Celebrating the connections...

Today I put up 8 unique works of art created by various members of the congregation to supplement the visual prayers we've already installed during this celebration of the season of creation.  I am very moved that our members would be so vulnerable - they are really wonderful works of art - and add to the beauty of this experiment in liturgy, worship and compassion.  There are a few other paintings or photographs that are likely to show up, too.


After a sweet day of pastoral visits, my Season of Creation: A Preaching Commentary had arrived and was waiting for me by the garage door.  I can't wait to get started on these reflections as they appear solid, ripe and intriguing.  A few lines have already grabbed my attention:

Worship is about being reinstated to our proper place in relation to God, ourselves, our fellow human and all other creatures.  It is like being lost in the woods and stopping to orient ourselves by means of a compass and then finding our way home... In the process, it is not we who set ourselves right, however; rather, when we worship we put ourselves in a position to allow God to give us our bearings, to reorient us and then restore us to our rightful relationships.

This resonates with part of a conversation I had over lunch that ended by saying:  we have become a less formal and more connected congregation - a raggle, taggle bunch of folk who probably don't fit together in any other context - but who have become small case beautiful when we are all together... and we're a better church for it.  A quote from the new book by Nadia Bolz-Weber that is making the rounds put it well, too:

Let me tell you about this God:  A God who has always used imperfect people. A God whose loving desire to be known overflowed the heavens and became manifest in the rapidly dividing cells inside the womb of an insignificant peasant girl in first century Palestine.

A God who slipped into skin and walked among us full of grace and truth with sand between his toes. Who ate with all the wrong people. And kissed lepers and touched the unclean and spoke through thirsty women and hungry men. Who from the cross did not even lift a finger to condemn the enemy but instead said I would rather die than be in the sin accounting business anymore. This is a God who rose from the dead and grilled fish on the beach and ascended into heaven and is especially present to us in the most offensively ordinary things:wheat, wine, water, word.

This God will use all of you, and not just your strengths but your and failures and failings and your brokenness. And God’s strength is perfected in human weakness. So your brokenness is fertile ground for a forgiving God to make something new, something beautiful. So don’t ever think that all you have to offer is your gifts, because God is going to use you too, God is going to use all of you, and the world better watch out.

Tomorrow will be Sabbath time in our household:  lots of rest, lots of reading and conversation and some good eating, too.  Our week has been full - very blessed but full and demanding - and we need a little alone, quiet time.  Then it is on to Sunday - a very creative liturgy - AND the welcoming in of new members who also want to be a part of this odd little, raggle-taggle community.