Preaching on the Household Codes

For my first preaching assignment at Saint Peter's Church, where I am currently a vicar, I was asked to preach on the texts listed in an older Catholic lectionary used during their Wednesday evening peace mass: Ephesians 6: 1 - 9, Psalm 145: 10 - 14 and Luke 13: 22 - 30.  The Ephesians text, as one version of the household codes, is a very difficult text, and thus I decided to focus on it.  Please provide me with some feedback and I'll incorporate it into my sermon this Wednesday.  Thanks so much!

Source: Wikipedia

While I’ve been a vicar at Saint Peter’s for about a month and a half now, even before starting here, I was very excited to start preaching in a real parish, so you can imagine my joy when I was asked me to deliver today’s homily.  Upon looking up the proscribed texts for today however, particularly the Ephesians’ passage, my joy turned to dismay…  “Children, obey your parents in the Lord” doesn’t seem that bad, but what about “slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling…” You heard it right folks, “slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling.”  Boy, it seems pretty tough to find the good news in a line like that, no matter what follows it...  For my very first preaching assignment of the year, I was asked to preach on the household codes.

The two hierarchical commands of children to obey their parents and slaves to obey their masters in today’s passage of Ephesians, combined with an additional command in the preceding verses for wives to submit to their husbands, form a set of instructions known to Biblical scholars as the household codes.  These codes are reflected in the Epistle to the Colossians and have similar counterparts in 1 Peter and Titus as well.  Despite being written in the Holy Scriptures, one cannot help but find the household codes heartbreaking, particularly in a country still haunted by a dark past, and in a few cases, a current history of slavery, along with contemporary racism and sexism.  Even more heartbreaking is the way in which these verses have frequently been used throughout history.  Many Civil War-era preachers used the codes to encourage African Americans to remain submissive under the dehumanizing yoke of chattel slavery.  Christians often cited them as a way to encourage wives to stay with battering husbands.  Children have been advised by the Church to obey their parents and remain silent about physical and sexual abuse because of an overly simplistic reading of verses like the household codes.  In many Christian communities, similar abuses of the Scriptures and human dignity continue to this day.

My sisters and brothers, perhaps the most heartbreaking thing about the household codes is not just how they’ve been misused throughout history… but how they’ve been misused throughout Christian history… throughout your history and my history… throughout our history.  The oppression and dehumanization wrecked upon the world by the misuse of passages like the household codes prove one of the most rotten spots in the collective story of our faith as Christians... and people know about this part of the story.  This is one of the reasons why many of our churches are shrinking rather than growing.  In my own life this is one of the reasons why many of my friends questioned why I would ever want to be a pastor, and I imagine many of you have been hurt by messages of intolerance inspired by misuse of the Scriptures as well.  The misuse of verses like the household codes is one of the main reasons why many see the Church as an oppressive force in the world, rather than a force of loving-kindness.

There is however good news in tonight’s text from Ephesians, at least if read with the proper historical lens in mind.  You see, for the earliest Christian communities, the structure of the household codes would have sounded very familiar.  Aristotle wrote about the very same three pairs of social classes, as did first century philosophers like Josephus and Philo.  This hierarchical pattern of unilateral control with man always at the top was in fact expanded the throughout Greco-Roman social order all the way up to Caesar.  Patriarchy was thus seen by most as the main source of peace and stability, as essential to society as most of us would consider the rule of law today.

Most critical scholars would agree that Ephesians was written at a relatively later date than most of the Pauline epistles.  Its audience was thus not focused on Jesus’ immediate return but was instead concerned with how to live out their lives in a world where the kindom of God was, as it is today, in-breaking but not fully realized.  While the household codes would have been familiar throughout Greco-Roman society, they never would have been accompanied by admonitions for husbands to love their wives as their own bodies or for fathers to be kind to their children as they are in Ephesians.  The author is thus critiquing the patriarchy, oppression and empire of the so-called Pax Romana by instructing his audience about God’s in-breaking kindom… a kindom where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male or female in Christ.  The author is doing so simply under a rubric that wouldn’t have been as suspicious to Roman authorities.

