Dear Glen Mar friends,

I have really enjoyed our Faces of Our Faith series…we have 2 more weeks to go! Join us for Jonah this week and Ruth next week!

Then, in August, get ready to join us for August Family Worship (for all ages), and our series Drawn In: Living A Creative Life in God. We’ll explore ways our Creator God creates masterpieces in our lives, and ways we are called to live “creatively” too—through “dreaming” God’s dreams, and waiting for the Holy Spirit to move, taking “holy boldness” risks, and listening for the Spirit’s response. This back and forth of listening to God and responding is the essence of a faithful life. Join us!

This Friday, we have our third concert in our Summer Concert series, with the Soldiers’ Chorus of the US Army Field Band’s presentation of “America the Beautiful” — 7:00 pm at the church!

I leave you with Mary Oliver’s words and her poem “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?

See you in church,

Pastor Mandy