Reflections of a Running Reverend

The Rapanut grandkids having a light moment together before we drove to the airport. My mother passed away earlier this month . And while she had not fully recovered from the stroke she suffered almost two years ago, her death was sudden and completely unexpected. The last time I talked to her, she was full of life and happy to report that she was making good progress in learning to walk again. That was three weeks before she died. Phone and internet lines had gone down after the devastation of typhoon Mankhut, preventing us from making wi-fi calls. Perhaps I should have tried harder to find other means to connect. It's too late now. No matter how hard we prepare ourselves and our loved ones for it, death still comes with an impact that shakes us to the very core .  We who are left behind are left to pick-up the pieces from the life that has ended while dealing with the void created in our own lives and the deep sense of loss. So many details . So many matters to think of...

I have not written a blogpost for a while. Two years and five months to be exact. The last piece I wrote was on May 24, 2016 shortly after the adjournment of the 2016 UMC General Conference. I'm sure there are a myriad of reasons why I haven't been writing, but its nothing I've been able to put my finger on. As life and work went on, I just lost the desire, the impetus, and consequently even the time, to write. That changed a month or so ago when our Bishop Elaine JW Stanovsky invited all of us in the Greater Northwest Area to a " year of Crossing Over to LIFE " using Brian McLaren's book, We Make the Road by Walking , as our roadmap. It is an invitation to spiritual renewal and alignment with Christ. This call to journey resonated with me vocationally as a pastor and in my role as Superintendent of the Alaska Conference but even more so personally as husband, parent, son and friend. I'll be sharing more about the personal impacts later. As a pastor,...