Post Thanksgiving Post

Liberalpastor is gone visiting family in Pennsylvania and ProgressiveChurchlady has taken a week long break from posting. But it is time to return!

Last night I took a pause from a too busy day and went for the first time to the "new" (now almost 2 months old) Wednesday evening meditative service at Liberalchurch in Burnsville.

Joe led the service. He began the meditation time by reading, as the wind whistled through the trees around the church on this very cold November evening, verse he had written himself for the service.

Untitled
by Joe Mayer
(copyright 2007)

The earth has turned away for now
From the hum of sunlit motion
To the inventing of autumn darkness
Moist roots continue to earnestly pull water
As leaves burrow into the cool soil
The earth churns them
Mixing them with its own bare flesh
Ready to unite them with seed
So as to burst up again into form
Bare branches witness these cycles
Millions of years of loving
Stretched out now to catch the snowflakes of the days ahead
The implausible orchestra of labor
All working for creation
In the secret of darkness now

So, too, this miracle is now happening in each of our human struggles
Carrying on inside of us
This rich darkness churning in our spirits
Birthing new forms
Moving us through our own creation cycle
Losses we weep into yesterday
Boundaries we reassemble
Abuses we need to reject
Vision we begin to imagine for healing, for new life, for new possibility,
For justice, for truth telling
Movement surges within us for courage to reach out and stand up for the vulnerable
Determination ferments in our hearts
To deeply forgive many, most urgently, ourselves

Lastly, this great cycle, this great planet, this great mother,
Brewing these beautiful new concoctions from our darkness, cries for
Our loving defense of herself, for she has left herself in our dreams
And in our hands