The Foreigner

I am sure many of us have been abroad perhaps on a foreign holiday. Maybe in preparation we have tried to learn a little of the language. As we go from tourist destination to tourist destination we clutch our phrasebook or dictionary in the hope hope that through some miracle of osmosis, we might suddenly be able to speak and be understood.

It’s interesting that we still talk about going on a foreign holiday - the word foreign implying something exotic, unusual, challenging, maybe comfort-zone removing, perhaps even threatening. We talk of doctors finding a foreign body as they perform surgery - something that just shouldn’t be there, something alien or invasive, something out of place.

Yet as we go abroad on holiday, we are the foreign body - out of place, challenged often linguistically, maybe out of our comfort zones. Learning some of the language is about us trying to blend in; but as we struggle with pronunciation, we become more and more conspicuous.

But we speak with much more than our words. We speak with our clothing, our political affiliations, our music choices, with our hands, the expressions on our faces - all communicate something very deep about who we are, what we believe and what we hold dear, but it is still what we say that states that most powerfully.

Jesus’ disciples lives spoke volumes at this point. They looked like every other good Jew living in Jerusalem. Their accent gave them away as Galileans but essentially they blended in with the countless others in the city to celebrate the festival of Pentecost.  There were many foreigners in the city due to the immanent celebrations, yet it’s clear that on that day that the disciples felt like foreigners - locked away, frightened, aware that their experience of God in Jesus was different. They must have felt out of place in their own city and in their own religion. And then something happens.

It’s clear that what Luke is doing at the beginning of this account is trying to use language to speak of the unspeakable, to describe the indescribable and even language reaches it’s limits. Don’t be too hung up on the descriptions themselves because whatever took place in that room on that day as the Holy Spirit moved among the disciples in a new way - foretold by the prophet Joel  and promised by Jesus himself - utterly transformed them as they were made anew by God.  In Genesis we hear of the Spirit breathing life into the dust and creating a human being. In Acts 2 the same Spirit breathes life into once cowardly disciples creating new men and women who have the gift of bold speech.

For Luke, the writer of the Acts of the Apostles, the gift of God’s Holy Spirit has one purpose - to inspire believers in Jesus to speak God’s message with new boldness. Even Jesus is clear that this is what the Holy Spirit will do. He calls Him Advocate - someone who will speak publicly on behalf of another often in court of law. Because the Spirit will abide with us and in us says Jesus - He will speak through believers like us.

Talk of the Holy Spirit for some of us might seem foreign implying something exotic, unusual, challenging, maybe comfort-zone removing, perhaps even threatening. Perhaps we have heard of manifestations of the Holy Spirit in other places in different sorts of churches, but because of what we hear taking place being unusual or challenging our expectations of life and faith -- we are swift to dismiss it as hysteria - people filled with new wine.

We talk of doctors finding a foreign body as they perform surgery - something that just shouldn’t be there, something alien or invasive, something out of place. We invoke the Holy Spirit in the Sacraments of the church to transform the faith and life of the believer - but talk of experiences of the Spirit outside these signs of grace - might seem alien or invasive to our experience of faith. Friends, don’t get too hung up on descriptions. The simple fact of the matter is - just in the same way that we are still inspired to lively faith following Jesus and we believe that God still speaks and answers prayer today - so I believe and have experienced that the Holy Spirit continues to move and inspire and make new the lives of Christian men and women today in similar ways to those first disciples - in lives lived that speak in new bold ways of Jesus Christ.

The gift of the Spirit, according to Jesus, is an inevitable gift for those who are faithful to Him. If we love Christ we will keep His commandments, and if we do, He will ask God to give us the One who will speak the Truth of the the things of God to dwell in each one of us.

In both the Acts reading and in the Gospel - there is no sense of the Spirit being a gift to some and not to others, somehow reserved only for a certain sort of believer or certain sorts of Evangelical church today. It is the Spirit, a gift of Christ to all faithful people - crossing boundaries of gender, age and social status according to the prophet Joel, that makes our lives and our churches evangelical - our lives transformed and made new, and fills men and women like us with a fresh boldness to make known in word and action the love that God has for the world in Jesus Christ. 

Pentecost was not a once only event like the Crucifixion of Jesus - once for all.  Nor is it just an anniversary to be celebrated with a birthday card and song.  Jesus is clear that His gift of the Holy Spirit is personal and to all the faithful always and should be received with love like a birthday gift each year, each month, each day.

