Good Friday, again

I can't believe how quickly time goes. Here we are, at the end of Holy Week. As always, if you are in the Edmonton area, I invite you to join in two beautiful ecumenical events...

The cross at the top of Mount Tzouhalem
near Cowichan Bay, BC

The first is the 36th Annual Outdoor Way of the Cross, which begins at George Spady Centre (10015 105A Avenue) at ten a.m on Good Friday. I love this way to mark the day because has a strong social justice component, it attracts people of all ages and Christian denominations, and there's just something really amazing about being together and walking with our inner city sisters and brothers for two hours in an atmosphere of prayer and song. This year's theme is "Transformation -- Ourselves and Our World," and will include reflection on the UN's sustainable development goals.

The second is the Good Friday Taizé Prayer Around the Cross, 7 p.m. at Providence Renewal Centre (3005 119 Street). It's a contemplative prayer with music, scripture and silence, and a different way to be open to God's presence in our hustle-bustle world. I prefer it over Good Friday services, because it's a reflective space without so many words. In the community of Taizé, France, you can bet that the young people present will sing and pray well past midnight, but our prayer will run a little over an hour.

All are welcome to both events. Join your fellow Christians to pray and reflect on God's deep love for all God's children. And if you're not in the Edmonton area, have a beautiful Good Friday wherever you may be.

Neither satire nor revenge needed

I just don't understand. Can someone explain to me why it's necessary to poke at our brothers and sisters of different faiths by publishing ugly cartoons that make fun of their beliefs? And can you help me to understand why it would be necessary to take revenge for those cartoons when killing people is so clearly against any valid belief in the God who loves us and calls us all her/his children no matter our belief? And since when does belief need to avenge itself?

I guess it's been happening since the dawn of time, but I still don't understand it. Clearly, these people who choose to settle small differences with guns are using religion as an excuse for their own inability to love the way God loves, the way God calls us all to love. And the only response to such behaviour is forgiveness and a deeper love that reaches out to quell hatred of all kinds.

Compassion, in other words. From all sides to all sides, until there are no sides.

This song has been running through my head since the attacks on Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday. Of course, the video maker has chosen a lot of lovey-dovey pictures, but I like to close my eyes as I listen to John Lennon's voice and his simple piano melody (which I once learned to play) and think about love between all peoples of all faiths, so that neither satire nor revenge are necessary in our world. Then the song becomes a prayer that we can all pray together. Join me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRyZ9Oe0uaE

Sunday reflection: The many guises of God

Yesterday, my husband and I attended the 50th wedding anniversary celebrations of the parents of a dear friend. Mina's dad and mom, Mukund and Mrudula, were married just a few weeks after mine were back in 1964, and they are celebrating big birthdays this year as well, so it was time for a party.

And a lovely party it was, held at the Hindu Society of Alberta. We arrived in time for icecream, and then settled ourselves at the puja, where Mrudula and Mukund were seated on a platform at the front, participating in the prayer with the priest. I didn't understand what was being said, but could imagine that with every rose petal they tossed, they were giving thanks for their blessings to God -- whose many aspects were portrayed in the statues and pictures adorning the walls and altars all around us. Toward the end of the celebration, everyone stood and sang a song together to the rhythm of drum and bell, and tears came to my eyes. The smiling statues and bright colours of the saris worn by the women around me were beautiful, and I couldn't help but think that God is beauty, generosity, and goodness in all guises. The welcome and hospitality of the Gujarati community yesterday was a clear sign of God's presence in our world, and the food was heavenly!

And as much as Westerners would like to think that Christianity has it all, being in the Hindu temple yesterday reminded me that there are faiths that go back much further than Christianity, and which address our human need to understand and give thanks for the blessings of life. But no single religion can express the fullness of God, which is why the human family has so many expressions of faith. And if they are about love and kindness and non-violence and making the world a better place, they're all good!

Thanks to Mukund and Mrudula for including us in their celebration. May God in Her and His many guises bless them and their family, and give them many more years of happiness together.

Sunday reflection: My heart's spiritual home

The view through the centre of Taize at the community's edge...

We're home from an amazing vacation... and I spent a good part of yesterday going through over a thousand picture and video files from our digital camera, reliving our trip of a lifetime. The trip centered on a visit with some very dear friends in Belgium, and was book-ended with time in Taizé and Paris in France, and in London, England.

For me, the highlight of our trip was the time spent with Gaby and Yvonne and their family in Flanders, which you've already heard a bit about. The next best thing was the very beginning of the trip -- what turned out to be the best 3-day retreat of my life in Taizé, France. 

Taizé is a tiny village in the beautiful rolling hills of France's Bourgogne (Burgundy, as in wine) region that is home to an ecumenical religious community. In August 2015, the community of brothers of different denominations who welcome young pilgrims year round will celebrate its 75th anniversary with meetings on every continent where youth will gather "to mobilize their energies, [and] to gather together their longings, intuitions and experiences" as part of Taizé's "pilgrimage of trust on earth."

Brother Ghislain starts our session with a chant...

And trust was exactly where my focus needed to be for the first three days of our holiday. Being something of a worry-wart, I am a rather anxious traveller, but that soon changed as I was quietly welcomed among the adults over 35 who were staying for the week, sharing a room of bunks with women from Poland, China, France and Italy. The first day was like a silent retreat as I observed the goings-on and found my way around (most people begin their week-long stay on a Sunday so everyone was well into the swing of things by the time my daughters and I arrived on Thursday afternoon). On Friday, I connected with a “scripture discussion group” made up of Swedes and Norwegians, a lady from England, and a fellow from Germany, who shared thoughts about Brother Ghislain’s morning Bible reflections in our common language, English. Language was rarely an issue -- people from many different places found ways to communicate, and because four of my five roommates spoke only their mother tongues and French, I got a real workout in my second language! My sharing group members were from many different churches with many different practices, but we delighted in our shared Christianity.

A very different Nativity scene. I understand the giraffe now, but what is the elephant's meaning?
Big ears for listening?

I really enjoyed Brother Ghislain's spiritual input. He had much wisdom to share when breaking open the scripture of the day, but perhaps my favourite pearl was when he encouraged us to be like giraffes, animals who possess the largest heart in proportion to their body, and the widest view. I suspect that's why the giraffe appears in the nativity scene mounted outside the brothers' enclosure. See her?

