An Interesting View of us from the outside

This article from Newsweek is an interesting look at the Episcopal Church and our current disputes from someone who isn't an Episcopalian and who isn't invested in the outcome. Very interesting and worth reading

http://www.newsweek.com/id/212713/page/1

The internal cycle

We talk about the church year as a cycle that moves within the calendar year - beginning at Advent and moving through Christmas and then to Lent and Easter and in some way that cycle becomes a part of our lives and we conciously and sub-conciously respond to it.

There are other cycles like that and when they are disrupted it is very unsettling. I'm discovering that it actually doesn't take much.

Where I was raised and lived most of my life school started the third or fourth week of August, so by now the back to school shopping had been done, the class lists posted and the first day of school outfit at least thought about, if not actually picked out. So the fact that school here doesn't start for another three weeks is unsettling my internal "start of the program year" calendar. I have to admit that I'm surprised at how hard it is to adapt (at least right now)

I suspect that we all have several of these internal calendars and that part of building a family or a community is trying to get everyone's internal calendars in sync with each other.

Proof from facebook

I, somewhat facetiously, posted as my facebook status yesterday:

"Sunday afternoon naps are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Oh, wait, that's beer, or chocolate, oh well, why can't there be more than one:)"

A few of my friends commented back with other things that they found to be proofs that God loved them and wanted them to be happy, ranging from scotch to grandchildren.

That got me thinking, I suspect that if we look for it, we will find lots of proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. However, we, or at least I, don't tend to look for them very often.

I think I might try this week looking around for proof that God loves me. I suspect it might make a huge difference in my week.

The Bread of Life

We are in that run of Sundays in year B of the lectionary that I like to call the month of bread. (Bethlehem means House of Bread in Hebrew, I'm not sure what month of bread would be iralehem maybe?) Anyway, beginning last week and for the next several Sundays our Gospel readings will be about the bread of life, the true bread that comes down from heaven etc, etc.

As I've been thinking about the next several sermons, I was remembering that in Jesus' time it was rare for people to bake their own bread. Most people didn't have ovens in their home, so to actually have leavened bread they needed to take their prepared dough to the baker and have it baked for them. Making bread was, of necessity, a community activity, you couldn't do it alone.

I wonder if that means that when Jesus says, "I am the Bread of Life" or "I am the true bread which comes down from heaven" did he have in his mind not only the staple food that everyone needed, but also the most common connection of people to their neighbors and communities? And if so, does that mean that Jesus is not only our connection to the basics of eternal life but also the basics of eternal community? Just something I'm pondering