The household codes therefore do not support patriarchy and oppression in the name of God but rather provide us with an example of what Christianity truly is… a subversive faith.  Yes, my sisters and brothers, the good news in tonight’s Ephesians text is that in Christ all are free and all are equal.  In Christ we have a faith that subverts oppressive power and that turns any unjust social system that would tell us otherwise upside down.  While horrible misuse of the household codes is part of our collective Christian history, so are the stories of subversive saints like the writer of Ephesians, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, like Dorothy Day and like the Honduran woman I met last week at the UN, who is organizing rural peasants against an illegitimate administration that is grabbing their land and selling their rivers to trans-national corporations.  Yes, the stories of these and other subversive saints, while instructive, even more importantly demonstrate to us that the kindom of God is indeed in-breaking, and it is a kindom where all are free, all serve one another and all are forgiven.

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Your Chance to Weigh In on 'The World We Want'

What follows is a cross-post I recently wrote on behalf of Ecumenical Women at the United Nations.

In 2000, world leaders came together to set quantifiable goals for global development to be reached by 2015 in eight areas. Some have described the goals that came out of that summit, the Millennium Development Goals, as the world’s greatest promise. The good news is that three years out from the goals’ deadline, three targets for reducing extreme poverty, improving clean water access and helping people move out of urban slums, have already been met. While there has been partial progress in some areas, such as moving toward gender equality in access to primary education, there has been little movement toward other targets like reducing the maternal mortality rate.

As the world inches closer to 2015 deadline, the United Nations is also working to analyze successes and failures of the Millenium Development Goal program overall, and most importantly, beginning to discern what’s next after 2015… and that’s where you come in. In partnership with civil society, the United Nations is currently leading a growing conversation with people all over the world who are contributed their input about how we should move forward as one global community. This conversation is happening on the World We Want 2015 web platform, and the topic for this week is gender inequalities.
How can you contribute to the conversation? First, talk with folks (especially girls and women) about gender inequalities in your local community, with a particular emphasis on how such problems are related to inequalities based on income, race/ethnicity, age, location, disability, and sexual orientation. Next, spend some time brainstorming how the post-2015 development framework could address the needs of specific groups of women, especially those from the most marginalized groups and those facing multiple forms of discrimination.

Once you’ve spent some time talking about and reflecting on the topic, you can post your input here. The conversation is currently being monitored by Emily Esplen from Womankind Worldwide, Nicole Bidegain from Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), and Rosa G. Lizarde from the Feminist Task Force (FTF) of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, and they’ll also be responding to your comments. The recommendations emerging from you contributions will be included in a report presented at a high-level meeting in Denmark in February 2013 on inequalities and the post-2015 development agenda. Make sure to contribute soon though, as the comment period for this topic will end on October 24th. Thanks so much for contributing to The World We Want!

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

NH 4000 Footer Essay (Pt. 1): It's Not the Path That Changes Us

A path over Mount Pleasant.

What follows is part one of the five-part essay I'm writing for the NH 4000 Footer Club.  You can find part two here.

I first heard about having to write this application essay for NH's Four Thousand Footer Club sometime about a third of the way through hiking all of the Granite State's forty-eight peaks, and frankly, I've been trying to figure out what to put down on paper ever since.  I really enjoy pretending to be a good writer and thus I fancied whatever I'd come up with to be a sort of 'road tale,' a frequently employed plot device- sort of coming of age story where the protagonist sets off searching for maturity or meaning and generally ends up finding it... think Huckleberry Finn or in a more contemporary form Easy Rider... even Homer's Iliad, the oldest narrative in the Western canon, reflects much of what's in a road tale.  An inherent part of the road tale though is not just personal growth and discovery, but growth and discovery through experience.  A central message of such stories then is that the road literally does something to you... whether left wounded, reborn or somewhere in between, one cannot help but be changed by the beauties and terrors of the road.

