Showing posts with label lectionary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lectionary. Show all posts

Monday, February 12, 2024

My Bible Study for Lent 2024

My internship project was putting together a Bible study for Lent for the Southeastern Synod, my internship site.  I'm really happy with it.  It gives discussion questions, quotes from scholars, and ideas for ways to engage with the Sunday lectionary texts through creative projects using materials on hand and/or using activities from different spiritual disciplines.  I also inserted some photos to make it easier to see where we're moving to a new week.

It's free and available for everyone to use;  go here where it's on the website if you scroll down, or go here to access it directly.

I enjoyed creating all of it, but going through photos to add. I used my own photos because I know I have the rights to them.  I liked thinking about the surrounding material and choosing photos to match.  For example, one of the spiritual disciplines to try is walking a labyrinth.  I chose this photo:


It was also a delight to go back and use the pictures to reflect on the wonderful experiences I've had.  Even though I haven't had a once in a lifetime trip, like going to Iona or the Holy Land, I've taken advantage of a lot of opportunities that came my way.

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Advent Eve

I have ordered some Happy New Year headbands for the children's sermon tomorrow.  It's a good time to talk about how the lectionary year works and to think about all the ways a new year can work and not work (but I'll probably talk about how it does work).

It's a strange Advent this year.  It starts very late, because the 4th Sunday in Advent is also Christmas Eve--my least favorite way of having Advent and Christmas Eve.  At the church where I serve, we will have a 2 p.m. service, and I'm fine with that.

Once I would not have been; I would have been insistent that we must have Advent 4 in the morning and Christmas Eve later in the day.  I have always loved a Christmas Eve evening service, so that candles look more beautiful, but I am aware of how many people are not going to be able to join us at night.  These days, I may be that person myself.  My night vision is not what is used to be.

It's also a strange Advent because we're at that time in the lectionary cycle where we have more John the Baptist and apocalypse than other years.  When I thought of being a SAM and leading the church through Advent, I had forgotten about this set of readings.  But given the world events, I think I'm up to the task.

In some ways, it feels like Advent has already started, the way that it usually does, with the Sunday after Thanksgiving, or even earlier.  I wonder if that could be a starting point for a sermon?  

As you can see, I'm still not ready with sermons for tomorrow, either the children's sermon or the adult sermon.  Let me go for a walk and ponder it all.

Sunday, October 15, 2023

Tips for Bible Interpretation from a Former Bishop

During the Southeastern Synod Convocation, I went to a workshop given by the former bishop of the Synod, Julian Gordy.  He offered an approach to Bible study/interpretation/sermon prep that seemed very helpful, so I want to preserve it here.

He began by telling us that if we hear something in a text that sounds weird, we should be assured that everyone else will too.  So when we preach on the text, we might as well address it head on.  Much of our workshop was spent exploring the text for the coming Sunday, Matthew 22:  1-14.  It's the text where the king who invites people to a wedding feast, and reacts harshly to the indifference of the intended guests.

Bishop Gordy told us his approach to a Bible text:

--Read the text and ask what it meant what it was written.

--Try to answer this question:  what does it mean?

--Read the text and ask, "What is the text calling us to do today?"

My preaching professor gave a similar approach, and I was happy to be reminded of it.  I particularly like that last question, and perhaps I spend too much time with it.  It's good to be reminded of the other steps.

Saturday, January 28, 2023

A Time, and a Psalm, for Lament

It's been a week of shocking violence.  There were 2 mass shootings in California, right on top of each other, to the point that when I read about the latter one, it took me a few sentences to process that I wasn't reading about the first one, that there had been a second shooting.

And then there was the release of the footage of what should have been a routine traffic stop in Memphis, the revved up violence of the police, the death of a young black man.  The footage was released yesterday, in the early evening, to give people time to get home ahead of expected demonstrations.

I'm not sure I understand why we need to release this kind of video evidence to a wide audience.  Save it for the court room and then release it if necessary.  There was talk of transparency, but who needs this kind of transparency?  I don't think the parents of the murdered man demanded its release.  Most of us in the community don't need to see it; if the police chief says it's the most sickening thing she's ever seen, I'm willing to take her word for it.

