Friends,

This is one of my favorite times of the year. I remember as I child the cool air coming in would fill me with adrenaline and excitement, for the upcoming soccer and football games and practices that would begin to dominant my life. The freedom of summer was beginning to drag on too much, and as much as I resisted it, the structure and growth that came with the school year was always a welcome change. This morning when I let the dogs out my lungs were filled with cool air, and it reminded me of those first months back to school as a child, and energy coursed through my spirit. Instead of my preparing for football practices and readjusting to doing homework again, my brain went to all of the wonderful things at St. Luke’s and all of the work that will go into them. The tent has gone up in the grove and it will stay up until at least Halloween, which is a sign that things will be happening here for quite some time, and they all seem to begin with this Sunday, which is when we Kick Off our year!

The event I am worried about the least is the Craft Fair. Afterall, with Dawn McMillin at its head, how could it possibly be anything but joyful? That is just around the corner on September 14th, and there will even be Alpacas to put us in wonder that they are indeed real, and not Muppets. If you did not know, the Craft Fair is the biggest fund raiser for our outreach program, so by supporting the event you are helping to support local crafter, foster community, and help out people in need. By the way, we need more volunteers, so don’t forget to sign up in the e-news!

The last week in September we will be out at our Parish Retreat at Shrine Mont, and I hope that word is out how wonderful this is. Last year was the first year that my oldest found his hoard of friends and ran all over the campus enjoying their company and the magic of that place. There is a waiting list to go. If you are interested, let us know, and if it doesn’t work out this year, don’t forget to sign up early next year!

On October 12th a semitruck will be arriving with literally thousands of pumpkins purchased from the Navajo Nation. After hours of volunteers unloading the pumpkins from the truck, the transformation of our grove will be officially complete as Alan Hope carries out the last giant pumpkin on his head. The youth will take the lead in selling the pumpkins with plenty of support from volunteers in the congregation, and the proceeds will go to support their trips with the Journey2Adulthood program. The pumpkin patch which will take over the grove, and it is a lot of work, but it might be the space and time where the most memories are made. Every year I compare pictures of my children in the patch from previous years. The decorative gourds of this season have somehow become the measuring tool of my children’s growth from year to year, and I know that I am not the only one.

After the patch is over on Halloween it will be much cooler, and everyone will be shifting gears to get ready for Senior Saints Luncheon, Advent, breakfast with Santa, the Christmas Market, Lessons and Carols, Pageants, the Nutcracker, and everything else that occupies our time in our corner of the world.

While the tent is up it will transition us from the warmth and brightness of summer, to the cooler and darker days that lead us to Christ’s Mass just a couple of days past the darkest day, and this rollercoaster begins now. If you stick around, you may hear me occasionally talk about the liturgical year, which is just a fancy way of saying how we tell the story of salvation every year, so like Advent to Christmas, to Epiphany, to Lent to Easter, and all of the little special days that are sprinkled throughout. We just don’t tell this story every year, we live it out through these seasons as generations have done before us for thousands of years. But we are not carbon copies of the legions of Christians striving to do the same thing, because they are not us. Overlaid this story we live out every year are things that have accidently become symbols for something else. Pumpkins have nothing to do with the Gospel, but when you go the same Church parking lot to take pictures of your children in the sea of orange gourds year after year, they somehow nudge their way into our story.

We are caretakers of sacred things, and of these things, time might be the most precious. If we are lucky, the chalice you drink from at the altar rail every week will end up behind some display case in our library with a card saying, “This is what we used back in the day…”, and it will be remembered but stripped of its sacred purpose. These things and these times we care for are sacred, but their sanctity is fleeting, and should never be taken for granted.

All of this is to say, I hope you eat fish with us on Sunday. There will be an open house for the Sunday School, we will bless backpacks, and we will fry fish and freshly cut French fries. Please, offer to help with the fryers will be by the tent, and don’t forget under that tent memories will be made. Come help us live into these sacred times, because in the midst of all of the mundane, profane, tragic, and hurtful realities of this world pictures will be taken of children on hay bales, and for just a moment everything will feel right.

Blessing,

Nick