From Mount Tripyramid.

With the grandiose notion of becoming the best White Mountain road tale writer since Brad Washburn lodged firmly in my noggin, I set off on every subsequent hike enthusiastically trying to answer the question "how is this exactly changing me?"  I sure experienced a whole lot of beauty (afternoon clouds billowing over Mount Isolation for instance) and even a couple minor terrors (realizing its almost 9pm with two miles to go coming off Middle Carter with a bum leg and a freshly dead headlamp) but unfortunately, trying to figure out how such experiences were changing me became a distracting and fruitless effort.  Especially after I began solo hiking in the summer of 2011, one could often find me standing on a mountaintop trying to convince an increasingly skeptical inner-self that I was experiencing something profound and life-changing.  After each of these sort of episodes, I'd usually leave the summit both proud of my accomplishment and frustrated that nothing was happening.  I'm currently a seminarian studying to be a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, so I wasn't seeking just growth or meaning in those mountains, but God as well.  Unfortunately, while I'd often marveled at Her handiwork during my mountaintop experiences, God Herself didn't seem to really want to show up... or at least it felt that way.

On top of Mount Carrigain's fire-tower.

I'm now sitting in a Starbucks in Queens, far away from my cherished mountains.  I deeply miss those stoic old giants... especially over this past summer, they became some my closest friends.  Still though, I can't honestly say the path over them changed me.  I met some amazing folks and some annoying folks, I marveled at God's creation and stood helpless against Her fury, I even learned a lot in the mountains, but no, they didn't change me.  It wouldn't be accurate though to say I wasn't growing and changing during the eight years I took to hike the Whites.  I started my journey on top of Mount Pierce in 2004, freshly out of high school and working for my second summer as a camp counselor for Calumet Lutheran Ministries.  I finished my journey late this past August atop Mount Carrigain's fire-tower, at the end of a longer summer break and two years into a Masters of Divinity degree.  Many of the kids who were with me back in 2004 later grew up to be counselors themselves... some even became good friends of mine.  I definitely changed over that period, perhaps I even came of age, but it wasn't the mountains that changed me.  Rather, my path over NH's forty-eight big peaks ended up providing the space I needed to reflect on my relationship with God, the course of my growth and my relationship with the ever-evolving world all around me.  While not the rule, I do think this is typical... it's not the road, the journey or the path that usually changes us.  Instead, the paths we trod in life simply serve as vehicles through which we can realize the growth (or potential for growth) already stirring within and around us.  What follows then, perhaps isn't road tale at all, at least in the traditional sense... it's a collection of a few stories in which I realized that since the last time I was up above the clouds, things looked pretty different...
 
Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Plenty of Faith in the Heart of the City: Prayer Labyrinth @ 5Pointz

It's nice to see Biggie each morning.

For about a month now, the first hour or so of most of my days here in New York have started the same: The alarm on my decade-ish old flip-phone goes off, I quietly lament to myself that the world starts too early, take a quick shower, put on one of two suits I still feel fairly uncomfortable wearing, run out the door and then down a few blocks to hop on the 7 train that takes me into Manhattan.  I rarely find a seat but can usually still get a good view of the cityscape in front of me through the crowd of other commuters, a view that almost always includes a chance to check out 5Pointz.

I didn't know much about New York before moving here (and probably still don't)  so the first couple times I glimpsed the structure through still sleepy eyes, I figured it was just an old factory covered in graffiti.  Quickly though I realized it was an intentional work of art, a living gallery really, and ever since that time I've spent a couple minutes each morning trying to spot new characters crowded amongst increasingly familiar pieces and signatures.  Frankly, it's a pretty awesome way to start my day.

A labyrinth, bottom left of the picture.

