Union Presbyterian Church of Endicott, NY

Our Mission

As members of Union Presbyterian Church, we live to serve our Lord, our congregation, our community, and our world. We unite our spirits in faithful, loving commitment to this calling in Jesus Christ and, as a church family, we celebrate the Kingdom of God. 

From the Pastor: Look!

The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind and trees of every kind
bearing fruit with the seed in it.  And God saw that it was good.
~Genesis 1:12

Dear Friends,

Is it possible that this is my favorite time of year? When I love swimming in the summer, and the beauty of a winter snowfall, and the budding of the first spring crocuses so much?

I think it is. Years ago I taught a Bible Study at another church, and it took place at 6 in the evening. My first fall there, I arrived every week positively rapturous about the trees—the glory of the colors turning to yellow, orange, and red. I would spend the first five minutes recounting the beauties I had seen. Finally, one member of the Bible Study said, “We’re worried you’re going to drive right off the road if you keep looking at the trees.”

That’s how much I love fall. People were worried for my safety during leaf-peeping season.

Mary Oliver’s famous poem, “In Blackwater Woods,” begins with the following lines:

Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment…

I love this image because of the beauty of the words, but also because this poem always leads me back to scripture. Where have we seen a pillar of light? We’ve seen one when God’s covenant people were making their way through the wilderness, and God was present to them and led them as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. I also love it because of the wisdom of Jesus in the gospel of Mark, when he tells his friends and the large crowds that follow him, “ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8:35). The tree is not losing its life, but it leaves are, and they are going in a glorious display of God-made beauty. The poem ends on this note, as well. The final lines:

To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own live depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

This is not just a poem; it is wisdom. Bible-level wisdom. The cycles of nature tell us the wisdom of birth and death, the ebb and flow of tides, and decay and renewal. Jesus speaks of losing our lives so that we might save them, but he is not asking for our literal deaths. He is asking for us to die to ourselves—to let go of the things that keep us from serving and caring for others. Like the colors of the falling leaves that are starting to surround us, this letting go leads to lives far more beautiful and wondrous than we can imagine.

Look! The trees can teach us lessons of the wisdom of letting go.

Grace and Peace,    Rev. Pat Raube

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