Sunday, April 27, 2025

Dear Friends, 

I will save most of my parting words for Sunday morning.  But for those who may not be around for Sunday worship, I will share a few thoughts.

First, I want to say ‘what a privilege it has been to be one of your ministers for these 15+ years’.  Privilege is an elevated word.  It is well chosen.  To have stood with you for weddings, funerals and baptisms is a high honor.  You let me in, and I tried to share something of God’s presence while standing on sacred ground.  

At the same time, we have been through countless other peaks and valleys.  I remember the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  Closer to home, we have been through tragic losses within our own church family.  We have loved and lost ministers.  We have loved and lost daughters and sons.  We have loved and lost wives and husbands.  When the pandemic landed, we stepped up and found ways to be the church.  Throughout, we have sent people to Nicaragua, Honduras, Kenya, and the streets of New York City.  God has been faithful.  You have been faithful.  We have been faithful.  

I have never pretended to be more than I am.  Over these 15 years, my personal life has been a mix of chaos, poor choices, better choices, and a slow uneven journey towards more sanity.  Yet by God’s grace, I have hung in there.  I have consistently worked to put my best foot forward when it counted the most.  I have tried to respond to late night calls.  I have tried to preach worthy sermons.  None of these efforts merit a pat on the back.  I would only want you to know that the call to be your minister was always a serious matter.  

Here is my cheat sheet.  Practice vulnerability.  It is the gateway to personal and spiritual growth.  Practice forgiveness.  It is the greatest gift in human relationships.  Love lavishly.  It is your superpower.  This is the fertile soil of resurrection.  

Thank you Talmadge Hill Community Church.  You have been my spiritual home.

Carter  

Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025

Dear Friends,

Holy Week is many things.  It is the human experience in its fullness.  It is about power.  It is about the ugly side of human nature.  It is about our mortality and death.  It is about fear and faith.  It is about re-birth and hope.  

Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he asked both directly and indirectly for us to look more closely at ourselves.  He asked for us to examine our shadows, our default patterns of thought and behavior, our inertia, our resistance to change.  He was brilliant.  He saw us.  He invited us to see everything differently.  

So my question is a simple one: “What do you want to get out of Easter this year?”  It may sound like a silly question.  But I think not.  Is Easter about family?  Sure.  Is Easter about a church service that feels obligatory?  Maybe.  Is Easter about dressing up and eating good food?  I hope so (particularly if those things are good for your soul).  Yet alongside of these considerations, our tradition tells us that Easter is a seminal event.  It makes proclamations about ‘who we are’ and ‘what matters most’.  

John O’Donohue writes poignantly about the journey into Easter: 

 In out-of-the-way places of the heart, 

Where your thoughts never think to wander, 

This beginning has been quietly forming, 

Waiting until you were ready to emerge. 

For a long time it has watched your desire, 

Feeling the emptiness growing inside you, 

Noticing how you willed yourself on, 

Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

 Then the delight, when your courage kindled, 

And out you stepped onto new ground, 

Your eyes young again with energy and dream, 

A path of plenitude opening before you. 

Though your destination is not yet clear 

You can trust the promise of this opening; 

Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning 

That is at one with your life's desire.       

See you on Sunday morning,

Carter

Palm Sunday, April 13, 2025

Dear Friends, 

This weekend, the annual Men’s Retreat will take place.  More than 20 men from Talmadge Hill will gather at St. Birgitta’s in Rowayton.  

Together, we will explore our attachments – positive and negative – and how those attachments are helping or hurting us.  Many attachments are positive.  I think of our senses, the human body, the human mind, the human heart.  I think of the joy of a meaningful vocation, the blessing of friendships, the gift of children.  

Yet our attachments are full of shadows and potential harm.  Even the intrinsically positive things can become something unhealthy, something held too tightly.  On the darker side, we must look at the addictions, the old wounds, the chronic fears, the critical voices, the threat of victimhood.  On the surface, it would seem any reasonable person would let go of the things which threaten to hold us back.  But the human psyche does not naturally let go.  It prefers what it knows.  

