PASTORAL REFLECTION

May is here in full bloom. I began the month with a study leave devoted to planning our worship from now into the fall as well as planning for a summer full of projects and events involving our ministries in the neighborhood community. We continue to have many exciting challenges and opportunities ahead of us.

We will be the home of the Kinship Summer Youth Program; a program designed specifically for children from 9 to 14 who have an incarcerated parent. We will be involved with the feeding of these children at lunchtime, and hopefully, feeding them with a sense of love and belonging as well. I will participate as a volunteer in their program, leading several workshops of "Comedy Sportz", improvisational theatre games.

Concurrent with this program, we will be the home space for the summer youth theatre project with immigrant youth in our neighborhood, empowering them to tell their stories and become a voice in the community around the immigration issues that so affect their lives. This is the beginning of a Drama Ministry here at High Street that could bring us a unique identity in our neighborhood.

Also this summer, on August 11^th, we will help orchestrate the re-dedications of all of the Parks in our city, declaring them "drug-free zones for peaceful purposes only. This symbolic action, beginning in our own Brookdale Park, launches our Community of Spirit Program and "Project Mosaic" which invites the faith community to develop and house programs that support life-giving activities for youth and families in our violence-afflicted neighborhood and city. The Youth theatre project is a part of that. Our own George MGlothin has offered to hold workshops for kids in basic carpentry skills and Rebecca Payne, PhD in Education has offered to help kids discover how to be more successful in learning. And we are just getting started!

We are grateful for the leadings of the Spirit and the endorsement of our proposal by the Oakland Department Parks and Recreation. This proposal, now with their endorsement and financial backing, goes to the Mayor of Oakland. We have made a contribution to what we pray will be a part of the transformation of our neighborhood and our city.

Last, but not least, we were blessed to have Marcus and Angie Brown with us on the last Sunday in April. Session met with them after worship to discuss our collaborative work in creating a "street ministry" from HSPC that will reach out to those on the margins of our society and invite them into God's family.

With the approach of Pentecost, this is a good time to reflect on our ability to listen, hear, and understand the great diversity of "voices" that we invite into our lives. On our tiny corner, many cultures converge. Sometimes, as we know and lament, the convergence is violent. We have the choice to retreat from the chaos or, as Pastor Marcus, reflected, role up our sleeves and put our hands right into the hard-to-touch places. That is what we have chosen to do. Being a church on High Street means engagement with our neighborhood, if our ministry here is to have meaning. It will not always be easy. We follow in the steps of the one who touched the untouchables and had table fellowship with the unclean. We follow in the steps of the one who models the unconditional love of God. We have chosen to make ourselves vulnerable. That is what it means to love.

God grant us the strength and the wisdom to do all that the Spirit directs, in Jesus’ name.

May blessings to you all, Sally