Five Minute Friday :: Benefits

• Five Minute Friday :: Benefit Linkup

I've been in contexts where asking people if they receive benefits or bennies (not the drug) is common. Bene, benefits are about goodness, wellness, getting the good stuff and benefiting from it. Doing well by getting the goods.

Like EBT-Food Stamps, some unearned benefits are an essential, life-giving grace.

The Godspell version of Psalm 103 pretty much comes from hymn 293 in the Episcopal Church's Hymnal 1940 and celebrates a long list of benefits God gives us:

Oh bless the Lord my soul
His grace to thee proclaimed
And all that is within me join
To bless his holy name

Oh bless the Lord my soul
God's mercies bear in mind
Forget not all his benefits
The Lord to thee is kind

Oh bless the lord my soul!
He pardons all thy sins
Prolongs thy feeble breath
He heals thine infirmities
And ransoms thee from death

God clothes thee with his love
Upholds thee with his truth
And like an eagle he renews
The vigor of thy youth

And bless God's holy name
Whose grace hath made thee whole
Whose love and kindness crowns
Thy days

Oh bless the lord
Bless the lord, bless the lord
My soul!

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Five Minute Friday :: Sustain

• Five Minute Friday :: Sustain Linkup

What has sustained me all these bleak years?

Getting out of bed a half hour before first light and watching another new day gracefully make its way onto the world. Trying to relocate myself in better illuminated settings from my past. Can I replicate some form of those here and now? Admitting I've still been hitting a few balls out of the park over these many seasons. Despite everything.

Re-membering: bringing back together; again forming a whole from scattered parts. Dreaming. Can the future be an updated version of those parts when they still were whole, before they cracked and scattered?

This is earthquake country. Before I visited the new David Geffen Galleries at LACMA last Tuesday, I read about the project. Probably related to moment skyscraper and high rise construction that bends in an earthquake or a storm so it doesn't crack and break, the entire new museum wing can bend and extend five feet.

I may have mentioned a friend's comment that a mutual acquaintance is "very establishment," without adding a negative or a positive interpretation. They simply are. I'm still "very Y2K." That means I've experienced 911, the Great Recession that my economics degree insists qualified as another Great Depression, the Covid pandemic, the January 6 insurrection, and a long series of shipwrecks and disappointments in my own life. Along with the rest of my population cohort, I've survived global and individual assaults, so a return of anything Y2K-ish will present itself differently from the original.

Have I learned to bend in the storms and earthquakes? Yes. More by necessity than by intention. Have I cracked and broken? Or have I bent?

At my church in Previous City, during the offerings of bread, wine, and tithes, as they set the Eucharistic Table we'd sing from Psalm 116:

What shall I render to the Lord
for all his benefits to me?
I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and will call on the name of the Lord.
I will take the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows to the Lord
now in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of the Lord's house,
in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

God invites everyone to the feast! "Jesus Christ, the bread of life; Jesus Christ, the cup of salvation!"

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Five Minute Friday :: Longing

dreams from Summer 2000

The days and the summer nights
Berries from the brambles and the vines
Yearning for a future still not yet
Recalling how to dream…

• Five Minute Friday :: Longing Linkup and major congrats to Kate on another book!


From about a year ago, here's one place I wrote about:

• Home is Always the Place You Just Left: A Memoir of Restless Longing and Persistent Grace

Home, yearning, longing, belonging form a familiar and familial group. What can I say about longing today?

A person feels longing in their gut, in their heart, throughout their body. It's visceral. It's organic. It's powerful and it's often noticeable to outsiders.

As I explained:

Home is a spacious place. Space to breathe, to reach out, to grow, and to dream. A location and a people who take away my lostness, who help deliver me, because they delight in me.

My scripture reference was, "God brought me out into a spacious place; God delivered me because God delighted in me." Psalm 18:19

Finally I wondered,

Can home be in a place of blight, broken glass, fragile dreams, when there were any dreams at all? What name would we give that place? Is that the kind of situation we need to be rescued from? God would rescue us from?

Longing for Home is a buzz phrase—if ever there was one. Other longings and yearnings include hankering after lost connections with people, objects, experiences, and broader, larger places. Yet those individuals, those experiences and artifacts, that wider broader city or countryside all are components of home.

