Dear Friends:

This past week, I have been deeply touched by the notes and emails that I have received from many of you in response to the news of my impending surgery. I have said this before to a few of you, and it bears repeating: I have learned more about the pastoral elements of my ministry through the kindness and care I have received from others during my own times of need than from any textbook or training program or internship…and this week, I am learning a whole lot from all of you.

That being said, I have some additional news to share with you. My spinal condition has worsened more rapidly than I had expected, and I will need to take my leave a few weeks earlier than I had scheduled. This means that I will miss walking through Holy Week with you, a loss that I cannot put words to quite yet. This week, I have begun working with our vestry and The Rev. Jenny Montgomery to begin transitioning my responsibilities, and will begin my leave of absence by the middle of next week. Jenny will be joining us for our Sunday Forum this Sunday, March 14, and will officially begin her duties that afternoon.

When healing arrives, when new life comes, it doesn’t always look like we think it will. This is something I have come to realize as I have navigated my own health issues during a global health crisis packed with uncertainty. Instead, the path to healing often unfolds in strange inexplicable twists and turns, as we discover in our reading from Exodus this week. When the people of Israel are bitten by snakes, instead of taking them away, God instructs Moses to make a snake out of bronze and attach it to a pole, so that anyone who is bitten will be healed. “Look at them, and you will live.” Strange remedy for a strange affliction, not unlike the strange forms that healing can take in our own lives, when grief, illness, accidents, or loss befall us.

As I have prayed about the strange and unexpected way my own body has been afflicted this year, I invite you to join me in keeping your eyes open for the strange remedies that present themselves no matter what challenges we face - the surprising graces that visit, the unforeseen encounters that bring comfort or insight, the ways of finding solace that don’t always make logical sense and might not fit for someone else but offer the mending our heart most needs. I am hoping we can all keep our eyes open and loosen our expectations of what mending and solace should look like, in hopes of recognizing the remedies when they do show up.

As we move along our Lenten path toward Holy Week, I will hold each of you in my heart.

In Christ,

Amelie+