Doing supper dishes...

Having been an organizer of Taizé Prayer services in Edmonton for over 20 years, I finally got to experience, first hand, what our little music group has been trying to emulate. In the Church of Reconciliation, there were many moments of joy so overwhelming that it was all I could do not to burst into tears of happiness. I had finally reached my heart’s spiritual home. The simplicity of the day’s schedule involving work, sharing, and prayer in a rustic setting filled me with the deepest gratitude

A good bench for silent reflection...

I’ve ever known. Walking in the woods, enjoying nature, doing chores, and answering the call of the bells for prayer with the brothers and well over a thousand other pilgrims (most aged 16-35) in the Church of the Reconciliation was an experience I will never forget. A few times, the prayer melodies carried late into the night, but I couldn’t tear myself away. Something in me had been thirsting for what was being given, and when Sunday came, I was overflowing with a deep peace and joy. My two eldest daughters also enjoyed their experience with youth from around the world.

If you’ve been following my moodlings for a while, you’ll know that I’ve been struggling with what feels like excessive complexity in my own church. At Taizé, I couldn’t help but feel that Christ would feel more at home there because everyone is welcome to come to the table, and the underlying structure is just enough to keep things going without becoming top-heavy and overly focused on the incidentals. Although the grandeur of amazing architecture and high ritual used to impress me, now my soul craves simplicity. I was much more at home in the Church of the Reconciliation than at mass in Westminster Cathedral two weeks later!

I’ll admit it – since it is unlikely that I will ever return to Taizé -- I cheated and made a few quiet little videos to bring home so that I can revisit my experience from time to time, and I share my favourite one here. I like its fuzzy focus and the lovely, cascading sound of echoing chant (it was past eleven p.m. and there was just a small group of us left to sing and pray). "Let all who are thirsty come" describes perfectly what happened for me during my three-day visit: “Let all who are thirsty, come. Let all who wish receive the water of life freely. Amen, come Lord Jesus. Amen, come Lord Jesus.”

A personal perspective on Christian devotional music

My friend Julien, who has interfaith and ecumenical connections in our city, invited me to participate in a local conference put on by the Edmonton Committee of the Parliament of the World's Religions. I was offered ten minutes or so to speak about Christian Devotional music at a session on "The Importance of Music in Different Faith Traditions," along with people of Muslim, Hindu and Jewish faith traditions. It was an interesting interfaith experience of musical prayer. Each presenter either sang or played some music from their faith tradition, live or recorded -- and it underlined the value of song in all of humanity's interaction with God -- no matter our faith, music helps us to express ourselves when spoken word somehow falls short.

How does one do any sort of justice to the breadth of Christian music in ten minutes? I didn't even try, but rather shared my own appreciation for music by presenting a few bits of song that I love. I thought I'd share the text of my presentation, with a few pieces of music interspersed thanks to YouTube, for today's reflection. Thanks again to Denise and Dad for helping to lead the group in singing... and to Julien for giving me the opportunity.

A perspective on Christian music

I'd like to begin by speaking about Christian devotional music in my own life. Music has always held a particularly strong pull for me in the celebration of my faith in God. I find that devotional music speaks to and for my soul in ways that spoken prayer can’t. Fortunately, I grew up during the time when the Roman Catholic Church began switching from hymns based on Latin Gregorian chant, the maestros of classical music and ancient folk melodies to music with a more folksy, contemporary feel. As a little kid, I always got excited when someone played guitar instead of the organ because somehow, guitar music was less intimidating. But that doesn’t mean that those Gregorian- or classical music-based hymns don’t move me. Let’s try one verse of a song with  the melody of Beethoven’s 9^th symphony, just to warm up our voices.

Songs of praise and thanksgiving to God are among my favourites. Marty Haugen's The Canticle of the Sun is a contemporary, lively, and joyful song that uses an adaptation of a prayer by St. Francis of Assisi, and I’ve already decided that I want it sung at my funeral, especially because of the final verse, which says:

Praise to our death that makes our life real,

The knowledge of loss that helps us to feel

The gift of yourself, your presence revealed,

To bring us home.

Much of the music that has been important to my faith life is based on scripture, which I believe is one way that God communicates to me how I am loved, and how I am expected to love. I also really enjoy songs that help me to express my love for God.

I suppose there might be as many different things that draw people to Christian music as there are people. As a music minister, I’ve worked with people who choose music based on the poetry or message of the lyrics, or the feel of a hymn, or its melody or rhythm. But the biggest draw in my books is the sense of community that comes with singing to God with others. I'm not one who wants to sit and listen to a soloist -- I like it when people can participate, and if people enjoy singing a song to God together, that’s reason enough to sing it! I love it when we can raise the roof with an uplifting tune... but I also enjoy quiet and reflective songs. So it was hard to choose only a few songs to share with you.

I've decided to focus on the music of a place known as Taizé, in France. It is a village where an ecumenical group of monks welcome young people all year round to sing and pray together three times a day, no matter what they believe. Youth come by the droves to spend a week in the middle of nowhere, sleeping in tents and living in community with the brothers. We’d like to introduce you to one of the chants used at Taizé. 

Bless the Lord, my soul, and bless God's holy name.
Bless the Lord, my soul, who leads me into life.

For the last twenty–some years, on and off, I’ve participated in and led Taizé prayer gatherings here in Edmonton, simply because I find it to be my favourite way to connect people – and myself – with God. Merv, Denise and I, along with others, will lead a prayer this coming Sunday evening (tonight) at St. David’s Anglican Church (7751 85th Street). I find that the repetition of the prayerful and musical phrases open a room in my heart where I know that God is; a door that often is forgotten in the bustle of my daily life... but the beauty of Taizé chant helps me to center my awareness on God.  Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “To sing is to pray twice.” Chant is my favourite prayer.

In terms of how music helps us to experience the glory and ecstasy of knowing God, or how it soothes our pain and sorrow, I could tell a dozen stories, but I’ll keep it to just two stories with a single piece of music. The first time I heard the chant we’ll sing in a few moments, I was at a Catholic-Lutheran student conference in Ontario, and the sound of many  harmonious voices and many instruments raising the song together gave me the goosebumps, and an absolute sense that God’s Spirit was among us. It was glorious and very uplifting.

