Standing in the Gap with Haiti/Summer Solstice (June 27, 2026)

Good morning friends. I hope you are finding respite from summer heat. I have been grinding the beans this week, drinking Concord Coffee’s Honduras Organic Pacavita. This may be the most delicious coffee I can recall drinking. Wow.

I watched the NBA Draft. Abby’s family lives in Memphis, and this includes our granddaughters, I was delighted that the Grizzlies drafted Cameron Boozer from Duke. They have now become my favorite NBA team. The Athletic, an excellent sports website that folded into the New York Times a couple of years ago gave the Grizzlies an A+ in the draft. This is going to be fun.

I have been watching some of the World Cup, and this is also exciting, although I do not really know the rules. I do understand that kicking the ball into the net is a good thing, and in this way it is somewhat like hockey. There are penalty cards with different colors, I think, and I have observed two things:

1. No player ever feels that he has really committed a foul;

2. and correspondingly, every player is greatly injured in the process of being fouled.

In this way football is life, as Ted Lasso taught us.

I understand that Ted Lasso returns in August.

I have been listening to Jim Lauderdale and Ralph Stanley’s “I Feel Like Singing Today”. The whole album. What a joy.

Pam and I have been watching Grantchester (PBS), the eleventh and final season (no spoilers please). It is and always has been so good, and right now everything seems to be unraveling in the small parish. There is a bishop in the drama, but he is not exactly a transformational leader, nor even a helpful presence. Note to self. I pray that there are resolutions. Again, no spoilers please (smile).

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This week I rested a bit after the completion of the Western North Carolina Annual Conference.

I walked around the lake, took a couple of naps, caught up with friends, and celebrated Father’s Day. I have two amazing daughters.

There have been some loose ends to tie up, and there is unfinished business. This is normal and I look forward to it unfolding.. My friend Audrey Warren from Miami was in the area, and we caught up at Panacea Coffee in Waynesville. We have written two books together and the next one will focus on the future of “First Churches”, which is to say churches in the center of towns and cities, their unique strengths and challenges. In my mind it is a sequel to the work of one of my teachers, Robert Wilson, in What’s Ahead for Old First Church (Harper and Row, 1973, with Ezra Earl Jones). Alot has changed in 53 years, and some things have remained the same! I had a meeting with Lory Beth Huffman and Brett Loftis about our ongoing partnership with Crossnore in learning about trauma. I recorded a podcast with Kim Ingram that is a summary of the work of annual conference and its implications going forward.

I met with Joel Simpson about the continuing support of our immigrant communities, and a way to offer formation in Christian Public Discipleship in local churches. I had a great conversation with one of my doctoral students at Duke who is working in the area of technology hubs in rural areas for persons over 55, and especially in poorer areas and with persons of color. With Jean Hawxhurst of the Council of Bishops staff I facilitated a conversation with leaders from four continents about strengthening and adapting ecumenical work, given our regionalization as a worldwide church.

I revised the two sermons I preached at annual conference on our vision (love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously) into three reflections that will appear on our website later in the summer, in a way that local churches and small groups can engage. And on Thursday evening I had dinner with leaders of three youth groups (Mount Tabor UMC, Winston-Salem; Guilford College UMC, Greensboro and Williamson’s Chapel UMC in Mooresville) who were in mission work and relationship building this week in Asheville. We all worshipped together and I prayed for them.

The church is not dying, nor is it going extinct. The mission is happening. And I thought of these profound words shared by Bishop Christian Alsted at our annual conference:

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All of this is against the backdrop of the Supreme Court decision that will do great harm to immigrant communities, and especially Haitian people which have temporary protected status. Our love for Haitian people and awareness of their giftedness began at Providence UMC in Charlotte, with medical teams, an elementary school and a microcredit initiative for entrepreneurial women in Haiti.

The School of Mercy in Cap Haitian, Haiti, during our Providence UMC years.

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The relationship continued with the journey of Jack Lamour, who lived with us and attended college in Charlotte and then Huntingdon College in Alabama, thanks to my dear friend President Cam West. He is now a Medical Doctor and we are very proud of him. It then included Pam’s experience of being in and surviving the earthquake in Haiti. And it was a part of the blessing of serving in Florida for ten years, and coming to know amazing clergy and lay leaders from that country. The recently elected co-lay leader of Florida, Dr. Judith Pierre- Okerson, is from Haiti and I commend the pastoral letter of my colleague, Bishop Tom Berlin.

The Supreme Court decision enables a cruel and unnecessary public policy, one that is an obstacle to the dreams of persons often fleeing violence and extreme poverty, and one that does harm to members of the United Methodist Church. It is also a sign of a diminishing judiciary within our democratic system of checks and balances. I cannot reconcile what it meant to be in ministry in Haiti over all of those years, to be in mutual mission with Haitian leaders over all of these years, and to vote for policies that will lead to their deaths.

In all of the ways we can, we are called to stand in the gap with the people of Haiti..

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In my morning and evening devotions I am guided by Give Us This Day, and I am in a small group that checks in with each other about what we are reading and praying.. Wednesday was the Feast of John the Baptist, and one of the reflections was by Daniel Groody, who is a provost at Notre Dame, author of a seminal book entitled A Theology of Migration, and a member of the United Methodist-United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Dialogue, which I chair with Bishop Monforten of the Detroit Diocese. In the devotion, Father Groody noted that the feast day is exactly six months before Christmas, and, quoting Augustine, he noted that it falls on the summer solstice “as a sign of John’s humility, since the days are getting shorter.” He then noted John’s words: “He must increase, I must decrease.”

The days from now until Christmas will begin to shorten. There is much surrounding darkness. And there is darkness within us (me). Groody calls us to “shift the spotlight” and center it more fully on the light of Christ that is coming into the world, and to let go of our need to be seen, heard or praised.

He must increase, I must decrease.

I also connected the reflection with the aging process. It is a fact that I have not only shorter days ahead, but fewer days, from a human point of view. Can I see this in the context of the greater Light of the resurrection?

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I plan to rest some this weekend. A little later today I will go to the Pride Gathering in our town. I talked about why on FB yesterday. Next week I travel with a cohort of diverse leaders to Belfast, Northern Ireland, where we will work with and learn from Dr. Gary Mason and ReThinking Conflict. Our group is diverse not only in ethnicity, gender and age; we have clergy and laity, two attorneys, a non-profit executive, a business manager, a musician, and on it goes. Gary’s work has been formative in my life over the past 13 years and I can’t wait to be there.

I am grateful for those who read these weekly reflections. I met many of you at annual conference last week. When you share or recommend them it makes a big difference. And lastly, thank you for your friendship and connection. That makes all the difference.