Pastor Charles Trittin
November, 2007
When I write these little columns once a month, I try to imagine you - member, visitor, or friend of All Saints - getting the church newsletter in the mail, seeing these words, and reading them. I see you in your driveway walking back from the mailbox, tearing off the tape and opening up The Spirit. I envision you standing in your kitchen sorting through your stack of mail and placing this piece of paper along with other less urgent mailings, in a pile to be looked at later. I try to picture you in your special place - your chair, your desk, your spot at your table - where you spend time with magazines, papers, and newsletters - and reading these words. I ask myself, “What do they want to read?”
I’m not naive enough to believe, however, that every newsletter gets opened or every column I write is anticipated or even read. I know how quickly I go through my mail, both at home and at church, electronically and printed. We are inundated with words and quickly dispose of them.
I wonder, though, what would matter to you, right now, where you are. By Another Road is one way I try to join you as your pastor in the midst of your week.
We’re busy, busy people being pulled in several directions by work, family appointments, and obligations. We’ve got our days planned out when we get up in the morning, and several times throughout the day were forced to add more to what we do because of the unexpected. The shoulds in our lives are only outnumbered by the coulds. The list of possibilities each day is endless.
Everyone I know is doing their earnest best in everything they do. And to you I say, “Hang in there...Keep going.”
I also think that deep down we all secretly hope that things will improve. Get better...somehow. A better job...improved health...more time for ourselves...less stress...to be heard and understood...a solution to a problem...acceptance and appreciation...that what we quietly fear will not come to pass...help finally arrives.
Sometimes our longings rise up in daydreaming or they come to us when we close our eyes at the end of the day. And to all of you I say, “Keep hoping!”
So this month, I imagine you, wherever you are right now, wanting, needing to hear the words, “Hang in there...Keep hoping!” Am I right?
As people of faith, we follow Jesus who taught us to be people of perseverance and people of hope.
“Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness...So we do not lose heart....”
2 Corinthians 3:12; 4:16
Hang in there...Keep Hoping,
Pastor Charles Trittin
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By Another Road