The second time that song spoke to me of God’s presence was with the coming of my second daughter. Halfway through the pregnancy, during a routine ultrasound, a tumour was discovered on my baby. It was a very difficult time – I was scared, and sad, and eventually, angry – how could God allow such a thing to happen to an innocent baby? But to calm myself and soothe my child, I began to sing this same Taizé chant whenever I felt her move, trying to trust that God was taking care of us. Just after she was born, she had a surgery to remove the tumour, and we spent a few days in the neonatal intensive care at the University of Alberta Hospital. I rocked her in the rocking chair for hours, humming the melody, and that’s how a Taizé song of praise became her lullaby. Whenever I hear it now, it takes me back to a time when I am sure God was our consolation and strength, and still is:

Sing praises, all you peoples, sing praises to the Lord.

Sing praises, all you peoples, sing praises to the Lord.

The Pope's quiet ecumenism

If you've been following my moodlings for a while, you know that ecumenism -- unity among churches and believers in God -- is a cause very dear to my heart. I am certain that Jesus didn't intend for those who follow him to divide up into groups that all claim to be following his way, picking and choosing different aspects of his life and teachings to emulate and emphasize while ignoring everyone else, and I believe that my own church is one of the worst offenders in this regard. Jesus wanted all human kind to understand that love is the bottom line, and inclusion, forgiveness (as we hear in today's Gospel reading), and unity are essential for love to fill the world. Unfortunately, we're human beings who have come to think that we belong to different clubs, forgetting that we all, ultimately, belong to God.

So when a friend sent me a video Pope Francis made earlier this year, it made me happy. It's a seven-minute piece that was recorded on the iPhone belonging to Evanglical Bishop Tony Palmer when he visited Pope Francis on January 14th. The two are friends, and the Pope asked if he could send greetings to a conference of leaders from Kenneth Copeland Ministries, a Pentecostal mega-church convention where Tony would be speaking. They made the video on the spot, and it seems Vatican staff had no idea about it until it appeared on YouTube last week, with subtitles.

Bishop Tony Palmer also impresses me. He uses the Pope's video in the context of an excellent lesson on ecumenism at the conference, which can be seen if you click here. He says, "...diversity is divine, but division is diabolical." And I love Pope Francis' opening words in his seven-minute portion of the video, how he isn't speaking English or Italian, but the language of the heart... a heart that is feeling joy and longing for communion, unity between believers. His message of reunion and reconciliation as a miracle that God will complete somehow is beautiful, too.

It's stories like this that keep me connected to my church even though I am impatient for change. Enjoy!

The Lord is my light

Tonight’s Taizé Prayer will be hosted by the community of Hope Lutheran Church (5104 106 Avenue, Edmonton). The Lord is our light, and we won’t hide that light under any bushel baskets, but we’ll sing about it in a meditative way. Come join us!

Now let your servant go in peace...

The chant in the video below is perhaps my favourite from the Taizé community, the prayer of Simeon upon meeting the infant Jesus in the temple. The old man’s eyesight might not have been clear, but his heart-sight was perfect. He embraced the child and gave thanks for God’s personal revelation to all people. The melody of the chant reflects beautifully Simeon’s longing for God, and my own. And the words are lovely, too: Now let your servant go in peace, Lord, according to your promise. If only we could all go about our lives in peace, spreading peace.

I'll be humming this one all week, guaranteed! Enjoy!

God is light, and we are reflectors!

My turn to give a reflection at Emmaus Inclusive Catholic Community today...

First Reading: Isaiah 9.1-4
Psalm 27
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 1.10-13 and 17-18
Gospel Reading: Matthew 4.12-23

Today's readings contain such riches, and challenges, for us to consider. I have always loved the idea of God being light, and we hear it over and over in today’s scripture.

To begin with, we have Isaiah’s prophecy that all those who live in the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali will see a great light. Zebulun and Naphtali were two step-brothers of Joseph the dreamer, lesser known sons of Jacob. They settled in the lands eventually known as Galilee, where, as we hear in the Gospel reading, Jesus began his ministry after John the Baptist’s arrest. The descendants of Zebulun and Napthali were among the first to be sent to Assyria during the Babylonian captivity, which means that they lived the longest in the darkness of exile. Isaiah is encouraging them, saying that they will eventually be especially blessed... and he was right. Jesus to began his ministry in Galilee, among the descendents of Zebulun and Naphtali, so they heard God's word from God's lips first! When I think of Jesus, I imagine him to be the warmest, kindest, most loving person to ever walk the earth. I don’t work nearly as hard as the Galilean people did, but I get goosebumps when I imagine Jesus saying to me, “Come to me, all you who labour and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.”

In Psalm 127, we hear that “God is my light and my salvation,” echoing Isaiah’s words about God bringing light. At this end of salvation history, we can see that Jesus IS the goodness of our God in the land of the living – so of course we can take heart and hope in God!

Then we have St. Paul pleading for unity in the minds and hearts of the Christians in Corinth. Paul is basically telling them that everyone belongs to God, and that Jesus himself, through the wisdom of accepting his own suffering on the cross, wants the Corinthians -- and us -- to accept life as he did, to see wisdom and God’s light in each other, and to love one another as sisters and brothers even through disagreements and sufferings.

Finally, in the Gospel we see Jesus actually fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy, being God’s light for the lands of Zebulun and Naphtali by teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the good news of God’s reign, and curing people of EVERY disease and EVERY sickness. God is light, and the light has come in Jesus.

But sometimes it’s not easy to see God's light in our world today. We live in a society that has many diseases and sicknesses, and not just the physical kind, some of which are visible in the way we handle ourselves, one another, and the planet God has given to us. Many people seem to forget that life, all life, is sacred, especially when that life is causing them inconvenience. It’s so easy to get caught up in the me-first thinking of individualism, the my-stuff-first thinking of materialism, consumerism and capitalism, and the my-species-first thinking of putting human interests above the interests of the rest of creation. Somehow, though, I don’t think God intended for us to drive other created beings, or ourselves, to extinction!

I think that if Jesus was here in the flesh today, he would want to cure us of these ways of thinking because they are bringing about so much unwellness in our world. We are living on a planet that is ailing because we are using it up almost faster than it is able to regenerate itself. We have poisonous tailings ponds killing our brothers and sisters in Fort Chipewyan, supertyphoons killing our brothers and sisters in the Philippines, the dumping of waste killing our sister and brother species who live in the oceans, terrorism and fear killing our brothers and sisters of many species in Central African Republic, South Sudan and Syria, depression and addictions killing our sisters and brothers in downtown Edmonton, and our own hopelessness and apathy adding to it all.