Longing is for something or someone you've had in the past but that's missing now. You can't long for what you haven't known or experienced. Or can you?

Longing and yearning can be visceral. Sometimes they're vascular. What happens if the longing ends because the object of our yearning has arrived? It's in the house!

As the phrase goes, "I'm so old" I remember everything about Tuesday 11 September 2001, a.k.a. 911. Even before then, I remember the hope many of us felt with the arrival of a new century called Y2K. My header collage illustrates the summer of 2000. I still love Y2K fashion. I remember the excitement of my first internet endeavor—an urban space in the old MSN groups. You can look back. I can reminisce. But yesterday's gone.

I remind myself, "Pray – remember – dream." Pray about now. Remember then. Dream about the future God is preparing to bring your longings home.

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Five Minute Friday :: Turkey

Your wonders awe those who live
at earth's farthest bounds; you
make the gateways of the morning
and the evening shout for joy!
Psalm 65:8
• Five Minute Friday :: Turkey Linkup at Andrew's Place

Writing on Friday

Andrew's hosting FMF auspiciously has led to an epicurean – or is that an edible? – trio of coffee, chocolate, and now turkey. Turkey because the prompt went live on Thanksgiving evening, or for another reason? I'll take the reason that I love to write about food; I love gifts of food; I love to enjoy food. Food is my love language.

Like my late uncle, I'm [almost] everyone's BFF. I don't think it's genetic, but I believe some people are wired that way. That introduces my saying yesterday I again ventured out to the Santa Monica Church where I had Thanksgiving dinner last year and in 2021. For 2025 I went with a couple of housemates from the hostel where I'm staying and managing; a third joined us at the venue. Although it's an annual community dinner, it's on the small side. Best guess is we had 50 guests, which borders on intimacy for this kind of gathering.

Isn't sharing a meal or a snack a leveling experience? I leveled with the people I've been living with, those Santa Monica church peeps I already was acquainted with, neighborhood people who were first timers at that church and first timers with me. We had food for the table. We made room at the table. When there's room at the table we can call each other friends. All those people I leveled with now are [at least my] BFF.

When food and friends come together, that's a love feast. Food is my love language. And yesterday included turkey.

Do you have a turkey commentary or any comments about turkey?

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Five Minute Friday :: Capacity

O Lord, I love the house
in which you dwell,
and the place where your glory
abides! Psalm 26:8

• Five Minute Friday :: Capacity Linkup

David wanted to build a house for God, but God replied he always had "moved around in the tent of meeting" and never ever had asked anyone for a cedar house.

It wasn't a brand new theological concern, but the famous meeting of Reformers Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli at Marburg centered on the Lord's Supper as they debated whether the finite (bread, fruit of the vine) had the capacity to contain the infinite. They had that debate even though Jesus had announced, "this is my body!" And even though God's incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth already answered that question! To paraphrase the Heidelberg Catechism, we move from Nativity with the mystery of Spirit in flesh to Ascension, with the mystery of flesh in Spirit.

God eventually got that house of cedar and stone, yet neither the first nor the second Jerusalem Temple had the capacity to contain God. Its mini-model of the universe was a pathetic attempt to mimic the reality of the Creator God whose place of being and acting always had been the entire panorama of creation… but "contain" the free and elusive God?!

Finally, on the fiftieth day of Easter, the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of Life filled the world. Every crack and corner and crevice. Every person.

O Lord, I love the house
in which you dwell,
and the place where your glory
abides! Psalm 26:8

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, which you have received from God? Now you belong to God. You are not your own.
1 Corinthians 6:9

God had moved around, peregrinated, free ranged in the tabernacle. Now we are the house in which Divinity dwells, the place where God's glory abides. God moves around everywhere in the people of God called "Christian." The Christ of God always is incarnate, enfleshed, embodied. And now in us!

What does that say about the capacity of the human heart? The mercy of each life? The welcome we offer strangers and outcasts, the sojourner and the lonely? We are the house where God lives. God's glory fills us. What does that say about God's claim and call on us as individuals? As community?

