"For
the layers of comfort and convenience that surrounded our lives and that we
never considered a blessing but always just took for granted, forgive us.
For
we who must grieve in isolation and not in community, comfort us.
For
we who care for the sick, protect us.
For
the ability to turn off the fear-mongering and unhelpful commentary and
worst-case scenario click bait, strengthen us.
For
the times when we are all out of creative ideas for how to get through this
with cooped up kids, inspire us.
For
we who are now cutting our own bangs at home, guide us.
For
the grace to allow ourselves and others to just be less productive, shower us.
For
the generosity needed from those of us who have more resources, empower us.
From
our own selfish inclinations, deliver us.
For
just being your children, none of whom have done a global pandemic before, love
us.
For
the days ahead, accompany us.
God
unbound by time, help us to know that you are already present in the future we
are fearing. Amen." -Nadia
Bolz-Weber
"Yes, the old ways of doing things are on hold, perhaps for
longer than we realize. But this moment of rupture may be an opening to new
paths. New connections. New ways of being. And, if we are diligent and blessed,
maybe even liberation." - Rabbi Michael Rothbaum
"When our hearts feel sick with longing, give us
hope.
When our eyes can’t see the clearing, give us
hope.
When our feet are tired from falling, give us
hope.
When our hands are numb from reaching, give us
hope.
Until all our very being is fully found in You,
give us hope.
In the breaking and the yearning, in our
finding and our losing,
And in every step along this pilgrim pat, give
us hope.
Tend our fragile hearts, Lord.
Teach us how to find our hope in You. Amen."
-Elrena Evans
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." -John Muir
"But darling, we weren’t given this wild soul just to merely exist. Our
mission is to shake up this world, turn it upside down, and show our fellow
humans the difference between breathing and being fully alive.” –Soeline (photos above of chalk fairies on 16th)
"It happens to all of us. God
simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from
the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our
selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to
life over and over." - Nadia Bolz-Weber
"Some of
the kids from another parish said at Easter this year, 'I don’t really feel
like saying alleluia this year, it doesn’t feel joyful to me.' Their
priest told them, 'Alleluia isn’t necessarily about joy, it’s actually about
protest.' It’s about protest against death and darkness and the forces of
evil, and so we say alleluia not because we’re happy, but because we believe
that there is more!"
- Rev. Kira Austin-Young of St. Ann’s Episcopal
Church in East Nashville
"Practice resurrection."
-Wendell Berry
We are family..... (Prom 2020)
"This time we have been unexpectedly given is not just to be endured. We will be changed not just by getting through it and moving into what is next, but by what is now. What am I sowing today? What am I planting?"
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." -- J. R. R. Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring
"God has given to us this unusual time to not just do different things, but to do the ordinary differently. There is nothing insignificant in God's economy, nothing He cannot use, no barren land, only that which has not yet visibly been transformed. We see but the rocky soil choked with weeds or too bitterly hard to consider, but God, God sees immense beauty already in the dirt. God grows our smallest actions, even a kind and encouraging word, into a perennial garden, into a beautiful forest with refreshing shade and tremendous fruit, an acoustic sanctuary for the chorus of birds, the music of the spheres."
"Faithfulness
plants seeds, one no less valuable than another.
Faithfulness is
not motivated by
the end result, because we cannot comprehend the million layers of outcome, nor
understand the deep abiding goodness that crouches underneath, that
someday will burst forth out of the ground that everyone has given up on."
"What we do,
what we do for
others does something to us,
the
strengthening of our hearts, the
deepening of vision,
the bearing of
fruit, the growing of
magnificent trees in ways we may never recognize,
for the glory of
God that will outlive us all."
some very surprising news this month....
incredible neighborhood spirit yesterday celebrating one year since our neighbor Aidan "Ryker" Schellings had a skateboarding accident and suffered a traumatic brain injury
