Dear Friends in Christ,

When we returned to 1020 W Lincoln Road from three weeks of vacation, it seemed as though I had been away forever.  

Jim, Matthew, Ellie, Eric and I spent time in very green spaces: the Columbia River Gorge, the Umpqua Valley (with Jim and Matthew) and Santa Cruz and the Point Lobos State Park (with Ellie and Eric).  There was a lot of hiking to waterfalls (pictures attached).  In the eighteenth century, William Wordsworth remembered hikes he had taken into the Welsh hills in his poem, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798

I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

Soon, very soon it all came back to me – the work, the joys, and ultimate concerns – that make up my days here.  This too was Wordsworth experience.  In the same poem he writes:

—feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man’s life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:—

Here at Zion and St Anne’s we attend to each other and acknowledge the presence of God in our lives.  Wordsworth uses the word sublime rather than the word God and probably means something a little different than what we mean.  Nevertheless, the goodness of our lives together is anchored in God’s presence in the world around us, God’s love for us and our love for each other.

Thank you.

Faithfully yours,

Rebecca