I pray that you and yours are well and that you are enjoying this truly magnificent spring God has given us. I can't remember flowering trees as bountiful as what we are experiencing this year.

As we prepare to celebrate the year at St. David's this coming Sunday at our annual meeting, I have been reflecting on the grace and the presence of gentleness in our community. The world most of us live in is filled with criticism. We are often involved with people wanting to get their way, no matter how it affects those around them or themselves, for that matter. The political cycle we are witness to is filled with biting comments and name-calling that is hurtful and dehumanizing. The terror and violence in the world speaks to a hardness and a "might makes right" that engulfs and destroys whole communities and drives people from their homes.

But in this place, at St. David's and among the communities we support and serve as part of our mission to know Christ and make Christ known, there is a great spirit of gentleness. There's a tenderness, an understanding, a willingness to forgive and offer grace. As Christians we believe that God is being gentle with us, forgiving and merciful. We don't have to measure up to God, but are offered forgiveness and love and encouragement to try again. It's never over between God and us, however far we might stray. And because we are a people who don't have to measure up, who are touched by God's loving presence, we have the freedom to offer a kind of gentleness to others that is rarely seen in the common world.

We see this kind of gentleness when persons welcome someone new to St. David's to share their pew and to help with the juggling of books during worship. We experience that kind of Godly gentleness when teachers and staff are caring for our children and youth. Last Sunday night at the Dinner and Talent Show, there was an air of gentleness and graciousness about the whole evening. We taste gentleness and kindness when we are working together in our ministries as people listen to one another and give each other the benefit of the doubt. We know the gift of gentleness when something doesn't go the way we planned it or the sound system cuts out or a program we've planned doesn't quite come off the way we hope, and people smile knowingly or chuckle and remark that we'll just do better next time. That same spirit of gentleness fills St. David's as we lay our hands on the prayer shawls or bury one of our loved ones in the Church yard in the promise of the resurrection.

St. David's is a place where God's gentleness reigns. It is a place set apart for living gently and lovingly. St. David's is a place where God can renew our souls so that our gentleness can be made evident to everyone as we go forth from this place. For the gentleness that we have known at St. David's over this past year and the gentleness and kindness we will know in the years to come, I am most grateful. It is the clearest sign that the Lord is in fact near.