I understand the need for demonstrations, and I'm glad that the demonstrations that happened around the nation last night remained mostly peaceful, from the news coverage that I've seen.  I wasn't too worried about my personal safety, since my seminary apartment is far from where violence would erupt, if it erupted.

Last night, I wrote this Facebook post, which I want to preserve here:  "Somewhere in this seminary apartment building, I hear a baby crying, and a parent singing. On this night when we get another recording that shows us how we can be so brutal to each other, I am grateful for babies who cry and parents who soothe, and I sing my own prayers to a God who can transform all sorts of brokenness into beauty."

I had been thinking of a poem possibility before last night.  In the wee small hours of the morning earlier this week, I had awakened to the sound of someone singing.  Sounds travel in strange ways in this building, so I'm not sure who was singing or why.  I'm fairly sure it was a human singing, not a recording.

This morning, I turned my attention to my prayer book, as I do every morning.  I use Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours, which is rooted in the lectionary that comes to us from the ancient monastic tradition.  One of this morning's passages leapt out at me:  "The Lord executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed" (Psalm 103: 6).  

It's not the first time that a passage seemed chosen for our particular day and time, and I do realize that the beauty of the Psalms rests in the broad scope of them, everything from mourning/lament to joy to anger and all the emotions in between.  

This verse bears repeating:   "The Lord executes righteousness and judgment for all who are oppressed" (Psalm 103: 6).  

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Returning to Romans

This week in A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church, we have a reading from Romans. It happens to be one of the parts of Romans that has been important to Christians across the centuries. In seminary this spring, we devoted a week to the study of Romans 5: 1-11, which tries to answer the question, “What shall we do to be saved?” Paul’s answer is that we can do nothing, but through Jesus, we have access to God’s grace, and we can be reconciled. God made these arrangements even before humanity knew it wanted to be saved. In other words, the initiative comes from God, not from humans. This passage can be interpreted through the lens of atonement theology: Jesus had to die so that humans can have eternal life.

In Romans 5: 1-11, I can see the power of Paul’s ideas, but I can also see how they have been misused through the ages. I am most distressed by Romans 5: 3-4: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope” (NRSV). I read these verses, and I sense a huge history of this passage being used across centuries to tell people not to work to alleviate suffering. Or worse, I see this passage being used to tell people that suffering is actually a positive thing.

I don’t think that Paul would approve of his writing being used this way, of course. I do understand that this passage can be used to give us comfort during the times that suffering does come into our lives. I also think these passages can be dangerous because sometimes (often?), suffering does not bring perseverance, character, and hope. It’s just as likely that suffering breaks a person and for a variety of reasons, recovery isn’t possible.

This theology seems to be a sibling of the “God never sends you more than you can handle.” What do we then say to the person who suffers and doesn’t see themselves as persevering and developing character? What do we say to the person who loses all hope because of the immense suffering they have endured?

I am also troubled by the language of humans being God’s enemies and needing the blood of Jesus to save us from God’s wrath. I understand the centuries of Christian theology that have stemmed from these ideas, but I find substitutionary atonement theology problematic: God, who is so creative in other areas, can't think of any other way to save humanity? The fact that this theology is easy to misuse to manipulate people makes it even more troubling. We know that crucifixion was used for enemies of the state, threats to the Roman empire. Jesus wasn't crucified because of the sins I would commit 2000 years later. Jesus was crucified because worldly authorities saw his teaching as so threatening that it justified this punishment, so that others would take heed and be obedient to the state.

I do see the appeal of God saving humanity without humanity needing to perform actions to prove themselves worthy of saving. I am a Lutheran, and the concept of grace is important to me. But Paul’s theology in Romans has so much potential for misuse that I just can’t escape my feelings of unease as I read this passage.


It's important to realize that Paul wasn't writing for us. Paul thought that Jesus would be returning to earth in a year or two. Does that knowledge change how you see the passage? For a group of seminary students in the spring of 2022, it did. We were able to appreciate the positive parts of Paul's message in a new way.

Thursday, September 16, 2021

A Lectionary for Our Current Time

For the next several months, our church will be using the newly published A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church.  Why switch to a new lectionary?  Hasn't the Revised Common Lectionary been good enough for all these years?  What can the new one do that old ones haven't?

