To view 2022 year’s prose, click here
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To view 2020 year’s prose, click here
To view 2019 year’s prose, click here
To view 2018 year’s prose, click here
To view 2017 year’s prose, click here
May 1-6
Happy Monday, Vista Grande –
We spent some time with the story of Ezekiel and the Dry Bones – if you were in worship, you may have been humming the song…”dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones”. I was definitely thinking of it all week!
Ezekiel was a prophet to the Israelites while they were in exile in Babylon. As you might remember, the Babylonians had kidnapped all the dreamers – all the prophets, scribes, artists, poets, and musicians – and taken them to live in bondage in a foreign land. Ezekiel rose up as a prophet about five years into this 70 year captivity. In chapter 37, he was given this vision of the field of dry bones and told that it represented the people of Israel. Where Ezekiel could not see any possibility of life, God restored flesh and breath and promised it would be the same for the Israelites.
Thinking about this text last week put me in mind of this poem – Good Bones by Maggie Smith.
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
I hope you’ll excuse the cuss word in favor of the message of the poem. It’s what it means to be an Easter people, isn’t it? A resurrection people? To believe that even amidst all of the terror and hopelessness and difficulty and grief that there is yet still something beautiful here. The good bones of this good world are worth investing in. As Christians, it’s our job to find all the places new life is peeking through and point to it and say, even though we are fully aware of all the destruction, ‘…and, yet…life.” and then work to foster that life with a fierce tenderness.
This place could be beautiful. You could make this place beautiful.
Together,
Pastor Mallory
Apr 24-30
Good morning, Vista Grande –
This week, in worship, we spent time on the Road to Emmaus and what it means to travel in relationship with Jesus and one another. One of my favorite verses of that scripture lesson (Luke 24) is verse 32. Were not our hearts burning within us?
In my professional development last week, the trainers introduced me to the concept of “following aliveness” both individually and in a group. In their framework of working in groups, following aliveness helps groups figure out where their energy is and discover the most exciting possibilities. What moves you, gets you going, pushes you to act, brings you joy? These are all ways of following aliveness – the key is that it’s something you feel in your body and say yes to, which makes it different than following the roles we’ve been assigned, the things we feel we ‘should’ do, and living up to societal expectations.
I wonder if that’s something like the “burning” the disciples felt in the presence of Jesus. Did they feel a little bit more alive in a way that, when they looked back, they could recognize? What would have happened if they’d been able to follow the “burning” within them? How would our story, as individuals and as a church, be different if we could?
This week, my invitation is that you start to pay attention. Do you feel a burning within you? Where do you feel most alive? What happens when you follow it? I have a suspicion, it may be a path toward deeper relationship – with God and with one another. Let me know how it goes and what you experience and we’ll start to build a picture of what’s possible together.
In the promise of abundant life,
Pastor Mallory
Apr 10-16
Happy Easter, dear people! He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!
It feels like we’ve crossed a threshold, doesn’t it? Most days, when I take my chihuahua mix for a walk, I notice what has started to get different. I see a few spots of green here and there where there has been only brown for months. Check out the ends of bush twigs and you’ll see buds of new leaves appearing, though not quite open yet. The world is ripe with possibility, an aliveness that is becoming palpable with each passing, warming day.
My favorite gospel account of the resurrection (which doesn’t get used in church too often!) comes from Mark. In its original form, it stopped after verse 8: “So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Then, over the years, some well-meaning editors added both a short version and a long version which make the story line up a little better with the other gospel accounts of the resurrection and would feel more familiar to us.
I like Mark, though, because it feels the most honest. Terror and amazement feels about right when faced with something as unprecedented as resurrection. I can just imagine the disciples gathered in an upper room together, faced with the enormity of what an empty tomb means, and having to sort out just what their next step should be. I imagine them looking at each other and saying “Okay…so now what?” The season between Easter and Pentecost (now until the last week or so of May) is dedicated to that question: Okay, so love and life have won over deathdealing forces which want them extinguished. We have newness and possibility. Joy feels like it just might be possible. So, now what?”
