April 2023

• Peach Blossoms
• Golden Poppies
• Succulents
• Roxy in Easter Egg Bandana she won from a twitter friend

• Triduum Act 1: Maundy Thursday in North Hollywood 06 April

• Triduum Act 2: Good Friday in North Hollywood. What a Night! 07 April

• Crucifixion by He Qi is a separate line item. He Qi Art website

• Triduum Act 3: Resurrection – font and flowers 09 April

• Statice and Golden Poppies. The world in spring bloom!

• Too funny! I was so intent on publishing this April rundown before midnight, and I knew I'd carefully included all the highlights… but I ended up spacing Earth Day! Here's a Monday morning edit and addition. I trust you'll always #InvestInOurPlanet.

• Very early April peach blossoms turned into very late April peaches

Five Minute Friday :: Break

• Five Minute Friday :: Break Linkup

I first wrote this on my City Paradise – Urban Wilderness blog; it will show up here after I update the IP address.

News break. Breaking day. Day break. Water main break. Lunch break. Break dancing. A break in the routine. Break a bone. Relationship breakup. Break bread. Don't break your promises. God doesn't! I want to write about all of those!

Our host Kate begged for a break in school shootings (others, too) that have become routine.

What's my focus this time?

For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 1 Corinthians 11:23-26

As Jesus breaks bread and blesses wine, he tells us "do this—in remembrance of me."

Bless and break bread, pour out wine? "Do this" blood of the new covenant announcement?

Re-membering means re-collecting pieces and putting them back together to restore a broken whole that weaves together past and present.

When the church obeys Jesus by breaking bread and pouring out wine in his memory, part of the liturgical action includes retelling the story of God's people from creation through redemption in order to make it part of our own history. This remembering becomes about all of us throughout the history of the cosmos. We recollect how God has led us, how even those hard days didn't last forever… we again trust God whose final answer always is resurrection from death that breaks lives, shatters dreams, looks as if it annuls promises.

Do we need bread and wine to remember Jesus? Well, throughout the records of Jesus' life we find Jesus feeding strangers and feasting with friends; Jesus tells us people will come to the banquet from the east and the west, the north and the south … and about giving his broken body for the life of the world. The Welcome Table, the Calvary Cross, and the Reign of Heaven are tightly bound together.

When Jesus breaks bread and blesses wine, he tells us to do what he does—"in remembrance." Do we need bread and wine to remember Jesus?

We are breakout people! Wherever we go we become a living and a life-giving memory of Jesus. In us, Jesus again becomes alive in the world and we become a living connection to the heaven of God's reign on earth. Will people recognize us as the body of Jesus Christ when we break open our lives and hearts, share our substance and pour out our lives? I hope so!

# # #

April 2022

• Liturgy and Lunch on Tuesday in Holy Week in Glendale. First time there since February 2020—more than two years! These stained glass windows on the front of the building always wow me.

• Maundy Thursday and Good Friday marked the first two acts of the three day Triduum. A Pink Full Moon on Saturday was the first full moon after the vernal equinox; let's also call it Easter Moon. I've never had a camera that can photograph the sky, so again this time I illustrated the moon. No Easter Vigil or Sunrise this year, but the concluding act three of the Triduum on Sunday morning was splendid.

• Earth Day 2022 – #InvestInOurPlanet – happened on Friday in Bright Week!

• On the second Sunday of Easter, April 24th, a neighbor's garden was part of the Native Plant Garden Tour sponsored by Theodore Payne nurseries. At least twice I've blogged pictures from visits to Theodore Payne and will try to find and tag them.

Maundy Thursday 2022 :: Triduum Act 1

Psalm 116

¹²What shall I render to the Lord
For all his benefits toward me?
¹³I will take the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the Lord.
¹⁷I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
And will call upon the name of the Lord.
¹⁸I will pay my vows unto the Lord
Now in the presence of all his people.
¹⁹In the courts of the Lord's house,
In the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

Observing April 2019

• April in southern California predictably brings warmer weather, longer days, hints of new life, and (very often) Holy Week and Easter Day. If you used to visit this blog on a regular basis, you may remember I used to write a lot of more or less formal, structured theology—on a regular basis. As I've been doing for the past couple of years, this end-of-month summary is a pictorial chronicle, yet isn't all creation, aren't all activities basically theological?



• First Moonflower of 2019



• Green Team / Farmer's Market / Pacific Ocean

• After Green Team met again in Glendale (sorry no pictures again this time because the formerly on-campus school's relocation means no more colorful bulletin board and other décor), friend J and I visited the Hermosa Beach Farmer's Market that gathers on Fridays.