Some of you might be asking a more basic question:  "What's a lectionary?"  It's simply a grouping of religious readings for any given day in the religious year. It's a way to ensure that communities of faith hear a variety of readings, and it's a wonderful feeling of solidarity, knowing that a majority of communities are considering the same texts on any given day.

In an ideal world, having a common lectionary is a way to make sure that religious texts aren't used to wound others.  We know it hasn't always worked that way.

So why switch to this new lectionary?  The introduction to the book says it best:  "What does it look like to tell the Good News through the stories of women who are often on the margins of scripture and often set up to represent bad news?  How would a lectionary centering women's stories, chosen with womanist and feminist commitments in mind, frame the presentation of the scriptures for proclamation and teaching?  How is the story of God told when stories of women's brutalization and marginalization are moved from the margins of canon and lectionary and held in the center in tension with stories of biblical heroines and heroes?"

Here's an example, taken from my seminary class this week.  Most of us grew up hearing the story of Adam and Eve, where Eve was presented in a variety of ways, none of them good.  Eve was stupid or ditzy or conniving.  Eve was the one responsible for bringing sin into the world; Eve was responsible for the fall of all of humankind, and therefore all women must be punished, century after century.

But what if we told the story differently?  What if we saw Adam as the passive one, the one who just did what he was told, while Eve was the one who took an active role in managing the Garden, talking to the animals, considering their arguments.  Let's take it one step further.  What would happen if we saw Eve as being convinced by the serpent, not as being tricked?  Perhaps Eve made a decision to eat the fruit, deciding to risk the possible downside to get more knowledge.  Perhaps Eve decided that a life with more varieties of knowledge would be better than being a manager in God's garden.  Maybe Eve was trying to better herself, to improve her situation--who among us cannot relate.

Of course, that's not usually how the story is told.  And we see the result:  centuries of oppression of women, often brutal oppression.  The world is a worse place because of the version of Eve that we have proclaimed. 

A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church isn't a hack effort, created by feminists who are trying to hijack the mission of the church.  Wilda C. Gafney, the creator, is a Hebrew biblical scholar--the translations we'll be reading are hers.  Along the way, she's spent time in careful consideration of word choice; I know that she has because I've been part of a Facebook group made to support her and the work.  I loved seeing her progress and being a part when she would ask us which word made the most sense.  I can attest that Dr. Gafney has done this work with love and a fierce loyalty to the larger Christian community.

It will be interesting to see how this work shapes our individual community and the larger world.

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Morning Watch Update

For almost 2 weeks, at 5:30 a.m., I've been livestreaming a morning watch on my church's Facebook page; it's recorded so that people who don't get up as early as I do can watch it later.  When I first started thinking about doing this process, I thought that I would choose the Bible verses.  But then I wondered why--after all, we have a daily lectionary.

So I've been using Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours.  I don't read all the selections, just a few of the verses from the Psalms, the Gospel reading, and the concluding prayer.  I also give time for sketching.

Here's how it usually works:

2-3 readings from Psalms

1 reading from the Gospel

1 reading from Psalms (usually a longer passage)

5-8 minutes of quiet, which I use to sketch--others might journal or meditate or do centering prayer or stretch or do yoga, . . .

concluding prayer

some sort of benediction and closing

I am really enjoying this time, and a few others tune in every day, either live or by watching the recording.  I enjoy that it makes me do the readings myself and to take time for sketching.  In the benediction, I send out words of hope, words I need to hear myself.

As I hear myself, I wonder how I sound to others.  I feel like I sound like a 70's PBS show, if Bob Ross had ever decided to do morning devotionals.

Will I continue to do this if life returns to some semblance of normal, and I'm going to spin class?  I have no idea--so much depends on so many unknowns.

But I'm happy to be doing it now--it's a small joy in this pandemic time of fear and grief.

Sunday, November 15, 2015

A Poem for The Last Sunday in Ordinary Time

Today we celebrate the last Sunday in Ordinary Time, the time after Pentecost.  What a long stretch it has been!

In my childhood years, this season was called the Trinity season, or as I thought of it, the long, green, boring season.  No interesting holidays.  Boring hymns.  Nothing to break up the monotony.

Now that I am older, I admit to often feeling the same way.  But I am also grateful for long seasons of time unpunctuated by drama.  It's an interesting contradiction.