I wonder how long the disciples would have waited in that room on that day before returning to their lives and homes and livelihoods if the Spirit hadn’t come?  The Spirit did come and made them new - gave them boldness to go public outside the safety and security of that room and to attract a crowd to hear good news of the love of God in Jesus Christ which spread far from Jerusalem as far as Mill End/West Hyde and Maple Cross.

The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to the church still, both within and outside the Sacraments. It is still the power of God Himself at work in all of our lives, if we wish it, that enables us the church to go public boldly, to attract a crowd in and amongst our wider community with news of God’s love in Jesus still worth hearing.

Following today's induction and installation...

A few memoirs...

Firstly a sonnet:

He was the very model of a modern parish Priest-in-Charge,

His teaching is fantastic and his principles our minds enlarge,

He goes about his duties with a sober dress and attitude

And cycles round the parish with economy and fortitude.

He sometimes seeks for sanctitude, retreating into solitude,

And has a holy bearing wearing crosses in his earring;

And furthermore his sermons are a model of exactitude –

He rarely splits infinitives, and never speaks in platitudes.

And when we say he’s literate, we don’t just mean his reading-base,

But internet and world-wide web and netiquette in cyber-space.

Now Simon is our Vicar - that’s a word that sounds much quicker.

But you must accept the warning with no disbelief or scorning,

That though the title’s quicker, it is hard to sack a Vicar.

Since it seems there is no certitude of “Gross Immoral Turpitude”-

His life is lived with rectitude in every known vicissitude -

We should rejoice; with gratitude, create a new BEATITTUDE

In language that is slicker: 

“They are blessed that know our Vicar.”

Secondly part of an email from the Archdeacon:
'...Dear Simon

It was a great joy to be with you and the folk of [the parish] this morning. I thoroughly enjoyed the liturgy which spoke powerfully of a reverent congregation who are not timid about expressing joy in their worship. I am certain that this is a consequence of your very profound and clearly greatly cherished ministry there. I am so pleased that you are now the Incumbent and that you and the family have settled in well and enjoy living in [the parish]. Certainly the boys all looked to be on excellent form.

...[T]here is a fresh sense of confidence and purpose about the place which I shall be delighted to communicate to Bishop Alan and his Staff. He I know will agree with me that this is the fruit of your ministry there together with the support of your colleagues...

Anyway, very well Simon and keep up the great work...'

Thirdly a picture of helium filled balloons ready to return our hopes and dreams for the Parish to the Ascended Christ...

 

Sunday Podcast

Water of Grace

Cool crisp water. On a day like ones we’ve finally had this week, for many of us, all you want to do is slip into it for a swim. To relax, renew and recover.

Cool crisp water. Many millions around our world today desire it not luxuriate in or beside, but to drink.  To survive. To live.

Water divides - shore from shore, country from country, people from people, language from language.  It is an all encompassing essential and brings people together round a standpipe and yet it geographically seperates.

Water is a source of the holy.  In Phillipi, the river is a place of pilgrimage to worship the god Pan. It is a balm of spirituality in the bustle of a mutlicultural trade centre.  People gather on it’s banks to discuss, to debate, to discover. Lydia, with other women gathers here.

She is wealthy beyond our imagining through selling purple cloth to the superrich and royalty. As a non-Jew, she worships God, but along with others, she gathers at the water’s edge to discover more. Still looking for something unnamed to fulfill her life.

Water is a source of healing.  Outside Jerusalem, the pool at which the sick gather is known as ‘house of mercy’ or house of grace.’

It is a place where social and religious outcasts gather as a last resort, seeking wholeness, restoration and healing. It’s name could also mean ‘despised’ as only the lowest of the low would gather at what tradition says was a sheepdip.  It is a hopeless place for one man who has sat there unhealed for 38 desperate years, a lifetime, still hoping, still longing.

Water divides - rich from poor - those who can afford it by the bottle and those demand it any way. Water draws Lydia together with others and distances this sick man and others like him from his own community and family. And yet in all cases and always this water is a gift.