• Pacific Ocean

• The literally pacific and placid west coastal Pacific Ocean offers an extreme contrast to the east coastal Atlantic Ocean, but either one is best of the best for a short stroll or a long saunter on the sand!



• Union Station

• Though A and I met up there for a formal transaction, the opportunity to chill around Union Station is a major perq of Current City that's a port of call, a port of entry, a cultural crossroads. What's better than a train to illustrate our (yours, mine, almost everyone's) open-ended futures? Well... there's always LAX along with at least a dozen other international and general aviation airports, then we have the seaports of Los Angeles and Long Beach—yes, but trains carry a mystique no other transportation mode can match.




• Earth Day in Watts

• One month before Earth Day – 22 March – World Water Day reminded us Water Is Life. This year the day after Easter Sunday marked the 49^th celebration of all that's good, all that needs healing about Gaia. I ventured over to the LA neighborhood of Watts for an Earth Day event sponsored by the Sierra Club.



• Lent 6

• Originally we canceled Sunday School for Palm / Passion Sunday because of anticipated extra activity on campus, but I decided to meet anyway because I knew I'd enjoy reviewing and assembling liturgical and theological observations about Palm/Passion Sunday through the Three Day Triduum that accompany my quadrivium of related graphics.

• Maundy Thursday – Good Friday



• Holy Saturday – Easter Vigil / Sunrise / Morning / Evening



• Easter Flower Actuals



• Earth Day Monday in Town

Porch Stories :: April 2018

• For the last Wednesday of April 2018, Porch Stories host Kristin Taylor's bloggable events include her spouse starting a new decade! Happy Birthday, Greg!

• My summary blog for March 2018 concluded with the last day of Lent—Wednesday in Holy Week; this April overview Porch Story opens with the first part of the Three Day – "Triduum" – liturgy that encompasses Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter (vigil, sunrise, morning). How I would love you to join me on my urban balcony, country veranda, suburban porch, inner city back stoop, sandwich shop around the corner – life is about story and I want to hear yours, I need to start telling mine – please let me know when you're in town! Virtual is the best we can do at the moment, so I've illustrated some April places and spaces.

April 2018 :: Triduum through Earth Day

• Maundy Thursday we worshiped with one of our nearby ecumenical partners; prior to worship, we enjoyed a repast with savory sandwiches and salad (I often admit I easily could OD on salad), sweet hot cross buns.



• In imitation of Jesus' washing the feet of his friends, just as the PCUSA and one of the ELCA churches I attended in Previous City did, some congregations practice the ordinance of foot washing as part of the Maundy Thursday liturgy. The Passover liturgy historically includes two occurrences of hand-washing; most likely Jesus washed his disciples' feet during the second one that includes a blessing. For my third Maundy Thursday in Current City, we had our hands washed; what perfect preparation for continuing to serve year-round as God's Work, Our Hands...?



• Due to chaos, disarray, and one of my roommates preparing to move out Saturday evening (little did I know I'd receive news of my new dwelling place less than 24 hours later, on Easter Sunday afternoon), I didn't even imagine attending Easter Vigil, though Holy Saturday morning I enjoyed spring cleaning at church to help prepare for the newness of a resurrected creation.



• Easter on April 1^st – April Fools?! No, not fooling at all! God's laughter behind the empty grave is for real!






• With our long anticipated and carefully planned World Water Event for 2018 over, Green Faith Team met on Friday of Bright Week, mostly to consider our contribution to the judicatory's upcoming annual assembly. I designed this year's logo and will be designing some of the related graphics! Yay, me! It finally occurred to me the school may no longer have an art teacher, which may account for no more student art in the windows of the building shared by church, school, and synod offices. Of course, I always could ask, but haven't yet. April's pictorial Glendale features colorful backpacks and Easter lilies.



• Saturday afternoon 14 April? LA Metro Conference Assembly, We Are Better Together! I didn't design the flyer, but it's a good one!




• Sunday 15 April – Moving House! – Pictures later!

• Sunday 22 April – Earth Day 48 – #EndPlasticPollution



• Maybe you've noticed I design for Earth Day every year? The previous Sunday I'd asked everyone in my adult forum / SS class to bring an earth-related idea, dream, incident, or experience. For my contribution, I arranged a separate edition smaller (than my bigger) notebook portfolio with only Earth Day and Season of Creation-related design and briefly explained each piece in a show and tell presentation. You can follow this link to see versions of most of them: Earth Day Art and Design.