Next week we have Christ the King Sunday and then it's on to Advent; I am ready for a season that reminds me of the importance of keeping watch.  After that, Christmas and Epiphany--in these dark times, it will be good to have a season of light.

These thoughts put me in mind of a poem that I wrote years ago, but I still think it holds up well.


Desert Dreams


We face midlife with Prufrock.
Midlife, that endless wait for Godot,
who might show up early or not at all.
Existentialism succors only the young.

And so, we, too, come to realize
what Eliot knew. At the last,
liturgy offers a consolation,
Compline a kind of comfort,
with its contrast to the sudden violence
of sunset. We remember the verses learned
by rote, repeat them to calm
our quaking, media-addled nerves.

Prophetic whispers surface from the sediment
of our days, a muddy
bit from Isaiah or the Psalms,
instructing us to comfort, comfort ye my people.
A voice crying in the wilderness
of our arid hearts, our desert dreams.  

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Trudging through the Book of Acts

My pastor has wanted to work our way through the book of Acts for some time now.  I wanted to see if I had a different reaction than I've had in past times.  Maybe if we worked our way through it, as a book, I'd like it better than I do when we hit a story here or there in the Revised Common Lectionary.  And after all, I reasoned, it's only for a summer.

I want to like the book of Acts.  Intellectually, I understand why it's important.  The early Church, especially in its more communal aspects, fascinates me.  But oh, how I am ready to move on to something else. 

Alas, I think we're with the book of Acts until Reformation Sunday.

The other day, I tried to figure out why it's August, and I'm finding Acts tiresome.  Is it something about the narrative structure?  I feel like each week, it's the same:  watch the faithful crew head out to some new adventure, where they'll meet people who are resistant at first, and then they agree to be baptized.

Mission building right there in the mission field--I hear a hundred sermons being preached.

It does make me yearn for follow up.  What happens to those fledgling congregations in 10 years when the now-no-longer-new believers realize they have many of the same problems and some of them are worse?  The apostles have gone along their merry way, on to the next mission field (or death, I know).

My pastor has done a great job of tying the book of Acts to our modern lives, let me hasten to add.  The problem isn't with him--it's with me.

Or maybe it's with the book of Acts.

Or maybe it's August, and I'm ready for something new.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

On Not Loving the Narrative Lectionary

Careful readers of this blog may have realized that last week, I didn't write a post for the Narrative Lectionary reading.  I think I'm done with that.  The main reason:  the cycle ends in a few weeks anyway, and my pastor has chosen different readings for the coming weeks.  I had mainly been writing the posts to have a post for our church's blog.  If we're not using those readings anymore, well, a major motivation is gone.

Of course, if I was finding it rewarding, I'd still be doing it.  But I haven't found it as rewarding as I thought.

I expected to find more of a narrative as I worked my way through the readings since September.  I know that the creators of the Narrative Lectionary had a vision of a selection of readings that gave a sense of the overall plot of God's ways of working in the world.  As a person with a Ph.D. in English, I expected the narrative readings to be bound together more thoroughly, to echo each other.  So far, I haven't found as much of that as I thought I would.

To be frank, the readings in the Narrative Lectionary feel as random as the ones in the Revised Common Lectionary.  As a reader, I'm still the one struggling to make the connections.  I'm trained in literary theory, so it's easier for me.  But the readings from the Old Testament prophets don't seem to have connections to the earlier stories chosen from the Old Testament, and the links to the New Testament stories of Jesus don't seem to be there either.

My inner good student doesn't want me to admit these things.  She worries that I'm overlooking something big and obvious.  She has anxiety that my Ph.D. will be revoked.  She imagines that I will never be accepted to a seminary, if I keep admitting these things in public spaces like a blog.  She says, "Trained theologians created this Lectionary.  Who the heck are you to question it?"

I am old-fashioned.  I want to have all the readings (Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament epistle, and Gospel) in one day that connect and link in interesting ways.  If I miss a Sunday, I have a chance to pick up the threads the following Sunday with another set of connected readings.  Maybe my brain or the pastor's brain connects all the readings for the day and keeps up with the threads across time.  Maybe I end up with a sense of the narrative.  Or maybe I just get set after set of matched readings.  Either way, it works.

