March 24

Hello people of The Table.  This week, life has sometimes felt to me
as though it has too much “range”; too much breadth of experiences and
feelings to be contained in one thing. There have been moments of
effervescent hope and murky sorrow; of blazing love and dark grief.
Sometimes that range of feelings seems to have inhabited the same
story.

My daughter Tayah is 9 years old. While I am writing this, she is in a
dance class with several other lovely 9 year old girls. The class is
led by a skilled, caring adult, and is offered in such as a way as to
keep them safe and help them have a great time.  I usually take this
for granted, or if I do think about it, regard these qualities as a
reasonable expectation or a right.

I was talking with Trevor Williams, a member of our community, earlier
this week. Trevor is a thoughtful, passionate, empathetic guy, and I
could tell he was feeling down about something. In the course of our
conversation, he shared a slam poetry piece he had written about a 9
year old girl, traded like property and enslaved in the sex trade. It
knocked me out – I felt like I could barely breathe – and that was
before I started to think of that girl as Tayah.

At the same time that I was feeling some of the sorrow of the story
Trevor’s piece was probing, I was feeling proud of him and joyful to
be on the journey with such a caring human being. Like I said, range.

This Sunday, we will wrestle with some hard questions about suffering,
our engagement with it, and Christ’s engagement with it. We will also
celebrate the progress on our collaborative creative branding project.
We will have a chance to “rejoice with those that rejoice, and weep
with those that weep”, one of the choices that the apostle Paul calls
the mark of a true follower of Christ.  I look forward to going deeper
with all of you. See you on Sunday.

Some Details:

We will have a short gathering at 8:00 p.m. on Good Friday in the C
Gallery. As much as you are able, come prepared to be silent.

Easter Sunday we will have a breakfast potluck prior to service so
please plan to come early & bring something to share … baked goods,
hardboiled eggs etc.

Peace,

Tim