Paul is drawn over the water by God’s vision of a world where rich and poor, healthy and sick are restored to one another, to their family and their community. And on the banks of that life-giving river he encounters Lydia who can afford anything in life and yet still longs for it.  As Paul speaks, Lydia bubbles with excitement - what she hears him speak of is what she has been searching for - perhaps unknown or unnamed for a lifetime.

Jesus is drawn back to Jerusalem carrying God’s vision of a world where rich and poor, healthy and sick are restored to one another, to their family and their community.  By the pool he encounters that man, who has nothing and yet yearns for one thing. ‘Do you wish to be made well?’ asks Jesus, yet what is offered is more than restoration to what was there before.

Water is a source of renewal - through it plants, animals and indeed each of us are restored, kept alive. Yet at water, both Lydia and that man discover that what God offers is not restoring but completely renewing.

Water is a vehicle for the grace of God - that unmerited, undeserved, unearned, unpurchasable, love and mercy and favour of God Himself which both Lydia and that man desire.  And they are both drawn to the water and to the waters of grace - searching for it but they cannot find it for it is a gift to be received.

It is perhaps no accident that the grace of God was made present to that man on the Sabbath - the day to look and see mirrored in it the moment that God rested from His work of creating and delighted in it’s beauty. It is perhaps no accident that the grace of God was made present to that man on the Sabbath - the day to look and to see mirrored in it a time when all things will be made new and whole. Complete in God Himself.

We gather as a people, many of whom first came to church not really knowing why we came at all - it’s what we did, it’s what we were told to do, it seemed the right thing, to meet new people, to make friends.  But as we came, we too also have come to gradually experience the grace of God - which reminds we are loved even on our most messed up days; it reminds us we haven’t got it all sorted when we feel we do; and assures us that the best in life and love is still yet to come. That unnamed, unknown something that makes sense and offers renewed hope.

We gather today, not at pool or riverside, but a time in this Eucharist, when we remember blood and water flowing for us. We gather today, not at riverside or pool, but at a time, recalling the water of of our own baptism, reflecting the grace of God to us - renewing both rich and poor alike and reorienting our lives in the Way of the Kingdom of God - upsetting expectations and resetting hopes and dreams; where creation is renewed and where heaven is opened to us - unmerited, undeserved, unearned, unpurchasable - save through the love and mercy and favour of God Himself.

This water reminds us of God’s love for all that is created.  As we stand on the cusp of Ascension Day, remembering Jesus returning to be with God and taking our hopes and humanity with Him, securing a place for that in God presence forever, water points not to a restoring of what was there before - a looking back to something now tarnished, dying, missing or dirtied by time; water points us forward to life, to the grace of God, renewing each moment offering healing, wholeness and hope.