O enter, Lord, Thy temple,
Be Thou my spirit's Guest,
Who gavest me, the earth-born,
A second birth more blest!
Thou in the Godhead, Lord,
Though here to dwell Thou deignest,
Forever equal reignest,
Art equally adored.

So you can sing all thirteen stanzas just as Paul Gerhardt wrote them (1653) and Catherine Winkworth translated them (1863):

• O Enter, Lord, Thy Temple

Tune: Zeuch ein zu deinen Toren, Johann Crüger, 1653
German text: Paul Gerhardt, 1653
Translation: Catherine Winkworth, 1863, alt.

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Five Minute Friday :: Real

Trust in God at all times, O people
Pour out your heart before God
God is a refuge for us
Selah
Psalm 62:8
• Five Minute Friday :: Real Linkup

• The real and the ideal.

• Real or fake?

• Reality or fantasy?

Our host Kate told us she hesitated last week before writing her post because it was a sensitive topic that easily could have been a trigger.

This week she asked but why not be real, with the example of women – and others – usually replying "I'm fine" "doing okay, thanks" and similar when someone asks about your well-being. We don't want to burden anyone, but why not say, "I'm going through a terrible time, please remember me in your prayers." Why not??

We often compare our troubles and challenges with what we've observed of others, with some we've only read about. We even compare our here and now with what we've been through in the past, and because we've come this far by faith, why complain? Why complain, but better yet, why not be real and honest?

Why not be real and honest because the psalmists were real. Moses was real. The prophets were real. Jesus' disciples were real. Jesus of Nazareth was as real as they come—and he really was God!

All of them approached the throne of grace with complaints, outrage, laments, accusations, grief, pleading, pleas, and "please." Do we not trust God enough, do we not trust the Spirit that indwells God's people enough? Why do we edit and sanitize our communications? Why don't we dare be real?

In a previous life I worked in an affluent community where too many seemed to try their best to appear other than what they really(!) were, to chase expensive designer fashion and home decorating trends, to drive high end vehicles, to send their kids to elite schools and summer camps, etc.There was a tremendous concentration of wealth in that part of town; you might say those blessed with generational wealth "came by it honestly" while for many others it never was really real but they tried for a particular appearance that could fake someone out if that other someone didn't know.

One of the proudest moments of my life happened when a casual friend from that place said to me, "You were so real when you interviewed. I was astonished you got the job!" What a compliment!

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911 Twenty Four Years

Yet my soul,
keep thou silence unto God:
for mine hope is in God.
Psalm 62:5

This is my reflection from two years ago with a few minor revisions.

The saga of un-creation in Jeremiah 4 feels like the reality of World Trade Center Ground Zero.

Jeremiah 4

¹¹ At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow or cleanse, ¹² a wind too strong for that. Now it is I who speak in judgment against them.

²² "For my people are foolish; they do not know me; they are stupid children; they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil but do not know how to do good."

²³ I looked on the earth, and it was complete chaos, and to the heavens, and they had no light.
²⁴ I looked on the mountains, and they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.
²⁵ I looked, and there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.
²⁶ I looked, and the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.

²⁷ For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation, yet I will not make a full end. ²⁸ Because of this the earth shall mourn and the heavens above grow black, for I have spoken; I have purposed; I have not relented, nor will I turn back.

Twenty-Four Years

9/11/2001 + 24 = 2025

Where has the grief gone? Where have the memorial services gone? At least a few people on social media still ask where we were when we heard the news, although it's mostly for those of us who are so old we were chronologically mature adults in September 2001. We're still ready to revisit our experience, to retell the horror.

Monday evening 9/10/2001 I'd gotten back late from a seminar for the year-long Community Economic Development Certificate (mini-MBA in entrepreneurship) I'd just started at San Diego State. Tireder than usual, I'd gotten up an hour later than usual. By the time I turned on the morning news it had gone live. I watched the second plane hit the second tower.

And I can't ever forget the hope of two and a half days later.

Thursday evening September 13, 2001, my Presbyterian Church (USA), the large Evangelical Lutheran Church in America across the street and the smaller ELCA around the corner, a nearby Roman Catholic, that big United Methodist, and the United Church of Christ that bordered this neighborhood and the adjacent one gathered at the ELCA across the street and celebrated Eucharist. In the wake of unprecedented destruction on USA soil we offered thanksgiving! A glance into all creation healed and whole. A moment in the future God dreams of and calls us to help create.

