Glaciers in Retreat

Dear Friends,

In the early afternoon I was standing aft on our small ship traveling east up a wide fjord in Prince William Sound, Alaska. This moment of stunning beauty and spiritual stillness was worth the price of a trip to Alaska, I thought to myself. We had been cutting through the beautiful water dotted by jumping salmon for nearly an hour. Per the usual, we were told nothing by the staff of our destination. This voyage was all about surprises.

I saw our guide approaching on my right but continued to watch striking beauty pass by and enjoy my diet coke, cooled by glacial ice that we had harvested the previous afternoon near a glacier on the other side ofthe sound. Hugh began to speak quietly but passionately. "A decade ago when I first came to the sound, this fjord, from quite a few miles back, was filled with glacial ice. From the tops of the mountains on your right and on your left, nothing but ice. (The empty space he was describing was almost beyond imagination.) Now the glacier is in retreat and some people believe what I tell them about that retreat means and some people do not."

How often in our lives, and in how many situations, do we hear phrases like:

I don't believe that.
I can't believe that.
That is beyond belief.
That could never happen.
I refuse to believe that.

The truth is too painful to believe or too difficult to do anything about.
We chose to stay in a comfort zone of denial rather than enter the danger zone of awareness that requires passionate action.

Every moment of my travel up that fjord towards a glacier was through what only ten years ago was solid ice. Now there is only air. Multiplied by thousands of times, what does the melting of that much ice mean for the planet and its people? Does anyone have any interest in knowing such a truth?

The Days Have Rushed Past

(The photo above is there just to get your attention. No matter that it looks so much like a Polar Bear. It is a Sealion at home in Prince William Sound. You can see a few other Alaska Wildlife photos on my Facebook page.)

There was a time, around three months ago, when the days of my sabbatical passed slowly and it felt like I had an eternity ahead of me to travel and experience and write and read and ponder. Now it is Wednesday, August 10 and the last days of my sabbatical are passing like a train that I cannot board. Sunday I will preach at my church for the first time in over three months and a few important projects have already demanded my attention. Also, more friends in the church died during my absence--we lay Dorothy Taylor to rest on Saturday--than the church has ever lost in a similar amount of time. When I allow myself to touch my feelings I weep, simple as that.

I am very conscious of the debt I owe to some friends here for their committed and able performance of ministries that allowed me to experience such a dynamic sabbatical. Pastor Bill Salyers, a retired colleague, rose to the occasion in his usual compassionate way, to care for the people experiencing loss. Ali Vorhees, the young woman we called to serve the church during my absence, served with talents beyond her years and took maximum advantage of the opportunity to begin practicing her compelling call to ministry. My friend, and Church Moderator, Curtis Fett, led the church with grace and skill he did not know he had. No one could have cared more for our church and people than Curtis.

All that being said, I have been sorely tempted these past few days to come up with a concise and enthusiastic answer to the question, "How was your sabbatical?" But it just occurred to me that I prepared for months for the sabbatical. I organized and planned and read and prayed literally for almost a year. It is going to take an equally long period to integrate this vast experience into my life and ministry, though I hope that my church will notice from the beginning that I have learned and been inspired and grown and changed.

More reflection later. (It sure is helpful to write, to journal, to take time to consider. I need to do more of this relatively soon, though the pressure to attend to details is, as always, almost overwhelming.)