from the rector

July 2010

Last Thursday and Friday Virginia and I celebrated her birthday and our anniversary at Fall Creek Falls. We spent much of our honeymoon there in 1971, but had not been back in over 20 years. We did the basic trails we had done before, including the "cable trail" which involves holding onto a metal cable while finding footholds in the rock to climb up and down on.

This morning (Tuesday), four days later, as I took my morning walk I noticed that I almost wasn't sore anymore.

I certainly was sore on Sunday. If you don't think so, ask Melinda Bartlett about the expression on my face as I genuflected after Communion (being the chalice bearer, only she could see it).

The funny thing is - I almost never get muscle soreness. I walk 4 miles pretty much every morning and never get sore. I can dance through the night now (and dancing is not for wimps, it's pretty vigorous exercise) and not feel it a bit in the morning.

But it's obvious that on those up-and-down climbing trails and clambering up and down rocks I found some muscles that do not get regularly exercised or stretched out. And they let me know about it.

I guess no mater what shape we're in or what we do, there is part of us that is unused and undeveloped.

What's true of our bodies is also true of our mind and our spirit.

All of us know a great deal about something - and not much about lots more. The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. That's why we depend on our shared knowledge as human beings to make things work. None of us can do it by ourselves.

All of us have very real spiritual gifts - areas in which we are spiritually strong. And we all also have areas where we aren't strong. That's why we depend on the gifts of the whole "Body of Christ" to keep us going rather than trying to make it on our own.

All of us also have mental and spiritual abilities and possibilities that are simply unused - but could be strong if we developed them.

You know, if I went up & down rocky trails regularly, they wouldn't make me sore.

What spiritual strengths and gifts might each of us have - if we took the time to exercise them?

Yours in Christ,

        David Garrett