Hello, Friends!
      By the time you receive this, we'll be in the midst of our  annual Holy Week observances, situated squarely, bizarrely, and 
deeply realistically in the midst of the worst and best of what the human journey can bring.
      On Maundy Thursday ("Maundy" from "commanded", or necessary in  devotion to God) we gather to remember Jesus' last Passover meal with this friends, his last loving act of slave-like service in washing their feet, and facing the worst.  His touching vulnerability and brave humility cut through all pretense, all ego, all illusions of disconnection.   When he faces into betrayal, suffering and death, and chooses not withdrawal or resistance but heart-open engagement,  we make contact once again with the paradoxical nature of holy Love--strong in surrender, vulnerable in courage, present, compassionate, awake, connected.
      On Good Friday ("Good" as in "God's"), we come face to face  with our human nature at its worst, most disconnected, most lost, when once again we hear of Love's betrayal, abandonment, and  execution, at the hands of fear and misguided self righteousness.    Though powerless to prevent the worst, Jesus persists in loving us, to the end, and forgiving us of the unforgivable.
     Then we wait in the dark, stricken to the core, once more, by  how unfathomably alienated our family can be, how ridiculously,  needlessly estranged, how far off the lighted path of God's loving wisdom--and once again we can be nearly overcome, our hope entombed  in despair at all the ways we can seem to kill Love.
    How long, O Lord, until the Resurrection? Three days? An eternity?  How long until creation gets to bloom, until the human family gets to thrive, until harmony and peace reign?  
  Three days?  An eternity?   Jesus' story is here before us again for a good and true and holy purpose, the full meaning of which may remain  mysterious, but the signs and signals and guideposts of which can give us each and all some much needed, nourishing direction in this time of our lives.
     If you've been with me in this space, in our shared journey as  faith community, you know that I have told you what I believe to be  true: God is Love.  Love is stronger than Fear.  
     The God of Love expects and needs us to love, as we are loved, and grow into our Brother's likeness, into the mind of Christ, into the full and free humanity for which we continue to be created.
     I also believe our time is ripe for saying yes to the Truth, and no to the lies Fear tells.   Our Holy Week times of worship afford us a sweet and sacred space in which to ground, to center, to take humbling and helpful, daunting and empowering instruction, sustenance, guidance, affirmation.
     I hope you'll come in person, and I hope you'll pray with me, for Love to come again, risen and alive.
  I look forward to living with you this Maundy Thursday, this Good Friday, this coming Easter morning--and all our days to come.

Shalom,
Sarah+