But darkness can't drive away light -- and you can't "shine darkness" into the corner of a room. The only way we have darkness is if we remove light. Light immediately banishes darkness, and Jesus, the light who shines in the darkness, offers us hope and wants us to be hope with him! He gives us many ideas about possible cures for individualism, materialism, consumerism, capitalism, and extinction of organisms throughout the Gospels. 

Even just his beatitudes tell us so much about how to turn these things around. To paraphrase: Live like the poor in spirit, and understand our place in the web of creation. Live like those who are in mourning, and understand what is really important in life, rather than chasing after material things that leave us unsatisfied. Live meekly, and the earth will be able to provide for everyone’s needs. Hunger and thirst for righteousness in every situation, and bring about the common good for all of creation. Be merciful, and receive mercy and compassion. Be peacemakers, and fear not because all of creation is God’s beloved. And even when being laughed at or persecuted otherwise for doing all these good things, know that the kin-dom is already present in our actions.

I know that’s a strange paraphrase, but I am a practitioner of what is called Voluntary Simplicity, and that’s how I have come to hear Jesus’ Beatitude message over time. Practicing Voluntary Simplicity means that I am doing my best to live in God’s creation as simply as possible, with as few possessions as I can get away with, doing as little damage to the earth as I possibly can. I do this because I think it’s part of coming out of the darkness of individualism and consumerism and living in harmony with all that God created. 

If God is light, I am a reflector! So it means that I set an example. I avoid buying things I don’t really need. My family gets by with only one vehicle, which can be rather inconvenient, but we make it work. We make an effort to grow our own food as much as possible. We think about our brothers and sisters in the developing world and use our purchasing power to support fair employment practices for them. We work at composting and reducing waste, fixing things instead of sending them to the dump. We turn off lights and appliances when not in use, and turn down the heat to conserve energy for future generations. I could go on and on, but I already have!

I believe that Jesus, being the light of the world, calls us all to reflect his light for the world, and how we live and use the planet’s resources speaks volumes about the light we have been shown. St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology, wrote a beautiful song singing the praises of all of God’s creation and how Brothers Sun, Wind, Air, Fire, and Sisters Moon, Water, Earth and Death show God to us. If we can live in the same kind of awareness that Francesco did, an awareness of God’s light in everything, we will see many opportunities to make choices to protect God’s creation, and to spread light rather than increase the darkness that is trying to engulf our world through human selfishness. We will find ourselves rejoicing before God “as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing" -- the winnings of the lottery, or whatever is today's definition of "plunder.” Our yoke, the burdens of our brothers and sisters, and the rod of oppression weighing down God’s creation will be lifted.

Still, I sometimes get overwhelmed by the weight of the oppression of creation and our human family, but my good spiritual director often reminds me, “It’s not up to you to save the world, Maria. Jesus already did that.” Then I remember that my job is to start small, but to make a start, acting justly, loving tenderly, and walking humbly with all of God’s creation as Jesus did. I’m guessing we each can do one small, simple thing to lighten the burden on creation today, to shine a little light in a dark corner. And maybe we can do a different one tomorrow.

So I’d like to invite us all into a little discussion about finding our way out of the darkness and allowing God’s light to shine through us in our small, personal acts that leave individualism, over-consumption and materialism behind. What are some practical things that you already do to live more lightly in God’s creation? And what is one small thing that you’ve never done, or have been meaning to do, something that you could start doing tomorrow? 

Mon ame se repose

My soul rests in peace in God alone... I have always loved this. If our souls can't rest in God, they can't rest... and I always seem to find some peace resting in this music, too. Tonight we will be singing this chant at Taizé Prayer, 7 p.m. at St. Thomas D’Aquin Catholic Church (8410-89 Street) in Edmonton. All are welcome to join us. Thanks to Mostar Taize for sharing this video through YouTube. Enjoy.

A simple prayer for the New Year

As we stand on the edge
of a New Year,
we thank you for the old one
with all its hopes and dreams,
its joys and struggles,
its loves,
and its losses that made our loves clear.
Bless us as we step over the threshold
of a year yet to be lived.
Help us
to see you
in those who will cross our paths,
to welcome those
who need a place to be,
to reach out to those
who are hurting,
and to forgive ourselves
when we fail.
Give us the courage to follow you,
Compassionate God,
wherever you lead us in 2014.

+Amen.

Venite exultemus Domino

Being stuck at home with the flu, I've had a little more time on my hands than expected. So here's a gorgeous Taizé chant for the feast of the Holy Family, which invites us to come and exult over God's presence in our lives. Merry Christmas, all!

Within our darkest night You kindle a fire that never dies away

It's already the second Sunday of Advent, and tonight we'll be having our Advent Taize Prayer at 7 p.m. in Holyrood Mennonite Church (9505 79 Street). All are welcome. Here's one of the chants we'll be singing this evening for those unable to attend. Thanks to Charles Pope for posting it with some lovely images of God's light...

2014 Taizé Prayer in Edmonton

Taizé Prayer is, quite simply, a wonderful thing. Christians from different denominations gather to sing beautiful, multi-layered music, hear scripture, meditate in silence, pray the prayers of their hearts, and enjoy a special, ecumenical sense of community in each other’s churches. I’ve been part of it, on and off, for the past 25 years, and have come to really appreciate its simplicity and beauty, as well as my many friendships with Christians from my neighbourhood and the greater Edmonton area with whom I would be unlikely to meet otherwise.

If you’ve never experienced Taizé Prayer, we invite you to come and pray with us any time. No matter what your past church experience may have been, Taizé Prayer is a welcoming place for peaceful reverence. Many thanks to all the participating churches. Please join us.

Taizé Prayer 2014

Ecumenical, musical, meditative prayer 

in the Taizé style from 7 - 8 p.m.

