A Note From Rob ...
Week of April 12
As many of you know, last week I spent a week away from home learning about how we might bring a
movement to end poverty to Anson County. I could share so much with you about it. I went thinking my head
would be engaged to soak in the knowledge in order to bring all that information back. It was. I may be getting
too old for this!! Now to process what I learned. I am sure that will happen in time. Holy week isn’t the best time
to sort through the facts such as those.
My mind and heart has also been with Ed, Tommy and Wanda as they walk through the valley of the
shadow of death. Other things have filled my head. I guess I am trying to convince you and me that it is O.K. that
I have not fully processed last week. However, part of the reason I have been unable to sort out all I learned last
week is I have not yet finished processing what I saw and experienced. Let me tell you why. My heart, soul and
spirit need to process it first.
As you might have already noticed, people are more important to me than should haves and could haves. I
understand the world needs folks who keep us on task and walking in a straight line. We need people to keep
order and I am grateful for them. However, I confess to being more concerned with the people in the line than
how straight it is and more concerned with those who do not talk in line because they don’t have a voice. That
framework is to explain what impressed me last week.
What I am processing now are the people I met and the experiences I shared. I believe the most
significant parts of last week were in the lives of the people. I saw new life. I saw it in the people who were
struggling to break a cycle of generational poverty. I saw it in the people who have begun purposeful and
intentional friendships with those committed to getting out of poverty. I saw it in churches that opened their doors
to host weekly meetings to give a place for people in different places in their lives to gather. I saw it in groups of
people who volunteered to provide meals for those attending. I saw it in facilitators who proudly shared their new
friends and commitment with folks from the US and Canada. I saw people being delivered from the tombs of
poverty and selfishness.
I saw Easter. In Mark’s account of the resurrection, the angel shares good news. He tells them the past
shortcomings of their lives are over, Jesus is going before them and he will meet them there.
Easter is an opportunity to hear and live into new beginnings. As the hymn, This is a Day of New
Beginnings tells us, “Christ is alive and goes before us, to show and share what love can do. This is a day of new
beginnings. Our God is making all things (and I would add people, and places to that) new.”
In Easter we proclaim that the stones holding us captive have been rolled away. We are free from the past
and the resurrected Jesus goes before us. So if you should choose to venture out into the dawn of a new day and
life, fear not. Christ is alive and goes before to show and share what love can do. This is a day of new beginnings.
Perhaps this will be the day of new beginnings.
RETURN
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