God doesn’t do Legal

When creating our part of the universe,

You spoke and it appeared.

Except for us -

You personally formed

and breathed life into us

using Yourself as the blueprint.

Then what is so strange to some

You didn’t patent us.

You gave us the code.

An open source of

just four proteins -

A and T

C and G.

And we began

to recreate and multiply.

No one exactly like You.

No one exactly like anyone else.

So we copyrighted ourselves

into separate tribes, nations and religions.

And You were transformed into a legend.

So to erase the ©

from the end of Your name,

You sent your Son

to tell us to remove

the labels we place on

God,

ourselves,

and

others

and to start living the abundant life

You always had wanted for us.

God Is In The Roses

Artist:  Rosanne Cash Link to song Album: Black Cadillac

God is in the roses
The petals and the thorns
Storms out on the oceans
The souls who will be born
And every drop of rain that falls
Falls for those who mourn
God is in the roses and the thorns

The sun is on the cemetery
Leaves are on the stones
There never was a place on earth
That felt so much like home
We're falling like the velvet petals
We're bleeding and we're torn
But God is in the roses and the thorns

I love you like a brother
A father and a son
It may not last forever and ever
But it never will be done
My whole world fits inside the moment
I saw you be reborn
God is in the roses
And that day was filled with roses
God is in the roses and the thorns

The Only Journey -M Morford

Sometimes I spend too much
And enjoy it too little,
And find myself with people
Who remind me who I never was
And I wonder what it takes
To find my own people
And walk my own way,
And I remember the term ‘spiritual path’
And wonder how I could ever believe
That I would walk a well-worn trail
And it would take me anywhere
Never explored, or left behind by others.
It’s a ‘spiritual journey’ I’m on
One never traveled before,
Never to be followed
And with an end beyond my knowing.

It’s a journey like no other;
With no final destination,
At least in the usual sense.
My guide posts may never be yours,
And your burdens might seem light,
Or unbearably heavy to me,
But they are never mine,
And I’ll never know the weight you carry in silence.

And our journeys end
With work undone,
Words unsaid,
And dreams abandoned
Like a stranger’s lost baggage.

We usually imagine
That the spiritual journey ends
When the physical one does
And it might,
But I’ve seen too many people
Stop growing in their souls.
Their spiritual vital signs flat-lined years ago,
But they keep breathing
And talk as if they have nothing left to learn
And I know there is nothing more dead
Than the one who keeps talking
When he has nothing left to say.

Communion

John 6:53-56

53 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat

the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.

55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink.

56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me,

and I in them.

Isaiah 55:2 (KJV)

… [L]et your soul delight itself in fatness.

Communion

The meal of bread and wine

transformed into

His body and blood

which changes us

from sinners to saints.

And we wonder

which is the bigger miracle:

Eating the flesh of Christ?

or

The Fallen are redeemed?

Prayer of Ruth

Lord,
In the midst of this ruthless world
we live in:

Help us bond with the disconsolate Naomi.

Hear our prayers for the homeward bound Orpah.

Bless today’s gleaning
so it is enough for our daily bread.

And may we never forget
our eternal kinsman-redeemer.
Amen.