I usually don’t see it on the calendar ahead of time, as a way to mentally remind myself to look up at the sky later that day. Nevertheless, the full moon never ceases to grab my attention, no matter how many times I’ve seen it before. There’s something peaceful, serene, awe-inspiring about it.
As we’ve begun using a new liturgy from All Creation Sings during our Saturday and Sunday 9am worships, I’m reminded how living children of God are still blessed with gifts and talents to help us gain even deeper awareness and appreciation and fascination over the matters of nature, faith, and God, all of which have been part of living since the beginning. But sometimes we could use a holy refresher of sorts from those in our midst to ensure we never take such eternal-shaping matters for granted (one of the responsibilities of the church as a whole, I suppose).
Tonight, we re-start our Lenten midweek tradition of Holden Evening Prayer at 7pm. Composed just over 40 years ago by Marty Haugen (who has his fair share of musical artistry in our hymnals), at Holden Village in Washington, it has become a cherished collection of vespers (evening sung prayers) for communities of faith around the world, including Divinity. Over the decades, the music has had a way of creating its own soul-soothing environment, of instilling beauty and hope no matter the hardship endured that day or whatever is troubling our hearts and minds.
I wonder if numerous instances in ministry are filled with “yes, but…” including for Ash Wednesday. Yes, today, will have its fair share of mentions of sin: our own individual messing up’s harming others (and God along with it), our own seemingly impossible-to-escape human nature of it, not to mention a worldwide reality of it. Yes, but…the church is also obligated today to ensure that no one gets bogged down with that not-so-Good-News to the point that some might wonder if it’s really worth trying to pull off acts of love and compassion and mercy.
It’s not always easy to navigate the shock for how much companies will spend for 60 seconds on television to sell a product, while also recognizing that in that one minute of time amidst one of the most watched events for the whole year, can come a soul-reaching message that many of us worship leaders cannot always pull off in much more time allotted than that. And it happened again this past Sunday, not only amidst most of America’s favorite game, but also amidst the larger backdrop of uneasiness, fear, uncertainty, worry, and an unwavering wish-could-do-more but not-willing-to-risk-it-ness.
As with many Christmas-celebrators, one of the standards for every holiday season (almost as if it may not quite be Christmas without it?) would be watching Home Alone and Home Alone 2, the films that somehow made a heart-felt and laugh-out-loud comedy about a child being left at home or lost in the biggest city in the world, respectively. Unfortunately, the one who played the mother in both movies that have managed to stand the test of time for over three decades, died last week in Catherine O’Hara.
