Evening Prayer

The Compline & Centering Prayer Service takes place each Wednesday evening from 7 pm to 8 pm in the sanctuary. During this time, a group of people gather to read the evening service called Compline together (it's in the Book of Common Prayer). The Compline service consists of an ancient set of readings and Psalms. It is the part of the Daily Office that is meant to close the day in reflection, adoration, and praying for God's care through the night. The hour begins with reading some of the Compline prayers, followed by 10-15 minutes of Centering Prayer silence, then a time for intercessory prayer, and finally the reading of the ending Compline prayers. Everyone is invited and welcome.

       Julie Edwards Levy

Men's Morning Prayer Breakfast

The Men's Morning Prayer Breakfast is being re-launched beginning Tuesday morning April 6th at 7 am in the Parish Hall. One hour will be spent looking into the scriptures and discussing how its truths affect our personal, family and business life.  We will enjoy coffee, donuts, bagels, etc; and finish by 8 am with prayer. The Prayer Breakfast will continue throughout the spring on Tuesday mornings. For information, contact:

Gordon Nordstrom

Encountering Each Other

Have you wondered about Marriage Encounter, what it's about, and what it might mean for you?  Have you wondered why Fr. John & Janet are so committed to this ministry?  Have you wondered whether it's for people with problems or if it's for people like you?  Have you wondered whether going on a weekend would help your relationship or stir up old demons?  Have you wondered about how great it might be to feel really, really good about your marriage relationship?  The people who have been there can tell you what they experienced, but the real truth can only be found by signing up and going on a weekend for yourself.  Ask Fr. John & Janet; ask Clive & Jane Ellis; ask Scott Olivier & Jong An; ask Fr. Martin & Eve; ask Francis & Cindy Honey; ask Tod & Nancy Conner. 

Then contact Curt & Arlene McClelland and sign up for the Marriage Encounter Weekend 16 - 18 April 2004.  At very least, it can't hurt, and who knows what blessings you may find.

             Fr. John Duncan

Signs Along the Way

“To say Yes”

       Dag Hammarskjöld was born in 1905, a Swedish statesman, son of a Swedish Prime minister and himself a world statesman. In 1951 he went to the United Nations as a delegate from his homeland, and when Trygve Lie, the UN’s first Secretary General, resigned in 1953, Hammarskjöld began eight years of service as a distinguished and energetic world peacemaker.

       In 1960, with the onset of a crisis in the Congo (now Zaire), he sent a peacemaking force into that country.  Hammarskjöld was killed on a conciliatory mission to the Congo when his plane crashed.  In 1961 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

       His book of reflections, titled Markings (Wëgmärken), was given to me as a gift in 1964, and I have returned to it often. Hammarskjöld was a Christian mystic. He had a deep, sometimes uncomfortable, sense of intimacy with God. In April 1953 he wrote in his journal, “to be free, to be able to standup and leave everything behind without looking back. To say Yes.” 

       On Pentecost 1961, not many weeks before his death on the way to the Congo, he recorded the entry offered below:

 

I don’t know Who – or what put the question. I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone – or Something – and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in surrender, had a goal.

From that moment I have known what it means “not to look back,” and “to take no thought for the morrow.”

Led by Ariadne’s thread of my answer through the labyrinth of Life, I came to a time and place where I realized that the Way leads to a triumph which is a catastrophe, and to a catastrophe which is a triumph, that the price for committing one’s life would be reproach, and that the only elevation possible to one lies in the depths of humiliation.  After that, the word “courage” lost its meaning, since nothing could be taken from me.

As I continued along the Way, I learned, step by step, word by word, that behind every saying in the Gospels stands one man and one man’s experience.  Also behind the prayer that the cup might pass from him and his promise to drink it.  Also behind each of the words from the Cross.

       Bill Kelly