The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek
Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, Ellicott City, Maryland
In the past four weeks … three important people in my life and ministry passed away. I am still trying to sort out my feelings of sadness, loss, anger, loneliness and all the rest. It has not fully sunk in that they are gone. …
… And then there is my friend, mentor, colleague and Jewish Mother, Bernice Saltzman. She was my advisor on my senior paper in the religion department at Trinity College in 1972, the same place I discovered the Episcopal Church in my life. Just a few years younger than my mother, she was pursuing a second degree at the time also in Religion. She was a tireless student of the Bible, both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. She lived a full and committed Jewish life, even celebrating her Bat Mitzvah just a few years ago as an adult! She remained my primary mentor in the life of faith until the day she died. Our conversations and emails helped to shape my theology and my life year after year. She has commented on and contributed to my sermons for years. This is my first sermon ever without Bernice being here beside me in the pulpit. Of course she is still here, and the sorrow I am experiencing is simply my inability to let go as she also takes her rightful place beside the throne of God.