With the Narrative Lectionary, I just didn't feel that sense of satisfaction each week.  Some readings left me shaking my head and saying, "What am I supposed to do with this?"  And there weren't additional readings leaping into the fray each week.

I remember my childhood and adolescent years in church, and how at least one reading always seemed to speak to me.  Even when the dense prose of Paul made me shake my head or the Old Testament story pointed to an unnecessarily harsh God, there was the Gospel.  If the Gospel was strange, there was usually solace in a Psalm or a letter written by those early Church evangelists.

Even as I celebrate new ways of doing church, the abundance of Bible readings is an old way that I miss.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Moving to a Narrative Lectionary

Our church is about to experiment with the narrative lectionary.  What is the narrative lectionary, you ask?  This website explains: 

"The narrative lectionary is a four-year cycle of readings. On the Sundays from September through May each year the texts follow the sweep of the biblical story, from Creation through the early Christian church:


•From September to mid-December the preaching texts begin with the early chapters of Genesis, move through the stories of Israel’s early history, the exodus, the kings, prophets, exile, and return.

•From Christmas to Easter there is sustained reading of one of the four gospels

•From Easter to Pentecost the texts are chosen from Acts and Paul’s letters."

I'm intrigued by this different approach.  I'll miss the knowledge that across the world, many Christians are reading the same texts, as we do with the Revised Common Lectionary, but I know that many churches go off lectionary for at least some of the time.

What does this mean for this blog and for my meditation on the weekly Gospel?  Well, now there will be two. 

I originally started writing the meditation on the Sunday Gospel for a different church when I sent out a weekly e-mail.  Then my mom's church started using it.  Then I switched churches, and I posted it on their blog, along with my own blog that I was keeping by then.  I'm syndicated!

I'll keep posting that meditation on Wednesdays, and then, on Thursdays, I'll post a response to the readings for the narrative lectionary.  At least, that's my plan.  We'll see how it works.

I like this idea:  "The texts include the major episodes in Scripture. They are arranged in a narrative sequence to help people see Scripture as a story that has coherence and a dynamic movement."

I went to a Presbyterian elementary school, so I have more Bible training than many people do.  I'm always amazed at what Christians don't know about the Bible, as well as by their inability to see larger pictures that the Bible presents.  I know that I'm also trained as a literary scholar and thus, I approach the Bible that way--another skill that many in our societies don't have.

It will be an interesting experiment.  I'll weigh in, periodically, on this new approach that many are adopting. And it will give me new writing challenges.  That's always good.


Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Star Dust, Ashes, We're All Decomposing: Ash Wednesday, Again

Today is Ash Wednesday, the day in the Liturgical year that reminds us that we are dust, and all too soon, we'll return to dust. You can call yourself a creature made out of the ruins of stars (true!), but you're dust all the same. This service used to depress me, but these days, I find it one of the more important ones of the church year.



We're not here for very long, and most of us have already used up at least half the time we have in this life. We just do not have time for most of the self-defeating and self-destructive behaviors in which we engage.






As a child, I hated Ash Wednesday. Christmas, of course, was my favorite holiday; I wanted fun and festivity. I hated Ash Wednesday and Lent, the somber mood, the focus on our sinfulness. Yuck.



So, I'm amused to discover that I rather like Ash Wednesday as an adult. Perhaps it's taken me this many years to admit (and in some cases, just to see) all the ways in which I've sinned and fallen short of my full potential. Maybe it's because I've come across more modern thinking about sin. My favorite definition of sin comes from the Gail Godwin novel, Father Melancholy's Daughter (which would make great Lenten reading--it's set during Holy Week): "A falling short from your totality. . . . Choosing to live in ways you know interfere with the harmony of that totality" (p. 198).


Here's a quote from Henri Nouwen to start your day. It's from A Cry for Mercy: "Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and failings and so overwhelmed by our lack of generosity that we get stuck in a paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says 'I am too sinful to deserve God's mercy.' It is the guilt that leads to introspection instead of directing our eyes to God. It is the guilt that has become an idol and therefore a form of pride. Lent is the time to break down this idol and to direct our attention to our loving Lord. The question is: 'Are we like Judas, who was so overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God's mercy any longer and hanged himself, or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?' The season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God's mercy."



