Diaspora

Dear friends,

On the eve of a month full of Hawaiian Sundays, it is right to remind ourselves of our theme. We live only a few minutes drive or a fifteen minute bike ride from the California State University Aquatic Center. It turns out that on a recent Saturday the Aquatic Center hosted an outrigger event. There were Hawaiian outrigger boats from at least ten clubs in northern California, ranging from large to single paddle boats. Every club seemed to have their own potluck going under private awnings. They had Hawaiian shave ice in tropical flavors for sale. Hawaiian music wafted from the loudspeaker. It made me think of the fact that there is a Hawaiian “diaspora” in California. Diaspora stands for a scattering of people from their original homeland. It didn’t take much imagination to see the lake and the yellow hills across from it as a little dry section of a windward Hawaiian island, with a little less of a breeze of course. Diaspora is a big word for the Biblical peoples also. Of the Hebrew people’s Patriarch it is said that “a wandering Aramean was my father.” The people of Israel wandered a lot, although often against their will. After the Biblical days the Jewish people, remnant of Abraham’s people were scattered across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. It is with regard to this group that the word “diaspora” was probably first used. How many times has this not happened in that region? Now we look at the Middle East and we see a continuous current day diaspora, with Palestinians fleeing to Jordan and Lebanon, Iraqis fleeing to Jordan and Syria and now Syrian refuges feeling to Lebanon and Turkey. May our prayers continue to be with them.

Friends, you and I are part of a diaspora too, or at least offspring of it. We all come from somewhere else originally. We are wanderers or come from wanderers. There is a museum of the “African Diaspora” in San Francisco. Even Native American are supposed to have crossed a land bridge between Asia and Alaska.

Either we or our ancestors said goodbye to whole way of living, of doing, of being. Diaspora is an integral part of the human story. There are big diaspora, but also small ones. As church community we face a kind of mini diaspora also. People float in and float out, for whatever reason and the last year or so considerably more have floated in than out. People come and go. I would like us to think of those who have drifted off, for whatever reason. Summer months flow perhaps a little more leisurely than most months of the year, so I would like you to take a moment think of those who have drifted off or have scattered to the wind in the past year or so from our church or from your lives. See if you can pull them back in. Give them a call. Tell them you have missed them. God keeps track of God’s missing flock. We are asked to do the same. Mahalo. May God bless our ministry. See you in church, especially next month. Aart