Dear Siblings in Christ,
Holy Week is upon us! Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. The worship service will be available as video or audio on the website. There is also an option to download the sermon text. Look for the service labelled Drawing Strength for What Lies Ahead. Before you start to watch the service, please find a ‘palm branch’ (any piece of greenery from your garden) or a garment (a scarf or jacket). Or you could colour a palm leaf picture. A huge thank you to Adrian this week for his technical skills; also to Elizabeth and Adrian for vocals and Chris and Maggie for reading scripture.
My clergy colleagues have also prepared Palm Sunday material, so there are others that you can also look at, including a written service with a reflection from Lay Preacher, Diana Sawyer.
There is an area on the circuit website for Holy Week. Things will be added during the week. Rev. Martin Dawes is doing daily reflections. I will be offering a Maundy Thursday video service where we share a ‘meal’ together, and a Good Friday ‘Tenebrae’ (or Shadows) video service as we read the Passion Story and the light is extinguished.
There is also a ‘Stations of the Cross’ brochure for you to use during Holy Week. Experience at your own pace the Way of the Cross through a series of images and readings depicting the Passion Story with accompanying questions for contemplation. The artwork depicted here is a set of photographs that were taken of the Stations of the Cross installation in St. Mary at the Elms and used with Father John Thackray’s permission. Although you might associate Stations of the Cross with the Catholic Church, it is something that I have been offering for the last four years in my previous church, and it has been well received and found very meaningful. I wrote the reflections especially for this year. I encourage you to give it a try.
I will leave you tonight with this beautiful poem by American poet Wendell Berry, entitled The Peace of Wild Things:
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free
I am keeping you in my prayers. May God’s peace be with you all,
In Christ
–Pastor Joan
Joan’s Jottings are written to the churches at Museum Street, Landseer Road and Chantry where Joan is the minister, and shared here for all to read.