This is a week of more ‘holy transitions’ at Prince of Peace Church.
 
This Sunday Pastor Tim Wrenn will be installed as a pastor of our beloved community. An Assistant to our Bishop will guide us at 11:00 am in a rite that will include our publicly recognizing our new relationship right where real community happens for us: at the altar, at the font and at the pulpit (whether Pastor Tim uses it or not!). God has been working among us and is even now doing a good thing. I hope you can be there to rejoice together!
 
I have so enjoyed serving with you during this interim period. Thank you for so graciously including me and now inviting me to continue part-time as needed in these staffing transitions. Retirement is itself a transition and you are a gift to the holiness of mine.
 
Of course, we are not finished with the pandemic. Ugh, still transitioning there. Given the rise of cases at Nationwide Children’s Hospital this week, I so appreciate our clear policy (not a mandate as our mandate is to love our neighbor) that masks are strongly recommended inside our facility. Ann and I are traveling this week to visit family in Virginia, so we read Amanda Mull’s August 18 lengthy article in The Atlantic “The Delta Variant: What You Can Do If You’re Vaccinated” with interest. This illustration from that piece gave me both smile and insight: 
 
“Try thinking about precautions in non-pandemic terms, (Dr.) Tara Kirk Sell advises. Every day, people follow safety rules that might not be personally necessary for them, but that also aren’t onerous enough to be harmful—doing so is simply part of living in a society in which you share norms and risk. “I can swim, but when I go out kayaking, I still wear a life jacket, because it’s required as a general safety approach,” she explained. “Just because you are safe doesn’t mean you don’t have any rules to follow anymore.” This is, perhaps, somewhat understating it: Before Tara Kirk Sell was a scholar, she was an Olympic-medalist swimmer who held the world record in the 100-meter breaststroke. There are few people on earth at less personal risk from tipping out of a kayak!”
 
I so appreciate God gathering us together in this holy community, especially amidst all our transitions, and even wearing a lot of masks. I hope you will be able to see my smile under my mask this weekend at any of our worships. I am smiling, and I see a lot of your smiles under your masks too, at what God is doing among us.

Pastor Jim