Dear Colleagues, Joe often said we don’t thank each other. I’m beginning to understand why. “Thank you” seems so trivial as I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for all your responses and to the memories they evoke.
From the time Stuart Harper scared the bejeezus out of me by jumping out from under a stairwell as a ghost at 5AM in Kuala Lumpur, to the work Marilyn Crocker and I did on the Order Polity document in Chicago, to working with Joyce Sloan in Dallas, to the train ride to Blue Mountains, Australia, with the Telfords, to the numerous conversations cited in your letters, I’m grateful. I realize the appreciation you’ve expressed is for all of us for the work and the experiences we’ve shared.
Now, if you’ll pardon a little theological diversion, humility, gratitude, and compassion are three dimensions of worship that dramatize three life dynamics. The mystery has evoked humility; I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for your responses; and these times are demanding compassion. Despite Joe’s admonition regarding “thanks,” thank you for being the Order. Grace and Peace to all y’all. John