I cannot enter a Roman Catholic church without becoming deeply aware of my Protestant roots. Yesterday I found myself in downtown Spokane with 30 unclaimed minutes. I love the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes, so I decided to sneak in there for a few moments of prayer and meditation. As I should have expected, my prayers were postponed by the iconic beauty of the church's sacred artifacts. Eastern panes of stained glass glowed with Jesus narratives, told with a splendor missing from the dog-eared Bible storybooks of my youth. Gothic gold saints peered across the pews. Their stern expressions reminded me I was supposed to be praying. They also got me trying to think of a great work of art that featured a smiling subject. I drew a blank, although at the end of my short but futile search, Alfred E. Newman crossed my mind. So I was already smiling as I bowed my head and caught a glimpse of a pamphlet that included both the church's mission statement and the name of an auto dealership where I could pick up a Subaru that gets 28 miles per gallon. And then, in the course of about five seconds, my thoughts darted to indulgences, raffles, bingo, my childhood friend Al Bartz spitting out his hot dog when he remembered it was Friday, a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, whose work I love, and my current mileage. I don't get any of those thoughts at my church.
Another exercise that kept me from my prayers was trying to remember the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. I got five right away, but I had to look up the last two in the back of the hymnal. I had forgotten about the sacrament of anointing for healing. It was when I read about that sacrament that I was finally driven to pray.
So much of my life is spent in the presence of life-giving students. They invite a lot of adjectives, but "sick" isn't one of them. I think of them as alive and whole and well. Their vitality offers escape from a world that has rather mangled itself. But even students need healing. I went directly from Our Lady of Lourdes to a Presbyterian church where I heard a grateful father tell of God's healing in the life of his daughter, a Whitworth student. Last week I had coffee with a student who is being elbowed out of school by a string of health-related challenges. So we pray for healing, but we remember the Apostle Paul's words that creation groans as we await redemption.
One of the central tenets of our Presbyterian theology revolves around God's love for all of Christ's creation. Though our world suffers from the contamination of sin, we believe in God's covenant to redeem the created order. Moreover, there is nothing in scripture that suggests God's only interest in redemption is apocalyptic. Do Christian parents neglect the health of their children, knowing that full redemption is on its way? No, and we shouldn't neglect God's creation as we await its redemption.
We believe this broad and immediate sense of stewardship is worth lifting up to our students. In this Whitworth Today you will read about redemption in action – a young alum working in Africa, a life-changing class project, reform-minded alumni-award winners, and on-campus initiatives that spring from our desire to anoint this world with healing. One of the inescapable ways in which we present stewardship values to our students is by our own actions. I hope you find the article about our sustainability efforts interesting and encouraging. I am aware that not all scientists agree on the magnitude or the cause of our environmental illness, but we at Whitworth are compelled to take these actions after weighing the evidence and calculating the costs and benefits of our efforts. In the long run, we will save money as well as "earth miles" through our sustainability program.
A couple of days ago I ran a 5K race in the rain to help raise money for an organization that fights child prostitution and slavery in India. Almost all of the 100 students who ran, ran for the cause. As Paul Long,'08, told a room full of tired and wet contestants that their entry fees would deliver children from the abhorrent exploitation that lies beyond our daily awareness, I think we all offered prayers of healing.
As you read this Whitworth Today, please pray for Whitworthians past and present. Pray that we will never stop running and working to see our world redeemed. 
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