I am taken with how much more complex our relationship has become with Mother Earth over the past couple centuries. We know so much more and it has increased the range of our responsibility by dimensions of magnitude that even our grandparents could scarcely imagine. Nowadays, we pause to revere the delicate incubus that sustains higher life and to express our gratitude for our life in it. Spiritually, we remember the season of the year when we can more directly participate in the teeming swarm of life that whirls all around us in the spring and summer. Being present in nature is something of a fundamental religious experience that we all crave. It is with that hope that we send the congregation outdoors this week with a commission to touch the mystery of the dawn and dusk with our families and friends. 
Worship starts at 10 a.m. this week. We will have one worship service at 10 a.m. from now until Labor Day. Enjoy the paper a bit longer this Sunday...


The headlines this week featured another grim chapter of social dislocation as the Sunni's in Iraq have galvanized a militia to start the process of breaking away from the Shiite south. Families were literally carrying everything they owned as they fled the lawless violence and anarchy of civil war. The trauma of these social conflicts is palpable, even if it is difficult to measure. I suspect that many of our social dysfunctions have their origin in the fall out that happens when children are raised in tragedy, arbitrary violence, subjected to constant fear which mutes their ability to play imaginatively and just be children. 
Earlier this week, my grandsons finished nursery school and kindergarten, so we went out for breakfast together at the Summit Diner. We sat at the counter, made jokes and drank chocolate milk waiting for our pancakes. 
Later in the week, they all came over for birthday cake. They love to turn off the lights and sing 'happy birthday' and eat ice cream cake to end the day. And Sunday, they've promised to come to church so we can eat hamburgers together and bounce in the bouncy house.
So much of our life together is establishing these little rituals of normalcy, of fun, just spending time together. I'm old enough to know that this is the concrete way that you give children security, identity, and ordinary love. I'm so grateful that my grandchildren can watch me interact with people and learn how to get along with others, how to follow the rules, how to fit in.
And that should be our prayer for all these regions torn by religious and sectarian strife. We hope for them normalcy and a vision of peace where their children can become emotionally and spiritually healthy. 
We've been blessed with social stability and I hope you don't take it for granted. You have an opportunity to create the higher meaning for our lives and I hope that you are aware of what a privilege it is to be able to actualize that with your family and friends. I hope you can see your life as a rare chance to be a blessing to others around you, that you can pray for them that the deeper goodness and sturdier character will flourish in them. It doesn't heal the wounds of the Middle East, but it does release the spiritual antidote to anarchy and war. Peace, like war, must also be waged. And may the Spirit fill you as you take on your project with your people.

The Rev.