The other day, I was getting ready to text a friend, “I feel like I’m living in Groundhog Day.” I picked up my phone, and found a new text from that friend describing their energy as “restless, depressed groundhog (a la Groundhog Day).”

Here we are again. Or here we are still.

Today, I’m heading to Coos Bay with three members of our CPC Board cohort of the Reckoning with Our Racist History project of the Common Table. We’ve spent the last nine months learning about Oregon’s history, digging into our conference’s land stories, and uncovering our own stories.

One of our churches wrote me this week to say they had started a phasing-forward taskforce, and to ask if there were any new regulations that I thought they should be aware of. Here’s what I wrote in reply…

The week before last, I and more than two hundred faith leaders from around the state of Oregon sat and listened to the stories of George Yoshio Nakata. His first-hand account stunned and silenced the attendees…

I grew up in a family that took Sunday sabbath very seriously. Breakfast on Sunday was coffee-cake, because Mom could make it ahead, and lunch was pot-roast for the same reason. Sunday afternoon was for napping or reading. We never mowed the lawn, or did chores on Sunday.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of those first pandemic lockdowns, you may find yourself feeling emotionally unsettled. In grief counseling, we often find that anniversaries can creep up on people. Sometimes we feel the anniversary in our body even before our mind remembers…

The people who surrounded and invaded the US Capitol on January 6th did so under the banner of Christ. That statement may seem too blunt, but consider the facts:

We cannot escape the truth that to most observers this was an overtly Christian event. So, what do we do with that truth?

For too long, too many of us have looked away as our angry neighbors and leaders spread lies and vitriol. We have courted danger, treating politics like a spectator sport, not realizing that polemics — especially polemics that prop up white supremacy and bigotry — is a deadly game.

“Have the mind of Christ who though he was one with God chose to become a human, enslaving himself for the good of others.”

I’ve been thinking about this passage a lot lately, as I see our society trying to enroll us once again in the slaveholder mindset…

I trust you. That may seem strange to say, since I have so little contact with many of you. However, trust is the bedrock of my work as Conference Minister…

Note: This post is about the violence, threats of violence, and self-harm that are prevalent in our society right now.

People are on edge, anxious about the future, tired of being cooped up, worried about finances and health, angry about the political situation — and all of that is leading to increases in domestic violence, public violence, and self-harm.

I’ve been thinking about the Beatitudes lately, because I’ve heard them compared to the statement: Black Lives Matter. Jesus didn’t get up on a hill and say, “All of you are blessed,” because he knew a lot of us would assume all didn’t mean all. For many of us, circumstances and society teach us that we are not blessed and we don’t matter. That’s why it’s important to be specific.

During the tumultuous first months of 2020, as your Conference Minister, I’ve relied on what I see as the Central Pacific Conference’s “identity and calling statement.” When I came to the conference, I was told we didn’t have a Mission Statement. However, as I’ve listened to my lay and ordained colleagues in ministry, I have found we do have an identity and a calling.

As I’ve wrestled with what to say to you during the protests following the killing of George Floyd, I’ve returned again and again to the words of Jonah 3.

This pandemic has highlighted for me the strength, resiliency, and beauty of our CPC churches and members — and how much we need each other.

Among the Council of Conference Ministers, we’re having serious conversations about canceling our in-person meeting later this month. In the desire to stay safe, the message we’re hearing is that we’re better if we’re alone. I don’t know about you, but I’m already feeling the sense of isolation this disease brings. And yet, I remain certain we’re better together.