Divine
eternal lover,
you meet us
on the road.
We wait for
lands of promise
where milk
and honey flow,
but waiting
not for places,
you meet us
all around.
Our covenant
is written
on roads, as
faith is found.
- Sylvia G.
Dunstan, “Bless Now, O God, the Journey,” ELW 326
The season of Lent includes the entire month of March this
year. Sure, we had a few days in February, and we’ll have the tail end of the
season in April, but this year March is an entire calendar month to reflect on
our relationship with God in Jesus Christ and to participate in disciplines
drawing us closer to God and God’s will for us.
My own Lenten discipline this year is that I will attempt to
blog (at my official LCS Pastor’s Blog, unexpectedandmysterious.blogspot.com)
for all forty days of Lent. I made a similar effort last year, but, um, well…
let’s just say that I am again deeply grateful that the grace and love of God
has the power to overwhelm and redeem my frailties and failings.
Blogging is a curious and relatively new art. It is writing,
first and foremost, though in an especially malleable form. One key to
understanding blogging is that blogs (short for “web logs,” as in “a
chronological record recorded on the web / internet”) are published directly by
their authors, with little or no editorial intervention. This is a blessing and
a curse, as any blog (this one included) is likely to demonstrate. In some ways
a blog can be like a newsletter article: I use my blog to publish periodic
articles about our life together as Lutheran Church of the Savior. This “newsletter
article” is posted to my blog, and some of you are reading it there rather than
in the newsletter itself, whether paper or electronic.
In other ways, a blog affords opportunities a newsletter
cannot. One critical difference is that a blog can utilize links to other parts
of the internet – websites, videos, other articles and further explanations. A
blog is more easily found (and more easily followed) by the wider public than a
newsletter article ever could be, even one published online as well as printed
and mailed. The purpose of my blog, which I began at the behest of congregation
members, is to communicate and connect with God’s beloved both within and
outside the boundaries of Lutheran Church of the Savior. Ideally this blog is
one more way for me to communicate the love of God in Jesus Christ for you and
for all the world, another place where the living Word of God might become manifest
in my flawed words.
As a pastor and a preacher, I cannot control – or sometimes even
recognize! – the Holy Spirit communicating the Gospel of God’s love in Jesus
Christ through my words and my life. I can, however, put myself out there, tell
my own story of God’s love for me, and communicate to build relationships with
others in many ways. What God does with a pastor’s blog, I may never know. I do
know that I enjoy sharing my thoughts, expansions of sermons, links to articles
of interest, and more in this format. I appreciate the opportunity to do so
more intentionally and consistently during this season of Lent.
Pastor Andrew
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