January 12   St. Thomas D’Aquin Catholic Church   8410 89 Street
February 9   Hope Lutheran Church   5104 106 Avenue
March 9   Lenten Prayer St. Luke’s Anglican Church   8424 95 Avenue

April 18   Good Friday Prayer Around the Cross

Providence Renewal Centre   3005 119 Street
May 4   Easter Prayer   St. David’s Anglican Church   7751 85 Street
September 14   Assumption Catholic Church   9040 95 Avenue
October 5   Holyrood Mennonite Church   9505 79 Street
November 9    Peace Prayer    Strathearn United Church   8510 95 Avenue
December 14   Advent Prayer    First Church of God   9224 82 Street

Everyone is welcome!

For more information and/or a printable poster, contact Maria K. 

(under view my complete profile on the side bar); 

see also www.taize.fr

Taizé Prayer is sponsored by these church communities, 

and the Edmonton Taizé musicians/organizing group.

Music copyright permissions are obtained 

through the kindness of the Catholic Archdiocese of Edmonton,

and candles are donated by Universal Church Supplies.

God's good morning show

If you've been following these moodlings for any length of time, you'll know that I'm a fan of "ordinary miracles" and natural beauty. My sisters still like to tease me about my enthusiasm for beauty from the time when I was in my teens, and there was a fiery sunset to the west. "The sky is on fire," I exclaimed...

I can't help it -- it's always been in my nature. And I'm glad that it is, because when mornings like this one appear, I feel rich in ways that money cannot buy. Look at the gold in this sunrise!

True, it won't buy me a mansion, but who really needs a mansion? And God is always giving out free riches like these in better morning shows than you can find on TV. Not nearly as depressing as the morning news, that's for sure...

But I'm not advocating ignoring the morning news, either -- today the people suffering the effects of Hurricane Haiyan are very much on my mind. They can use our help and prayers this week. It's time to donate to an agency that can help. It's past time to cut down further on our use of fossil fuels that feed global climate change and cause superstorms. And a little prayer can't hurt, so here's my prayer. Perhaps you can pray it with me:

O God, 

we know that you have no hands or feet on earth but ours. 

Help us to use the strength and resources 

you have given us

to reach out to those in great need.

Show us how we can help to lift their burdens

and help them back to the abundant life

you offer to each one of us.

Direct our time, talents and treasure

according to your will.

Bless the people who are suffering because of Hurricane Haiyan,

and, through us, 

touch everyone who needs your tender care this day.

+AMEN.

10:30 a.m.  A co-worker and friend at L'Arche is from the Philippines, and has lost a cousin and her cousin's husband to Superstorm Haiyan. The couple's three year old son is missing... please pray with me for them, for little Tarin, and for all who grieve...

There is no perfect

I love working for L'Arche for many reasons, but the main one, of course, is the people with and without disabilities with whom I have developed friendships. Today I am thinking of a very fine young man without disabilities, an assistant in the community whom I have the pleasure of accompanying on his journey in L'Arche. He visits me once a month for an hour of "accompaniment" and a good cup of masala chai (at least he tells me it's a good cup). I listen to stories of his life in L'Arche, and ask questions for reflection, and encourage him (he does a good job, after all). Sometimes I feel like I am the one being accompanied, because he often leaves me with thoughts that stick in my mind.

The most recent is the heading of this moodling. I can't remember the exact context in which he said it, but the emphasis in his soft-spoken delivery hit me with force. He's absolutely right -- there is always a shadow over perfection, whether we realize it or not. The perfection of a rose only lasts a day; the perfect moment soon becomes a memory. More often than not, things and events and people are far from perfect in our interactions with them. Yet there are many places in our lives where we still expect perfection. Of ourselves, of others, of our governments. Of God, who, granted, is perfect, but who chooses to let us live in imperfection because that's how we human beings find our way to God. I suspect those who write God off have never understood that if God went around thunderbolting people and situations because of imperfection, we'd live on an extremely scorched planet! And if things were perfect here, it wouldn't be earth, but heaven!

Along with the idea of "no perfect" comes another idea that I received from Susan, the amazing woman I have recently been interviewing about the history of our L'Arche community in Edmonton. She has a dozen or so serious medical conditions at the moment, and she says, "Isn't it something how we are conditioned to believe that everything should always go right?" And yet, so much doesn't. In spite of their best efforts at pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, people I'm connected to these days have terminal cancer, heart attacks, money troubles, relationship problems, and frustrations that positive thinking can't melt away no matter how hard they think positively.

So, what to do?

See, even my attempts at imperfection aren't perfect!

We can be angry about all this imperfection, or we can embrace it as part of life and human nature. We can write imperfect people off, or we can recognize in them some of our own imperfections and be loving and accepting, as in L'Arche. We can choose denial, or we can work on grieving and healing our hearts. We can rail at God for the injustices in the system, or we can see our own participation in those injustices and "be the change."

It's when things don't work out that a person's true personality comes out, true growth occurs, and true grace appears, but even so, we tend to see life's trials as the worst things that can happen.

But that's not always the case. I can tell a dozen stories from my own life about when things got screwed up so badly, I couldn't possibly imagine them coming out okay. Here's just one pretty basic (but long-lasting) example: when I was seventeen, I was diagnosed with juvenile (Type I) diabetes. For the first month or so, it seemed like an adventure -- learning to take insulin injections, changing my diet, testing my blood sugars, and balancing food and exercise. Then it hit me  -- this diabetes thing was a permanent imperfection in my life. Unless there was a cure, I would never NOT have diabetes again. For the next eight years I went through a lot of denial, cheated on my diet, and risked my health. I gained 30 lbs and felt pretty lousy a lot of the time, blaming God and the disease rather than my own handling of the situation.

Fortunately, I woke up to reality before the terrible complications associated with diabetes set in. Three decades and three healthy children later, my kidneys are fine, my circulation is good, and my vision isn't any worse than other people my age. My only problem is this dizziness that seems to be permanent, and to which I have become mostly accustomed.

It's no picnic taking 6 needles a day and having fingers constantly full of holes because of blood tests... but I've also had plenty of time to see the blessings of the disease. Blessings? Yes, blessings. I eat healthy, and by association, so does my family. I get a lot of exercise (especially with my husband, Lee, and Shadow puppy, our new walking partner). My weight is where it should be, and my health is good. I have a certain kind of discipline in my life, for which I can thank a chronic illness. I may end up with more serious complications somewhere down the road (heart attacks and strokes claim a lot of people with diabetes) but that just means that I am aware of and appreciate my life and health while I have it.

There is no perfect, but if we look hard enough for it, there's often "pretty good."

