Friends,

There is a baby pool in the steeple.

There is a lot of stuff in the steeple, and among the cell tower equipment (did you know four cell towers are in our steeple!?) is a thirty-dollar plastic baby pool from Village Hardware. There is a lot of backstory as to why there is a baby pool in the steeple, but the only relevant parts are the fact that it is preventing further water damage in the Nave, and that a lot of history, committee meetings, occasional strong feelings, and time led us having a baby pool in the steeple. As to its purpose, it seems to be doing its job, and it is giving us the time to end a decades long mystery as to how water keeps coming into the Nave and find a permanent fix. All of this is secondary to the excuse it gives me to go onto the roof and see sacred things unfolding below.

Ever since I was made aware of this mystery, I took every opportunity to go up on to the roof with cell tower contractors to try to find the solution to our water damage conundrum. After I caught water slowly seeping in from an unexpected spot and placed the baby pool to catch the water, I have been going up to monitor the efficacy of the baby pool, and to make sure it wasn’t about to overflow or something. On the days after a heavy rain, you can always find me making my way up the roof, and I always take a moment to sit and reflect. When we first arrived at St. Luke’s, I only noticed what was wrong with the parking lot. The lines need to be redrawn. There are cracks. Some of the curbs are buckling, and back then the fence line needed a lot of tender loving care. As my time with you progresses, I see fewer flaws and more memories.

Today is the three-year anniversary of my official employment at St. Luke’s. When we moved here my son was almost two. His second birthday was in the middle of the pandemic and we didn’t know anyone yet, so we decided to appeal to his love of cars, and made sign that said, “Honk, it’s my birthday!” and stood in our parking lot by Fort Hunt Rd to watch all of the cars and trucks go by. An amazing parishioner heard of our plan and called the fire department, so we were surprised when a real fire truck pull into the parking lot just to make his birthday special! When I’m on the roof, I always notice the exact spot the truck rolled in and remember how surprised and happy we were at the kindness of the parishioner.

This past fall, I was back up in the steeple trying to find some sort clue to our water issue which had recently gotten worse, and all of the Day School classes were taking turns going outside to take their class picture. I love shouting silly things at the students when they are on the playground, but this time I made sure to be stealthy, lest I disrupt the carefully orchestrated picture day. When I noticed Andrew’s class go out, I just sat down, took a few pictures of my own. When we moved here, Andrew had no friends, he was nervous around new people, and had a surprisingly serious disposition for an almost two-year-old. From the roof I smiled at him in his lederhosen (I dressed him that morning), side by side with his best friend and a giant grin on his face. Despite my best efforts, the class spotted me up on the roof and the photographer caught the moment they spotted me. In my moment of contemplation and nostalgia, I accidently create another memory of our parking lot to cherish on all future roof moments.

We have packed in a lot of ministry and major life events in the past three years. Together we found a way to worship together again in a scary and divisive time, we have welcomed in the next generation of St. Lukers, added a new parish hall and exterior lights in the parking lot, we’ve baptized many babies, had a couple of weddings, and too many funerals. Regardless of the joy or sorrow that followed these events, they were all sacred moments. You have supported me as I found my footing as your priest, let me do creative and silly new things, saw me through the birth of our second child, and have been a life line while we have been fighting cancer. I cannot adequately express how thankful I am to be part of your community.

The past three years have been an intensive time of creating meaning and memories, and our parking lot, as viewed from the roof, just a few feet from the baby pool, has become a canvas in which I remember how my life has been unfolding. Those moments of nostalgia, wherever you find them, can help put things into perspective, but going up on the roof too often can be a bit dangerous. Getting too comfortable with doing something innately dangerous can lead to disastrous miss steps. It’s best to go up only on rare occasions, so you don’t get too comfortable. It's good to be confident, but remain a little afraid. It can also be a trap, where you find too much comfort in the nostalgia of seeing the canvas of your life from above. If I focused too much on what my son was like, then I wouldn’t be grounded in the moment to be a good father now. In the same way, sitting on the roof can remind of the progress we’ve made as a congregation, but I can’t let nostalgia tear me from the present and the ministry that is unfolding around us every day.

So much of what we do as a Church is remembering the past. All of scripture teaches us about what has already happened in our story of salvation, but the Holy Spirit is dynamic and points to the constantly unfolding salvation of the present. Moments on the roof, lovingly reading Holy Scripture, and looking through photo albums help us understand who and whose we are, and certainly informs how we move in the world, but our eyes must be wide open to the needs of the present. If we only saw memories in the parking lot and not the faded lines and buckling curbs, then nothing would ever get fixed or improve. It is because of the memories we see in the places that are sacred to us that we must be fixed on the present. Much of what we are called to do as Christians is to be standard bearers of the past while being ministers of the present. We cherish scripture and tradition, but we use the reason God has given us to apply it to the needs of the present. Whatever else you hold onto dearly, do not let it only become something that only belongs in nostalgic moments, but let it live in the messiness of the present. Don’t read scripture as a way of removing yourself from the present to temporarily dwell in a time when things were the way they were supposed to be, because those moments never existed. God always works in the messiness of the present, so read scripture, do Church and live your life as if something new is unfolding around you, because it is.

Thank you for the last three years of memories, and I give thanks for being in the present with you as we continue to make memories and meanings in our little corner of God’s Kingdom.

-Nick