For the Beauty of the Earth

One of the great pleasures of being a pastor is the opportunity to perform the marriage cermony of good friends. It's even more pleasurable when the wedding is for someone you have watched grow from youth into adulthood. This was the case this past weekend where I had the pleasure of performing the marriage of Abby Curtis to Joel Zaspel.


I first met the Curtis family in 1988 when my family transferred from a church in the south end of Tacoma to Mason United Methodist Church in the north end of Tacoma. This was prior to my journey exploring my call to ministry. At this time I was still "running" from the call.


Mike Curtis, a warm and gregarious man, was hard to miss and quickly made my family feel quite at home in the new church. Mike and his wife Debbie had two girls - Casey and Abby - who were a little older than our children, but our families enjoyed many church events together.


When I finished seminary in 1998, it was my delight to discover that I was being appointed as an Associate Pastor to my home church - Mason UMC. We returned to serve our friends and were blessed to re-connect. By this time, Casey and Abby were in high school and part of the high school youth group. My responsibilities as Associate Pastor included Youth Ministry so it was fun to be their Youth Pastor.


In 2005, I began serving as the pastor for the Federal Way UMC, but have been blessed to know that my ministry had a positive impact on the lives of the Youth I served. I've been able to perform the marriage for Casey and, this past weekend, her sister Abby.


Abby's wedding took place on Mineral Lake near Mount Rainier. I had never been to Mineral Lake before. It was a beautiful setting and I am still riding high on re-connection of friends, the celebration of marriage, and the beauty of God's creation. Just one of the many perks of this pastor profession!

Life Is Not Fair!

I must admit that I have harbored just a little bit of pride about the fact that I was not as motion sensitive as my wife.

I was the one to take the kids on the rides at the fair. I was the one comfortable going out on the Sound in a small boat to go fishing. I was the one who didn't need to take Dramamine to ride in an airplane. But all this has changed and I'm just a little humbled by the fact.

Karen and I had been talking for a few years about taking a cruise up the inside passage to Alaska. Well this year we decided to stop talking about it and do it. Being the truly compassionate one, I approached the cruise with more concern about how Karen would handle it than how I would do - after all, Karen is the one who can make herself carsick while she's driving.

All this changed the second day into our cruise.

As the ship entered open sea it encountering a little bit of chop with the water. We were experiencing the wonderful up and down sensation of a large ship on a choppy sea and I was not doing well at all. Truth be told - I tossed my cookies! Karen, however, was doing just fine. I ended up spending the rest of the cruise doped up on Dramamine "just in case."

But the most frustrating part of the whole experience were the four days after the cruise I spent nauseated and dizzy waiting to get my land legs again. And how was Karen doing? You guessed it! Just fine.

She is eager to go on a cruise again, but I'm not sure I can endure the "pleasure."

I don't wear humility very well and I just a little bummed about how unfair life is in this instance.

PJ