Where were you? What words or communities or actions or realities sustained your hope? Still hold you in hope?


• Pentecost 14 Lectionary blog for Sunday, September 11, 2022 with more about God's presence, more on Jeremiah, and another retelling of when I saw the news. This coming Sunday September 14th will feature the same scriptures. As I mentioned about the counsel to preach the text and not the day, the appointed scripture often feels custom picked for the day in history or in our own local family, individual, ecclesiastical, or political lives.

Five Minute Friday :: Pursue

As the mountains surround Jerusalem
so the Lord surrounds his people
from this time on and forevermore.
Psalm 125:2

• Five Minute Friday :: Pursue Linkup

Whether it's family, career, comfort, or a longed for yet unknown future, we humans all have our pursuits; at times it feels as if pursuing that goal or dream vacation consumes us. But a full and healthy life mostly is about being with the God who pursues us. The God who chooses us as temples, as a dwelling place, as a place to be at home. And what is homecoming? What is home?

When you love someone you want to be with them. You want to converse with them. You want them to be there for you; you want to be there for them and with them forever. God pursues us now and to the end in order to be with us; so we will be there with God.

In baptism we receive the gift of God's Holy Spirit so that everywhere we go, God is with us, and we will be the presence of Jesus Christ—the presence of God. In 1 Corinthians 3:16 the Apostle Paul reminds us, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" Later in 1 Corinthians 6:19 he tells us, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?" That's the essence God's presence now assumes: embodied in a human person, in each of us, just as God became embodied, enfleshed, incarnate in Jesus Christ.

What a gift and what a challenge for God to pursue us and trust us during these turbulent times!

In Alfred Fedak's anthem A Song of Paul, John Bell paraphrases 1 Corinthians 13:10 ("when the perfect comes, the incomplete will disappear") "Love expects tomorrow." In Jesus' death and resurrection, God gifts us with all the tomorrows we can imagine. We live in the here and now and in the not yet, but as God keeps pursuing us, our lives will be complete. Endlessly. Forever. Eternally. God at home with us. Our homecoming with God.

The psalmist sings:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
Psalm 90:1-2
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Los Angeles 2025

I started this as a response to a social media post as Los Angeles wildfires 2025 destroyed many neighborhoods and put lives on hold. I wanted to expand on my reply because just as I did, the original poster had relocated to the city of LA from somewhere else.

LA has become my home, too.

Despite almost 10 years of unsettled housing, despite opportunities that haven't happened (yet) Los Angeles is the first ever time for me that home is here and not the last place I just left.

Maybe you create a social media ID that includes your place. "Leah in LA" or "suntreeriver design Los Angeles." Like Benedictines and others who aways name their community after their city or town of residence, we can do that, too. Do you attend Lazy River Presbyterian Church? Hillside CIty Lutheran? Streetside Methodist? The building or the campus and the people who gather there then have their place in a double sense: a location defined by longitude and latitude and where you almost instinctively know your place (role, function, job).

The USA and many other countries have been impacted with frightening political, social, and economic uncertainties. Unprecedented wildfires winds recently leveled Los Angeles area neighborhoods.

In the wake of destructive fires back in my previous place of San Diego, one Sunday morning our parish associate reminded us God does not have a preferential option for a particular dwelling, neighborhood, or structure over any other. Then why did we again see one or two untouched houses or businesses beside others that were total losses? God doesn't prefer certain houses or places over others, but God does have a preferential option for those whose homes and lives have been destroyed or upended, those whose expectations have been shattered or sometimes simply not met to the degree they imagined.

As Pastor Gordon said long ago, "We're not snake-bite proof. We're rescued after being bitten."

Peruvian Dominican priest Gustavo Gutiérrez first used the phrase "preferential option for the poor."

Early on this blog in Longing for Home, I wrote about home is always the place you just left: a memoir of restless longing and persistent grace by Betty Smart Carter.

Homecoming has been one of my relentless longings and after all this time it feels impossible. Impossible? But Possibility is my star word for 2025! Late last year, I longed for home in a Five Minute Friday as I dared say what home could be:

…people who quote Philip Philips' song Home, "Just know you're not alone; I'm gonna make this place your home."

