Greetings from the exact center of Pennsylvania where my church office looks out toward the Penn State University campus, where the land around me is lush with agricultural vibrancy, and where my United Church of Christ (UCC) congregation is rooted in the German Reformed tradition. 

It has been a while since I last wrote here as one of the founding bloggers of “The Twelve” — as the daily RJ blog was then called. I’m grateful to return to my first Reformed “home,” among my Reformed Church friends, where I was ordained, before leaving to join the UCC. In some ways it feels like a family reunion seeing kindred I haven’t seen in a while, even thought we have kept up with each other online. Like a good Pennsylvania pastor, I brought the pickled beets and deviled eggs and I’m glad to be at the potluck with you again!

When I last wrote here, living in New York City, God was preparing me for the part of the United Church of Christ that is deeply rooted in the German Reformed tradition in ways I didn’t know at the time. 

My wife has deep roots in German Pennsylvania. Her family was among the first settlers in a small rural Pennsylvania community in the 1700s. Since moving here, I have also learned that my own immigrant German relatives first settled in Lancaster before eventually moving to the Midwest. I have become so deeply connected to the German Reformed roots of the UCC that I now serve on the denominational forum of the UCC and EkD (Evangelical Protestant Church in Germany). My passport has a handful of German stamps on it. In some ways, it feels like a second home.

When I left Western Theological Seminary and West Michigan, to move to New York City, living in Pennsylvania was not on my “vision board.” I don’t actually have a vision board, but if I did, Pennsylvania was definitely not on it. 

For those who have been around since the founding of RJ blog, you may remember that I was so enamored with New York City that I thought I would never leave. I loved my eleven years in that wild and wonderful city, and I feel enormously grateful to have served West End Collegiate Church in the early years of my career. 

During those early days of the RJ blog, the tall concrete buildings inspired me. The stature, the beauty, the grandeur, the power, the dopamine hit of city life. I loved it all. 

Until I didn’t.

In 2016, life changed for me. And life changed for the country, too. 

I remember standing on the corner of Columbus Avenue and West 82nd Street the day after the election when a shroud seemed to cover the Upper West Side. 10024, the ZIP code that will forever be the ZIP code of my New York life, has historically been known to give the most money to Democratic presidential candidates. Conversations ensued of “How did this happen?” and “What are we going to do?” 

A deep grief and fear filled the people in my neighborhood. I, too, was filled with fear. But having come from Michigan, I remember thinking, “I know how this happened. People I love helped make this happen.” 

This was the beginning of my call away from New York City and toward a part of the country that is very purple, where I could pastor people and grow to become good neighbors to each other.

Both the Dutch Reformed and German Reformed traditions share our beloved Heidelberg Catechism. The fact that I was a UCC pastor who was both queer and loved the Heidelberg Catechism spoke to the search committee at the church I now serve. I was liberal and Reformed —  something only a pastor formed by my RCA kindred really could claim I should thank you all!

I saw where my congregation came from and I knew where we could go, with God’s help. In the spirit of our shared Reformed beliefs — the sovereignty of God — I began to see that God was writing a story in my life of which I was not the author. 

In the faithfulness and goodness of God, the story was better than I could write.

I have traded high heels for Birkenstocks. I have traded black power suits for overalls and sundresses. And the tall concrete buildings do not inspire me like they once did. It is the native plants of Pennsylvania that inspire me today. These are plants that help care for the ecosystem with their deep roots. They ward off predators and bring a green force of vitality to the land I now call home. 

My role model of the faith, the twelfth-century German Benedictine nun, Hildegard von Bingen, calls this Viriditas. It is a Latin term meaning the greenness and vitality that she understood as the divine greening of our souls and world. 

Two years ago I was in Bingen, Germany. The Rhine River runs through the rolling hills, home to hundreds and hundreds of vineyards. Lush green pastures scroll through the land — lush green pastures, just like German Pennsylvania. 

God doesn’t waste any era of our lives.

I believe this more than I ever have.

Grey concrete or green crops, God is faithful. This is one of the gifts our shared Reformed traditions offer us, and it gives me so much comfort in the rolling hills of life.

What is our only comfort in life and death? 

That we are not our own, but belong – body and soul, in life and death – to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. 

If I were to create a vision board today, that is what would be front and center: the faithfulness of Jesus in our life and death. And for this steady faith, and our shared love of Reformed theology, I give thanks to my cousins in the faith. 

It’s good to be back “home.” And it’s good to be at the potluck with you again.