One thing that all the gospel texts ask us to do is be present. To wait. To watch. To be with. To pay attention. To ask questions. To wonder. To imagine. Cultivating these skills helps us catch resurrection when it makes itself known to us, just like the new slivers of green making their appearance these last few weeks. Sometimes, resurrection is subtle but no less present.
This week, I want to leave you with one of my absolute favorite poems – may it lift your heart and turn you toward the illimitable springtime resurrection.
i thank You God for most this amazing by ee cummings
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
May the ears of our ears awake and the eyes of our eyes by opened to resurrection all around.
In possibility,
Pastor Mallory
Apr 3 – 9
Greetings at the beginning of this Holy Week, Vista Grande –
Rivaled only by the span between Christmas and Epiphany, this is the time of year where the heart of the Christian tradition is fully apparent. There is a rhythm to this week which has great wisdom in it and yet, for so many of us, it’s easier to skip right from Palm Sunday to Easter without engaging in the ups and downs of the journey in between.
Palm Sunday starts on a high note. It’s also known by another name – the “Triumphal Entry”. Rather than the triumph of a warlord over another faction of soldiers, the triumph here is the magic that happens when the margins are placed at the center and relationship, humility, and love have their say. It is the quintessential message of Jesus’s work and ministry and, in this story, Jesus is at the height of his popularity – there is a better way of ordering society than one based on military might and the “law and order” which is usually a mask for those with power to protect their power.
Jesus rides this wave and, for the first time, takes the fight right to the seat of power through his act of civil disobedience in the Temple, which challenged the ways that religious elites were exploiting the poor people in their midst and entrusted to their care. It showed the shaky foundation of this type of power for what it is. Acts of imagination and resistance send coins flying and usher in new possibilities for relating to one another and to God which aren’t based on extortion or hierarchy.
Obviously, power isn’t going to relinquish its hold without a fight, though, so Jesus became a target of the religiopolitical system he was challenging, leading the chief priests to search for a way past the solidarity he had built. As is so often the case, the money was the temptation to break ranks and Judas chose his own personal financial security rather than the people power which comes when we band together.
So this is where we’ll pick up the story on Thursday…in the intimacy of a chosen circle of closer friends which is so important to sustain us as we battle systems of power and oppression. A shared meal. The “maundy” or “mandate” to go and do greater things than Jesus accomplished in his lifetime. The pain, trauma, and hopelessness that comes when everything falls apart and it appears that everything we’ve worked for might be all for naught.
It’s can be a difficult place to stay, but that is the invitation this week. To stay. To be with the pain. To refuse to skip to the happy ending. It’s been 2000 years, though, so I’m going to trust this isn’t a spoiler…
No matter how hopeless it seems, life and love always win.
May we trust this fully as we travel through these days together. Come join us on Thursday at 2:30 and 6:30 to engage further with this central story of our faith.
With you,
Pastor Mallory
Mar 27 – Apr 2
Happy Monday, Vista Grande!
Something I hear often from all sorts of people going through something painful is, essentially: “If I think about this, I’ll never stop grieving/worrying/hurting/etc. so it’s best for me not to think about it.” We keep moving forward, as fast as possible, hoping that what hurts won’t catch up with us. This protective, perpetual motion is a barrier to entry for the spiritual practice of stillness. If we get still, all those feelings come for us, so we make sure we are always on the move. On some level, we’re afraid of what’s waiting for us in the wilderness of our own heart. Poet John O’Donohue says it this way in his piece “For One Who is Exhausted, a Blessing”
At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.
You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.”
Notice his words “at first”. Throughout each of the wilderness stories, we’ve encountered people who experienced rest, nourishment, grace, companionship in and among the fear, grief, and temptation in their wildernesses. In the gospel of Luke, it’s actually Jesus’s time in the wilderness that prepared Jesus for his public ministry. The wilderness is a vast place and, the more time we spend there (such as Jesus’s 40 days), the more we experience of what it holds for us – the painful and the sublime, the unexpected sustenance and the opportunity to face our fears.
O’Donohue continues:
“Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.
Draw alongside the silence of stone Until its calmness can claim you. Be excessively gentle with yourself.
Gradually, you will return to yourself, Having learned a new respect for your heart And the joy that dwells far within slow time.”
Read the rest of his poem here.