A Vocation to Love

(This is a version of Sunday's sermon - but it's the anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence today. Please continue to pray that his death was not in vain and work to sypport the transofrming of the lives of all our young people http://www.stephenlawrence.org.uk)

~~~

It is hard believe that it will be 20 years this week since the death of Stephen Lawrence. Twenty years since that young life of promise and hope was senselessly snuffed out like a candle. But when confronted by such a high profile case - one would like to think that he had not died in vain and that lives of such promise would be allowed to flourish and grow into fullness in our day.

But no - 20 years on I could read you a litany of senseless slaying. The lessons learned from such a murder are not that they should not happen and that society changes for the better, but rather that death can be brutal, it is certainly final and it often utterly crushes those left behind.

And it’s not just in the UK, but in the US since Columbine - many a young life has become a half life of unfulfilled dreams whether in Aurora, or recently in Sandy Hook, or in Boston, or in West in Texas.

But not all death is high profile whether by famine, genocide or tsunami. The impact on a home, a family, a community, a street, a school, a work-place is no less significant.  Death in Afghanistan is not somehow death magnified.  Death is not nothing at all - it’s the ultimate something.

Tabitha died. She’d been ill and died. She was mourned by those whom she loved and by those who she gave of herself to.  Her death, like all deaths, to them was the ultimate something.

Her name means ‘gazelle.‘  They are beautiful creatures. She may have been physically beautiful but her love and care for the lowest in society - namely widows - was certainly beautiful.

She had a beautiful home. Joppa, the city where she lived may well mean ‘beautiful’. It was a majestic place built on the shores of the Mediterraean about 40 miles NW of Jerusalem, modern day Tel Aviv. Joppa was beautiful because, unnoticed to many perhaps, Tabitha was alive there.

Tabitha was beautiful because she was was alive and she loved. We know nothing about a husband or partner, but she is called a disciple - God had whispered to her that she was loved and she heard and believed. She may have been a convert of Philip’s who had preached & taught around that region but she became part of a community where the social order of the day was turned on it’s head - where fishermen preached, where the paralyzed are standing and changing lives and where this beautiful woman cared for the poor of her city.  And to them her death was the ultimate something.

In Tabitha, God was outworking the topsy-turvey values of the Kingdom where the lowly poor are raised up - cared for, protected and loved. The widows were on society’s bottom rung - no husband meant no income, no security, no safety, no food. These are the ones Tabitha has devoted her life to caring for and as she dies, her work dies, which causes a crisis in the community, so Peter is called for.

As Peter arrives he’s taken upstairs to where Tabitha lies - to confront the ultimate something. The garments that the widows show demonstrate Tabitha’s abilities with a needle and thread as a seamstress, but they also show the golden thread of the love of God weaving Tabitha and the lives of these together with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

We do not know Peter’s motivation for doing what he did next - either way, through it, God demonstrates that whilst the church He calls to life inverts the natural order of power and status, it is a place where even life itself is inverted and death, whilst the ultimate something, is a gateway to life.

Peter called the assembled to show that Tabitha was alive. But God had called her first.  He had already called her by name and loved her and in being loved she loved others especially the unloved with the love of God Himself.  Even in death Tabitha truly lived.

God loved Tabitha so much.  He loved her so much that He raised her to life, not when Peter prayed or commanded, but when Jesus brought the glory of heaven to live and die and rise amongst the ordinary, amongst the widows, the poor - all those whom life kicks in the face - and to share that glory, that life with us.

She was called Tabitha, but she was called by God, and she was called to life by God but the life she was called to, was the life of God in His Kingdom - where the mighty are brought down, the proud are scattered and the lowly poor are treated with ultimate respect and care.

Tabitha’s death would have been one of billions not splashed across the headlines of history had it not been that she was living again.  Even after being raised from the dead and Peter showed her to be alive - God had already demonstrated that love and life in it’s fullness because of the resurrection of Jesus was at work in and through her - and the poor saw and felt it.

Today is Vocations Sunday and today many a sermon will rightly be preached asking us to prayerfully to consider whether any of us are called to the Priesthood or to serve the church and community as a Lay Reader.  Tabitha reminds us of what many of us will have heard or will hear from the Bishop in the Confirmation service “God calls you by name and makes you his own” - that calling begins long before we are ready to stand and make an adult commitment to our faith... From the very beginning the God who searches and knows us has a particular work for us to do.  Whatever else He calls us to, each one of us is called by name in love and we are called to love others in turn, especially the unloved, with the love of God Himself that scatters the proud, that brings down the mighty, that raises the poor - a love that is seen and heard and felt, just as Tabitha did. Amen.

Change of Direction - Priest in Charge APCM report 2013

Brian Greenway was a Hells Angel. He was violent and drug dependent.  He had been a hardened criminal for many years, guilty of a whole range of serious offences.  Rather than being ashamed of what his life had become, he had had the word HATE tattooed on the four fingers of his left hand as a visible sign to everyone of the sort of life that he was living.

