Remember those scoliosis screenings in elementary school? So did St. Paul, apparently. Read Emily’s latest sermon, “Stand Up Straight and Breathe,” on her blog, Sit and Eat. The text is Philippians 2:12-18.
by Thomas Lux
His job is honest and simple: keeping
the forest tidy. He replaces,
after repairing, the nests
on their branches, he points every pine north,
polishes the owl’s stained perch,
feather-dusts the entrance
to the weasel’s burrow, soft-brushes
each chipmunk (the chinchilla
of the forest banal), buffs antlers, gives
sympathy to ragweed, tries to convince—
like a paternal and inept psychiatrist—
the lowly garter snake to think
of himself, as he parts the grass,
as an actor parting the stage curtain
to wild applause, arranges, in the clearing,
the great beams of light…This is his job: a day’s,
a week’s, a life’s calm, continuous,
low-paying devotion. At dawn
he makes a few sandwiches and goes
to work. I love this, he thinks as he passes
the wild watercress—its green as stunning
as surviving a plane crash—in the small,
inaccessible swamp.
–Read at St. Lydia’s on September 30, 2012
Maria made this delicious apple bread for dessert last Sunday, and agreed to share the recipe with us. Enjoy!
INGREDIENTS
1 cup oil
3 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups apples, diced
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS
Combine and set aside the oil, eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Sift flour, cinnamon, soda, and salt. Add dry ingredients to oil mixture gradually. Add apples and nuts. Bake in 2 regular loaf pans for 60-70 hours at 325°F. Cool 10 minutes in the pan.
1/2 package firm tofu
1/4-1/2 lb rice noodles
–Prepared with our help by Phil at St. Lydia’s on September 23, 2012
by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
St. Lydia’s is in the midst of a process of discernment and creation as we put a Governance System in place for our community. With a governance system, we will have more formal ways of making decisions together as a community. Here are the notes from our meeting on August 27, 2012.
St. Lydia’s is in the midst of a process of discernment and creation as we put a Governance System in place for our community. With a governance system, we will have more formal ways of making decisions together as a community. Here are the notes from our meeting on July 16, 2012.
St. Lydia’s is in the midst of a process of discernment and creation as we put a Governance System in place for our community. With a governance system, we will have more formal ways of making decisions together as a community. Here are the notes from our meeting on June 25, 2012.
Emily shared this article written by Dorothy Bass on Christian community and governance as a resource for inspiration and guidance as we work towards having a governance structure of our own.
The perennial Christian strategy, someone has said, is to gather the folks, break the bread, and tell the stories. It is as simple, and as disarming, as that. But within that simplicity lie complex questions. What shape ought the gathering to take? Do some sit in carefully designated spaces and the rest elsewhere? And who breaks the bread? Do all, or only some? For that matter, who tells the stories? Do all take a turn, or do people speak as the Spirit prompts? Are some interpretations and interpreters more authoritative than others? On what grounds? The apostle Paul, teacher of community, urged the Corinthians to judge all bread breaking and storytelling and congregating by whether it was “done for building up” the community. But that was not sufficient to answer all the questions in this fledgling church. Should prophets speak in tongues if no interpreters were present? Should women speak? Must all who speak acknowledge the authority of Paul? (1 Corinthians 14:26-40).
Apparently, the program of gathering the folks, breaking the bread, and telling the stories is more complicated than it first seems. There are varieties of gifts, different roles, real tensions, significant conflicts. The ordering of community can give shape to the gifts of its members and provide space for the successful negotiating of conflict. The lack of good ordering can prevent gifts from being shared and allow tensions to fester. The shaping of communities is the practice by which we agree to be reliable personally and organizationally. This practice takes on life through roles and rituals, laws and agreements—indeed, through the whole assortment of shared commitments and institutional arrangements that order common life.
In one sense, then, shaping communities is not just a single practice of its own. It is the practice that provides the choreography for all the other practices of a community or society.
-Read the rest of the article here.