Writing

This piece landed in my inbox today. I subsribe to a daily meditation from the Henri Nouwen Society. There are a couple of week's worth still waiting to be read. But in the midst of sermon-writing-procrastination, I read today's.

Writing to Save the Day

Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.

Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be "redeemed" by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.

In the past three months, there have been more days than I'd like to admit that needed "redeeming" through writing. I couldn't bring myself to sit down at the keyboard and type, or open my journal and put pen to paper. I have lists of blog-post titles and themes written on various to-do lists, in my planner, in random notebooks. I am hopeful I'll get to them.

For now, it's time to return to some preaching preparation. It's the Fourth Sunday of Easter tomorrow, which means Good Shepherd Sunday. It's also Malaria Sunday (World Malaria Day was last Wednesday) and the ELCA has stated a goal of raising $200,000 to begin the campaign's work in Liberia. At least the check's written, even the sermon isn't.

It's still Saturday somewhere...

Well, so much for writing every day in May - technically speaking, I didn't even make it through the first week. But, I'm still up, despite the fact that I'm now into early Sunday morning. My sermon is kicking my butt.
In reading the gospel text for tomorrow, Luke 24:13-35 over and over, I realized that I could likely do an introduction (for some, hopefully, a re-introduction) of Vibrant Faith Ministries (formerly the Youth & Family Institute) four keys to nurturing faith in the home and congregation:
1. caring conversations
2. devotions
3. service
4. rituals and traditions

It's still not quite done, though I'm getting tired enough to head to bed and try to get up early to put the finishing touches on it.
Good thing tomorrow's Mother's Day - I am definitely going to need a nap!

I'm back. I think.

I've been asbent from Unseen Endings for awhile. For several reasons. Perhaps I'll get into those later. For now, I'm back. I think. There's a lot I've been meaning to say, and I plan eventually to get around to saying at least a fraction of it. But for now, go read this post. Amazing. It might get a mention in my Good Friday meditations, if I can figure out just where to put it and how... I'll let you know.

Children's Sermon Fire and Fun

It should be easier for me than it is to come up with a Christmas Eve Children's Sermon. I mean really, they know the story, there will be lots of kids present, and everyone is waiting for something cute or sentimental to happen. Out of the mouths of babes, right?

Alas, it proved a dauting enough challenge this year. I've done candy canes and birthday candles, the tradition in my first call was for an actual birthday cake with lots of frosting (which we all got to sink a finger into) and the singing of happy birthday to Jesus. I had hoped for new and interesting inspiration to strike. Oh well...

I've been enjoying candlelight this year, and instead of doing regular old birthday candles this year (though there's a very good chance I'll break them out again next year) for kids to take home and stick in their breakfasts to sing happy birthday to Jesus tomorrow morning, I'm giving out tea lights, to be lit on each of the 12 days of Christmas, to help us remember that Jesus is the light of the world. We'll talk a little about the names and titles we use for Jesus (a theme which figures heavily in the "grown-up" sermon as well) and thank God for the light.

I even made a new Wordle, and printed out postcard sized versions of it to attach to the candles. Happy Christmas!!

Mary's Song

I'm preaching this weekend, and so have the Magnificat on the brain. It's not a bad state to be in, really, though I'm still waiting on the Spirit to help me narrow down my sermon. My tendency lately is to have more than one sermon mushed together, which isn't exactly helpful. We'll be singing "Canticle of the Turning," a hymn I like a lot, despite the fact that we all end up sounding so cheerful about a turning upside down of the status quo. I'm not so sure those of us who really are pretty privileged, in the grand scheme of things, should be quite so happy about the rich being sent away empty... Anyway, thinking about Mary's song also made me think about this song I was glad to stumble upon a while back. The singer is Catherine Hessler, a UW classmate of mine (we took Scandinavian linguistics together, and maybe one or two other classes - she studied Swedish while I studied Norwegian, and we were both involved in the university ministries at University Presbyterian Church - she much more so than I). The song's composer, Katie Freeze, can be seen at the keyboard in the video (she was a couple of years behind us at UW, and also a UPC-er). As Catherine writes on her website: "How Many Angels" is Mary’s Song, an interpretation of the reflections of this new young mother after the baby Jesus was born. Mary holds the little miracle in her arms and knows that the angels too rejoice over his life. A life that will change the world. Mary considers both the enormity and the grace of her situation. With wonder and humility she embraces the truth that God chose her to play a beautiful role in the life of the Savior. Hope you like the song.