Nostalgia
In 2010 St. Paul’s created a photo directory to help the new rector get to know parishioners more easily. I spent a lot of time leafing through it when I arrived in 2011 and began to put faces and names together. I hadn’t looked at it in years (photo directories quickly become obsolete) until a couple of weeks ago when a clergy colleague in the diocese gave me a copy he found in his office. What a trip down memory lane!
As I looked at the pictures, I felt a wave of nostalgia. Children who are now teenagers and young adults. Former clergy and staff members who have retired, left for other employment, or now serve in other parishes. Innocent faces who did not yet know the struggles and loss they would experience in the future. And everyone looked so much younger!
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, nostalgia is “a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition.” Nostalgia invites us to wear rose-colored glasses which filter out the difficulties and injustices of the past. It tempts us to yearn for an idyllic time that never existed.
What did I see without the rose-colored glasses? I saw the faces of so many parishioners who have died over the past 14 years. So many faithful children of God who served the church with grace and commitment. Former vestry members and wardens who sat with me through countless meetings. People I visited in the hospital, anointed as they were dying, and officiated at their funerals. People who met me for coffee, dropped by the church office, or waited in line after worship to speak with me in Burrows Commons.
Looking at the pictures, I experienced grief for the people we have lost. But even more powerfully, I felt a deep gratitude for the saints of St. Paul’s who offered their time, talent, and treasure with faith and dedication. In so many ways, they made the St. Paul’s of 2024 possible. We wouldn’t be who we are without those who held the parish together through a succession of unfortunate rector departures. The pictures reminded me who set the altar, sang the anthems, taught the Sunday School classes and reached out in the name of Christ to make the world more holy and just.
Looking back can be a good thing as long as we avoid the trap of nostalgia. We stand on a foundation and tradition of the past to remain unchanged but to strengthen us to respond to Jesus’ call to live faithfully in the present. The St. Paul’s of 2024 is not the St. Paul’s of 2010 just as the St. Paul’s of 2038 will not be the St. Paul’s of 2024. The choices we make today need to reflect who we are and what we value. If we are faithful in our mission, we will make Christ known today and create a solid foundation for the next generation.