Something beautiful happens in stillness, if we can abide with the pain long enough to befriend it. God meets us there and offers us a depth of relationship with ourselves and with Godself that can sustain us. Pain isn’t actually a barrier but a portal. Above all, that’s the secret of the wilderness.
This week, I hope you find moments of stillness and the courage to meet yourself there. If any of these stories have taught us anything, God is awaiting. If I can be a companion to you, please feel free to let me know.
Together,
Pastor Mallory
Mar 20 – 26
Good morning, Vista Grande!
In worship yesterday, we spent some time thinking about Jonah. Jonah, who got swallowed by the big fish because he didn’t go where God was calling him. Jonah, who preached destruction but who couldn’t find it in his heart to relent (even though God did!) when the people of Nineveh. Jonah, who sat on a hill outside the city (that’s a metaphor!!), waiting for the destruction that never came.
Jonah is a case study in high horses. In his heart, there isn’t room for the possibility of behavior change or a return to right relationship. He would rather be the “protagonist of reality”, making himself the hero of his own story and placing himself at the center of the universe. A gift from my background in 12 Step recovery is the popping of this particular bubble. As it turns out, in most of our interactions, the world doesn’t break down to victims and villains and most of us dance over the line of sinner and saint multiple times a day. Like most things, it’s not an either/or but instead a both/and.
Together, we used our ‘sanctified imagination’, as invited by Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, to envision an end for Jonah’s story, which terminates somewhat abruptly with God saying, essentially, “Nineveh matters to me.” and leaving Jonah to….do what? Continue to sulk about it? Maybe. But maybe he gets what God is trying to tell him. That grace abounds and transformation is possible for you, for me, for Jonah, for everyone.
In worship, we planted the seeds of what we want to nurture held in the biodegradable cups of what it is we want to let go of. When I was purchasing the supplies, the guy at the checkout said “Oh, you’re planting something!” I said “Yeah, now is the time for it!” He balked, saying “Not until after Memorial Day if you want it to survive!” and I responded “Yes, but now is the time to start.”
So, my friends, the invitation is to start. As with most things on this journey of faith, it doesn’t have to be perfect or right. It just has to be true. And you just have to start. May we find a little more spaciousness and a little new life this week as we make the shift from winter into spring.
Together,
Pastor Mallory
Mar 13 – 19
Greetings, beloveds, at the beginning of a new week.
At this point, we are about halfway through our Lenten travels through the wilderness. In each of our stops along the way, we have seen God’s companionship and provision to those who are driven out into the wild unknown. Elijah’s story, chronicled in 1 Kings 19, is similar but has an important variation.
Elijah is running for his life after a dramatic standoff with the priests of Ba’al which leaves Queen Jezebel enraged and promising to kill him. He is running on empty in body, mind, and spirit and crawls beneath the shade of “a solitary broom tree” telling God that he’s ready to die. He’s got nothing left to give, no reserves of strength to draw on. He is spent in every meaningful sense of the word.
If you’re resonating with Elijah, the story has a very specific encouragement for you. Rest. Rest twice as long as you think you need to. Have a snack. Drink water. Most importantly, though, rest.
On a whole, Americans have a pretty bad relationship with rest. It makes us feel guilty. We put it off because there’s just too much to do and the items aren’t going to cross themselves off our list. Or, maybe even more insidious, we think we have to earn the right to rest, like it’s some kind of reward for working hard.
In reality, though, rest is necessary. Studies bear out that it’s integral to our health by lowering our blood pressure and allowing our bodies to repair. And, in Elijah’s case, it was after a double-helping of rest that he was able to discern where God was…not in the earthquake, wind, or fire, but there, in the quiet.
My suspicion is that a lot of us know how Elijah feels. There’s prophetic stances to be taken, such as holding the District 11 school board accountable. Black and brown folks and queer folks know what it’s like to have a ruler coming for your life. We are fighting, running, and, just like Elijah, tired down to our bones. If this describes you, my invitation is to make time to rest. You deserve it because you are human. The world won’t end if you take time for quiet. In fact, you might just meet God. For more information, check out the work of Tricia Hersey and The Nap Ministry.
Take a nap, my friends. It will do you good.
Together,
Pastor Mallory
Mar 6 – 12
Happy Monday, Vista Grande!
