Pastors’ Panel We asked pastors and practitioners to reflect on beauty in the Christian life. Here is what they told us.
Talitha Arnold is pastor of the United Church of Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has been president of Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity and the Ministerial Alliance, served on the city’s first Youth Commission, organized Jewish-Muslim-Christian dialogues, and been recognized for her Human Rights work. Pilgrim Press recently published her book, Worship for Vital Congregations. Leigh Campbell-Taylor is interim pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Atlanta. Along with her renaissance-man husband, Clark Taylor, Leigh enjoys the adventure of parenting their wonderful adult offspring, Malcolm and Ethan. She has decided the lockdown was an opportunity to begin her doctor of ministry degree. Hannah Garrity is an artist in ministry, creating art for A Sanctified Art, Montreat, PAM, APCE, Union Presbyterian Seminary, and churches. She holds a BFA in painting from Cornell University; and an MS in teaching from Pace University. She is liturgical artist for the Montreat Conference Center, founding creative partner at A Sanctified Art, and is an art teacher in Henrico County, Virginia. Mark Sturgess (MDiv’01) is lead pastor of Los Altos United Methodist Church in Long Beach California. Mark focused on church music in his undergraduate studies before earning an MDiv at Austin Seminary. He is an ordained Presbyterian minister who has served United Methodist Churches in Southern California since 2003, where he is an openly LGBTQ full elder in the California-Pacific Annual Conference of the UMC. Where do you see beauty in your life or vocation? Talitha Arnold: I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, in the middle of the Sonoran Desert. I also grew up in the Congregational (United Church of Christ) tradition with hymns about “snow on snow,” “flowering meadows,” and “flowing fountains.” My pastoral vocation has been serving a UCC congregation in the high desert of northern New Mexico. From the desert, I’ve learned to look for beauty in unexpected places and small ways—the hidden seep of water that gives life to a patch of green, the little red flowers that crown a hedgehog cactus. The tiny, stubborn golden poppy that pushes through hard rock has taught me that beauty requires both patience and perseverance. The desert’s lessons in beauty stood me in good stead as a pastor for a small, often struggling church. Being open to beauty in small, surprising ways has become even more important in “corona-time” when we can’t experience it as a gathered 30
