Rachel’s Reflections
Grace and peace to you!
I love Summer – with its General Assemblies (yes, I do love GA!), the family visits, harvesting from the garden, and catching up on what has been incomplete. Summer is busy time for sure. This must be why I am sooooo delayed in sending this next missive to you!
As the summertime activities now wind up, September and its promise of Fall come to console and reenergize. I cannot help but feel the differences between seasons and weather, even climate. Still, here in Louisville we are under a heat advisory with temperatures feeling over 100 degrees.
Like the weather, our daily pressures and pleasures lay down on us like a blanket heatwave and are blown away with a dip in the jet stream. From to-do lists growing like garden weeds, to immediate responses such as setting up cooling stations, to projects our children forget to begin until the day before it is due – the moments of our days are mostly spent responding to what that particular day holds.
In all of these, we have agency; we are active co-creators. We are well aware that how we live with our Earth-home actively co-creates the climate and thus the weather for all life. In our lives too, we can adjust to the weather with heaters and blankets, air conditioners and shade, shelter and closeness. There is a mutual impact.
Seasons are different. The seasons will always change just as they do now, as they always have.
As young Fall rolls in, the northern hemisphere the sun’s place in the sky melts a little lower and its shine deepening, as if God splashed a drop of vanilla extract into the sun while baking some pumpkin spice muffins.
Us Earth creatures have only to notice and be grateful. We cannot influence the rolling and spinning of the planet, or the turning of seasons, or the location and hue of the Sun. God’s got gravity and planets and tilts and seasons in God’s hands.
I pray these days find you
Breathing like a great respirator (Walter Brugamman’s image) for all the universe, God proclaims the strength of Life.
In Christ, Rachel
Introducing Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri, US-Facing GEL serving the Synods of Boriquén, Mid-America, South Atlantic, and the Sun. Many of you already know Vilmarie through her faithful leadership as Co-moderator of the 223rd General Assembly and her years of service as Regional Liaison for the Caribbean.
With a ministry that spans local congregations, presbyteries, the wider church, and global partnerships, it is nearly impossible to capture Vilmarie’s gifts and accomplishments in a few sentences. Rather than attempt to summarize such a rich vocation, we invite you to learn more through the articles below, which offer a glimpse into her faithful leadership, passion for connection, and commitment to Christ’s church.
- Living Sanctuary Youth from Tres Ríos, Mission and Palo Duro presbyteries gather once again for a time-honored event.
- Not just a pastor’s job A ‘Year of Leader Formation’ helps members step up to serve
- Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri closes out Secret Sauce conference with an ancestral recipe