It was only today though that I spotted something at 5Pointz that definitely wasn't expected: a prayer labyrinth!  A type of contemplative prayer space that has been used for centuries by folks of many different faiths (a bunch of medieval cathedrals still have them), the labyrinth isn't a maze but rather a single path one slowly walks, praying at each turn and then quietly listening in the center to what God might be saying back.

The history of 5Pointz, for me at least, makes the presence of a prayer labyrinth there all the more important.  Termed "The Institute of Higher Burning," 5Pointz began in 1993 not only as graffiti art gallery but also an affordable studio space for over 200 hundred artists.  What was formerly an old industrial complex ended up becoming a global meeting place for a diverse mix of artists... rappers, break-dancers, filmmakers and photographers in addition to the folks who have stunningly covered the walls of the place.  Unfortunately, after someone was injured by a fire escape collapse in 2009, the art studios were closed, and it appears that the entire complex will be demolished in September 2013.  That said, boy, for as long as 5Pointz still stands, the prayer labyrinth there provides a powerful testament that faith is for all sorts of folks, not simply the clean-cut or typically defined as well-behaved by society.

While I think things have improved a bit in recent years, for far too long the city in general has been cast as place of vice or that which is "not-Christian" by way too many (usually) well intentioned believers.  Although I had a taste of how inaccurate and unhelpful such views were before moving here, the little time I've spent in New York so far and especially my exposure to sacred spaces like the prayer labyrinth at 5Pointz has further strengthened my conviction that the city is a place where faith is alive, well and constantly dancing into new and exciting forms of expression.  Thanks so much!

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

St. Paul's Chapel & Locating the Sacred: Two NYC Faith Experiences

Halfway through a busy third week of my internship year in New York, I wanted to write a real quick post about two amazingly powerful, but very different, faith experiences I had over the last two weekends.  Despite having grown up only a couple hours north in Connecticut, I never really spent much time in the city until this year... attending a taping of TRL sometime in middle school, an Iraq War protest in high school and a couple Yankees games notwithstanding, I really hadn't experienced New York very much.

St. Paul's Chapel

One of the things I always wanted to do here was to walk around Greenwich Village following all of the old Dylan related spots... cafes he played at, the street where the picture on the cover of the The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan was taken... stuff like that (I'm a huge nerd), so I set out to do just that two weekends ago, and Molly was nice enough to come along with me.  It was a pretty nice day out and we definitely had fun in the village, especially hanging out in Washington Square Park, but near the end of the afternoon we still didn't feel quite done... we wanted to experience a little more, so we decided to take a long walk down to the financial district.  While I originally intended mainly to get a picture of me fighting that golden bull statue that is somewhere near Wall Street (I think), we ended up decided to spend some time reflecting near ground zero, and that's when the faith experience started.  Given that it was the weekend before 9/11, we had little success getting tickets to see the new memorial, but we did have a chance to visit St. Paul's Chapel, an amazing place I had somehow never heard of before.  St. Paul's Chapel, part of the Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church parish, withstood the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings across the street and ended up serving as a place of respite for rescue and construction workers, as well as an active memorial site.  Weekly worship still takes place in the space, and it continues to act as pilgrimage place for over a million folks every year.  What an amazingly powerful example of a faith community serving its community.

Alhaji Papa Susso

This past weekend, I had very different but still amazing faith experience while attending a concert in the Queen's Botanical Garden as part of the ongoing Locating the Sacred festival organized by the Asian American Arts Alliance.  It was absolutely perfect weather out... just a little cool with a breeze and surrounded by a beautiful garden I was blessed to be able to listen to traditional music from around the world.  Entitled "The Gift of Wisdom," the event featured four distinct performances: Mala Desai began with a devotional Odissi dance from India, followed by a kora performance by a lively master named Alhaji Papa Susso.  Yoon Sook Park was absolutely amazing playing the kayagum (a Korean zither) and Ikhlaq Hussain followed her up by an epic sitar performance.  The highlight of the evening though, I think, was when all of the performances came out and played together at the end of the show.  Some of the music last weekend was specifically religious in nature, some wasn't, but the best part of the event was that it helped a really diverse crowd explore what can be held up as truly sacred, no matter what faith (or lack of religious faith) one might ascribe to.  I'd highly encourage folks in the city to take part in the remainder of the festival events throughout the city this week... everything's being wrapped up by a choreographed flash mob in Washington Square Park this Sunday.

