Stewardship – All Woven Into Something Big
The following thoughts were shared by Ross Sweetland during our Sunday Holy Eucharist service on October 4th. Ross is an enthusiastic member of the Trinity Choir.
My name is Ross Sweetland. I live at Paine Farm in Foster. I’ve been a member here for a little over a year now and I have one of the best seats in the house singing with the choir. I’ve been so moved and inspired by the talks on stewardship and spiritual journeys shared on the Sundays before me. Thank you!
I feel that there is little to add. Instead, I would like to say a bit about stewardship and quantum physics. I know. “What has that to do with pledging? And what does a Foster farmer know about physics? Let me explain…
At school, I was taught Newtonian physics – that the universe is like a clockwork–bodies in set motion, following set laws and forces, predictable, like gravity slowly sagging my body. But Quantum physics says that,at the sub-atomic level, there are mysterious connections that bond matter across the universe without regard to time or distance. The universe is not a closed system. This is what they call entanglement–where two or more become correlated in such a way that the nature and state of each element cannot be described independently. [Richard Phillips Feynman]
One moves, the other moves. Each and every part carries the hologram, the imprint of the whole. God did not create a machine but rather an inter-dependent, woven reality that extends beyond time or distance. “A new world is only a new mind.” [Willaim Carlos Williams]
And all time is present, connected, in this moment… That there is a vast web that stretches across and between the galaxies, invisible, yet pulling at light waves and bending gravity.
A year and a half ago I moved here from Jersey City, New Jersey. My uncle, who has dementia, started having seizures, and could no longer tend to the family farm. Both became more than my sister, who was already living at the farm, could manage. And I moved North. My view changed from the center of the world, the Manhattan skyline, to the edge of the universe – cows and horses, open fields and the, “woods, lovely, dark and deep”. [Robert Frost]
I had worshipped here whenever I was in Rhode Island, so it was an easy decision to come to Trinity when I moved here.
What I didn’t expect were the connections I would find waiting for me here. People who know my family, those who have ridden the horses or had kids who came to the Farm for 4H.
Last December, when the Stewardship Committee was asking for people to pledge, I felt called by the Spirit to make a pledge.
I appreciate how it helps Trinity know what is doable for the year ahead. But for me, it also lets me stay connected to this place and the places I left behind.
When Priscilla talks about the food pantry, when Chris plans the 2nd Sunday breakfast, I know I’m also a part of those ministries. I feel connected to here, but also to the ministry of my home parish, All Saints in Hoboken and Town & Village Synagogue in Manhattan for Kabbalat Shabbat, to the church’s ministry in Haiti for hunger relief around the world. My small part is entangled with the global, godly work and worship.
Stewardship keeps me mindful that all of this…all of this…is by God’s grace. I’m like a fish swimming unaware of the depth of grace that sustains me.
This morning’s Gospel reading even touched on this very idea: God gives in love, and we are the stewards of that love.
My little money is entangled, bonded in a much bigger ministry than I ever see or know. And, “Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world.” [John Burroughs]
It’s woven into something big–past even the limits of time and space. Does this resonate with your own life story?
It’s hard for me to see the reasons for the turns life must take. But maybe I am looking at the back side of life, where everything is crossed, while God looks from the other side, where nothing is lost. From there, this tapestry is beautiful and free to move–an interdependent universe, all woven up in love.
Thank you for welcoming me here!
