3 Lent

"Zeal for your temple will consume me" - that is what the disciples remembered~

I love this depiction of Jesus passionately cleaning out the temple - setting God's world free to make a place of light. Elizabeth+ gave us a visual of Jesus pouring out the coins and this image shows the coins flowing over the sides of the table onto the floor. What a mess! But when we declutter we always start by making a bigger mess!

E+ left us with the following question: Shall we let Jesus in to our temple to throw out what is in the way? After all, we are God's living temple.

2 Lent

What does this mean? Karen Pierce gives us some insight with the following: "Jesus is clear; surrender yourselves, your egos, your old earthly ways of being and thinking and you can begin to live."

Oh...What? Give up Control? Read more here.

Ash Wednesday

Stepping from the brightness of Epiphany

I enter an unfamiliar place called "Lent."

My eyes are slow to adjust to the change.

I blink back tears and stand still wondering

if my eyes are open or closed,

for nothing visible lies before me.

My senses tell me there are objects ahead--

prized places, sacred spaces.

There is no sense of urgency;

time has fallen away leaving

forty days and forty nights

to explore this unknown,

yet somehow familiar place;

touching, feeling, knowing holy moments.

-Mrs. Gretchen Olheiser

from Women's Uncommon Prayers

p. 290

2 Christmas

This is one of the many "views" of the Holy Family that I grew up with. They always looked so perfect (just look at Baby Jesus' posture!)

In this morning's sermon Margaret McGee reminded us of just how much our holy human families have in common with Joseph, and Mary, and Jesus.

Christmas Day

“What has happened to me has been the very reverse of what appears to be the experience of most of my friends. Instead of dwindling to a point, Santa Claus has grown larger and larger in my life until he fills almost the whole of it. It happened in this way.
As a child I was faced with a phenomenon requiring explanation. I hung up at the end of my bed an empty stocking, which in the morning became a full stocking. I had done nothing to produce the things that filled it. I had not worked for them, or made them or helped to make them. I had not even been good - far from it.
And the explanation was that a certain being whom people called Santa Claus was benevolently disposed toward me. . . . What we believed was that a certain benevolent agency did give us those toys for nothing. And, as I say, I believe it still. I have merely extended the idea.
Then I only wondered who put the toys in the stocking; now I wonder who put the stocking by the bed, and the bed in the room, and the room in the house, and the house on the planet, and the great planet in the void.
Once I only thanked Santa Claus for a few dollars and crackers. Now, I thank him for stars and street faces, and wine and the great sea. Once I thought it delightful and astonishing to find a present so big that it only went halfway into the stocking. Now I am delighted and astonished every morning to find a present so big that it takes two stockings to hold it, and then leaves a great deal outside; it is the large and preposterous present of myself, as to the origin of which I can offer no suggestion except that Santa Claus gave it to me in a fit of peculiarly fantastic goodwill.” G.K. Chesterton

Fourth Sunday in Advent

Due to our extreme winter weather here in the Pacific Northwest, many were unable to even get their cars out of their driveways in order to make it in to yesterday's services. But Rev. Bill Maxwell saved the day by trekking through our snow-filled roads! In today's gospel Luke tells us the story of Mary's unexpected visit from the Angel of the Lord. She had much to ponder after he left. Perhaps these were some of her thoughts?

Young Mary
I know not all of that which I contain.
I'm small; I'm young; I fear the pain.
All is surprise: I am to be a mother.
That Holy Thing within me
and no other
is Heaven's King whose lovely
Love will reign.
My pain, his gaining my eternal gain
my fragile body holds Creation's Light.
its smallness shelters God's unbounded might.
The angel came and gave,
did not explain,

I know not all of that which I contain.

from The Ordering of Love,
The new and collected poems of Madeleine L'Engle

Third Sunday in Advent

In today's sermon Rev. Bloch+ touched on the paradox of rejoicing in all things, of giving thanks in all circumstances, and in realizing that we are rescued already, even as we wait! In that same vein I give you the following:

Paradoxes of Advent
by Michele Blake
from The Tentmaker

One of the essential
paradoxes of Advent:
that while we wait for God,
we are with God all along,

that while we need to
be reassured of God's arrival,
or the arrival of our homecoming,
we are already home.

While we wait,
we have to trust,
to have faith,
but it is God's grace that gives us that faith.

As with all spiritual knowledge,
two things are true,
and equally true, at once.

The mind can't grasp paradox;
it is the knowledge of the soul.