An Easter to Remember

Dear Easter Observers:

This was an Easter we’ll not soon forget—the year of the pandemic when we all hunkered down at home, intent on not spreading the COVID-19 virus. It will be remembered as the Easter of video worship, social media encouragement, Zoom calls and window posters. The tomb was empty, and so was the Sanctuary. It was an Easter without an uplifting choral anthem or echoing brass from the balcony. This was the Easter when Henry prepared his prelude and hymn accompaniment ten days before its presentation, uploaded to the cloud where trombonists could add a few layered tracks to the audio and create the illusion of shared time.

It will be recalled as the Easter when the pastor preached his sermon to a camera and tripod on Maundy Thursday, and the Maundy Thursday service was edited on Wednesday, and the ecumenical Good Friday service was recorded before Palm Sunday from a dozen different locations. This was the Holy Week that seemed to last 14 days, and it was hard to know what day it was without looking at your phone.

It was the Easter when bandwidth and processing space mattered in ways it never did before. When sound sync rendering required one more upload to the website because the preacher’s words and lips didn’t match, and the sermon had the feel of an old Godzilla movie.

This was an Easter without lily delivery. No rushing off to the brunch line or stopping by to pick up grandparents. No egg hunt on the church lawn or lingering conversation in the Narthex between packed services. No getting the kids up and scrubbed to put on their cute outfits; hats and ties were completely optional, pajama pants and uncombed hair unremarkable. No ushers recalling Easters past when extra chairs were in the aisles or remarking how good it is to see the Sanctuary full and wondering if the bulletin supply
would be enough.

This was the Easter when young agnostics didn’t chafe at the notion of heading to church to please Mom or Dad or Grandma. There wasn’t a there to go, so there wasn’t a who to please.

This will be the Easter we will not soon forget; it will be remembered for all the things that were so un-Easter-like, because we wanted to keep people safe. We wanted people to know we loved them by reaching out in unfamiliar ways. We wanted to connect with our loving hearts, not our sanitized hands.

This will be the Easter we will not soon forget, because this will be the Easter remembered for something greater than our gathering. This will be the Easter remembered for how hard we worked to turn the shadow of death into the dawning of life.

This will be the Easter when the echo of the empty tomb resonated with the undeniable shared message of hope; and the words of the resurrected Christ strike us in a whole new way, “Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

Wishing you an unforgettable Easter, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor

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A Recipe for Reconciliation Has a Starting Point
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Dear Non-Conference Non-Attendees:

As you may know, a great deal of effort was put into planning and promoting a post-COVID conference scheduled for the second Saturday in March. Pre-registrations were underwhelming, so the week before the event I decided to cancel it. It’s bad form to have more breakout groups than attendees. I’m grateful for the presenters and preparers who were unable to showcase their no-doubt brilliant work; but discussing the impact of the pandemic four years out was clearly uninteresting to a wider public.

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Dear Taxing Filers:

April 15th, Tax Day! Hopefully you’re not scrambling to finish the filing task on this beautiful Monday; I usually am. Not because I procrastinate, which I do, but because ministers are paid like independent contractors, so the 15.3% self-employment tax on salary and housing allowance usually leaves a little extra needed to top off my quarterly payments from the previous year. Like many, I’m in no rush to hand off that cash. I am grateful for the continued income tax exemption provided to clergy for housing allowance, but am not confident that exemption will last. Implemented to compensate pastors who own their homes rather than live in a church manse, local municipalities like the allowance because it keeps clergy houses on the property tax rolls. Churches do not pay tax for their property, including church-owned pastors' housing. (Strangely enough, continuation of the housing allowance exemption finds its greatest protection from the U.S. military.) All this brings me to today’s musing, a brief history of the religious church tax exemption.

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Dear Sitters:

In 2001, Norwegian composer Rolf Løvland wrote a short instrumental piece with a contemplative melody and haunting harmonies titled “Silent Story”. A few years later, Løvland approached novelist and songwriter Brendan Graham to write lyrics for the piece. It was first performed at the funeral of Løvland’s mother by vocalist Johnny Logan, who later recorded a demo of the piece with full orchestra. The song was picked up by various artists, but these recordings languished without much fanfare; that was until 2003, when producer David Foster selected the song for up-and-coming star Josh Groban. “You Raise Me Up” became one of Groban’s megahits.

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Dear Pledging Patriots:

At the close of the 1800s, the United States was swamped with immigrants. Nearly 15% of the nation was foreign born, with a majority coming from northern and western European countries. It was noted that in 1890, one in six Chicago residents had been born in Germany. There were also a substantial number of new American residents from Ireland and eastern Europe. They were largely poor and alarmingly Catholic. Most, regardless of their country of origin, were arriving on American shores having formerly been pledged to kings and other associated royal potentates. Coming to America required not only the acquisition of a new language, but also a changed understanding of citizenship. Republics are very different from monarchies.

Concern over the new arrivals’ ability to assimilate and a fear that they lacked understanding

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Dear Ones:

As you may imagine, today’s Musing doesn’t wander far from Dani’s brain surgery today. Some things overwhelm all other threads of concentration. Counting out Aggi’s (our dog) pills this morning and smooshing them into her favorite gummy candy, I was taken aback, because next to the newly filled pill cup was another pill cup containing the pills, each stuffed into a gummy. Clearly, I had done that task earlier in the morning and had no actual memory of having performed that part of my morning routine. I’m finding myself making sure the keys are in my pocket several times each time I get out of the car. Deep thought clearly takes up a lot of space, crowding out the mundane mental wanderings of an average day…

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Dear Past Pandemic Prospectors,

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Dear God Lovers:

I seldom experience past sermon preparation bleeding over into my Monday brain—by Sunday afternoon I’ve pretty much exhausted all interest in that morning’s texts, and I attempt to create some headspace to welcome the following week’s passages. But yesterday’s epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 8.1-13 has left some spiritual residue about which I have been musing.

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Dear Christmas Time Crunchers:

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Dear Advent Star Gazers:

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