Fast from hostility; feast on non-resistance.
Dear All,
3rd Sunday in Lent already! I hope the good days, weather-wise, have given you more of a spring in your step. The catkins, hedge blossoms, (white thorn mainly round here, I think), the bird-song & all the other signs of spring definitely bring hope – together with Boris’s ‘road map out of COVID’. But meanwhile restrictions continue & will contribute to making the road-map work.
So too, Lent continues, & we hope the attachments will help us along that road too. It is a road of searching & a road along which we will meet many others & we will know that God is alongside us. So, as one of the reflections concludes, ‘Let us go gladly on our journey towards Easter, the journey towards death & resurrection. Let us journey in the peace & power of the Spirit’.
We will end off with ‘The Peace of Christ be with You’ from Heavenly Peace.
With our love & prayer
Take us on our journey
from where we are to what you want us to be;
so that we become a community
where all are welcomed and no one is excluded,
all are valued and no one is made to feel inadequate,
all are forgiven and no one is ashamed to belong,
all are encouraged and no one is too hurt to come among us.
Lead us on our journey
from who we are to who you want us to be;
so that patience is built into us,
kindness is assumed in us,
gentleness is part of us,
compassion flows from us,
truth is second nature to us,
and the commitment of love is part of us.
Let us go gladly on the journey towards Easter –
the journey towards death and resurrection.
Let us journey in the peace and power of the Spirit.
~ by Ruth Harvey
Searching
Not in the sky
the stars
Not in the fingers of frost
or a leaf
or a sunbeam
Not in all their beauty
and beauty it surely is
can I ever prove you, God.
In a friend’s smile
a child’s laugh
an old man’s tears
I get nearer
but never near enough.
Ah God,
can I ever know –
ever be sure?
I think not.
Prayers, ideas, words,
these help to draw you closer;
it isn’t with the unreal
that I talk in the darkness
and walk in the light.
I jumped – and landed
in your country
your way of seeing
of touching
a long time back;
and despite the mind’s questioning
I am still here
found
and yet still searching.
Ruth Burgess