A church for my girls... and everyone else

An open letter:

Dear Pope Francis and all you other bishops of the world,

I have been a baptized Catholic for all but the first seven days of my life. I grew up in a devout Catholic family, and earned my first few dollars in their Catholic church supplies store, surrounded by Catholic people when I worked there, and when I attended Catholic summer camps and Catholic youth retreats as a teen. As a young adult, I took university courses at a Catholic college, taught in a Catholic school, and eventually ended up with a Religious Education degree, going so far as to start my Masters before having a family. The long and the short of it is that you might be hard-pressed to find many lay people as steeped in Catholicism from the get-go as I am. Of late, I'm thinking I've overdone it!

Growing up just after the Second Vatican Council, I lived in a time of hope. It seemed that the church was renewing itself, broadening its point of view, becoming more up-to-date. Ecumenism! Liberation Theology! Inclusive language! Expanding roles for women, for lay people! So when my Catholic husband and I had our own family, I mistakenly thought that I could pass all this Catholic enthusiasm on to my own children by taking them to church from the time they were newborns, bundling them along to weekday mass when they were too young for school, teaching them and their peers at children's liturgy on Sundays, buying them Catholic books (from the aforementioned church supplies store), involving them in music at mass by leading a Junior Youth Choir for ages 4 to 12, helping them through their sacramental preparation for first communion, reconciliation and confirmation, and discussing all things Catholic with them whenever possible. If faith is caught, not taught, I was throwing everything I had into helping them catch it, even as the church changed tactics, reverting from a welcoming expansiveness to a more narrow exclusivity.

My girls caught the faith, but now it seems that they are rejecting Catholicism for reasons far beyond all my efforts to share its richness and beauty. The richness and beauty has paled because of a certain overzealous religion teacher who insists on emphasizing Catholic dogma and doctrine over Jesus' teachings about loving and serving one another, sharing our gifts, and being like him. The richness and beauty are being drowned out by a world that doesn't accept outdated teachings from a patriarchal hierarchy that science and common sense have proven wrong over time. My girls see a church that pays lip-service to women's participation. They see an institution that says "Pay, pray and obey," more than a community that is "justice, mercy, compassion, and mutual aid in the maintenance of life for one another," as female theologian Ivone Gebara puts it.

My daughters have faith, but they can't stomach the Church, so my husband and I are going to mass alone these days. And sometimes I wonder why we bother, because there is much there that I can't stomach either, like pompous and exclusive language, lay people being kept away from the altar, a re-emphasis on the rules and regulations that govern the celebration over Jesus' simplicity in sharing a meal, and a narrow view of who is worthy to receive. When I look around my church on a Sunday, I see the elderly, and young families, and a huge gap in the middle where families like mine should be. They've lost interest for many reasons. I am losing interest because I don't want to be part of a narrower church.

I read recently of another theologian, Victor Codina of Bolivia, who sees that the only way the Catholic Church will recover from a long downward slide is if it moves away from the ancient hierarchichal church model that dominated most of the past two millennia, beyond the Post-Vatican model of church as the People of God, straight back to Jesus' model of being church with the poor and marginalized until all are equal and all are welcomed to the table of community.

And when I look at my family, I know in the marrow of my bones that he's right. The hierarchy doesn't speak to them at all, and has definitely missed the boat with the multitude of Catholics who have left the church in my lifetime. The church as merely the worshipping People of God isn't working for my daughters either, who have never really felt connected to the community because there aren't many young people -- most of their Catholic school friends aren't churchgoers. Up until recently, our family's mass attendance was an exception to what seems like the rule -- we've always known more Catholic families who choose Sunday sports/shopping/sleep-ins than families willing to attend wordy Sunday liturgies that often don't seem to connect with life on the other six days of the week.

Dear Pope Francis and friends, since the change in the papacy last March, you have been throwing threads of hope to people like me. Now I ask, why not come up with a new version of church that is relevant to what ordinary people are actually living? How about rebuilding a church that actively invests every baptized believer with the same importance as its clergy, more like the way Jesus sent out his disciples? Could we try having a church that calls everyone to act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly in the way Jesus did, without so much emphasis on all the rules and regulations associated with its structure, and with more stress on reaching out, getting to know, and being with and for the ones our church and our society shun? Can we come up with a liturgy that speaks to peoples' hearts, rather than using ancient prayer formulas that only the theologically-trained can readily understand? Can we recall that the early church was about gathering the people, telling the stories, breaking the bread and caring for each other in a much less formal way, and which was directly connected to the rest of life?

Jesus knew that we all need to be called to serve causes greater than ourselves. Lately the institutional church seems to be focused on increasing its numbers by bringing back the lapsed Catholics, but lapsed Catholics need a solid reason to return, a reason that awakens their passion for their faith, and I'm not seeing it being presented anywhere.

What is clear is that my girls -- and the rest of us -- need the kind of church that sets everybody's hearts on fire, a church that takes people past paying, praying and obeying to actually living Jesus' radical call to discipleship in the world, working and living for peace and justice in a community where everyone is valued and their gifts are celebrated and fully utilized. Jesus cared for the poor in their many guises in his corner of the world, the early Christians did the same, and so can we, if we step out of our comfort zones.

So, my brothers in the hierarchy, what can you do to build a new church to set our hearts on fire? What can we do together? I think it is time to call a New Council, invoke the Holy Spirit, and invite not mainly theologians and clergy this time, but everyone and anyone who wants to follow Christ (including those who have been turned off by the overzealous). Allow everyone to brainstorm, but most especially our youth, and let us all work together to chart a new path that will bring us all back to Jesus' way of being one with God, creation, and each other.

I keep you all in my prayers.

With hope,
Your sister in Christ,
Maria K.

Prophetic change from within

For some people, the fact that the Catholic Church moves at glacier pace -- when it comes to change -- is a source of pride. In their minds, the rest of Christianity of late has been changing with the wind, following whatever is most trendy rather than what has held true since Jesus started it all two thousand years ago.

What they aren't realizing is that Jesus actually instituted very little in the way of structure for his followers. He was about change -- about transforming the stuck-in-a-rut, top heavy religious structures of his day. He was less concerned with the letter of the law and more concerned with showing people how to live their love of God by being open, non-judgmental, inclusive, inviting and welcoming. He was about unity, not division; about connecting rather than setting apart.

