A little journey through this topsy-turvy journey of joys and sorrows and hopes and dreams with plenty of grace from God along the way.
Blessed greetings this Holy Week, however you are in the midst of it. At least, for me, there’s something rather beautifully re-assuring to know we’re not the only ones in the midst of it. Yes, that should be rather obvious knowing we’re not the only church around, including the churches who are more church calendar and liturgically-driven, but still…it’s a holy re-assurance knowing we’re all journeying together to a hillside of some brutal unpleasantness to the ultimate eternal re-assurance.
I still remember him often standing underneath the basketball hoop at our local high school on those nostalgic Friday nights, when seemingly the whole town showed up to cheer on a bunch of teenagers to hopeful victory. He would have his professional camera in hand, as he was one of the leads of the sports section of the newspaper, when cell phones weren’t quite to the level of providing instantaneous information; and so farming communities would still fervently clamor for the delivery of the latest updates on the near and far away world. It was a rather fitting job for him: a gentle giant. He could tower over the majority of players on the court to get just the right digital shot, which could then reel in captive readers the following morning (or perhaps the following Monday if the game ran too long into the night). But he was also seemingly the calmest individual in the entire county, and never wanting any kind of public recognition, even if it was his job to popularize others. He, and anyone like him, seem almost…impossible to find nowadays.
This weekend, we welcome a new addition to our pews, which we sit in and stand in front of for a relatively short period in the grand scheme of our day-to-day living. And yet, in that precious glimpse of time, we hope for spiritual nourishment, enough of a hope-jolt to get us through the next set of days, a renewed outlook on ourselves and the world, an opportunity to give thanks and praise to God for whatever blessings come to mind that particular worship instance, and more. One way we Lutherans tend to believe for all of those expectations (and then some) to be fulfilled is through the music, whether an organ, piano, guitar, drum, voices, or whatever else.
Recently, I saw one of the latest advertisements for Hallow, a digital prayer and devotion app available on mobile devices, iPads, and other forms we try to stay connected (perhaps, at times, over-connected) with the world. But what makes this particular technological application stand out more amidst the seemingly countless choices for Bible-reading and worship-streaming and all-around spiritual-assisting, is that it’s also being promoted by relatively well-known actors in Chris Pratt, Mark Wahlberg, Jonathan Roumie, and a social media phenom in Fr. Mike. With that, it is more of a Roman Catholic-based interaction with the option of praying a rosary with the Oscar & Emmy-nominated Wahlberg, for instance, but it has been downloaded by tens of millions around the world.
I usually don’t see it on the calendar ahead of time, as a way to mentally remind myself to look up at the sky later that day. Nevertheless, the full moon never ceases to grab my attention, no matter how many times I’ve seen it before. There’s something peaceful, serene, awe-inspiring about it.
As we’ve begun using a new liturgy from All Creation Sings during our Saturday and Sunday 9am worships, I’m reminded how living children of God are still blessed with gifts and talents to help us gain even deeper awareness and appreciation and fascination over the matters of nature, faith, and God, all of which have been part of living since the beginning. But sometimes we could use a holy refresher of sorts from those in our midst to ensure we never take such eternal-shaping matters for granted (one of the responsibilities of the church as a whole, I suppose).
