My least favorite day of the year is coming up--The End of Daylight Savings time.
We get an extra hour to sleep--but who does?
What the End of DST means is more darkness and the earth growing chill (at least in the northern hemisphere.)
And the only thing I dislike more than darkness is the cold.
Both at once makes me a little crazy.
We should have DST in the fall and winter--a bit more daylight.
But that's not how it works.
I hate that.
This Sunday I preached about 'The Gift of Humility'.
Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector who go to the Temple to pray. The Pharisee brags about what a good man he is and compares himself to lesser folks--like the tax collector.
The tax collector bows his head, beats his breast and prays, "God have mercy on me a sinner."
Jesus tells the crowd that the tax collector is exalted because he humbled himself and the Pharisee is humbled because he exalted himself.
I tried to think of how I have been humble.
No luck there.
And bragging about being 'humble' isn't humility at all.
My thinking is that Humility is a gift from God when we confess our sins. Which in the Episcopal Eucharist we do before receiving communion.
I even talked about the Jesus Prayer.
It goes like this: (inhale) 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God...'
(exhale) 'Have mercy on me a sinner.'
You pray it in your head and heart, not out loud, and keep repeating it with each breath.
A visitor came up and told me he'd learned that prayer when he was in college and has used it for 40+ years.
That made my day....
That's the title of a book I haven't gotten hold of yet.
But I already know when Jesus became God.
I know it because of the Wednesday Bible study we have at Trinity.
We talked about the council of Nicea--where the Nicene Creed came into being and the Doctrine of the Trinity became part of the belief of the church.
Until 325 a.d. some Christians believed Jesus was 'chosen' by God to be the Savior. But the Council made clear that Jesus was 'begotten' by God, created from God's own being.
That's when Jesus became God.
If you haven't looked into the Council try it out on line. Wikipedia has a good recounting of it.
Very interesting stuff to dig around in.
Today at Bible Study, we didn't have an agenda.
They asked me to suggest something to discuss.
I had two questions. I told the folks there that they didn't have to answer out loud, I just wanted them to ponder the questions in their mind and heart.
Here are the questions.
*"What is 'faith'?"
*"What do you believe?"
We sat in silence for a couple of minutes, but then they began sharing and it was remarkable.
The depth and meaning of their pondering was astonishing.
People said things they had never shared before.
We all left humbled, enlightened and deeply moved....
M.F. is the musician at Trinity, where I celebrate and preach.
I've been around the Episcopal Church for quite a while and I think he's the best musician I've ever worked with--and I've worked with some good ones. He could be in any church, yet he stays at our little one out in the boondocks!
He had surgery last week and missed this Sunday and the next.
It was weird to do the Eucharist with no music.
Brought me back to my 21 years at St. John's and the 8 a.m. services in the chapel.
At least I faced the congregation--in the chapel my back was to them because the altar was against a wall.
I miss him so.
Come back to us soon, M.....
Small crowd at church today. But a man who's been there three times now showed incredible generosity.
He works in quality control for a shipping company or a factory.
Most of things they check are bathroom products from shampoo and hand lotion to toilet paper and paper towels.
When a carton is opened to check the quality, they can't reseal it and send it to the stores.
Usually it's thrown out--but not this week.
He brought six huge boxes of such stuff and gave it to the church to go to the homeless shelter and soup kitchen.
He didn't pay for it--but he went to all the trouble of loading it, driving it to church and unloading it there.
Generosity to those who need it most is God's will.
He did God's will today.
So generous....
Bern and I went to the "No King" demonstration a few blocks from our house, in front of town hall on one side and the Congregational Church on the other.
I'm terrible about estimating crowds, but it could have been 2000--in a town this size that is amazing.
Lots of signs and shirts and chants.
I left early but Bern stayed till the end.
No speeches but lots of cars tooting support as they drove by the surging crowd.
If this was Cheshire I imagine the demonstrations around the country were monumental.
I hope so.
One sign said, "You should have seen it coming."
How true. But he was elected anyway.
Watch for whatever happens next....