So more and more, when I hear people go on about structure and authority and rules and propriety in the context of Church life, and especially "us" vs. "them," I'm afraid I get the heebie-jeebies. Yes, there needs to be enough structure that we actually get around to gathering the people, telling the stories, singing the songs, and breaking the bread together at least once a week, but does it really need to be more complicated than that? And why not think of all those who believe in God as "we"?

I am finding, these days, that when I attend Mass in my local parish, it is hard to say all the theological gobbledygook that I am expected to recite at different times. It is difficult to watch as a male priest stands at the altar all alone, the rest of the community held back from approaching the table by the invisible wall of rules about Eucharist made by the old men at the top of a patriarchal pyramid. It is heartbreaking to know that women who feel called to the priesthood are excommunicated if they act on their call, and that divorced people, people of other denominations and faiths, and those of certain sexual orientations are also not able to share in the community's meal of thanksgiving because they aren't judged to be "one of us," (read: in the right "state of grace"). But what is worst of all is that the Catholic Church clings to all of this non-inclusiveness as if Jesus would insist upon it too.

Jesus. Remember him? The guy who relaxed with tax collectors and sinners. Who eschewed invisible walls of rules and instead offered living water to a less-than-perfect Samaritan woman at the village well. Who loved everyone, and discouraged judgmental attitudes. Who invited us all to come home with him and meet his Abba. I'm thinking he would have called God Imma, too, except that he might have been crucified too soon by the patriarchal people of his day.

Even with my struggles with the Church's glacial pace, two steps forward and three back, I can't sever my Catholic roots, but I also can't shake the feeling that if Jesus started a church today, its liturgies wouldn't look much like the ones to which I'm most accustomed. Jesus would probably gather people in small groups, maybe at a kitchen table. No one would bother wearing clerical clothing to set themselves apart because it's just not necessary. Scripture would be proclaimed, the world and the community's needs would be shared and prayed for, the Spirit would be invoked by the presider, God would be thanked without reference to one gender over another, and everyone would offer each other the blessed bread and wine.

Fortunately for me, I've found a community much like this. It's not perfect by any means, but I can easily imagine Jesus feeling at home enough to slide into a chair and pray along. The format is simple, the prayers follow the usual liturgical format (but without the pompous clutter of the most recent translation of the Roman Missal), the presider can be either an ordained female or male, and no one is turned away. And we are all Catholic (though if the Vatican knew about us, it would probably beg to differ on the point of our Catholicism because we disagree with that one rule about priests being only men and that other rule about participants in the meal having to be in a particular "state of grace.") Unfortunately, I don't get to join this community nearly as often as I would like.

The thing is, there are more and more inclusive Catholic communities -- like the one I have found --gathering all the time around Roman Catholic Women Priests (the group also includes men priests). Seven women were ordained or made deacons in the U. S. in June; more ordinations will take place in September. These women could have chosen to leave the Catholic Church and start new churches or to exercise their vocations in other Christian denominations, but they are Catholic, and they believe that it is time for the Catholic Church to change. So they're being prophetic, and giving the institutional Church a little nudge by being ordained and by celebrating inclusive liturgies wherever people ask (the first women were ordained in 2002 by male bishops in good standing with Rome, so the women haven't disowned the Church as much as the Church has disowned them by excommunication). And more and more, faithful and educated Catholics ARE asking. Whether the institutional church likes it or not, change is coming, and it is coming through committed and prophetic people who are not leaving the church, but who are creating a new model from just within its margins (though Rome refuses to acknowledge most of those particular margins).

There's an interesting documentary floating around these days, called Pink Smoke Over the Vatican. It tells the story of the Roman Catholic Women Priests, and makes a clear case for the ordination of women and inclusive Catholic communities. It makes it obvious that they are not radical feminists with an anti-male agenda, but ordinary women who are quietly living their vocations as women did in early Christianity. According to a fair bit of archaeological and historical research, the early Christian Church was far more inclusive in its first 200 years than the present Catholic Church is now. It seems at times that its glacier pace has actually moved it backward, but to me it feels like the fire of the Holy Spirit is starting to move it forward once again. If you ever have the opportunity to view Pink Smoke, I'd recommend it.

For now, I dream of the day when there are so many inclusive Catholic communities everywhere that all the Pope can do is open his arms and say, "I am sorry it took so long to recognize the gifts of women's vocations to the priesthood, and the validity of inclusive communities. We are all one." In the meantime, I will continue to worship at my parish church sometimes, and at Emmaus Inclusive Catholic Community whenever I can. I love Mass there, and I want to support and encourage a new springtime for women and men in the Catholic Church -- without actually leaving it. I much prefer change from within.

If you would like more information, or to join our inclusive Catholic community for Eucharist in the Edmonton area, check out the community's website by clicking here.

Good questions on a Sunday

After posting my best friend's sermons for the past two Sundays, I thought I'd post this video homily by Fr. William Grimm, MM. He asks two very good questions at the very end of his reflections on today's Gospel reading about Mary and Martha. Don't miss them...

Guest Moodler: Sermon on Images of God

This sermon makes more sense if you've read The Taskmaster from last week. Another good sermon  from my one and only guest moodler. I think I'll try reciting Hafiz's prayer when I wake up in the mornings from now on...

Images of God

Cathy Coulter

July 14, 2013

Last Sunday I read a story I had written many years ago that was a light -hearted look at how my image of God had expanded from the rather distant, judging male God the Father to the more intimate, relaxed and fun-loving female God the Mother. I now will give a disclaimer that these characters of God are not based on my actual mother or father but I did have some experiences in mind when I wrote them.  The church of my childhood, my time with born-again Christians in my teens and my rejection of all that in my twenties was based on a God that I had let down in some way but who forgave me despite the fact that I didn’t measure up. I was apparently a sinner and Jesus had to die for my sins. That was the God who sat up in the sky and kept a record of right and wrong and tested us. God was male and as the only girl in a family of boys in a farming society where boys did the important, valuable work of farming, I had the unspoken, unconscious message that females were less valuable. In my thirties, exploring why I felt like I didn’t measure up, I came across the phrase “the original sin of being born female” and a light bulb came on. At the same time I met a wonderful group of women through the local United Church who introduced me to the idea of a feminine God. It was those women on whom I based my story’s character of God the Mother. The idea of a feminine God blew my mind. For the first time, I knew what it meant that I was created in the image of God. My spiritual life was kick-started and I became so thirsty to learn more, more, more.  That hasn’t stopped. I still feel like there is so much to learn and understand.

