Winter & February 2023

• Peach Blossoms header! Last spring I blogged peaches from the same trees. I love how well a Photoshop dry brush filter captured the seasonal mood.

• December 2022 Highlights

• January 2023 Highlights

• Urban Wilderness / City Paradise for February

• Free tickets for the Saturday February 4th Celebration of Life for Los Angeles' Lion King P-22 "sold out" almost instantly, so I watched online. As always, the energy of the live event would have been wonderful, but participating virtually gave me far better visuals. Sound may have been superior, as well.

from KTLA:

In tribal communities, mountain lions are regarded as relatives and teachers. Alan Salazar, a tribal member of the Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians and a descendent of the Chumash tribe said his death should be honored appropriately.

"We want to bury him like he's a 'wot,' like a 'tomier,'" Salazar said, "which are two of the words for chief or leader in the Chumash and Tataviam languages, respectively. "Because that’s what he was."

Los Angeles and Mumbai are the world's only major cities where large cats live—mountain lions in one, leopards in the other.

• The Full Snow Moon on Sunday February 5th was a micromoon. February's full moon sometimes is called Storm Moon or Hunger Moon.

• A surprise Strawberry Whipped Cream Cake on Monday February 6th!

• Here's one of my all time fave illustrations for Valentine's Day that was on its traditional February 14th. Tuesday this year.

• As always, Ash Wednesday was a moveable observation because the date of Easter depends on the spring equinox and the full moon. This year it was on February 22nd.

• This month's yellow California picture is a fresh lemon duet.

Five Minute Friday :: Assume

• Five Minute Friday :: Assume Linkup

Such a good prompt! This week I'll begin on almost the same page as our FMF host Kate.

We automatically assume countless things about other people. We make uninformed assumptions about strangers. We assume a lot about people we otherwise know fairly well, interact with regularly, and sometimes share long histories. We assume about ourselves: our abilities; our futures; what other people think about us or maybe are saying about us. Because something happened a certain way in the past, that's the way it always will be? No, not really. We study history and sometimes delve into our own life stories in order to see predictable patterns and also to learn about the power of change and the surprise of resurrection from the dead.

Since I first heard it, I've loved the reminder "everyone you meet is fighting an often invisible battle." Be kind. And don't assume anything about their background, intentions, abilities, or all those whatevers.

Besides assuming (literally taking upon ourselves) "stuff" about others and about ourselves, we assume a lot about God. Even people who've studied scripture and have solid backgrounds in theology often assume the God of the bible, God of history, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God of Jesus the Christ is like all those other gods. Those other gods are distant and far away. They sometimes get belligerent and punish. They require beseeching, sacrifices, groveling, and other perverse actions if they'll ever decide to act in creation's favor. In short, they've been invented by humans who assume a god would be similar to the typical human.

It's so very providential scripture and Jesus Christ … put aside? No, scripture and Jesus of Nazareth shatter human assumptions to reveal God close at hand and nearby. A God who becomes angry because of God's merciful love. God who requires obedience that favors community and creation, God who longs for conversation that communicates and assumes loving, life-giving response. A God not invented by human assumptions, but God who creates humanity in the image of God of justice, mercy, love, and compassion.

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Many

Even as the body is one and yet has many members,
and all the members of the body,
though they are many,
are one body, so also is Christ.
1 Corinthians 12:12

• Five Minute Friday :: Many Linkup

¹² For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. ¹³ For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. … ²⁰ But now there are many members, but one body. 1 Corinthians 12

²⁶ for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. ²⁷ As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3

I've thought a lot – had many thoughts – about the role, calling, function, and interrelatedness of each individual member of the body of Christ related to the whole. I've pondered each one's own sense of purpose and call that admittedly changes, expands, and at times even contracts for a while. Related to the whole means the local called-out, gathered-in assembly as well as the global church with its many many traditions, styles, denominations, disagreements, and convergences.

In scripture, the Pauline and especially the deutero-Pauline movement is not from a solitary, isolated atomized individual into an undifferentiated [blob?!] Body of Christ; it's from solitary, disconnected individuality to uniqueness and particularity within the local church, the wider council or judicatory, the global Church.

As individuals who interrelate as the one body in the Spirit with many discrete members, each of us assumes and ministers in one of many positions appropriate to our gifts and experience. It's a lively and life-giving process that often happens with some planning, that many times occurs organically without planning.

