Last Sunday would have been my parents’ 52nd wedding anniversary and today is the third anniversary of my dad’s death. I’m so grateful to my former congregation for the way they cared for me in December 2020 and I’m thankful my new job let me spend this week in Arizona with my mom. We went out the saguaro forest Sunday, which dad would have loved. The Black Hills, the land near Highland Lake, NY where camp Koinonia sits, the banks of the St. Croix River, the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota, and so many other natural places are what my dad loved so much. He and mom spent a lot of time exploring the desert the last 20 years of his life so it was fun to go and stand under the saguaros.

Lots of people have speculated about what my dad would have thought of my becoming an ELCA synod bishop this year. We’ll never know. Lately I have mostly not worried about it and instead given thanks for the love he gave me and so many others and the things I learned from watching him. In November, Ralph Yernberg was honored with the Manlove-Howells Leadership Award, named after my dad and Paul Howells. In his acceptance speech, Ralph said of my dad, “Jerry was into leadership development. He was the great connector of all time. He always asked “do you know this person? Have you met that person?” Both of my parents are great connectors and somewhere along the way, I must have seen that and paid attention to it because it’s absolutely one of my methods of operation. I think, “the world would be better if I could connect those two people.”