(picture taken May 27, 2009 ... by Sara Holben. Candles in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, beside the site named as "Gologtha")

Wednesday of Holy Week ... March 31, 2010. This week always feels a bit "suspended" in time for me. Lots to do to get ready for worship services over the next few days. Yet, it feels in some way as if time is standing still. I know that it's my mind playing tricks on me, of course. And yet, in another sense, it seems as if all that is important in time comes pressed in upon these few days. Maybe that's what "kairos" - God's time - feels like.

So on this Wednesday, the day before Maundy Thursday ... I pray:

Christ our Savior,

on the cross you embraced all time

with your outstretched arms:

Gather all the scattered children of God into your realm.

Jesus, Lamb of God, have mercy on us.

Jesus, bearer of our sins, have mercy on us.

Jesus, redeemer of the world, grant us peace. Amen.

(from: Book of Common Worship, p. 266 ... Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993)

Last night was the last of our Lenten series on learning to pray. The group was very kind in their comments, pointing out that perhaps the blog didn't work as I intended it to, since I didn't get to it each week. The term we used was that I became "blogged down" with other things.

And yet, in our discussion, we decided this back porch can still be a place for us to continue our conversations not only about prayer but about life and faith and how we put it all together.

So I won't give up on blogging ... although I still have a lot to learn about how to do this well. And I'll ask some of the others in our "Thursdays @PCC" to share in it. The value of this study series on prayer was evident for all of us - we are all learning; we never arrive at some "perfect" place where we've "learned" prayer; and we are grateful for the companions we have met on the way.

We'll see what the future brings. Keep coming back ... we're still here!

Sara

Maybe it's because it's starting to feel like spring that I'm spending less time in front of the computer ... or maybe it's just that it's getting closer to Holy Week and time seems to be shorter.

For whatever the reason that this blog has been quiet for several weeks, let me just share what I said at last week's mid-week community Lenten service. As background: our yard (at home) is "daffodil heaven" - we have lots and lots of daffodils that are early bloomers. So our flower beds are filled with dozens upon dozens of daffodils of all kinds that are blooming already.

"I take great pleasure in watching these early spring flowers [daffodils] emerge from under 3 feet of snow with their green shoots and brilliant yellow blossoms. Just when you think winter will last forever, the daffodils appear. That’s part of the joy of planting them, in the anticipation that some day, when I least expect it … but in the last gasp of winter, when I most need them, those daffodils will come along and surprise me.
"Isn’t that what God is in a habit of doing with us? Of taking something that was planted long ago … our hopes, visions, dreams … and finally bringing them into bloom? Or, perhaps, in the midst of our winter season, those same hopes and dreams are planted deep within us, yet we may not see them come into bloom for months or seasons yet to come? Still, inevitably, and faithfully, they will bloom in the hands of the Gardener who plants grace and mercy and hope in our lives and in our world every day. The gifts of a God who always provides abundantly for a world in need."