Whatever we wear, wherever we reside, whatever our age or education, whatever our culinary and entertainment preferences, we respond to God's grace-filled call and invitation as we bring practical, spiritual, intellectual, creative, and many other gifts.

What are some of your many gifts? How have you participated in the past? What are your dreams for your future, for the church's future?

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Access

• Five Minute friday :: Access Linkup

How do you access it? With a key? Is there an access code with letters and/or numbers? What do you mean by "access?" Unlock? Go inside? Learn the secret? Is this access one-sided or reciprocal? So many questions. Speaking of codes and accessing, the proper code helps you access and engage apps, pages, and related.

And then… there's the debate about accessible places, opportunities, and "other," mostly related to public spaces, employment, and the digital world.

Sound bytes from the Youngbloods' classic hippie anthem "Get Together" have been getting airplay. The song's from an idealistic era of love don't hate, include don't exclude, accept don't reject, but isn't that idealism lived out exactly what we need in this fragmented world where hatred, exclusion, rejection, and refusal to listen and try to understand threaten to send civil society and the proclamation of the gospel into oblivion?

Love is the currency of the gospeled community:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35

"Get Together" reminds us we have the key, the access code that unlocks both fear (how many times does scripture counsel us do not fear?) and love.

Love is but a song we sing
Fear's the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand, listen
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command

Come on, people now
Smile on each other
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Songwriters: Chet Powers
Get Together lyrics © Ivan Mogull Music Corp., Irving Music Inc.

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Ignore

There's something you can do about it.
Meet somebody halfway.
To communicate is the beginning of understanding.
• Five Minute Friday :: Ignore Linkup

Ignore reminded me of a group of old AT&T ads I've previously mentioned in blogs and also illustrated. My header design is one of my interpretations, recolored because I wanted the words to be gentle, easy, and inviting.

It's easy to ignore… someone who annoys you. A person who has wronged you. A project you need to finish as soon as possible (super relevant to me as a freelancer). To ignore that friend you need to forgive or maybe ask for forgiveness.

Though it happens everywhere, here in Los Angeles as twenty-first century urban cliff dwellers it has become more than the line of least resistance for us to ignore people around us. With the realistic fear the recent cascade of public violence has caused, with stay 2 meters-6 feet apart remaining wise counsel because #CovidIsAirborne and #CovidIsNotOver despite no longer qualifying as a pandemic, ignoring our neighbors to the extent of literal no-contact-zero communication may protect me, my family, and my interests.

But what happens if you don't ignore? What happens if you reach out, connect, make a new friend, reconcile with an old friend? (What happens if you settle down and finish that project so you can get paid?)

Here's a partial list from the AT&T ads:

• At least talk to each other!
• Divisions evolve from the barriers we construct
• Out of a sense of self, a sense of the other
• Reach out for someone

I can't know myself other than as I relate to another. I cannot ignore you. Side by side or face to face, I need to meet you. When you are not there I have no mirror. I have no choice but to be attentive, because God formed me for community, has called me into communities of humans, of creation and of the church. God charges me to live as other to my other. Ignorant is the adjective that comes from the verb ignore. "Out of a sense of self, a sense of the other."

Pastor James Howell, whose blog I follow to help prepare for my weekly scripture reflection recently observed about Joseph's reunion with his family:

I cannot imagine why a preacher would forego the Old Testament lection for this Sunday – ever, but especially now, given the severe splintering we're experiencing in society, and in the church. Genesis 45 is the theological high water mark of the Old Testament, and is a peer of even the best the New Testament has to offer. Reconciliation should be the fixed point in all our thinking, imagination, labor, and prayers.

Reconciliation should be the fixed point in all our thinking, imagination, labor, and prayers. Please don't be ignorant! Please don't ignore me!

Sermon for 29 January

Intro:

These days I preach from notes, so typically I can't easily fill in the spaces and blog. Besides, a homily really is for a specific day and place, for "those people" in the best sense of the word. However, for 29 January I typed out a lot before making notes (church pastor requests guest preachers to send her some content beforehand—a good idea in many ways), and from the compliments plus my own perception I believe it went well, so here you go. Not surprisingly, the real life sermon was a few minutes longer than it blogs. Scripture was Matthew 6:7-14. During the autumn through spring academic year they follow the Narrative Lectionary that emphasizes the larger story of God and God's people. This year the NL twins with the Revised Common Lectionary with Matthew as the featured gospel.