So beginning tonight, we will gather.  We will attempt to be open with each other.  We will attempt to be vulnerable.  We will attempt to listen, to practice nonjudgment, and to encourage one another.  Hopefully by the end of the weekend, we will find the courage to let go of what is NOT serving us.  Letting go can be scary.  It presents an uncertain future.  It is an act of faith.  

But for all of us, the future is covered in uncertainty.  It invites faith.  And what lies beyond our letting go?  Well, we do not know.  Yet I am confident it’s more of the SELF that God created you to be.   

See you on Sunday, 

Carter       

Sunday, April 6, 2025

Dear Friends, 

As per usual, I have many things on my mind.  In all of these things, I am left to wonder ‘how our faith informs our opinions and our convictions.’  

One topic has been the pros and cons of flying the American flag at a church.  People have strong feelings about it.  For many, it is a supremely important symbol.  That makes sense to me.  It looks back to the ideals and aspirations of a nation that wrote about the equality of all citizens and every individual’s right to pursue happiness.  It intends to capture our commitment to freedom of speech and the freedom to practice the religion of our choice (or no religion at all).  At its best, the flag favors progress.  Seen in this light, the flag has nothing to do with a government’s approval ratings.  It is not a partisan symbol.  

On the other side of the argument (at least for me personally), I wonder if a church should ever fly a national flag.  A patriotic attachment to one’s country and a faithful commitment to Christianity are not the same thing.  This does not shed a negative light on patriotism.  It simply understands that the church is a completely separate entity which in many instances may not share the same values or the same desired outcomes as the government.  While one cannot speculate on Jesus’ position on policy over the last 50 years, it would be safe to say he was likely horrified by any number of things.  I couldn’t say what is right.  I would favor flying it on certain national holidays.  

The other thing on my mind is Cheryl.  She has been such a faithful friend.  Even more importantly, she has been such a faithful minister at Talmadge Hill.  While carrying another demanding job and pursuing a doctoral degree, she has been generous to a fault.  She is thoughtful.  She is grounded.  She is mature.  She is reliable.  She is kind.  And now, she faces an uncertain next chapter in her life.  In all likelihood, it will be difficult – physically, emotionally and spiritually.  As such, it is our time to be prayerful, thoughtful and generous to a fault.  As ambiguous as certain things can be, this is NOT one of them.   

Lent continues to unfold.  Let’s stay focused together on what matters the most.  

Carter         

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Dear Friends, 

I have thought a lot about the subset of individuals who believe politics should be avoided in church.  I can imagine that their motivations are good.  They might be thinking, “Politics are so divisive.  Let’s avoid more divisiveness.”  They might also be thinking, “The noise in the world is so loud.  Can’t we come to church and quiet the noise?”  I get it.  

At the same time, I feel compelled to say that Christianity is not on board with avoidance.  Christianity has always spoken to the Emperor, to the nature of power, and to an empire’s (or nation’s) treatment of its most vulnerable citizens.  To understand Christianity is to understand its voice.  Christianity is not a private and personal matter.  It is a private, personal and public matter.  It always has been.  It always will be.  

I am reminded of the recent film about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He was a preacher in Hitler’s Germany.  He was active in the German Reformed Church.  The official church at the time had two pronounced positions on politics: 1) be quiet and avoid talking about it, or 2) bless the ruling authorities for they must have our best interests in mind.  Now I am not suggesting that we are living in Hitler’s Germany.  But I am concerned that we somehow prefer a church that stays quiet on controversial matters, a church that gives the benefit of the doubt to politicians who rarely, if ever, have the best interests of the populace in mind.  

This week, I landed on an article about G.K. Chesterton, an English philosopher and theologian.  It reads: “Chesterton devoted a great part of his life to trying to bring social and economic justice to the world. And his emphasis was always on trying to get people to think clearly, to see first principles. And Chesterton understood that ultimately every political question is also a theological question. His mantra was this: ‘We cannot be vague about the power of Love.  For that is what we are willing to fight for and die for.’”

Lots to think about in these trying times.  Let’s not be quiet.

Carter