Contributed by Louise Harms
When I think about the time that Fr. Fred has helped to guide us through this transition, many things come to my mind. The exuberant way he greets us in the morning, his big smile and his weekly emails!
Each Thursday afternoon, I open up the email from the church and check to see what Fred has written. It has become a little ritual for me to look through, think for a few minutes and then pick my kids up from school. Here are some really great reminders:
“Think about what you have instead of what you want.”
“Enjoy the world around you with child-like joy.”
“Some of us feel locked into who we are but we can change.”
“Many things that will surprise us and bring us joy will come to us in God’s good time.”
In the last few days, I have re-read all of the articles in order and there are 63 of them. They paint a really good picture of who he is. You might think that they are all about the train but the truth is that only 14 of the articles talk about the train. There are another 9 which feature other types of transportation (car, airplane and even duck boat, just to name a few). But then he covers a bunch of other topics like stewardship, the Transfiguration and sabbatical.
Then it really hit me, all of the articles are about transporting because his job is to lead us from the years of the past to the years of the future. He really is transporting us to a new era with Fr. Casey (except not in a red corvette).
This Sunday we will honor Fr. Fred with a reception between the 9:00 and 11:15 services in Roper Hall. Please come, thank him and help us say goodbye. He and his wife Judy were members of our family before they arrived, were around and involved in everything we did, and will continue to be members of our family that we hold dear long after we say our goodbyes on Sunday.
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” -A.A.Mline, Winnie-the-Pooh