Recently much has been written and discussed about our pastoral candidate, now officially our new called Pastor. During this long and involved search process, I followed procedure to the letter, and discussed the specifics of our candidates' resumes and committee deliberations with nobody (no, not even my beloved wife), with one exception: Timothy Turtle. Now some of you may know that our family has had box turtles as pets for several generations. As turtles live very long, they are one of the few pets that can be inherited. God gives each creature a form of intelligence, often of a kind that we humans overlook entirely. Now Timothy has been around a while and has seen and read a lot. As I've been privileged to be his steward of many years, he gladly shares with me his insight into our human world.

We have all heard the typical turtle-isms of: "you can only go forward, not backward" (ever see a turtle going backwards?), and in going forward, you have to "stick your neck out" (even turtles know that progress entails risk), "you learn nothing hiding in your shell" in the familiar darkness, (turtles spend about half of their time outside their shells), and sometimes you just have to chill out, pick out a nice log near a pond and - one of Timothy's favorites - "soak in God's sunshine until the Spirit tells you to move on" (we've all seen turtles, especially pond turtles, just sitting there meditating in the sunshine). 

As I've shared some of the trials and tribulations of our recently concluded search with Timothy, he has given me wise counsel. After looking at the Facebook post of our Sunday 'candidating' sermon and celebration afterwards, he said: "yeh, everyone's talking about the new pastor. What about the new congregation?" As Timothy explained it, he liked eating crickets well enough, but a more learned turtle turned him on to garden worms and rotten bananas and tomatoes, now favorites of his. Likewise,on our journey as a congregation, our interim Pastor David has opened us up to new ideas, new ways of serving and new expressions of worship. We haven't tossed out all of the old, we've just expanded our tastes. We have chosen a new pastor to lead us, and just as importantly he has chosen a congregation willing to try new things, to stick their neck out a bit, get out of their comforting shell and move forward. Our congregation has new members, and just as importantly, older members with a new spirit. And as we move forward, not all things will go as we expect. Timothy told me about rolling over on his back once as a youngster. He thought that he was going to die. As his older brothers and sisters helped right him, he told them about the things flying up in the air that he had never seen before. They told him that they heard they were called birds. Timothy insisted that they were angels, and that he had a new purpose in life after getting back on his feet. He told me this story after I shared with him a period where the search and call committee had received no new candidate resumes for several weeks. We thought that the well was dry and that the committee was going to die on the vine. A week later, the pastoral profile of our newly called pastor landed in our inbox. After telling Timothy about the celebration Sunday, he offered to share one of his juiciest worms with me. I declined, but it's the thought that counts. And as we heard from Pastor Richard on Sunday, sharing is good.

Amen! Alex Kentfield, Moderator