Pastor's Message - June 2025

~ How Many More Times ~

“See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation.”

~II Corinthians 6:2b

Dear Members and Friends,

Happy summer to you. Today I want to share a quote by the half-forgotten novelist, Paul Bowles. He wrote The Sheltering Sky and other novels and stories about North Africa back in the days of French colonial rule. A quick Wikipedia check tells me that he was best known for writing about “alienation and existential despair,” which doesn’t diminish any kernels of wisdom we find in his pages. Community and hope make for happier topics, but alienation and despair are a real part of the human condition, so they’re worth a novel or two. Paul Bowles says this:

Because we do not know when we will die,

we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well.

Yet everything happens only a certain number of times,

and a very small number really.

How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?

Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.

Read that quote again. Let it sink in. How many more times WILL you watch a full moon rise? I’ve witnessed the full moon’s rising on many occasions, on clear nights. But never once have I said to myself, “Oh, there’s a full moon tonight. I think I’ll sit and watch it rise!” It’s come as a surprise each time, unplanned, unsought. So many good things in life are that way: we like it when they happen, but we never seek them out. And we rarely know when we’ve done a thing for the last time.

How many more times will you visit an aging parent? How many more times will you hear your favorite song or toss a ball with your dog? One day I woke from a nap in my chair, and I realized that it was the same chair and the same spot where I used to read picture books to my daughters, one on each knee. They both outgrew such things years ago. When did it happen? When was the last time one of them crawled onto my lap and asked me to read to her? What was the last book we read together? And if I had known it was going to be the last one, could I have seen the pages through my tears?

Not-knowing can be a gift. These precious, fleeting days and hours that are momentarily in our grasp! They’re filled with firsts and lasts and everything in between. There’s no dress rehearsal for any of this. The not-knowing can trick us into believing that everything in life is endless. But the true gift of not-knowing is that it makes each moment precious and unique. What beautiful day or hour will ever be again? And so, live today with the urgency and the joy it deserves. Love the ones you’re here to love; serve the ones you’re here to serve. Let’s make the best of the precious time we’re given, with gratitude and faith. And let us entrust all our firsts and lasts to God’s good eternity, which—almost always unnoticed—is present in each moment. I’m grateful for you.

Christ’s Peace,

~Brian