Our weekly Peace Candle lighting includes acknowledgement of “those known as the Hopewell” among the Indigenous peoples who have “lived and labored, fought and loved” on this land. Yesterday brought a major global acknowledgement. UNESCO has declared Ohio’s Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, eight sites in all, a World Heritage site. The designation recognizes “places deemed of universal importance and value to humankind...
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We’ve just started the Narrative Lectionary and it’s pretty clear up front, despite the nine month span, that’s it’s just a skim through the Bible. This coming Sunday Isaac will be promised to Sarah and Abraham, after which we’ll see Isaac’s son Jacob wrestling with an angel, drop in on Moses at the burning bush, and catch the Ten Commandments at Sinai. Then we’re out of the Torah altogether with the Ruth story and the kings and prophets of Israel.
We’ll try to tie some things together in between but it’s a fast trip.
Skipping from Genesis 2 (Garden of Eden) to Genesis 18...
Last Sunday I announced that I would be leading a new group that will meet before worship to spend some time with the scriptures we will be using from the Narrative Lectionary during worship this coming year. I shared that my plan was to use lectio divina to guide our time together, but I was reminded by a few people afterward that this term might not be as familiar as I was assuming it would be.
You mean not everyone spends their days swimming in religious jargon?
Lectio divina is a Latin phrase that translates to “divine reading.” As a way of approaching...
The writer David Whyte says “Self-knowledge includes the understanding that the self we want to know is about to disappear.” – from his book Consolations, p. 200
This was part of a short essay the new CMC Transitions and Ritual group reflected on last evening as we met for the opening mini-retreat of a two-month process. Whyte’s point is that there is no stagnant self to know. We are, he suggests, “a frontier between what is known and what is not known.” As soon as we bring an unknown part of us into clearer knowing, something else forms within the unknown to reestablish...
Today is the first day of school for Columbus City Schools. Some other local districts are already in their second week.
Today also happens to be my dad’s birthday. Which has me thinking about how knowledge, culture, wisdom, responsibility, and love are passed from one generation to another.
Schooling is such a big part of this. We release our kids to teachers who have dedicated their professional lives to helping shape our children. In our nuclear family centered way of life, it’s a bit of a relief to have help from the village. Thank you teachers for all you do....