I enter this Lenten Season filled with sadness. These are tough times. Wyoming Conference is riddled with diagnoses of serious illness among its people. Troy Conference grieves, long distance over the flooding in its beloved sister conference of Mozambique where over a million persons are homeless, where thousand have drowned, where future crops are destroyed. The Diallo case is a tragedy with no winners, reminding us that racism is alive and well in our systems and in individuals.
Political rhetoric using religion as a weapon is embarrassing.
And our denomination faces the upcoming General Conference with its rich diversity of perspectives actively challenged. I turn in contemplation to a well-known Bible verse. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. I would guess that Jesus' imagery comes from the rhythms of his own life with its times of loss and departure, its times of something new and possible. Nothing that Jesus left behind became the final word.