All I can say in conclusion at this point is, boy, this city if full of opportunity for dialogue and shared experience with persons of really diverse faiths and backgrounds... what an awesome blessing.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Ecumenical Worship, Congolese Religious Leaders and the Politics of Nutrition: First Impressions at the United Nations

Boy, I've had an absolutely amazing first couple days interning at the Lutheran Office for World Community, the office that connects Lutherans worldwide with government missions, non-governmental organizations and other church bodies at the United Nations in New York.  Working on behalf of both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Lutheran World Federation, the office gathers information that guides churches in implementing humanitarian responses, discerning public policy responses and other activities.  Outside of typical "first day at work stuff" like setting up emails, getting ID cards and going on a tour of the place, most of my first day was dominating by a visit to the UN by a delegation of religious leaders from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The delegation brought with them heartbreaking stories about ongoing violence in the eastern Kivu provinces of the DRC at the hands of the newly formed militia M23, a group the religious leaders alleged to be armed by neighboring Rwanda's government.  While their message decidedly oversimplified the issue, neglecting to recognize the DRC government's own failings to foster security in North and South Kivu for instance, I did find it extremely empowering to see pastors and other religious taking a leading role in bringing global awareness to horrible situation that gets little press attention, especially in the US.  For a more nuanced treatment of the subject, check out this article.

Yesterday I attended a Working Group on Food and Hunger meeting.  While I definitely realized I have a lot of catching up to do on food and hunger issues, especially in their global manifestations, there was one particular part of the discussion that greatly humbled me.  As an American, I of course think of the concept of "nutrition" as good thing... it means folks not only getting enough calories to eat but the getting the right type of calories.  From the perspective of some folks from developing countries however, we gain the insight that trying to insert more "nutrition" language into this year's upcoming UN General Assembly resolution on food security might look like a code word for Western companies to cash in on things like increased vitamin exports.  According to some in the Global South, using terminology such as "diet-diversification" would make more sense.  While it might seem like a minute detail, it was really interesting for me to hear how at a place like the UN, folks really are working together to foster greater understanding across languages and cultures.

I've also realized how important of an ecumenical function the Lutheran Office for World Community plays... this morning I had a chance to help lead worship for a group that included folks from the Methodist Church, the Mennonite Church, the United Church of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church and the Salvation Army (I may have missed some others).  I was pretty nervous not to offend anyone, but we ended up having a great discussion on Romans 2, singing and worshipping our Creator together.  I definitely had never led such a diverse service before, and thus it was a great learning opportunity for me.  Even more importantly though, I can't help but think worshiping together in such a manner each week could greatly contribute to greater ecumencal understanding at all of our respective churches.

Well there you have it... my first impressions at the UN.  Now I'm off to hear deliberations on a small arms treaty and later today I'll attend a meeting on human trafficking... I'm very, very blessed to have such an amazing opportunity for learning at the Lutheran Office for World Community.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is currently a vicar at the Lutheran Office for World Community and Saint Peter's Church in Manhattan, having recently completed his second year of a Masters of Divinity program at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

Day Trips Over Mount Hale, Galehead and Garfield

I'm up in beautiful New Hampshire on my last trip of the summer finishing up hiking all of the state's forty-eight four thousand foot mountains, and boy, it's pretty amazing so far.  Outside of waking up today with a really bad cold (hence the break today), I couldn't have asked for more: mostly sunny skies with temperatures in the seventies/ low eighties, success finding some pretty cheap campgrounds.  I even got to stop by a friend's lake house on the way up and catch up with a group of folks I hadn't seen in over a year.  While I'm physically feeling a whole lot better, mentally I'm still spent, so apologies for the scant amount of reflection in the rest of this post.  That said, there's definitely some epic pictures.

