March Madness

In case you missed it - it is indeed that time of year - lots of people were tied to t.v. screens - and here in Buffalo we played host to lots of basketball fans routing on their teams.

I think that one of the things that people like about the NCAA tournament is that there is always the opportunity for the underdog to win - like this weekend - with Northern Iowa beating the top seeded Kansas - it's those kinds of stories that make March Madness what it is.

So while we are looking for underdogs to cheer on - it occured to me that the story of the beginning of Christianity is kind of a Cinderella story - we are going to hear next week that the disciples all scattered when Jesus was arrested and that they spent alot of the next couple of weeks hiding - but that little group hiding from everyone in two generations spread the story of Jesus to the then known world and were a force that threatened the Roman Emperor himself - just a thought

The Prodigal Parish

We heard yesterday about the prodigal son - but actually in the parable it isn't the son who is prodigal, it is the Father. The word prodigal means overly generous or perhaps more accurately, the overwhelmingly generous.

I just want to reflect on how prodigaly generous the people of St. Paul's were this weekend. We collected over $300 in the Day of Change collection - which is supporting a refugee family the Eastern Erie Deanery is adopting.

We also had a highly successful dinner in support of the youth mission trip - people were prodigal both with their money and their time.

In the midst of this we are participating in the ECS campaign and are doing well in those collections and people are painting the parish hall and the classrooms and the hallways.

Well done prodigal parish - making the Grace of God visible here.

Our time - God's time - Nature's time

I have just begun to be able to sense that the days are getting longer - for me that is the first sign of spring - it comes just before the whiff in the air that is a combination of thawing earth, slightly warmer air and melting snow.

But it's not quite spring yet - which is perfect, because it's not quite Easter yet - we aren't quite ready to celebrate the new life that is represented by both Easter and spring - we get a whiff of it here or there, but it's not time quite yet.

Of course this will all take a large leap forward in two weeks when we change the clocks -

But until then there is something nice about having time cycles coincide - about having the church year's cycle at the same place as nature's time cycle and my own - it doesn't happen very often, but it's nice when it does.