Matthew Background

Today we continue in Matthew's gospel. Each of the four gospels has a distinctive personality, flavor, and style. Along with Mark and Luke, Matthew is one of the gospels that views Jesus' life and ministry in a similar way. In fact, all three contain a lot of the exact same content. Scholars believe authors of Luke and Matthew had a copy of Mark, so they literally copied and pasted big chunks.

This is Matthew's year in both of the lectionaries that suggest scriptures to read and study, so we'll spend a lot of time on Matthew to learn more about the Jesus Matthew presents, more about the way Jesus teaches us to live.

Matthew starts out as the story of a new creation, biblios geneseos—the same word as Genesis, the very first book of the bible. According to Matthew, Jesus of Nazareth's birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension initiates this new creation, new genesis. According to Jesus, our lives and ministries continue the new creation, the new genesis.

As Matthew's gospel progresses, Jesus provides formal instruction in the Sermon on the Mount and offers parables about the reign of heaven. We see Jesus healing diseases and confronting economic, religious, and governmental powers that be.


Sermon on the Mount

Today we continue with the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus' sermon on the mount has five sections that parallel the five books of Moses in the Torah or Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus…

Through Moses God gave the people ten words or commandments at Mount Sinai. Jesus brings us words of life in the Sermon on the Mount on another hill or high ground, with a different style from the commands God gave us through Moses, yet like the ten words/decalogue, Jesus is all about our flourishing together in safe, healthy, productive community. Jesus' entire ministry shows us how to live and love together in service, how to be church together.

Jesus was a rabbi or teacher who moved around a lot. For Matthew, Jesus is the ultimate teacher who wants his followers to be the best learners ever. As Pastor MAH mentioned, it's interesting that Matthew is the only gospel that uses the word church or ecclesia; we mostly know the word "church" from the letters or epistles. This called out assembly (us) is the Roman City Council, the Los Angeles City Council, the New England Town Meeting that gathers together, deliberates together, and in our case, prays and worships together.

Starting with the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus' entire ministry shows us how to live and love together in service, how to be church together. Rabbi Jesus wants us to be the best learners ever. Jesus' ministry leads to healthy community. When we follow Jesus, our ministries lead to good community.


Jesus' Model Prayer / What is Prayer?

Today we're considering the model prayer Jesus taught his followers. We call it the Lord's Prayer, and almost all worship services include it in traditional or contemporary language.

But first, what is prayer? Prayer is communication with God. Prayer takes many forms. Sometimes we read prayers the church has treasured for a long time, such as from the liturgy and devotional books. Sometimes we speak words from our heart. Scripture includes many prayers. The book of Psalms was the prayer book and the hymnal of the synagogue; Christian hymnals include many songs based on psalms. There's silent prayer when you sit, stand, or maybe lie down to bask in God's presence. The apostle Paul told us to "pray always," which is an attitude of openness to God. You may have heard we usually become closest to those we talk with the most.

Prayer is communication with God. As we pray, God also communicates with us.

Let's look at this particular prayer Jesus taught his followers. Jesus outlined this prayer not necessarily for us to repeat the exact words as we do every week in worship, but to follow its general content.


Lord's Prayer/ Our Father

It starts out with addressing God and requesting God's name be holy or set apart. In that culture, a name reflected or described the essence of a person. A few months ago Pastor MH preached a sermon about Names of God. That could make an excellent study or journal entry for us to continue.

"May your kingdom come, your will be done" asks God to make the world heaven on earth.

Daily bread or bread for tomorrow? Food is essential! We can't keep on with other endeavors without food, water, sleep… In his Small Catechism Martin Luther explains "daily bread" is shorthand for everything we need. That would include solid housing and safe streets, streets and roads to get us from here to there, good government, functional families. Daily bread may include high-speed internet, too.

What else is essential for all of us? What is essential for you and your family? What would your "daily bread" list of essentials include? Is there anything you might leave off your list?


Forgive us our debts or sins

"Forgive us our debts or sins" is a huge one for everyone. Some versions of Jesus' prayer ask forgiveness for trespasses, which sounds like entering someone else's property without permission (in many senses, it is). In Jesus' world sin and debt essentially were the same thing. Tenant farmers, people who fished the sea, and those who sold goods and wares often found themselves owing their soul to landlords and to the government.