Here is a prayer for Ash Wednesday: "Oh God, keep us mindful of all the behaviors that move us away from you. Help us to choose our Lenten disciplines wisely. Help us to remember that we are here for such a short time, that all to soon we shall return to our dusty destinies. Keep us focused on the Kingdom work that you need us to do."




Thursday, April 21, 2011

Our Most Important Commandment

Today is Maundy Thursday, so named because of the mandatum (Latin for commandment) that we receive from Christ:  to love each other.

Most churches will remember this commandment today by offering a communion service.  If I was in charge, I'd include a real meal with that communion service.  If I had plenty of time, I'd offer a version of a Seder meal, which some scholars (supported by at least one Gospel) believe Jesus was eating as his last meal with his disciples.  Eating together is still one of the most common ways we show our love for others, whether we're Christians or not.

In these days of everyone working longer hours, it would be less common for churches to organize works of charitable action or social justice, but that would be in keeping with the commandment and with tradition.  In medieval times, this day was one where beggars could expect to be rewarded.

Some churches will do a foot washing service (for a blog post on foot washing services, go here).  I've only done been part of a foot washing service once.  I felt nervous about it, but I found it meaningful.  In the Gospel of John, Jesus strips and washes the feet of his disciples.  I suspect that most churches don't follow Christ's example for any number of reasons:  needing lots of towels, nervousness about touching, figuring out the water supply, difficulty of clean up.

I suspect that even fewer churches will do anointing with oil, but that seems appropriate too.

The memory that I most associate with this day is the stripping of the altar at the end of the service.  I was always moved by this event, and always surprised by the elegance of the altar, which we usually keep covered with any number of linens.  Some days, I wish we just kept the altar stripped.

So, in whatever ways you observe this day, may you find some moments to retreat from the hubbub of the world, even if only in your head.  May you remember Christ's commandment and may you enjoy a meal with those humans that you love (even if only in your head, from a distance).

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Season of Ash and Somber Penitence--Lent Begins

Today is Ash Wednesday, the Christian high holy day that reminds us of our essential nature. We are dust--cosmic dust, if you want to dress up the idea, but dust nonetheless. And all too soon, we return to the dust of the cosmos. We don't really have much time, but most of us manage to suppress that knowledge. How would we live our lives differently, if we, like Jesus, always kept central in our mind, that we only have a few years to do our essential work? In cosmic time or geological time, we're here for a blip.

Here's a quote from Henri Nouwen to start your day. It's from A Cry for Mercy: "Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and failings and so overwhelmed by our lack of generosity that we get stuck in a paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says 'I am too sinful to deserve God's mercy.' It is the guilt that leads to introspection instead of directing our eyes to God. It is the guilt that has become an idol and therefore a form of pride. Lent is the time to break down this idol and to direct our attention to our loving Lord. The question is: 'Are we like Judas, who was so overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God's mercy any longer and hanged himself, or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?' The season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God's mercy."




Here is a prayer for Ash Wednesday: "Oh God, keep us mindful of all the behaviors that move us away from you. Help us to choose our Lenten disciplines wisely. Help us to remember that we are here for such a short time, that all to soon we shall return to our dusty destinies. Keep us focused on the Kingdom work that you need us to do."

Sunday, February 27, 2011

This Long Epiphany Season

It's been awhile had this long a Season after Epiphany, and over 20 years since we had this long a season after Epiphany in Lectionary year A. I find myself oddly yearning for a change of liturgical season. I say that it's odd because I don't usually have this yearning this time of year; I associate this yearning with the months of August, September, and October. Often I feel that Lent comes too soon. We barely get Jesus born and launched into ministry and boom--time for the passion story.

How strange that I am willing and eager to get down to the business of Lent. I am ready for Ash Wednesday, the service that my younger self hated most and the one that my older self finds oddly reassuring.

But we still have some time before Ash Wednesday. Today's Gospel seems a bit Ash Wednesdayish in its message. Why worry? Dust we are, and dust we shall become, and all too soon. Why waste precious time in worry?

Easier said than done, of course.

Ah, well, in Protestant traditions, it will be Transfiguration Sunday soon enough. I will be praying to be transformed from a worrywart to a woman who trusts God for everything.