May 2025

Click for May Steeple

Dear Church Family,

Wildflowers have a pretty quick window of vibrance. Each year we try to get the kids out for a hike in the Arrowleaf Balsamroot - it’s a wild sunflowerI bet you’ve spotted in patches along the roadside as the spring makes it’s major turn towards summer. There are some spectacular trails not too far from our house that take you up along the canyonside and you emerge into a sea of dazzling yellow and purple meadows if you get your timing just right. It is breathtaking. 

The short window of opportunity makes it pretty special to catch, and it reminds me of the gifts in nature that we get to witness when all the conditions are just right. But that also has to do with the condition of our attention - are we watching? Looking? Paying attention? I’m reminded of the simple reality of constant change the seasons bring to us - there is some predictability (at least we hope - it looks like we will get peaches this year unlike last year!!), but in many ways each day we live at the mercy of what comes and we make due. On the topic of wildflowers, we also seek out the spectacular gifts that are given and celebrate the grace of God visible to our eyes that at least for me, also embolden my heart to know God’s goodness. When we are in more optimistic mindsets we likely notice more of the gifts at work in the world. And if we are dealing with aches, perhaps we notice what is missing or used to be. 

Beginning at Easter and on through the month of May, the lectionary takes us through highlights from the book of Acts. There are similarities in these pages for the journey God takes the followers of Christ - explorations of wonder, of change, of excitement, of challenge, but really are stories of paying attention and responding to the invitations God is working. Some like Saul/Paul have their lives turned completely upsidedown. Some like Peter are invited into a new way of thinking about people, tradition, and holy practices when he was pretty sure he knew what Jesus had set in palce. Acts opens with the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the people of God - and it really sets in motion this fluid listening, paying attention, and following after God’s nudges. 

This too is our invitation - we are meant to be the continuation of the New Testament - responding to God’s work in the world and the nudges God gives if we are willing to pay attention. Sometimes these gifts of God’s presence show up right in front of us, sometimes it’s really about paying attention and looking for God in the various seasons of our lives, sometimes we are called on a pathway to journey with God to see something spectacular. What I’m 99.9% sure of is the invitation that exists for each of us - to pay attention to the remarkable work of God in our midst, to open our hearts to the gifts of God that may be here today and gone tomorrow but are no less spectacular. What we see in Acts is a God who is persistently at work in and through the people to bring about healing and freedom - that we might not live in fear or simply react to the challenges of our day, but be mindful of God’s deeper invitation to be people of compassion, grace, and joy reflecting the very nature of Christ. 

I hope that my story, when I look back on it later in life, includes moments of emerging into meadows of wildflowers - stories of God’s goodness I did not create or deserve, but was witness to all the same because I was paying attention and followed the invitation. I wonder what some of those stories have been in your life? Where the Spirit has caught you up in the larger story of God’s goodness? I wonder if you long to take that journey with God today, and what invitation may be waiting at your door right now? 

Blessings for the journey,

Pastor Becca