Whilst serving time in prison he found a yellowing copy of the bible.  He remembers picking it up and thinking that this book should explain everything he ever wanted to know about God.  But was the blurb true?  Miraculously though, through reading it, he came to faith.  He describes what happened:

As I lay on my bunk, I felt that Jesus was ready with open arms to receive me and that he was saying to me: You need only ask me, and I will change your life for you. And that was what I was wanting, more than anything else. In a loud voice, I said: Change my life, take away all the filth and make my life worth living. Instantly, I felt all the rotten-ness and the poison inside me leave me. All the frustrations and anger which had kept me locked-away, for the greater part of my life, disappeared. At the same moment it seemed as if a window opened in my head and the love of God streamed in.

For the first time, I was experiencing love and it was the pure love of God. I burst into tears of joy, and went to the floor on my knees, thanking God for being joined to me. Afterwards, I fell peacefully asleep, at peace with God.

After this change, the more he thought about it, the more his conscience told him that he should now take another very important step. He asked the prison authorities if he could be admitted to the prison hospital at Dartmoor so that the surgeons could carry out an operation on him. When permission was granted, he was delighted, although perhaps a little fearful when it came to the actual day.

It wasn't because he was suffering from a serious illness & needed treatment; rather, he longed for those four angry letters to be removed from the skin on his hands. In his newfound faith, he no longer wanted that to be the message that people heard from him, but rather to be a witness to Christ. The operation proclaimed at last that he was free of the old hatred and hostile way of life, and was a changed man.

This friends is the hope revealed this season of Easter. This is the hope revealed by God in Jesus Christ always and everywhere. This morning’s readings speak of it too - that God does not take and use that which is perfect - both Paul and Peter stand in a long line of very imperfect people who have met the Risen Jesus for themselves and seen their broken and imperfect lives   transformed.

Over the last year there have been 6 weddings, 29 baptisms and 22 funerals (5 of which have taken place in church). As I said last year these are some of the most significant ways in which the Risen Christ meets the people of the parish where they are. Whilst I said last year that I hoped numbers would go up, (and I am confident that they will) all of those numbers are down from last year but not significantly. This reflects a national trend. The anecdotal feedback that we have from those who receive this ministry from me or others is very positive indeed and at this point I would like to take this opportunity to thank Anne Peat, Richard Hickson and the choir, Ann Short, Tricia Fryer, Elaine Dobbs, Margaret Sykes, Alison Sealey and others including members of the In Touch group whose ministry supports all of this.

This year has been about consolidation and growth.  Since our last APCM we have discerned key priorities for us as a parish and produced a Mission Action Plan along with every other parish in the diocese.  This is and opportunity for us to ensure that the Risen Christ is defining and leading our priorities.  From our MAP we established 3 working groups to develop and work on 3 priorities centering on communications within the church and in the wider parish, on study and nurture - opportunities for us to learn and grow into deeper faith, and on worship.  These groups have prayerfully worked hard over the last year - highlights of their work include a new look Chronicle, a toddler space at the back of St Peter’s, the Posada during Advent, a study of Jesus’ parables, a book study and discussion group, the Lent prayer card, and renewed liturgies for Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter.  I am sure you join with me and the PCC in thanking them for their hard work complete and to come.

This year has marked some growing engagement with children and their families - I have continued weekly collective worship at St Peter’s and Maple Cross schools and serving as a Governor at both but some really great work with both Arnett Hills and Shepherd school has begun latterly this year too. There has also been bigger work with a whole day of craft and spirituality being led at St Peter’s school on Ash Wednesday. There has also been renewed engagement with Cubs locally with 2 very worthwhile church visits. There has also been a very successful Light Party with Mill End Baptist church and Good Friday workshop again.

Play and Praise began in September and has gone from strength to strength with numbers stabilizing at up to 40 over the 2 days and attendance for many being weekly. This is not a toddler group as such but church for toddlers and their parents/carers and I am especially grateful to Alex for her incredibly hard every single week - thanks also to those who have committed to making refreshments - we still, need you to support this very important work.  This, along with the local food banks which have fed 171 individuals since November, and the often unseen leading of worship in our local care and nursing homes, is one of the most important pieces of outreach that we do as a parish.

Worship continues to be a key resource for our life and growth together. We have trialled a new pattern of worship over the last 6 months or so which has enabled me to worship with you as much as possible and to stay for post-service chat and refreshments where possible.  The PCC recently agreed to adopt this pattern on a permanent basis subject of course to the changing needs of our worshipping life.  There have been some fantastic special services including the Christingle, Thanksgiving for Marriage, In Touch service, Thanksgiving for Harvest, Advent Carol service amongst others such as our ongoing relationship with the Chiltern Hundreds choir and Chorleywood Chamber Orchestra.

