Pastor's Monthly Message:

The animals are very busy right now.  A cold nip in the air has, yet again, triggered the autumnal starting gun.  It's sudden yet not unexpected blast has reverberated in the gut of animals throughout the Northern Hemisphere and the annual preparation for winter has begun.  Animals are returning:  flying south, growing furrier and more feathery, gathering and storing food, looking for dens, digging, swimming, running, burying, working, living.  Yet, no one told them to do it.  No one taught them to do it.  They just do.  It's there, an instinct that God put in inside of them, imprinted on their DNA, carved into their souls.  They can't explain this instinct, this mystery, this fire that ignites.  It just feels right.

And our church is busy right now, too.  The seasonal change has triggered the fall start-up.  Human animals who have throughout the summer ventured away to different pursuits and activities are now feeling the instinct to return.  Classes are being taught, meals are being prepared, committees are meeting, choir is rehearsing, plans are being made, pews are filling, gatherings are happening, people are yearning for a place, returning home, settling in, working, living.  They can't explain why.  It's just a feeling, an instinct, a fire within them.  It feels right.

In his book The Trail Home: Essays, John Daniel writes:

"But we are animals, too, born into a world of animals.  We share the same sun, the same wind and rain, grass and trees, the same hospitable surface of this planet that became alive.  Separate and together, we are born of mystery into mystery, expressions of a single miracle.  It lives in the raccoon's quick paws and lively strength, in the bear's glance and the red squirrel gripping the limb, in the cries of the coyote, the gaze of the deer, the honeybee's dance.  It swims in rivers and sea, flies on wings through the ocean of air, it stirs in the stillness of the forest -- it burns in the screech owl and it burns in me, the same brief fire, shining from eyes to other eyes."

We're all part of the mystery of our God who lives in flesh....who lives in animals, especially human animals.  At the center of our souls this fall is the instinct, the fire, the mystery of God calling us back, calling us home, calling us to Christ, calling us to live.

A wise animal follows its instinct.

Peace,

Pastor Russ