While I write this Pastor's Corner it's a beautiful day as I look out the windows of the Pastor's Office.  Elisabeth Wiebe has made her almost daily walk down Webster Street.  A grey squirrel is walking down the locust trunk.  Several joggers and cyclists have gone by.  I know the joggers and cyclists will increase in numbers when various sports teams begin to practice in August, but for today, the numbers are few and therefore more noticeable.  A Defiance College maintenance worker is driving a tractor, cutting the lawn at the Weaner Center.      Sparrows are eating out of the bird feeder and mourning doves are scouring for the seeds that have fallen to the ground.  The sun is shining brightly in the clear light-blue skies. High above in the light-blue sky is a red-tail hawk circling,  riding the wind currents and searching for prey.  The wind is gently blowing in the oak, maple, and plum trees.  It is a nearly perfect summer's day.
Donna Schaper, Senior Minister of the Judson Memorial Church in New York City,  commenting about the creation story of Genesis, "How do we restore the reverence we have for creation and allow it to be part of our daily living?  Baptismatus sum, said Luther, I am baptized and renew in a creation that had my name in it from the very beginning.  I am christened to creation.  My DNA comes from the original light and lightness!"  (Feasting on the Word, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors, © 2008, Westminster John Knox Press, Pages 220-222.)
Schaper notes that "awful" and "awesome" come from the same root of "awe."  There was a time when people saw awful things and wonderful things, like two sides of the same coin.  Now awe is reserved for awful things and awesome for good things.  Yet our reverence is not just for religious value.  Reverence is the virtue that keeps us from acting like gods.  In our baptisms we can reclaim the waters of our baptisms.  We can reclaim the light of creation and the waters of creation.  With reverence we can move from our own grounded view of life to seeing the heavens opened, leaving us in awe.

Your partner in ministry,
                                                   
The Rev. Dr. William R. Nirote