Here we are, in April, beginning another month of sheltering in place. What a time we are living through!
Even in the midst of this there are blessings. Among them has been the blessing of communicating with you through social media: worshiping, studying, praying and yes, even sharing birthday celebrations and happy hours together.
I am grateful to the virtual teams within our faith community, rising up to offer all kinds of support within and beyond us. I hope you were able to join the zoom crowd who worshiped online this week. If you missed it, you can find it here on our website. Many of us are using zoom for the first time, and here’s a helpful tutorial to get started. You can always call me on my cell phone! All of our computers are facing buffering challenges due to the overload on various platforms and the internet in general, please be patient.
Last Sunday, the 29th of March, I lifted up the theme of grief, so I want to offer a helpful article for you to better understand your own experience of grief.
Please continue to check our weekly email, our Facebook page, and our website for updates.
This Sunday is Palm/Passion Sunday— please find a palm, or a leafy branch, or a symbol of gratitude for praising the heroes of our time, and bring it with you for our service. And, before you sit down to participate in the Zoom service (here’s the link), please have ready nearby elements of food and drink to share in our agape meal, remembering Jesus and all those we love that we wish were here with us, and all those in need, especially during the pandemic. Finally, David G. is leading a Zoom Children’s time at 11:30 – read more here.
Prayer for today:
You have been our strength, O God.
At the beginning of the day you brought us from darkness into light.
At the ending of the day you lead us from busyness into stillness.
In earth’s cycles and seasons you offer us new life and fresh beginnings.
Be our strength this day and the strength of new beginnings in our world.
Be our help, O God, and the help of those who cry out in need.
~ by John Philip Newell, excerpt from Celtic Treasure: Daily Scriptures and Prayer
Prayer in music & videos:
- Italian opera singer
- Spain Coronavirus: Videos Of People Applauding And Cheering For Healthcare Workers
- Wuhan volunteer team delivers cheer to medical workers amid epidemic
Inspiration
Humor
Last weekend Oakland celebrated LGBTQ+ Pride in a tastefully, over -the -top way!
The prophet Isaiah, thousands of years ago, described God’s creative power – bringing forth new life in the midst of destruction, within and all around us:
An atheist friend of mine is fond of saying, “I just don’t believe that God is an old man sitting on the throne in Heaven.” Nor do the millions of people who still trust in God, yet reject this particular conception of God. McFague calls it the “transcendent sky-God tradition.” As Diana Butler Bass writes, “Instead of seeing God as distinct and distant from the world, we are acquiring a new awareness that the universe itself is God’s body, a complex and diverse interdependent organism, animated by God’s breath, the spirit of creation. We are with God and God is with us because – and some people may find this shocking – we are in God and God is in us. Maybe the far-off Heavenly Father is finally retiring, replaced by a far more down-to-earth presence, a presence named in Hebrew and Christian scriptures as both love and spirit.” As Wendell Berry puts it “The idea of Heaven doesn’t take religion very far,” because the distance makes for too great an abstraction. “Love,” as the very being of God, he continued, “has to wear a face.” And that “face” is “our neighborhood, our neighbors and other creatures, the Earth and its inhabitants.
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,
This coming Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, 
