Dear Glen Mar friends,
Reports from the Mission Team in Plymouth this week are that it is warm but all is well and everyone is having a great time doing great work! Keep those prayers coming!
My thoughts this week turn to a favorite Mary Oliver poem, appropriately called “A Summer Day”:
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed,
how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
This week, we’ll gather for worship as we learn about living our faith, seeking the Lord, and how the Holy Spirit continues to move, in our world and in our lives. We will be considering the witness of some other “unsung heroes” of the faith, “The daughters of Zelophehad.” I would be willing to bet you have never heard a sermon about them before! Don’t worry! It is much more exciting than it sounds… these daughters will remind you of the persistent widow from Jesus’ parables, and the Syrophoenician woman who asked for, and received, healing for her daughter, from Jesus. Come beat the heat at Glen Mar and have an encounter with a God who loves you! #summerSONshine.
See you in church,
Pastor Mandy
PS For those who have given their financial gifts for this “stewardship year,” and let us know their plans for the next year, thank you so very much! And it’s not too late to give! Visit the 2024 Stewardship Campaign blog.