We are continuing our exploration of “What Happens in the Wilderness” by spending some time with the Israelites in Exodus 16. At its core, the story of Exodus is a story of liberation, where the Israelites were freed from the slavery, abuse, and hard labor they endured in Egypt. In a miraculous series of events, they make their way out of Egypt and even evade the pursuing Egyptian army when Moses parts the waters of the Red Sea. We pick up the story after some of the proverbial dust has settled and the reality of what they’ve done sinks in. They are hungry enough that they start to regret their decision to leave enslavement…at least in Egypt they had three square meals!
I can empathize with the Israelites. They left everything behind in a mad dash for freedom, placing their trust in God and taking a huge leap of faith. I imagine this point in the story felt a little like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff after Roadrunner and getting halfway across the canyon before realizing he’s running on air. Unlike the case of Wile. E. Coyote, though, a miracle happens. Just when they thought they would starve, God ‘gives them this day their daily bread’ and it’s just enough to make it through.
In lots of ways, it feels like we’re in a pre-Manna-and-Quail moment these days – in our personal lives, the church, and as a country. The systems we have been taught to trust are failing us and maybe even falling apart but we’re not quite sure what is going to arise in their place. It’s a moment characterized by both possibility and anxiety. It’s wilderness time and, like the Israelites, it can feel tempting to retreat back into ways of relating that are harmful. It’s tough to trust we’ll get our needs met if we don’t! It’s a strange, imaginative grace that provides weird but nutritious food that will see us all the way to the promised land.
As a spiritual practice this week, I invite you to keep a lookout for the grace of ‘weird food’ which sustains you this week. What are the unexpected graces that remind you of God’s nurturing presence in your lives?
With you in the wilderness,
Pastor Mallory
Feb 27 – Mar 5
Good people of Vista Grande,
We’re on our way! We have embarked on our journey through the season of Lent and all the stories of “What Happens in the Wilderness”. There will be plenty of twists and turns on this trek and I know enough about God to expect the unexpected.
Speaking of ‘the unexpected’, thank you for welcoming Rev. Jenny Smith into our midst yesterday and giving me and Ethan the chance to take a little bit of rest. She told me a little bit about her adventure with her rental car and how you all both came to her rescue and were flexible about the format of the service! I am so grateful for the warmth of your welcome and your adaptability when something goes awry!
Recently, I have been thinking about how, at the root of the word “wilderness” is the word “wild” – something untamed and free. It’s not usually something we associate with the word ‘peace’, and yet poet Wendell Berry offers us a glimpse of how they might go together in his poem ‘The Peace of the Wild Things’:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
I wonder how Hagar felt about freedom, peace, and grief, as she feared what her life and her child’s life might be. How do you feel about them? What are your thoughts as we reach this first outpost in the wilderness?
Strength and peace for the journey, my friends.
Pastor Mallory
Feb 13-20
Greetings, Vista Grande –
Over the last several weeks, we have been taking a look at familiar aspects of faith that need our attention as we seek to figure out what it means to be a progressive Christian today. In worship yesterday, we spent time exploring the word ‘prayer’. It’s a simple word but it has several meanings and, for lots of us, a whole lot of baggage attached to it!
Those tender spots in our faith life – the ones that we want to reject or that make us feel uncomfortable or maybe caused us pain – those are the paradoxical gateway to new life. It takes a lot of courage to look closely at them but when we do, God is waiting to broaden our horizons and surprise us with what we find.
I joked about being the ‘designated pray-er’ pretty much no matter where I go. I’m going to spill my secret though…I don’t have any extra special words or a direct connection to God. When I pray in front of you, all I’m doing is pouring out my deepest and most fervent hopes and dreams for us as a community and us as a world. And you can do that, too. I often tell folks in Bible study who are practicing praying in front of people this: It doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be true.
Saying yes to the invitation of being true but not necessarily good can be freeing…it allows us to show up imperfect, without a polished product in hand. If you’ve ever done something you’re not great at but that you think is really fun or gives you joy, you know the feeling I’m talking about! You are allowed to explore, try, fail, try again, and discover within your spiritual practices. How else are we supposed to build a trusting relationship with God and with one another?
