Tuesday July 21, 2020
Craig Musselman
Faith & Counting Blessings
This is a two-topic daily reflection.
The first is a genealogical story of faith.
Due to meticulous records in the US and Switzerland, I have a paternal genealogical record that goes back as far as the 1200’s, with family life stories from the last 400 years. The Mosiman (now, Musselman) family lived in the little town of Luperswil, Switzerland in the mountains outside of Bern. In the early 1600’s, as the reformation in Europe continued, some members of the family became followers of the Christian reformist Menno Simons, who espoused, among other religious innovations, the baptism of adults, when they could make their own choice of Christian commitment. Not what we typically practice in the Episcopal Church, but not what you’d call blasphemous either. This ran afoul of the State religion of Switzerland (imagine if we had a State religion today!). My eighth grandfather, Hans Mosiman, was ordered by the Swiss government to practice only the State religion. He refused. He was imprisoned, his property was confiscated and given to other members of his family, and after some manner of due process, he was deported – landing in the Palatinate section of Germany with his wife, his children and his mother, but not his father. There in Germany, he was free to practice his religion, with others who had been deported from Switzerland.
The children (including Hans Musselman) emigrated to America where they established many farms over the next four generations in and near Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The family morphed from Mennonites to Lutherans to Episcopalians, in no small measure due to the preferences of several generations of wives. But the faith tradition continued.
Is there a message in this story in pandemic times? Maybe. Maybe it is to hold fast to your faith in times of trouble and uncertainty.
The second topic is about counting our blessings.
Life has changed this year due to the coronavirus, and it has changed for each of us in different ways. To me, the pace of life has slowed; communication with friends and family near and far has increased by technologies we never used before; we have all come to understand the extraordinary breadth and depth of faith of the St. John’s community; the burgeoning of spring into summer has been observed more closely than ever before (mushroom season is now upon us); there are heightened opportunities to help others and to be helped by others; and we have all, each in our own circumstances and in our own way, learned patience. There are lots of negatives – worries, concerns, challenges, no Red Sox – but there are lots of positives, or blessings, as well.
With respect to the pandemic, this too shall pass. A good question might be how will we learn from the positives, our blessings from God, in our lives going forward?