Deep in our hearts and with our entire beings, we long for the hugs and the smiles. The shared meals. Affirmations of our dreams, our calling, our gifts and preparation. Encouragement for our longing to use our talents and abilities. We long for and we need somewhere and someone to come home to at the end of the day, whether the day has been disappointingly short or agonizingly long.

Home is a spacious place. Space to breathe, to reach out, to grow, and to dream. A location and a people who take away my lostness, who help deliver me, because they delight in me.

My scripture reference was, God brought me out into a spacious place; God delivered me because God delighted in me." Psalm 18:19

Can home be in a place of blight, broken glass, fragile dreams, when there were any dreams at all? What name would we give that place? Is that the kind of situation we need to be rescued from? God would rescue us from?

Five Minute Friday :: Long

Being lost is worth the coming home.

Other times I've blogged about home include:

• Almost three years ago I said a lot of what I still need to say today

• Nine years ago an October Freewrite about home with quotes from songs about home


• Five Minute Friday :: Long Linkup

• God brought me out into a spacious place; God delivered me because God delighted in me. Psalm 18:19

It's been a long time and a long distance. Because I can't stop longing for home. Glancing back, I knew I'd come out in a broad place before long. Did I estimate the length of long? Not out loud, but if you'd asked me, I'd have suggested three or four years.

Three or four years earlier, at the invitation of a long time close friend, I'd made my way from the intermountain west to the east coast. After our phone conversations, I believed I'd be starting life over near her. Well, that didn't work out for even a few minutes, but I wistfully remember the feeling of heading for home I had as I drove across prairies and cities and hilly places.

The home we long for can mean returning to a previous town, city, or dwelling, or journeying toward somewhere for the first time ever. Will I know if I'm there? It feels to me that home must include a physical house or apartment, a roof overhead. But isn't homecoming what we really and truly long for? I mean, people who quote Phillip Phillips' song Home, "Just know you're not alone; I'm gonna make this place your home."

Deep in our hearts, we long for the hugs and the smiles. The shared meals. Affirmations of our dreams, our calling, our gifts and preparation. Encouragement for our longing to use our talents and abilities. We long for and we need somewhere and someone to come home to at the end of the day, whether the day has been disappointingly short or agonizingly long.

Home is a spacious place. Space to breathe, to reach out, to grow, and to dream. A location and a people who take away my lostness, who help deliver me, because they delight in me. # # #

Five Minute Friday :: Flee

Whither shall I go from thy spirit?
or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
Psalm 139:7
• Five Minute Friday :: Flee Linkup

Psalm 139:7-10

⁷ Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
⁸ If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
⁹ If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
¹⁰ Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

Almost every translation of verse 7b says "flee!" That sounds fast—probably desperate and frightened. We claim to know God best in the loving, compassionate Savior Jesus Christ. After all, he lived a human life like ours (though in a very different place and time), so he "gets" pressure, temptation, disappointment, anger, sorrow, and joy. But even so, don't we often look askance on our own shortcomings and try to hide from God as well as from other humans?

This week I've been studying the book of Hebrews in preparation for my weekly scripture reflection. The assigned passage is a study in law and gospel.

Hebrews 4:12-16

¹² Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ¹³ And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.

¹⁴ Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. ¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested [or tempted] as we are, yet without sin.

¹⁶ Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Exodus 25 instructs, "you shall make a cover of pure gold; two cubits and a half shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width." (verse 17) and continues, "there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat... verse 22

Scholars who know Hebrew explain the root of kapporet that Martin Luther translated as Gnadenstuhl or "mercy seat" is a place of covering that logically would extend from the physical gold covering of the ark to covering for sin, made especially clear as every year they sprinkled blood on it.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say Luther perceived Jesus Christ in [almost] every passage in the Hebrew Bible. For Luther the Gnadenstuhl, the definitive mercy seat, the place of grace, was the cross of Jesus Christ.

After explaining that Jesus as high priest, as mediator between heaven and earth in his resurrection and ascension, knows us and sympathizes – resonates! – with us, Hebrews 4:16 advises us to "approach the throne of grace with boldness in order to receive mercy."

