
 
But to live out that kind of love, for that vision to be fulfilled in us, we must choose love again, and again, and again. We must choose to bear with one another in love, to believe in one another, to hope and endure together even when it would be easier to walk away. 
 
This Sunday is St. Valentine’s Day. The day takes its name from a saint of the early church, Valentine, that was martyred on February 14, AD 269. There are all kinds of legends about Valentine which make it hard to separate fact from fiction. There may have even been more than one saint by this name. But what is clear is that Valentine is remembered for his love and devotion to God, a love which he refused to renounce, and which led to his execution. Later, St. Valentine came to be associated with romantic love – owing to some of the legends that surround his life. 
 
I know there is so much commercial hype around the day, it can seem ridiculous. But I’m all for anything that reminds us of the beauty and the gift of love in all its forms. (And I’m personally just fine with a box of chocolates and some lovely flowers from my sweetheart. Just saying.) But this week in worship, we will be reflecting on the reality that everything about who we are as a church is “All About Love”, is all about the ways that we are called to reflect the love of God in our relationships with one another and to bear the fruit of love in the world. Sunday, we will dig into Jesus' words in John 15:8-17. There Jesus says to us, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” I hope you will choose to join us for worship, either online or in-person, where we will give thanks for the gift of God’s love in our lives and be challenged to choose love and to bear the fruit of love that makes a lasting difference in the lives of others. 
 
In Christ’s love,  
Pastor Annette  

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