Dear Church Family and Friends,
This Spring season I would like to offer what might sound like unorthodox advice. I recommend that each of you develop “an incurable allergy.” I especially urge you try to pass along this allergy to your children and grandchildren. Be assured that I do not wish to see members engaged in fits of sneezing during our worship services. After all, I do have to shake many of your hands as you leave the sanctuary.
No, thankfully, I have a different kind of allergy in mind. The kind of allergy I have in mind was suggested to me by an artist named Frederick Franck. In writing about growing up as a child in Holland during World War I, Franck wrote that this experience led him to being “afflicted by an incurable allergy to war and physical violence.” Perhaps, some of you already have this allergy.
Franck died in 2006, but he did his part to help spread his allergy and make it more contagious. Fifty miles northwest of New York City in the town of Warwick, one can find a six acre sculpture garden full of works by Franck dedicated to peace. The name of the garden is Pacem in Terris which means “Peace on Earth.” Franck designed the garden to be a sanctuary where his art would be a medium “that would speak not to the intellect but to the soul: soul to soul.”
This morning as I read a news headline asserting that 687 Pakistani civilians have been killed by United States Predator drones since 2006 I found myself wishing that Franck’s allergy would spread faster. I believe Jesus would not only have approved of Franck’s allergy but would have endorsed it. Let us all do our part in helping to spread this much- needed allergy.
Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Brooks