In this year 2023, the world is full of financial debt and obligation. Many people are in serious credit card debt from trying to stay afloat during Covid. However, this prayer also asks to forgive (the opposite of to give) all those ways we've offended people (friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc.) close at hand and on the other side of the planet, our lack of justice to creation, everything we've done to hinder our own well-being as individuals.

Forgive is far from saying and acting as if those sins and offenses are ok and didn't do harm. Forgiveness admits and acknowledges the serious wrong someone else or we ourselves have caused.

Forgiveness has nothing to do with tolerating sin. Forgiveness is not about minimizing or denying sin.

When I forgive I've turned the wrongdoing over to God so that sin no longer is a debt or burden to me or to my community. Literally giving the sin to God means the sin or offense becomes a debt to God. Forgiving a person releases them from our lives and turns the person and the offense over to God. And sometimes it's necessary to physically release a person from our lives, as well.


Shalom

We've taken a short look at the prayer Jesus taught his first followers, the prayer scripture gives us to learn from Jesus.

Last week Pastor MH talked about shalom, the peace that's more than absence of conflict. The Lord's Prayer or Our Father prays, begs, and pleads for the reign or rule of heaven on earth.

Heaven on earth is the fulness of shalom. It begins with eliminating obvious physical, emotional, and interest conflicts, but shalom goes beyond that. Shalom is enough of everything we need to live healthy lives. As Martin Luther explained, actual daily bread or food (water, shelter, etc.) is only one part of our request in the Lord's Prayer. Shalom is integrity and honesty with each other here in community and with everyone we meet outside. Shalom is the Good News of the gospel fully lived out every day, everywhere we go.

Jesus the master teacher or rabbi teaches us how to be church together. Jesus wants all of us to be the best learners ever who pray, hope, and act to bring this world the new creation Matthew's gospel is about. We beg God to bring heaven to earth. We pray for the reign of shalom. We act in ways that welcome shalom.


Table of Grace

Again today Jesus invites us to the table of grace. This feast of life is about heaven on earth—the reign of life right here and right now. The Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, brings shalom into the world. All are forgiven. All is healed. All is whole. Everyone has enough. In the Lord's Supper we experience the new creation, if only for a fleeting moment.

Come, let us eat, for lo, the bread is spread!
Come, let us drink, for lo, the cup is poured!

You are welcome.
I am welcome.
We are welcome.

Amen? Amen!

To God alone be glory! Amen!

January 2023

• January daffodils! Most people think of daffodils, crocus, hyacinths, and flowering bulbs as harbingers of spring. [link to my Green Team talk from a few years ago.] I was a little surprised to wake up to this beautiful yellow display, and then I discovered I took almost the exact same picture almost exactly a year ago.

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary Project for January. I've been adding a header photo or art to each post.

• Epiphany House Blessing. During January 2021 I wrote about Epiphany / New Year Chalk House Blessings on Urban Wilderness. Paraphrased:

Blessing your house with chalk is a practice for New Year's Day, Epiphany, or any time. Chalk comes from the earth; it's a communication medium. Chalk can be part of play for almost any age. The inscription for this year is 20+C+M+B+23—the calendar year with CMB sandwiched in the middle. You can write above the door, beside the door, on the door, vertical or horizontal. You can bless the main entrance and/or separate rooms. If you have an office, workshop, or studio outside your home, you can bless those, too. We blessed the three doors that go inside from outside as well as each separate room.

CMB can stand for traditional magi names Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, or it can be initials for Christus Mansionem Benedicat / May Christ Bless this House. Although Latin "house" is similar to English mansion for a huge dwelling or manse for the pastor's house, it doesn't imply large.

• Mid-January succulents

Five Minute Friday :: Doubt

• Five Minute Friday :: Doubt Linkup

Philosophers and theologians like to remind us faith or belief (trust) and doubt (not trusting) form a bonded pair that can't be separated. We know faith as a gift of the Spirit, yet it's in spite of the existence of doubt. In memorable and memorizable form, Martin Luther's famous explanation to the Holy Christ/Sanctification third article of the Apostle's Creed in his Small Catechism reminds us it's all gift, all grace:

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth… This is most certainly true.

All that is good and it's important. That it gives life on many levels is most certainly true. But my most recent doubts have been about not believing my life ever would reweave organically again. Actually? Because of too much experience and countless tries to recreate a world of meaning, purpose, and service to others, I still doubt it's possible. Not that believing everything you see and hear ever is wise, not that refusal to keep on keepin' on is a bad idea, but few events and outcomes are particularly random or unintended.