Do we still want to flee from God?
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Five Minute Friday :: Youth

God satisfies you with good as long as you live
and renews your youth like the eagle's. Psalm 103:5
• Five Minute Friday :: Youth Linkup

Psalm 103:1-5

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God's holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all God's benefits—
God forgives all your iniquity, heals all your diseases,
God redeems your life from Sheol, and crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
God satisfies you with good as long as you live and renews your youth like the eagle's.

It feels as if we never stop hearing this is a youth-oriented society (whatever that means). What is it about youth that people sometimes envy and aspire to recapture? An individual doesn't need to achieve much chronology to realize how clueless they themselves were only a few years ago. Even if someone had a sharp, inquisitive mind, why would anyone want to go back to a state of relative lack of information and paucity of wisdom? After all, a few years and a variety of experiences almost always makes a person wiser.

Besides, anyone who's taught middle school or high school, has had teenaged offspring, has ministered to church youth groups (maybe all three of those categories apply to you?!), can describe many many aspects of those years that are anything but enviable.

Although there are plenty of good looking older people, in general relatively younger does seem to equal relatively more attractive, and that's a plus. In addition, aches, pains, and creaky joints often are part of the aging process; just about everyone would like those to depart.

Psalm 103 announces God renews our "youth like the eagle's." What does that mean? Is it about God restoring the intellectual, physical, and social attributes [often extremely polite and considerate, sometimes anything but] of young people? Although I haven't researched what the tradition says, I'll suggest – and even claim – it's about receiving God's benefits the psalm lists: forgiveness; healings; redemption; love, mercy, and goodness. Wouldn't you like to order from that menu?

Psalm 103 begins with "Bless the Lord." What does it mean to bless God? How about letting God crown you with all those good gifts? God would glory to receive that gift from us!

Textual note: surprisingly, steadfast love in verse 4 isn't the familiar chesed; it's plain old everyday garden-variety "love."

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Season of Creation 4 :: Mountain

Season of Creation 4 :: Mountain

God's holy mountain
is the joy of all the earth.
Psalm 48:1-2
Intro

For about a decade I designed for the liturgical Season of Creation emphasis every year. Between "life stuff" and a general move away from the three year series related to the Revised Common Lectionary, I didn't design anything new for the past couple of years. However, many pastors and churches still prefer the year A – Spirit; Year B – Word; Year C – Wisdom series. They make much more creative and interpretive sense than trying to dig out connections from the appointed RCL readings.

Not only due to Covid that exacerbated everything that wasn't going well for everyone, my days have been too unsettled for reasonably good overall health, yet I still was smart enough to remember no one does anything truly original because everything is inspired and derivative. Over the decades I've recycled, reworked, re-appropriated, and redone a lot of my own art and writing. Besides, given that some of my Season of Creation designs have been some of my forty or fifty favorites, why not do another Act II? I've based this year's banners on Year B from 2018.

Fonts used:

• Big Truck – Sunday name
• Betsystype – scripture verse
• Keener – season of creation calendar year
• Chelsea Studio – series name

Season of Creation 3 :: Sky

Season of Creation 3 :: Sky

The heavens declare
the glory of God
and the firmament
sheweth God's handiwork.
Psalm 19:1
Intro

For about a decade I designed for the liturgical Season of Creation emphasis every year. Between "life stuff" and a general move away from the three year series related to the Revised Common Lectionary, I didn't design anything new for the past couple of years. However, many pastors and churches still prefer the year A – Spirit; Year B – Word; Year C – Wisdom series. They make much more creative and interpretive sense than trying to dig out connections from the appointed RCL readings.

Not only due to Covid that exacerbated everything that wasn't going well for everyone, my days have been too unsettled for reasonably good overall health, yet I still was smart enough to remember no one does anything truly original because everything is inspired and derivative. Over the decades I've recycled, reworked, re-appropriated, and redone a lot of my own art and writing. Besides, given that some of my Season of Creation designs have been some of my forty or fifty favorites, why not do another Act II? I've based this year's banners on Year B from 2018.

Fonts used:

• Big Truck – Sunday name
• Betsystype – scripture verse
• Keener – season of creation calendar year
• Chelsea Studio – series name