Two days ago I headed up through Crawford Notch to do a quick six-mile warmup hike over Mount Hale.  As you can see from the summit, it's less than impressive view, but the way back couldn't have been better.  I decided to head back out to NH302 via the Zealand Trail, which descends past both the AMC's Zealand Hut and Zealand Falls and levels off into an absolutely magnificent valley, my favorite in the White Mountains.

Summit of Mount Hale

Cascade at Zealand Falls

 

 

Flooded area in Zealand Valley

That night I camped at the Zealand Campground under a clear starry sky, with a site only costing me $16 for the night... both things which were quite beautiful.  I also had an amazing dinner at Cold Mountain Cafe, a place couldn't recommend strongly enough.

View from Galehead Hut

Yesterday saw me on a bit more ambitious hike over Mount Galehead and Mount Garfield.  The first leg of the journey up the Gale River Trail wasn't bad at all with a pretty moderate grade.  After briefing checking out a great view at the AMC's Galehead Hut, I quickly got up the Frost Trail to the once again unimpressive summit of Mount Galehead.  After heading back down to the hut for lunch and a bit of a break, I started across the ridge to Mount Garfield on the appropriately named Garfield Ridge trail... this was definitely the hard part and ate up a huge amount of my time.  My favorite part of this portion of the hike wasn't the scenery at all, but rather with a thru hiker named Laughing Dog who was heading south for Georgia on the Appalachian trail.  You can check out a great blog chronicling his journey here.  After finishing up my conversation with LDog at a trail junction, I climbed up to the steep summit of Mount Garfield and was treated absolutely amazing 360 views of the Pemigewasset Wilderness and nearby towns.  Particularly awesome was the view of Owl's Head Mountain at the heart of the wilderness area, a pretty difficult summit I attained not too long ago.  I got back out to the road down the easy but long Garfield Trail, and then had to unfortunately finish up the day on a mile and a half walk up the dirt road to my car. 

Garfield Ridge Trail

View of Owl's Head from atop Mount Garfield

When I have a bit more time, I'll post a 360 video from the top of Garfield to give a bit more of an idea what it looks like.  So wow, the next few days are going to be pretty nuts... some of my overnight gear isn't in the best shape and I have to work around changed plans for hiking with friends on Sunday, so I'm going to have to split up my Mount Bond overnight into two day trips.  Tomorrow will definitely be the most challenging, as I'll be starting a roughly twenty-two mile trip at sunrise over Mount Zealand, into the Bond peaks and then back.  Then Sunday I'll do a bit more modest hike to Mount Carrigain with some friends and finish up all of NH's big peaks on the Twins this Monday.  I'm hoping today has taken care of whatever ailed me this morning, as needing another day off might start putting me up against some tougher weather.

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is a Masters of Divinity candidate in his second year of study at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.

A Summer Full of Stories

Near Arapaho Pass, Colorado

Throughout my first month or so this summer, I made a bunch of attempts to write this post.  Eventually, I realized that being constantly on the road, constantly in new places and constantly submersed in the stories of old and new friends alike had made me pretty scatterbrained... outside of a few journal entries, writing at all was going to be nearly impossible.  Instead, it made more sense to sit back and ride through what promised to be an amazing summer, take some notes and pictures along the way, and let things gel until a time when I'd have a little more ground to stand still while.

It's now mid-August, I'm sitting in my brand new (and awesome) little apartment in Queens' Sunnyside neighborhood, I'm starting the process of once again growing some roots and I therefore figure it's about the time to start sharing a general narrative of what I've been up to all summer, with more details to follow.  It's an overly self-important notion for sure, the idea that stories from my own journey are good enough to write down and share with the world.  So in a vain attempt to help me feel better about such vanity, I figured throw in a couple other great sources of stories I've been enjoying all summer as well.

