Good-Bye Phoenix: Signing Out For a Few Days
Sun sets over the city of Phoenix
As another Mennonite Convention ends, I am saying goodnight to the excitement of five days spent in worship, meetings, reunions, and conversation. In times past I have attended the convention as a representative of Goshen College. This time I just moved around the halls as the spirit led me, meeting relatives, former students and colleagues, conversing with new friends and old.
Old friends just grow stronger
Meet Janet. We’ve been friends since 1996 when we roomed with each other at the New President’s Seminar at Harvard University. She was the new president of Hollins College, and I was president-elect of Goshen College.
Pastor Janet Rasmussen
Janet and I enjoyed dinner together, reflecting once more on the amazing journeys both of us have been on since we first met. She is now a Mennonite pastor and has been a spiritual mentor, as well as friend, to me.
On the 28th floor of the hotel
So, friends, thanks for continuing to share my New Beginnings and to share your own. I’m going to leave you for the next two days, taking a double Sabbath this time. That’s my New Beginning. Vacation among the red rocks and canyons of this beautiful desert country.
I will take with me these words wish for you many miracles in the next two days:
“The Miracles of the Church seem to me not to rest so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always.”
― Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
67 days until Blush launches
So glad you’ve had a time of reconnection and making new connections. Refresh and renew during your Sabbath time.
Thank you, Sherrey, I will take your words with me as I walk among the red rocks. And I send their echoes back to you!
Shirley – Thanks to your blog I finally reconnected with a friend I first knew in the 1960’s – Marian Beaman.
I love when this happens. Thanks for telling me. 🙂 Blessings to you and your family.
Shirley, you have always been an inspiration! It was so great to cross paths again this past week! Enjoy the beauty of the dessert. God’s creation in that this part of the world is so unexpectedly beautiful.