Almighty and eternal God, gather into your embrace all those who call out to you under different names.
Taken from the Good Friday Service we experienced at First Lutheran Church
PERSISTENCE AND PATIENCE: KEEPING GOING
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language…Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Taken from Week 3 of Lent First United Methodist Church
GOD
“It’s strange that God doesn’t mind expressing Himself/Herself in all the religions of the world, while people still cling to the notion that their way is the only right way. Whatever you try to say about God, someone will take offense, even if you say everyone’s love of God is right for them.
For me the form God takes is not the most important thing. What’s most important is the essence. My songs and dances are outlines for Him to come in and fill. I hold out the form, She puts in the sweetness.
I’ve looked up at the night sky and beheld the stars so intimately close, it was as if my grandmother had made them for me. ‘How rich, how sumptuous,’ I thought. In that moment I saw God in His creation. I could as easily have seen Her in the beauty of a rainbow, the grace of a deer bounding through a meadow, the truth of a father’s kiss. But for me the sweetest contact with God has no form. I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. The infinity of God’s creation embraces me. We are one.”
Michael Jackson DANCING THE DREAM 1992
The glory of God is a human being fully alive. I wish for you this beautiful weekend in spring, happiness and much love. Say “YES” to life and “NO” to devastation, poverty and its humiliations. Remember the children. KEEP THE FAITH. Feel the wonder of God’s amazing world. IT’S ALL FOR LOVE.
Jude
HIStory
MYstory
YOURstory
OURstory
Thank you for reminding us about the meaning of Easter. We all need to focus on the positive, as Michael always seemed to do. I watch the news and feel great frustration with our elected officials and what is happening in our world. You inspire me and make me want to be a better person and try to make a positive difference in other people’s lives.
‘Feel the wonder of God’s amazing world’. Beautiful words from a beautiful heart, and made even more so when Michael’s words are entwined within it. Such a beautiful piece Jude, especially at this special time of the year.