Look around! Look at yourself! How much of your family's, friends', or your own overall situation can be credited to careful planning, hard work, and capturing (sometimes closely related, sometimes at right angles to expectations) surprising opportunities that seem to fall out of the sky? A total carpe diem lifestyle almost always yields good fruit. But I've done all that and I still doubt!

I've done all that and still have serious doubts because community support is such a major piece of life-restoring and sustaining results. Where's this FMF headed? Where is my life headed?

Please stay tuned. Okay?
# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Receive

First FMF of this new year!

• Five Minute Friday :: Receive Linkup

From Gian-Carlo Menotti's Ahmal and the Night Visitors:

The child we seek holds the seas and the winds on his palm.
The child we seek has the moon and the stars at his feet.
Before him, the eagle is gentle the lion is meek.

On love, on love alone will he build his kingdom…
His might will not be built on your toil.
Swifter than lightning he will soon walk among us.
He will bring us new life and receive our death.
And the keys to his city belong to the poor.

The Child will bring us new life and receive our death.

People may offer us a gift of a birthday present, a compliment, their presence, a little more time (name yours!), but the gift isn't complete until we receive it. In many cases that means no action on our part; some times to receive a gift is simply not to refuse it, but we frequently need to unwrap it to find out what it is and to use the gift. Humans have been known to say "exchange gifts," but as one of my professors pointed out, an exchange (money for something, bartering this item I have for that one you have, any quid pro quo) is perfectly legitimate and necessary in a developed market economy because we're not hunter-gatherers… but a gift is something else.

The late Richard Farina wrote the song "Pack up your Sorrows."

If somehow you could pack up your sorrows,
And give them all to me,
You would lose them, I know how to use them,
Give them all to me.

In the world of music, Christ-figures are fairly familiar. Think about James Taylor singing "Handyman," "You've Got a Friend," "Shower the People You Love," "Up on the Roof."

Jesus receives our sorrow, disappointment, devastation, and grief as a gift and we receive life in return as a gift from him. How about us? Can we receive another's pain, problems, and troubles as gifts and return new life? Not because we expect to get, but because we love to give?

• Please check out my blog for 15 January / Epiphany 2 for a little more about this.

Harris & Copland: 3rd Symphonies

• Copland, Symphony #3; Harris, Symphony #3



With trilingual liner notes in English, German, and French along with strikingly bright cover art featuring a DC-2 hovering above a horse-drawn stagecoach, this recording of two classic American symphonic standards is well-prepped for export! For both pieces Neeme Järvi conducts the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It's fair to say Roy Harris' Symphony No. 3 in one movement and five parts is an icon of twentieth century American music, and especially given that the final, 4^th movement of Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3 is a version of his "Fanfare for the Common Man," his third symphony isn't far behind in the category of iconic.

Basically I like the orchestra's playing under Maestro Neeme Järvi, who served as DSO Music Director from 1990 through the end of the 2004-2005 season. However, at times the music simply sits there, so in general I'd like to feel a greater sense of the narrative moving along and greater passion shaping the phrases. Not surprisingly, the luminous sound of the Chandos recording is a joy to the ears! Do I recommend this CD? Definitely! It will give you another perspective on a pair of major orchestral works that are among my very favorites, and maybe yours, as well.

• my amazon review: solid performances, clear sound

December 2022 In Town

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary Project for December

• Goats and sheep who visited during our Posada and Toy Gift Shop. There also were chickens, but as an innkeeper I didn't get to visit them because they'd already been crated up and were ready to travel back home by the time I arrived at their pen.

• Toy Shop and Snack sampler from our Posada Day.

• They captured the Lion King of Los Angeles, NPS P-022, transported him to San Diego Zoo's Safari Park for observation, and after discovering the mostly Griffith Park resident puma-mountain lion was "drastically underweight" with kidney and heart failure, parasites, and injuries from a probable vehicular encounter, made the difficult decision to euthanize him. The sad loss of the big cat who roamed the wild and wonderful urban jungle of Los Angeles, often hanging out around the Hollywood Sign, was the top LA story of 2022. There's now a petition to get P-22 a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

• Here's P-22's official bio; you can read many more puma profiles on the National Park Service website, though the California Department of Fish and Wildlife manages mountain lions.

