Posts from October 2013
Receiving
“You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” ~Mark 10.22 The one thing you lack is whatever you need to let go of. Once you have unclenched your fists from your money there is your health and your family, your faith, your assurance, your feeling good. The Beloved waits for you, while you are encumbered with whatever you’d rather have than…
Toward Sunday
We conclude our five-week worship series this Sunday with a celebration of our Deep Commitments and our Kitchen Table Leader training will follow that at 12:30! Since a few of our KT’s meet on Halloween this week, please make an intentional effort to contact your people regarding their Deep Commitment cards between now and Sunday morning. This worship series has invited reflection on the significance of our Baptismal identities. The United Methodist Book of Worship states, “Baptism is an act that looks back…
The home. The belonging. The name.
How to speak of this? There is light, resting on you, wrapping everything, creating height, slipping down and up each wall even cupping undersides in soft white hands. The bird, whose language no one understands, how does it choose just where it flies, it sings, it lands? There is heat, murmured, a glue that holds you to everything, makes you all one word. And silence, yes, bestowed, not left: tendered, its weft woven with the warp of tiny threads, little…
Being handled.
“Sacraments not only hallow the stuff of the world; they also hallow our handling of that stuff. They give us something to look at, something to taste and smell, something to feel upon our skin and experience for ourselves. They give us something to do with our hands and with our bodies as well-walking up to receive communion, bending over the baptismal font, kneeling so that hands may be laid upon our heads. We may spend our whole lives learning…
Sacraments
“…the sacraments of the church embody a broad Christian understanding of life on earth: chiefly, that the most ordinary things in the world are signs of grace. The God who created them and called them good keeps on doing so. Through the sacraments, we are invited to understand that all the things of this world are good enough to bear the presence of God and to deepen the relationship between heaven and earth. To glimpse the holiness of ordinary bread…
Toward Sunday
We continue our five-week worship series this Sunday with a celebration of Baptism! It is a beautiful gathering in the life of our community. This worship series will invite reflection on the significance of our Baptismal identities. The United Methodist Book of Worship states, “Baptism is an act that looks back with gratitude on what God’s grace has already accomplished, it is here and now an act of God’s grace, and it looks forward to what God’s grace will accomplish…
Giving
You often say, ‘I would give, but only to the deserving.’ The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish. ~from The Prophet, on Giving by Khalil Gibran
Reaching in love
“If the body is truly the dwelling place of God, a holy ground, then all our relationship are transformed. When we meet and touch others, we do so with even more respect as we realize their life is holy.” ~from Essential Writings by Jean Vanier Watching over each other in love requires us to learn the stories of our neighbors. In our community we do this by joining and attending a Kitchen Table. Every week people gather in homes,…
Barns
Someone out of the crowd said, “Teacher, order my brother to give me a fair share of the family inheritance.” He replied, “Mister, what makes you think it’s any of my business to be a judge or mediator for you?” Speaking to the people, he went on, “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.” Then he told them this story: “The farm of…
Toward Sunday
We continue our five-week worship series this Sunday called How Deep? This worship series invites reflection on the significance of our Baptismal identities. The United Methodist Book of Worship states, “Baptism is an act that looks back with gratitude on what God’s grace has already accomplished, it is here and now an act of God’s grace, and it looks forward to what God’s grace will accomplish in the future….Baptism anticipates a lifetime of…deeper experiences of God, acts of Christian commitment,…
Flooding
Along the brimming river sandbags lie in mute protection, inert, dense, impassable. For cities on rivers this is good. But how are our hearts sandbagged against the deep opaque flood that threatens us each moment, the murky, relentless waters of resurrection, the eroding force of humility and failure, the depths of wonder, the force of the unfathomable, and all that we cannot control? A world presses against your thin levees, waits to inundate you, swamp you, cover you, in the…
Growing in Faith
“You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” Mark 10.22 The one thing you lack is whatever you need to let go of. Once you have unclenched your fists from your money there is your health and your family, your faith, your assurance, your feeling good. The Beloved waits for you, while you are encumbered with whatever you’d rather have than…
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