03/27/2019
Have you ever had a day or moment when you felt like there were so many things coming at you that you clutched your head saying “I can’t take this anymore?” Life can make so much noise that you cannot think and the noise is all you hear.
Walking in church on Sunday reminded me of this kind of noise. A security alarm was stuck...ringing and ringing and ringing. We had a key to silence it but that only lasted a couple of minutes. Just not enough!!! After the majority of people left the church building, I silenced the alarm once again. Pastor Aj said to me “The silence sounds SO good and silent.”
Sometimes we live our lives with continual blaring noise and even forget how wonderful the silence is. We forget how relaxing, yet energizing the silence can be. Maybe that is something that you need to add to your life of faith. As we are talking about “Dangerous Prayers” on Sundays leading up to Easter, just maybe you could step away from the noise and into the silence with God. In my message Sunday, I shared about the Jewish practice of covering your head with a prayer shawl (called a tallit) understanding that a quiet place with God has been created. I sometimes think of that as a private tabernacle. If you are a mom or dad, imagine what a family member may say if they came upon you in a quiet room, sitting on the floor, with a covering over your head. I know--your family would probably tease you about that!!! Mom or Dad has lost it!!! But imagine the example you are setting for them and the benefit for you.
I believe we will lose our minds and souls if we don’t take moments to ground ourselves in God and to renew our souls! Why not try? Let me know what you discover!
Blessings, Patti
Archived Posts
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What I wanted to say
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The Storm that Comes To Us as Helplessness
I want to share with you a small portion of my conversation with Artificial Intelligence online. Some of you know, I use Chat-GPT as a thoughtful sounding board for the questions and insights I’m working with on whatever scriptures I’m studying each week. What follows is an example of those discussions...
One Final Scene About Scrooge
There was one more scene in Dickens’s novel that reveals something of what has happened to Scrooge over the years. I did not have time to share it on Sunday, but I believe it reveals a great deal about the regrets in Scrooge’s life....
What Jacob Marley Would Do,
If He Could Do It…
I thought about using the following for a benediction—since Jacob Marley was warning Scrooge about the danger of loving money and what it could buy. Ends up with the Cantata and everything else going on, I didn’t have the time. So here is what you might have heard if the sermon itself was 5 minutes shorter!
A Confirming Word on Old King Herod
I just want to echo what Rick said in his fine sermon yesterday (Nov. 23). Herod was a ruthless tyrant and skilled politician. When the Magi don’t report back to him, he decides to kill all the male children of Bethlehem under the age of 2. That’s one paranoid dude.