Take this poem entitled Praying by Mary Oliver as a potential companion this week as we experiment with prayer.
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
Blessings in your experimenting, dear friends!
Pastor Mallory
Feb 6-13
Happy Monday, Vista Grande!
We have spent these last several weeks wrestling with the things that seem like a “given” in our faith tradition. What is our image of God? What’s the Lord’s Prayer? What are these Beatitudes and why do they matter? Yesterday, we talked about what the Bible is and some different ways of being in relationship with it.
Lots of us grew up with the song “The B-I-B-L-E” (yes, that’s the book for me!) or even heard the acronym “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth” but now those definitions or relationships with scripture don’t fit very well anymore. So what do we do with it – if it’s not an instruction manual, it’s not completely historically factual, and there’s some really messed up stories in it, how are we supposed to make any kind of sense of it?!
One well-meaning option is “we take the Bible seriously but not literally”. On its surface, this feels like it might give us the out we’re looking for. We don’t have to believe in a 6 Day Creation or a flood that literally wiped out the whole world except 8 people…but we can still study it and find value in it!
That gets us pretty far but not quite all the way. There ARE parts of the Bible that I take literally. Verses like Micah 6:8 – “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?” Or Luke 4: 18 – “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because God has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the year of God’s favor.” Matthew 25:40 which tells us that whatever we do to care for the least of our siblings is care rendered to God. I take these passages, plus some others, extremely literally and try my best to live according to their teachings!
And so, our relationship with the Bible stays complicated. Some passages are literal instruction, some are parable, story, and myth. Lots are life giving, some need to be set down as barbaric and unconscionable. All of it, though, requests of us our attention. When we look for it, we can see the silver thread of God’s heart for humanity winding its way through the pages of our Bible. So we start there, in the places we catch glimpses of our Still-Speaking God, trusting that “still yet more light and truth will break forth from God’s word.”
Let’s dive in together, my friends, and see what new life is still within these pages.
Pastor Mallory
Jan 31 – Feb 6
Greetings, Vista Grande –
Our annual meeting was on Sunday and if you haven’t gotten the chance to read our annual report, I highly suggest you do! This last year has been full of change, growth, and ongoing commitment to being who God has called us to be in northern Colorado Springs. We keep living out our mission, taking each next step in faith and trust in our God.
If you haven’t checked them out yet, take a look at our core values as discerned by the executive council:
- Connecting with the Divine
- Engaging in community
- Fostering diversity
- Embodying our values
- Leading with care
Throughout this next year, as we chart a course through the unknown and step out in faith, these will be our North Stars. And the best thing is that we are already doing it in large and small ways, together and individually! This year, let’s continue to deepen our commitment to each of these values and see how it transforms us.
We couldn’t have gotten here without the wisdom and guidance of an amazing Executive Council team. Please extend great gratitude to Kayan Cross, who served as moderator, and Dana Zimmerman, who served as treasurer as their terms came to an end on Sunday. Their leadership has been transformative and has gotten us to where we are today! We welcome Dave Lee as moderator and Matt Spencer as treasurer and look forward to the impact they will have on our church as leaders and guides.
There are great things ahead of us! These days are full of possibility and wonder and I am truly honored and excited to be on this journey with you.
In faith and in hope,
Pastor Mallory
Jan 24-31
Good morning, Vista Grande!
In worship yesterday, we spent time with the most well-known Christian prayer. It’s called by several names, including the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus’s Prayer, and The Disciples’ Prayer. Though many of us are most familiar with the traditional Protestant version, complete with ‘arts’ and ‘thous’, there is a rich tradition of reinterpretation and rewriting that can illuminate familiar words and offer a different perspective on their meaning. Check out this one from the linkNew Zealand Anglican Prayer Book or this one from the linkqueer, anti-racist liturgy collective enfleshed. They are both the same and different, rooted in the tradition of the Jesus Prayer and unique to the writer who penned them.
https://livinghour.org/lords-prayer/new-zealand-maori/ https://enfleshed.com/liturgy/the-disciples-prayer/
When it comes time to speak this prayer every Sunday, there is an invitation in our weekly bulletin to “use whatever version speaks to you.” It’s an invitation to exercise your theological freedom and individual connection to God while also honoring the traditions we came from and the faith that we share. The relationship between us as individuals and our synergy in community is truly at the heart of our denomination’s theology. You are allowed to question. You are allowed to re-write. You are allowed to doubt and struggle and discern how you fit into God’s story. It’s baked into how our church works! But, as Uncle Ben says in Spiderman, “with great power comes great responsibility” – each of us is also responsible for figuring out what it means to be followers of Jesus in our church and broader community.
