Dear family and friends:
Since my liberation on day #100, an incredible of week has just gone by, and the "season" has just begun! A gathering of clergy and lay, from arch-bishops, bishops, and priests to highly motivated laymen and women gathered at a meeting entitled "Communion Partners" for two days last week to speak of bonds of unity in our Lord Jesus; of hopes and challenges, strengths and needs. We in the United States speak with so much fear and anxiety, while third world bishops, in the very midst of physical oppression and danger, speak with such confidence and hope. One comment I heard was, "Americans run through their garbage disposals, in a week, enough food to feed the nation of Nigeria for a month."
We have so much to be thankful for, and yet we often think of ourselves as bereft of what we once had and deserve to have again. We are much like the Israelites bemoaning the memory of the bread, onions, and leeks they once had in days of slavery back in Egypt.
The week ended with a retreat at our conference center whereat Bp. Alden Hathaway spoke of leadership exhibited in the book of Nehemiah. The whole project begins with the leader acknowledging the wretchedness of the situation and his own sin, and lamenting with a broken heart. Through our sin, our own grievious sin, we have laid waste to the Lord's beautiful plan, and we should grieve that reality and repent.
Then follows deep and serious conversation with the Lord to begin the restoration. I believe that we are in a restoration process....it is the season of preparation for a great repentence, revitalization, repair, and restoration.
I don't think that these two gatherings I attended, just prior to Advent, were coincidental. The season of repentance and repair is upon me, and I don't think I am alone. Let us all, as the scripture encourages us, "Prepare (ye) the way." The season is soon upon us! Alleluia!
Have a glorious Thanksgiving. The Lord is truly merciful and bounteous!
Your brother in Christ,
Dick
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