Reflections: Lori Goetz, Senior Warden

I am several weeks removed from the music pulsing from our van one day last June. It was the classic rock tune ostensibly about school-you know, about school being out for the summer. Out forever, even. No more teachers, no more rules. My children permitted themselves to sing with windows open.

We have had this experience more than once over the years. The children abandon themselves to the notion that they are free, eat a congratulatory end-of-school-term ice cream, and then go home to parents eager to discuss Personal Goals You Have Set For Yourselves This Summer.

Happily, the Lord who desires our fellowship oversees our summer curriculum. True freedom and human flourishing, while often grounded in personal disciplines (worthy of goal-setting), most fundamentally emanate from personal relationships-with God and God's people. School, consequently, is never really out. God daily beckons, loving us and requiring our obedience as He conforms us to the image of His Son. Here are just two ways God has nurtured me over summer-term in his school for character.

1. God designed the church. In a summer which has seen gatherings of Anglicans at GAFCON and Lambeth, God has underscored for me the precious communal quality of the Christian experience. Therefore we pray for the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church, but we also appreciate with enhanced gratitude our staff and fellow parishioners at Messiah Episcopal Church. Ours is not wholly an individual experience of worship, education, or finances. We are knit together as a community in Christ. It is not a matter of mere obligation that we pray regularly for our church. We are compelled at the level of character to respond with personal commitments of time, talent, and money-to be the body of Christ together, to promote the well-being of others with whom we fellowship.
2. Discouragement meets the hard sayings of Jesus. In a summer which presented personal challenges giving vent to disappointment and discouragement, Jesus invited me to a renewed commitment to discipleship. The reality is that disciples, as we see in the gospel of John, grumble: "Many therefore of His disciples, when they heard this said, 'This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?'" I don't always want to hear that I must forgive, must hold in anger, must exercise patience, must reach out in love. A tight knot of resentment settled on my chest at 12:20 a.m. one night, preventing sleep. It was then that I read in the daily office about those disciples in John who withdrew from Jesus, "and were not walking with him anymore."

"Jesus said therefore to the twelve, 'You do not want to go away also, do you?' Simon Peter answered Him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

The hard things about discipleship are finally resolved in the inestimable love Jesus shows followers with whom he longs to walk. I do not want to go away from the One who daily beckons and who will give strength to surmount the dissipating effects of discouragement.

And so it was a good summer. And as the formal school year begins, I look forward to continuing to grow in character as I learn from our Teacher and Lord.