There are some very real challenges ahead of us though - we need to take seriously that at the moment we provide no programme of support or nurture for our young people; another significant challenge is that there is a gap between what we believe God is calling us to do and the resources needed to do it - both financially and in terms of human resources; whilst the programme of building work at St Peter’s and St Thomas’ is being addressed and is in train we must ensure that it happens! In all of these we need to trust that God will take us as imperfect people - as He did with Paul and Peter - and use even us to reveal something of His love and glory in this parish and to His people here.

Look what happened when Paul did trust when confronted with the Risen Jesus in person in a dramatic, immediate and life-changing way - the church was resourced and grew and burgeoned. Look what happened when Peter trusted the Risen Christ - after years of listening and learning the penny finally dropped for him: he was challenged to trust afresh, he was fed by Him, he was forgiven and entrusted to forgive and to feed and care for Christ’s flock - people like us. But he was ultimately called to follow Christ.

Some of us might have a dramatic turn-around experience of Christ that reorientates our lives, for many of us it’s a growing experience of listening, trusting and growing.  Either way, Christ encounters us where we are. He doesn’t call us to perfection for if He did there would be nothing in us to be saved, to be redeemed, to be transformed by His love and grace. No, like Paul and Peter, He accepts our brokenness, calls us as we are to follow so that even through us something of His love may be felt, something of His hope experienced and as He transforms us - something of His light and glory might be revealed.

Salvation for Zombies

I found this challenging and it really made me ask questions about why we belive what we do. Not questioning the fundamentals of orthodoxy as such, but more about what the Church is and why and how we go about what we do in the contemporary world. 

 It's left me with many more questions than answers but I'm ok with that.

Most of all it made me think and I'm very thankful for that.

It's long and dense and his delivery might drive you round the bend, but I think I like alot of his central thesis.

Your thoughts?

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This would have been the accompaniment...

The Easter Address that never was...

As many of you know I am a user of what some people call new media - in other words I use Twitter (@SimonGCutmore) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/simon.cutmore) to connect with people in different ways and different places.

My favorite of the new media set has to be Twitter which is a microblog. It’s a bit like writing a journal of thoughts and happenings but really value Twitter’s challenge of saying what I want to in 140 characters or less.

I discovered a website this week that encourages you to write an autobiography in six words or less. It’s full of people both famous and ordinary trying to distill their lives down to six words about what is most important or distinguished or interesting about them.

The site has also spawned several books, which collect the best of the stories; the first was called “Not Quite What I Was Planning,” and the most recent is titled “It All Changed in an Instant.” I find it fascinating, both how popular the site is and also what a challenge it is to try to fit something about our essence into such a narrow form.

Some six-word stories are poignant: “I still make coffee for two,” writes someone recovering from a breakup. Some are clever: “Well, I thought it was funny,” is the offering of comedian Stephen Colbert.  Some are tragic: the inspiration for the project was an old tale about Ernest Hemingway, who, challenged to write a story in six words, is said to have come up with this: “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

It made me think that for all the joy and fanfare of the Easter celebrations, for all the mystery of faith in God, for all the billions of words used over centuries to explain it all, Christianity itself has a 6 word autobiography: Jesus is risen from the dead.

There are thousands of words in the Bible and none of them make any sense without these 6 words.

These are the words that the breathless women carried from the empty tomb back to the other disciples. These are the words that have been passed from person to person, from community to community, every day since then -- in secret, in triumph, in darkness, in celebration.

These six words that have taken us from scattered, broken people who are lost to the largest religion in the world. It is these six words that have found countless individuals whose lives were already dead -- broken by pain and suffering, by sin and darkness -- and given them new life.

These are the words that are whispered at bedsides and shouted from rooftops and shared at dinner tables and workplaces and in neighborhoods. These are the words that have been forbidden by governments both ancient and modern, and yet somehow they have still been spoken, still been shared.  Millions of lives have been transformed by these six words beginning with Mary Magdelene at the empty tomb.

C.S. Lewis once said, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

This is the story of our lives, the story of the life of the world, the story of life itself. It is the story of how life is stronger than death, how God’s love for us is stronger than death. It is, in the end, the only story that there is.
And so, in Easter, we hear these six words again: Jesus is risen from the dead.

How will these words change your story? Where do you hear the call to new life -- to come out of the tomb you’ve been sealed in, the tomb of fear or the tomb of hopelessness or the tomb of dreams that have been lost or delayed?  How will you receive this news that is now handed again to you?

And how will these words change the world? What does our story still have to say to a world at war, a culture at odds, a people in pain? How will we be sure that they will hear our story of hope?

Every day we write our story again, and we say that it is no less true today than it was on the first day; it is no less miraculous today than it was on the first day -- no less shocking, no less joyful, no less important, no less life-changing and meaningful.

Jesus is risen from the dead.  Run and tell the others what you’ve heard.

~~~

Due to illness this will not be heard this year but is also my article in the parish mag