As I write these words, Hurricane Isabel is setting its sights on the Mid-Atlantic coast, with a track that will take it across Northern Virginia. While even the experts do not know whether we will face a direct hit or just a side-swipe, business is brisk at Home Depot. Plywood is in high demand, as are batteries, bottled water and masking tape.

Reflecting upon all this frenetic activity, it's struck me that this mode of life has become the norm in our already fast-paced Northern Virginia, at least over the last two years (which curiously coincides with the beginning of my tenure at Pohick!).

Think about it. In the last twenty-four months, we've gone from one crisis to the next. We've faced 9/11, anthrax-laced mail, sniper shootings, two wars, a drought, record snowstorms, record rainfalls-and now, of all things, a hurricane!

While all of these events have involved tragedy and loss, the good news is that we have come through all of this together as fellow participants in the Body of Christ. Our faith has sometimes been stretched, but from that stretching has often come a deepening of our relationship with God and each other.

This is a good thing to remember as we face the current crisis in the Episcopal Church, one that has raised high emotions in all quarters and led to uncertainty about the future of our denomination.

Yet as JFK once pointed out, "When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters-one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity." In our current case, the danger arises when we let our emotions run wild to the exclusion of prayerful reflection before taking any action. That is why in August I called the congregation to a period of prayer, reflection upon Scripture, and self-examination prior to issuing any response.

From such a prayerful pause comes opportunity—opportunity to deepen our relationship with God and our engagement with one another.
While I have exercised my prerogative as Spiritual Leader of this congregation to voice the Church's hitherto unbroken teachings on the controversial matters addressed at General Convention—teachings to which I have bound myself in both my Baptismal and Ordination vows—I recognize that there are other points of view within the Church. Though disagreeing with these, I nevertheless believe that Pohick needs to continue to be a place where we hold each other up in love and mutual respect even amid our differences.

With this in mind, at its September meeting, the Vestry did not presume to issue decrees or take blanket actions on behalf of the entire congregation. Instead, we created vehicles whereby individual parishioners could express their opinions and observe the dictates of their consciences.

Thus two petitions have been circulated for signatures on Sunday morning, one disagreeing and one agreeing with the controversial actions of the 74th General Convention. After a sufficient period has passed, both will be sent to Bishop Lee.

Likewise, the Vestry did not vote to restrict our contributions to the Diocese or National Church. Instead, we set up a vehicle so that future pledges can be restricted to either the parish or the parish and diocese—or to be made without restrictions. On this I will add that, had this matter not reached to the very halls of Lambeth Palace, I would be strongly opposed to any such special designations, as I believe we need to give for the benefit of God's Kingdom throughout the entirety of our Church.

Given the gravity of this matter within the larger Anglican Communion, however, the Vestry felt we needed to respect parishioners' consciences in this regard. Even so, I believe that those holding to the Church's traditional teachings on sexuality have firmer grounds for restricting their pledges only from the National Church, as our Diocese presently has a policy in place upholding those teachings—a policy that Bishop Lee has strongly affirmed for our Diocese. It should also be noted that any restricted funds will not be retained within the congregation, but will be proportionally redirected to other areas within the Outreach section of our budget (LCAC, UCM, etc.).

Finally, so that we can begin to engage these matters more thoughtfully and with more reflection upon Scripture, I have preempted the topic of my Sunday School class during the month of October ("Living our Faith in Busy Northern Virginia," which will start in November) so that we can take these four Sundays to examine the topic of Christianity and Homosexuality more deeply. While I obviously have my views, I will do my professorial best to present fairly the different sides of the debate. This is particularly important as I have found that caricatures and misunderstandings have abounded in recent discussions. We must move beyond these not only to explore the underlying reasons for the different positions, but also to make the quantum leap from the abstract to the concrete: to the realm of God interacting with his children, no matter what their state.

Like the forecasters on the News, I cannot predict in advance the exact path that this theological storm will take. However, I do believe that by our coming together in the Spirit, we can successfully weather this storm and move on to rebuild in its aftermath.

Faithfully,

The Reverend Donald D. Binder

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