For those folks who didn’t make it to worship (or who need a little extra time to write!), we spent time in worship writing our own versions of the Lord’s Prayer. How would you say it in your own words? If you are willing, please email your prayer to me at rev.mallory.everhart@gmail.com. I would love to collate these prayers into a Vista Grande prayer book so we can hear the heart of one another’s faith more clearly and truly pray together as Jesus taught each of us, uniquely.
My prayer for all of us this week is that we receive “what we need in both bread and insight” and loose the bonds of guilt and shame which keep us isolated from one another.
Blessings, dear ones, and may God’s kin-dom come.
Pastor Mallory
Jan 17-24
Greetings, Vista Grande!
In worship on Sunday, we spent some time thinking about different metaphors for God and how each of them helps us understand a different aspect of the Divine’s character. In her book Called to Question, Sr. Joan Chittister describes religion as an arm pointing at the moon. It’s important not to mistake the arm for the moon itself! For the last two millennia, people who practice Christianity have had deep, life changing experiences with the Divine. Lots of times, though, we’ve mistaken the container for the experience and tried to catch that moonlight in a box as if to say “if you do things exactly like these other people did them, you’ll be able to see the moon, too!” So much strict doctrine and harmful theology comes from the desire to trap moonlight in a box.
Thankfully, our God is bigger than that! The journey of faith is an invitation to travel through this world and find God everywhere – from intricate flowers to the glow of the sun on the mountain to the energy we can feel but not see to the vastness of the universe to the face of our siblings who are suffering. God is everywhere, waiting to greet us and teach us something new about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus in this time.
There are lots of ways of knowing God and, at the same time, God defies being boxed in. It’s a paradox that invites us into wonder and holy mystery. Your word pictures are different than mine because of our God-given uniqueness. The trick is being spiritually mature enough to allow something to be different without calling it wrong or bad.
This week, I invite you to play around. The list of metaphors we used in worship came from a resource called “Millions of Metaphors for God” – it’s a website that uses a word bank to create a four-part name for God. In a quiet moment, I urge you to go to the website and read the metaphor for God it generates for you. What did you learn about God from that metaphor? Spend some time journaling or thinking about that question and let me know how that goes.
As always, I’m so excited to be part of the mystery and wonder of a life of faith with each of you. Blessings on your seeking this week.
In joy,
Pastor Mallory
Jan 9
Epiphany blessings to each of you, friends!
Epiphany is one of my absolute favorite church holidays. The story is larger-than-life, featuring a star that defies scientific understanding, viciously terrified rulers, sumptuous gifts and, at its core, the dreams of God which guide the way through an adventure of a journey which takes twists and turns no one could have predicted.
I can’t think of a better way to start a new calendar year…we’re only 9 days in, so we get to still call it new! Who knows what this coming year will hold? Joy, new life, weddings, deepening fellowship, good food, and travel partner with grief, anger, tragedy, funerals, hospital stays, and disappointment to create the map of the year. It’s one we only get to read by looking backward and recognizing just how much we have journeyed through.
The gift of the Epiphany story, though, is that no one ever traveled alone. The magi traveled together and God guided them by going ahead of them in the form of the star and being present with them in their dreams. As we have for the last several years, we received our Epiphany star words to guide us and shape our dreams, both individually and together as a community.
As a church, our star word for this year is “HOPE” and I couldn’t think of a better theme for this year we are traveling through together. May it guide, strengthen, and surprise us again and again in the coming months.
If you didn’t receive a star word, you can get one generated for you at this link:
https://perchance.org/starwords2022
Or, if you’d like a physical one, I can either bring you one or mail it to you. Either way, I encourage you to let your word companion you through this year and witness how it unfolds in your life.
May God continue to guide us, through this week and beyond.
In hope,
Pastor Mallory