After finishing up a rewarding but difficult second year of school at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, my fiancee Molly and I headed out to Colorado for a month of relaxing, hiking and frankly just to be tourists for a while.  We were blessed in meeting some of each other's friends on the way to our homebase in Boulder and found a great match for our journey in Steinbeck's Travels with Charley on audiobook.  Our other epic audio discovery from the trip was the The Dirtbag Diaries, a free podcast of outdoor stories and meditations produced by Fitz Cahall.  While I'll go into more detail in future posts, some highlights from Colorado included camping at Diamond Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness with our friend Nika, visiting the Celestial Seasonings factory and our ascent up Mt. Elbert, the highest peak in Colorado and the second highest in the lower 48 states.  The following video is from the top of Mt. Elbert, and outside of how high my voice oddly sounded, it's pretty awesome.

After an amazing time in Colorado, we decided to make a multi-day pit stop on our return drive... in Yellowstone National Park.  We'd been watching Ken Burns' series on the national parks while in Colorado, so we figured checking out one of the best was pretty necessary.  While we went in especially excited to see bears (which we did), it turned out the highlight for both Molly and I was the humble buffalo (bison is the more scientific term), who supposedly are attracted to the yellow lines in the middle of the road and thus create some pretty interested traffic jams.  On a less silly note, seeing the whole herd (it's the largest wild bison herd left in the world) grazing across Hayden Valley is alone absolutely worth the trip out to Wyoming.  The other highlight was the daily ranger talks, where we learned a great deal more about the park's varied wildlife... those darn Lake Trout are destroying Yellowstone Lake's indigenous Cutthroat Trout population, for instance.

Carter Notch, New Hampshire

Following the return to New England, I've had bunch of awesome hiking opportunities in New Hampshire, all interspersed with other great times back in the real world.  Molly and I got to spend a week representing Project Connect at Camp Calumet and helping the staff there discern what God is calling them to do in life.  I also was privileged to lead Calumet counselors in running a Vacation Bible School a few weeks later.  There were even a few awesome beach days in Maine relaxing, playing in the waves and even building some Adirondack chairs with close friends I hadn't seen in quite a long while.

Toward Mount Isolation, New Hampshire

One thing that struck me after hiking a while in Colorado was how absolutely lush the New Hampshire forests are... someone once told me the state gets as much rain as a rainforest, and it's definitely a possibility.  The lushness makes these forests feel somehow more inviting than their thinner, dryer cousins in the Rockies, although I'm certainly a bit partial.  Ever since I hiked Mount Pierce in 2005 though as a counselor at Camp Calumet, I've been on a bit of quest to hike every four thousand foot mountain in the state... there's forty-eight of 'em total, and after a great deal of work and early alpine starts, I only have ten remaining.  That might seem like a lot, but they're pretty much all grouped together on the northern rim of the Pemigewasset Wilderness, so with a little luck I'll be able to finish them all up in a week's time, as I'm leaving on one final trip for the summer starting tomorrow.  There's a bunch to think about on the trip... predominately how to best transition into my new internship at the Lutheran Office for World Community at the United Nations and St. Peter's Church which starts on September 4th, but also a bunch of other things... how to keep myself connected to the outdoors in amidst the concrete of NYC (it seems like it'll be easier than I expected) yet also how to satisfy my craving for time in the mountains without getting too selfish about it (more on than dilemma in my next post).  Most importantly though, it'll be a chance to connect with a few more  friends and follow my passion one last time before the season ends.  Expect some detailed stories and more pictures from the summer soon!

God's peace,
Dustin

Dustin is a Masters of Divinity candidate in his second year of study at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. While seeking ordination in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, his focus is on the intersection between worship, service and justice building in de-centralized faith communities unencumbered by a traditional church building. In his free time, Dustin really likes playing frisbee, hiking and pretending to know how to sing.