So I thank God for the United Church and its openness to different images of God and its inclusive language. I believe including the feminine is important for everyone, but I think it’s absolutely critical for girls if they are to have a deep sense of their own value and worth.

I needed the pendulum to swing from a male to a female image of God for quite some time but it has swung back to a more balanced place. I can be ambidextrous (for lack of a better word) with God the Father and God the Mother. They’re all kind of mixed up now, like in my story at the end when they were at the barbecue together, flirting.

Many people say that they don’t imagine God as either male or female and that’s fine too. I don’t know that I can really do that. We seem to be hard-wired for relationship. There is something about seeing a loving face delighting in us that is necessary for our wholeness. Arms wrapped around us. The touch of a kiss. That’s how I like to imagine God. Christians don’t have the monopoly on the image of God as a loving person. Hafiz, a Sufi poet in the 1300’s wrote a poem that would be a good poem to recite every morning upon waking:

          In the morning

          When I began to awake

          It happened again –

          That feeling

          That you, Beloved,

          Had stood over me all night

          Keeping watch,

          That feeling

          That as soon as I began to stir

          You put Your lips on my forehead

          And lit a Holy Lamp

          Inside my heart.

When I read that for the first time, I had the picture of exactly that. God keeping watch over me at night and planting a kiss on my forehead when I first stirred. Is that a beautiful image, or what? I love how it makes me feel so cherished.

          The image of God as Beloved is a rich image that we find a precedent for among the Christian mystics as well as the Sufi poets. It seems fitting that as we mature spiritually we expand our image of God beyond a parental image. When we have the experience of falling in love with God, only the language of the Beloved will do.

I started thinking about this idea of the images of God this spring when I learned more about St. Francis of Assisi through an on-line course of Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest in New Mexico. I like Richard Rohr’s teachings and this particular course gave me so much to think about. The course was not a study of St. Francis’s life as much as a study about the theology that emerged from his life.

We know St. Francis of Assisi from his prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

St. Francis was not born a saint. He was born in 1181 or 1182 to a wealthy family, and spent his youth drinking and partying. During a local war he fought in, he was imprisoned for ransom for a year. It was in prison that he received a vision to follow Jesus and live a life among the poor, forsaking his wealth and comforts.

Francis is perhaps best known for loving the birds and animals and is often seen in pictures  surrounded by little creatures.

In his love of Jesus and of nature, Francis saw how God revealed God’s self in everything. Francis was able to step out of seeing himself as the centre of the universe, perhaps by stepping out of his comfort zone and living a life of poverty. He began to see everything for itself. When we take a break from seeing everything in the world in terms of how it affects us, when we look at something for what it is, we see that by being itself, a thing is good and true and beautiful.

By being ourselves, we are good and true and beautiful. We can see that in ourselves and in others.

Francis saw God as a part of everything and that included each person that walked down the street. He would walk through the streets of Assisi, greeting all the people he met, saying, “Good morning, good people. Good morning, good people.” When he reached the edge of town he would say, “I have preached my sermon.” We can only wish that all sermons were that simple and that short.

Francis saw the goodness of people because he saw God in them and he knew God is good. Francis also knew that God is totally humble. Humble is not an image of God that usually springs to mind. “God is humble.” Let’s think about that. When I think about the words for God that we grew up with, ones that come to mind include almighty, all powerful,  Lord, King. Michael W. Smith’s popular and catchy Christian song has a refrain that goes,

Our God is an awesome God

He reigns from heaven above

With wisdom, power and love

our God is an awesome God.

That’s a God that we bow down to but is it a humble God? Francis spent his life finding God in the world around him, not in heaven above. He let the smallest creature, the smallest flower or weed or stone speak to him of God. The outcast, the drunk, the poverty stricken, the infirm…Francis saw the face of God in these humble people. And his model was, of course, Jesus, who did as well. Our Christian faith teaches us that God chose to be revealed in Jesus. As our Creed says, God “came in Jesus, Word made flesh”, not as a king but as a baby born to a poor, humble couple. Jesus lived his life in humility. Jesus didn’t take the side of the powerful or the “in crowd”. Consider story of the Good Samaritan that we heard this morning. Think about that story again, this time considering the Good Samaritan as an image of God, who does not pass us by, who binds up our wounds and pays for all our expenses. If Jesus is the face of God, then our God is a humble God.

We also grew up with a theology that because we were born sinners, we weren’t good enough for God so He sent His son Jesus to make amends on our behalf through a violent death. St. Francis and the Franciscan theology that grew out of his life, did not teach that. St. Francis recognized our original blessedness and believed that God came in Jesus to show us that God is totally good and totally humble. Richard Rohr, the teacher of the course that I took about Franciscan theology says that “Christ didn't come to change God's mind about us, but to change our minds about God.”

During the course we were asked to reflect on what is our real, operative, de facto image of God? And that got me thinking about the story that I wrote a dozen or so years ago, the one that I read last week. I thought about my God the Father figure, the one I didn’t measure up to, who saw me as hopeless, who had an enormous rule book and set up tests that I surely couldn’t figure out. With my God the Mother figure, I could be myself and I was liked for who I was. I could relax and play and trust my own inner voice. I realize now that those two versions of God weren’t as much about gender as about how I saw God generally. But which image of God is operating in my life now? I’m still a bit of a rule freak, find myself judging others too often when they don’t follow the rules, worry if I measure up, if I’m doing things right, still have a voice telling me I have to be productive to be worth anything. I think that image of God is still hanging around.  

Richard Rohr says that if we want to grow spiritually, "we must first deal with the often faulty, inadequate, and even toxic images of God that most people are dealing with .... Jesus as the image of the invisible God reveals a God quite different and much better than the Santa Claus god who is making a list, checking it twice, going to find out who's naughty or nice... We must be honest and admit that this is the god that most people are still praying to." 

Somebody is knocking at your door. Is that somebody calling you to explore your own images of God? Where is the mysterious image of God beckoning you to expand?

The poem that I taught the children this morning about the squirrel was written by St. Francis and I would like to end with another of his poems:

Such love does

the sky now pour,

that whenever I stand in a field,

I have to wring out the light

when I get

home.

May all our hearts open to such love.

Amen