• Toy Shop sign and Christmas Trees sampler on our Posada Day.

Five Minute Friday :: Simple

• Five Minute Friday :: Simple Linkup


Do you know the song "Simple Gifts," written by Shaker elder Joseph Brackett in the mid-nineteenth century? It's made rounds as standalone music, became famous from its major part in Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring ballet score and symphonic landscape. The tune later assumed new life in Sydney Carter's "Lord of the Dance" that summarized Jesus' life from pre-existent Word through ascension.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where I ought to be;
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

Before considering a simple trajectory, I searched my iMac for farm because as complex and sophisticated farming has become, as much experience and intuition farmers always have needed for their land to yield quality crops, agriculture retains a sense of basics, an aura of simplicity, the reality of no value added—at least at harvest.

You well may love to snack on berries, fruit, or tomatoes whilst tending your backyard garden, but a lot of what the ground yields can't realistically be eaten as is. Minimally it needs to be washed, often cooked. Grains need to be dried, threshed, milled. You need to assemble and probably dress a salad; sauté, roast, or stir-fry veggies; combine ingredients before baking your classic bread, yet all those end products happen because of simple, untreated basics that come from the valley of love and delight. Right?

Although I've done a little digital art from scratch, my best results come from analog pieces I scan and then modify on the computer. But if those simple originals are no good—the art I show the public won't be, either. I colored today's farm header image from a scan of the original simple drawing.

There's nothing wrong or amiss with my simple original ink on paper farm drawing, but like some newly harvested grains, fruits, or veggies, despite being a good start, it's not ready for literal consumption. You know what else? There's nothing more glorious than simple fresh-picked berries or sunstruck tomatoes. What are your favorites?

# # #

Five Minute Friday :: Instant

• Five Minute Friday :: Instant Linkup

Two Sundays ago we started to wait for Jesus' arrival again as the church began a new year of grace. Emmanuel—God with us. With so much in this century happening so fast you could call it instantaneous, the idea of waiting for anything feels countercultural because it is against the norms and habits of the dominant culture or way of doing life.

Yet waiting for light during the increasingly long days of December in the northern hemisphere feels like a natural and a wise thing to do. We assume a posture of patience amidst the urgency of knowing light is life at least as much as water is life. Jesus arrived on earth two millennia ago; in the power of the Holy Spirit the church continues his active presence here, but we still long for, wait, and hope for the fullness of Jesus here and now. We wait to celebrate Nativity again, to sing "Word of the Father, now in Flesh appearing" again.

Life essentials have become faster than they used to be. Fast food (comida rapida around here), instant breakfast. In contrast to snail mail that contrasts with pony express of ages past, we have instant messaging. People even tend to prefer texting to emailing because, ya know, emails are too slow. Fast fashion. Quickly assembled, with instant appeal because this style is trending today. Who cares about tomorrow? About yesterday?

Hey readers, the food, the fashion, the communications only look quick. None of them is instant in the least. Do you know how much time the ingredients spent growing, the farmers harvesting, trucks transporting, cooks preparing? What it takes to grow cotton, spin yarn, cut sew knit package ship? How about the centuries of tech that made DM, IM, text—and even email possible? Life never is instant.

Do you know how long God's people waited for a redeemer? How long did Jesus the primal word wait during the first eons long advent? God's promised advent never feels here, yet always is happening.

We spend most of our days in patient restlessness because the total fulfillment of that promise isn't yet. Slow fashion—better quality than fast? Slow food—more flavor than fast? Slow advent—better results than fast? Snail mail—better communication than a text? No worries, because no thing ever really is instant.

Two Sundays ago we started to wait for Jesus' arrival again as the church began a new year of grace. Emmanuel—God with us.

The one who testifies to these things says, "Surely I am coming soon."
Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
Revelation 22:20

# # #

Autumn + November 2022

• September 2022

• October 2022

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary Project for November

• Midterm Elections turned out fairly well, with lots of room for improvement and continued anxiety.

• Thanksgiving Day 2022
• "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

• On Small Business Saturday, I enjoyed housemade pupusas from the nearby sidewalk pupusería. Pupusas are the national cuisine of El Salvador.

• The First Sunday of Advent 2022
All Earth is Hopeful, the Savior Comes…
Toda la Tierra es esperanzadora, el Salvador viene…