What does it mean to care?

The word care traces its origin in the word chara, which means “to lament, to grieve, to participate in suffering, to share in pain.”
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With that in mind, to care is to cry out with those who are sick, confused, lonely, isolated, and forgotten.

​Politics are on everyone’s minds. Maybe it is because of the upcoming elections. Then again, it seems to me that everything – and I mean everything – from one’s thoughts on climate change to the kind of coffee I drink becomes a reason to invoke politics. We are a very troubled, anxious, and divided people, and it is not all about politics. Media, social media, and politicians use the deeper causes of division to “rally the base,” as they say. Making everything political makes money and garners votes won out of fear. 

​In March of 2023, the Congregation Council had its first discussion of a capital campaign to address needs identified by the Property Team to sustain our building into the future. Fifteen months later, we have concluded a Capital Campaign to fund those improvements. We set a three-tiered goal: $1.5 million to do the minimum. $1.8 million to do what was essential. $2 million to do all we hoped to accomplish. As it stands, we have received commitments of $2.352 million from 203 households of the congregation.  

​In this next week, two commemorations take place that should remind us, once again, that among the many sins and evils of our age, racism is still far from dead. The violence, hatred, and inhumanity wrought by racism don’t need to be detailed or debated, though there are still people who claim that racism is a fiction or a thing of the past. They are woefully wrong. 

It is graduation season in America. Over the last few weeks, I have experienced a lot of graduations. My oldest child graduated with her master’s degree and my youngest graduated from high school. All occurred within a few short weeks.​

Because of protests on college campuses, ongoing war and violence in Palestine, and political debate around the world, the specter of antisemitism finds its way into our news, and our public and private conversations. Antisemitism is an evil that never seems to fade. In each generation, it seems, hateful voices and violent acts rise against the Jewish people because of who they are. From the Crusades to the Inquisition, to the Holocaust, Jews have been treated to the grossest acts of inhumanity. Shamefully, the inhuman behavior has been at the hands of those who claimed to be followers of Jesus – a Jew himself.

​There have been a few times in my life that I have received a compliment by mistake. Good job on this or that when I didn’t have anything to do with why that thing was good. I often don’t know what to do with those types of compliments. Most of the time, I graciously accept because I don’t want to be the cause of an awkward moment.

​People tend to self-divide into two major categories in my experience: Givers and Takers. No one is totally one or the other, but it seems to me there is a predisposition to one or the other in each of us. Givers default to a posture of seeking to benefit the “other.” Takers lean the other direction, most often concerned with what benefits them. 

T​he life of the Church revolves around a different calendar than the normal January to December calendar. The Church does not celebrate the summer holidays (Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day). There is no space in our calendar for the upcoming holiday of Mother’s Day.  

​As a congregation named “Holy Trinity,” we are familiar with the trinitarian name of the One God – “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” That does not necessarily mean that we understand the three persons of the One God, who exists in a union of Divine Love. It is often the Holy Spirit who is overlooked and misunderstood most – at least in our tradition of Christianity. Yet, it is the Spirit’s work that is most obvious in our daily living. The Work of the Spirit is often the most concrete manifestation of God right now, right here.