Sermon: Isaiah 42:1-9

Read Emily’s latest sermon “Who Was and Is and Is To Come,” at her blog, Sit and Eat.

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

Isaiah 40:1-5

Read Emily’s latest sermon, “Change is Gonna Come,” preached on November 14, on her blog, Sit and Eat.

Notes from the Other Side

by Jane Kenyon

I divested myself of despair
and fear when I came here.

Now there is no more catching
one’s own eye in the mirror,

there are no bad books, no plastic,
no insurance premiums, and of course

no illness. Contrition
does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth. No one howls as the first
clod of earth hits the casket.

The poor we no longer have with us.
Our calm hearts strike only the hour,

and God, as promised, proves
to be mercy clothed in light.

-Read at St. Lydia’s on November 7

Couscous with Raisins, Swiss Chard and Feta

From: Rachel Ray Everyday
Serves: four

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped (I’d recommend a few more cloves)
1 1/4 cups israeli couscous (also called “pearl” couscous)
One 14-ounce can vegetable broth
2/3 cup golden raisins
Salt and pepper
1 bunch swiss chard, stems and leaves chopped separately
One 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed
2-4 ounces crumbled feta cheese (we used Bulgarian feta made from
sheep’s milk, but you can use your preferred feta)
1/2 lemon (optional)

Directions:
1. In a saucepan, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat. Add
half of the garlic and the couscous and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes.
Add the vegetable broth; bring to a boil. Cover, lower the heat and
simmer until the broth has been absorbed, about 10 minutes. Stir in
the raisins; season with salt. (Note: if you forget the raisins at
this point, just sprinkle them on top at the end of step two and no
one will notice.)

2. Meanwhile, in a skillet, heat the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil
over medium heat. Add the remaining garlic and the swiss chard stems
and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes. Add the swiss chard
leaves, chickpeas and 1/2 cup water, cover and cook, turning, until
the chard is wilted, 2 to 3 minutes; season with salt and pepper. (Add
a little fresh lemon juice here if you wish. I did.) Serve on the
couscous and top with the feta.

Israeli Salad
From: Heather
Serves: six

Ingredients:
1 medium English cucumber, quartered lengthwise and chopped into
bite-size slices
3 tomatoes, chopped
1/2 red onion, diced
1/2 bunch fresh mint, minced
1/2 bunch fresh parsley, minced
1 lemon, juiced
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

In a bowl, combine all ingredients (add dressing ingredients to taste
— you don’t need it too “dressed,” really, as the veggies sing on
their own). Allow to sit for a short while before serving.

Prepared by Heather and Paul at St. Lydia’s on November 7

Sermon: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Read Emily’s latest sermon, “Knowing the Time,” on her blog, Sit and Eat.

Sermon: Mark 5:1-20

Read Emily’s latest sermon, “Jesus Would Have Liked Halloween,” on her blog, Sit and Eat.

All Saints and These Souls

Jeremy Sierra is a MFA student and lives in New York.  A congregant at St. Lydia’s, he blogs here under the category Jeremiah Speaking.

A guy, white with dreadlocks and funky shoes, came to the church where I work.  “Peace be upon you,” he said
“Um, hi,” I responded.
“Whey do you have Jack-O-Lanterns in front of the church,” he asked, “a symbol of a pagan holiday?”
“Because the choir kids carved them.”
“Do you celebrate Halloween?”
“Well, a lot of people who go to church here do.  We celebrate All Saints, and All Souls days, when we pray for people who have died.”

After he left I thought a little about Halloween.  I enjoy carving pumpkins as much as the next guy, and eating the seeds toasted in the oven with salt even better, but I’ve never really really liked Halloween. There’s the whole “lets dress up so that other people can judge us” thing, and I’m really self-conscious enough to begin with.  I can possibly trace this back to me at five years old in my robot costume, made of boxes and tin foil and plastic tubing, sitting on the hayride and unable to see out of the holes we had cut for eyes, crying inside my little cardboard prison because I cried a lot then, until we take it off and I spend the rest of Halloween unhappily in my grey sweatpants and hoodie.  So every year as October 31st approaches and people start talking (and talking and talking) about their costumes I’m thinking about how I’d rather be thinking about something else (like, my homework, or more likely what I am going to have for dinner).

The next day, someone came into my office crying.  She told me about the baby, not her baby but a friend’s, who had been born four months early and spent the last six weeks in the clean white of the hospital.  He died on Tuesday.  I was at a loss for what to what to say or do, feeling sad myself because I know this family, too, and afraid as I often am of not saying the right thing.  Fortunately a priest was there who knew what to do and say, and also knew that there isn’t much that can be done or said about this, about death.

On Sunday they will celebrate All Saints Day at the church.  During the service they will commemorate the faithful departed, reading out the names of those who have died.  I added this baby’s name, Miles, to the list, feeling someone else’s tragedy in the letters of his name.   The world is a difficult place and the answers are usually hidden form us, and in the end what else can we do but name our grief, say the names of the dead, say them to ourselves and to each other and to God.   Each name is full of hope and an angry question, and we are like the psalmists demanding that God do something about how messed up everything is.  Each name is a remembrance of the lost and the love we had for them.

Which brings me back, sort of, to Halloween, and these strange rituals: carving faces in orange gourds, dressing up as the saints and the dead, populating the sidewalks with apparitions, other possible selves, the imaginary and the unpleasantly real.  We are teasing, or maybe we are even celebrating, the things that cause us to crumple up with grief or terror, our smallness and our fear sand our death. Rather than pretending that the world is an easy place, we bring the worst of it front and center, sharing our sadness and our fears with each other.  When we bring all that out in the open it loses some of its power.  Death does not own us, we remind each other, even though it sometimes kicks us hard in the stomach.

So on Sunday I went ahead and taped some tea bags to my shirt (I now owe a certain someone about 10 cups of tea), a few ribbons, and there you go, I’m The Tea Party.  I went to St. Lydia’s where other people were dressed in costumes, some of them utterly charming, some not so much.  We shared a meal, and I was reminded that even that isn’t an easy thing to do sometimes.  Then we sang and held hands and said our prayers aloud, to ourselves and each other and to God, wearing our costumes.

St. Lydia’s Halloween Dinner Church

See more photos on our picasa album!

Come On All You Ghosts

by Matthew Zapruder

(excerpt)

3

If you know
the story of Marco Polo
you know after a long journey he came

upon the Mongol armies sleeping
and wisely turned back
already composing

a much more fabulous story
than not being able
to report being torn

apart by four horses
attached to his limbs.
From then on wherever

he went or did not he brought back
wondrous marvels and lies.
In this poem

every word means exactly
what it means
when we use it in every day life.

So when I say I went
to the grocery store
and felt too ashamed

to ask where are the eggs
only a very small part of me means
I have returned to report

we have by our mothers
been permanently destroyed.
When the president

opens his hands
a door knob
made of an unnaturally

heavy substance
floats up to the blue
door to the worry factory.

Open it and down
drift all the 21st century
problems, stick out

your tongue and maybe
you will taste sunlight
and maybe ash.

Go little president!
We are all blowing
into your wings!

We promise to no longer
be transactional
in our personal dealings!

We promise no longer
to know some things
are important but one

does not need to know why.
If the heart makes
the sound of two violins

sleeping in a baby carriage,
then new technologies
cannot make us

both more loyal and free.
Wayward free radical dreams,
I want to be loyal,

I say it once into the darkness.
Come on all you ghosts,
try to make me forget you.